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F.O.A.D.

On 5/14/13 11:39 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 14 May 2013 10:35:11 -0400, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

On 5/14/13 9:59 AM, wrote:

Do you think you could live on 2% of your savings? (pension plan or
whatever)
"Profit" is also return on investment. That is where your pension
comes from. Do you want to take a pay cut on that generous union
pension? I bet not, so you WANT a greedy corporate leader who is
generating big dividends to fund your lifestyle.
They not only need that money to send to you, they also have to pay
the fund manager and the union leaders who make plenty of money, just
to administer your account and recruit more union members (bribe
government officials etc).
Your pension was funded, based on a 10% return PLUS administration and
other fees. The only place you can get that kind of money is by
investing in the most greedy corporations.

1. Could I live on 2% of my savings? No. But that wasn't the question.
The question was, what multiple of the current savings interest rate,
which is paid on money not really at risk, is reasonable as a rate of
profit.
many funds my pension fund invests in average between 8
and 10% a year return to their investors, after expenses, and did so
during the recent recession. These are not huge funds, and they run
their ships pretty tight. I follow both of these funds for reasons other
than my pension. I don't pay attention to my pension fund's other
investments.

So you very well could be living off the profits of companies that
have unfair labor practices and predatory business models

3. I don't personally know any international union leaders who "make
plenty of money." I do know some whose salaries are in the $150,000 to
$300,000 range, and a couple of retired international union presidents
who did a little better. Again, these are people who I know personally.
I don't consider salaries in that range for highly responsible jobs as
paying "plenty."

Randi Weingarten makes more like a half million with her perks.

4. If a corporation based in the United States and employing mostly U.S.
workers is earning a 10 to 12% profit, and isn't exploiting its
workforce, then that seems reasonable to me. I would, of course, exclude
the monopolistic companies from that, and the book-cooking companies, too.

Most US corporations would love to be making 10% profit, even those
evil oil companies but the reality is they make less.
The gross numbers are high because of the size of the company.
For example, Walmart turns from 3-5% historically.
With the exception of a couple spikes over 10%, Exxon swings around
the 7-8% profit margin.
I am OK with the idea of breaking up some of the virtual monopolies
but our government seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
They embrace companies like Comcast and Viacom, perhaps because they
are afraid of them.

I know Randi, and I knew her two predecessors, and I've known a number
of presidents of the NEA, too, and some state NEA and AFT affiliate
presidents. If Randi has a comp package of a half million dollars, it
certainly is reasonable for a union with more than a million members.
This is an example of your endless hairsplitting. All I said was that I
know some international union leaders (presidents) who are in the
$150,000 to $300,000 range. I never said all union presidents were in
that salary range.

Hell, starting in 1977 and for a number of years, I worked for a couple
of postal unions and on the postal labor negotiating committee, and
helped negotiate the largest union contract in the history of the United
States, and made a couple of hundred thou a year from those efforts, and
other activities on behalf of these unions, and this was more than 35
years ago.

Corporate profit reporting is a function of shenanigans between the
corporation and its CPAs and investment and corporate banksters. I saw
some pretty interesting discussions when I was doing financial PR for
publicly held corporations in Michigan. In DC, I handled PR for a big
league entertainment corporation and was amused when it offered some of
its contract performers a percentage of the net in lieu of higher
salaries. Far better to take a smaller percentage of the gross, because
the net, well, there wasn't anything that couldn't shrink it down to
practically nothing.