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Amazon specifically adjusts its margin to show as close to zero profit as possible. Jeff's mantra is "your margin is my opportunity", and on top of that he gets

by m0zg 7y ago

Amazon specifically adjusts its margin to show as close to zero profit as possible. Jeff's mantra is "your margin is my opportunity", and on top of that he gets to pay $0 in corporate taxes, what's not to like? IOW, Amazon is not a very good example.

H8crilA 7y ago
Let's do Wallmart, latest 10-K, 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2019 [1]: Pretax earnings: $11,460,000k Employees: 2,200k (yes, 2.2 million people, worldwide) Pretax earnings / employee: $5,209 And yes I'm picking examples of companies that have a lot of employees; I'm sure Facebook or Google can bump up bonuses. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/104169/000010416919000016/wmtform10-kx1312019.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/104169/0000104169190...
- m0zg 7y ago
  You're picking examples of companies with deliberately razor thin profit margins.
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    I agree, but I'm also picking large employers (because that's how you'd get a lot of impact from a change like this). Which one then? :). Boeing? 10% margin (before the MAX - not in 2019, so not a Google or Facebook but still quite good). 12 months ending December 31, 2019: Number of employees: 161k Pretax earnings: $-2,259,000k (loss; that's the MAX fiasco) Let's take pretax earnings for 2018 instead: $11,604,000k Earnings per employee: $72,074 $72k bonus (but nothing more) is theoretically possible, for 161k people. In a good year, not in 2019 with the MAX troubles. Assuming shareholders are somehow OK with this. And assuming you need $0 for growing your business (like new factories, machines, acquisitions, hiring more people). And assuming you're leaving yourself with zero room for error (no cash cushion for a bad year), because sure as hell Wall Street will not give you investment-grade credit once you need it so that your bonds can go into old people's retirement accounts and slowly blow up there.

by m0zg 7y ago

H8crilA 7y ago

Let's do Wallmart, latest 10-K, 12 months ending Jan. 31, 2019 [1]: Pretax earnings: $11,460,000k Employees: 2,200k (yes, 2.2 million people, worldwide) Pretax earnings / employee: $5,209 And yes I'm picking examples of companies that have a lot of employees; I'm sure Facebook or Google can bump up bonuses. [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/104169/000010416919000016/wmtform10-kx1312019.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/104169/0000104169190...

m0zg 7y ago
You're picking examples of companies with deliberately razor thin profit margins.
- H8crilA 7y ago
  I agree, but I'm also picking large employers (because that's how you'd get a lot of impact from a change like this). Which one then? :). Boeing? 10% margin (before the MAX - not in 2019, so not a Google or Facebook but still quite good). 12 months ending December 31, 2019: Number of employees: 161k Pretax earnings: $-2,259,000k (loss; that's the MAX fiasco) Let's take pretax earnings for 2018 instead: $11,604,000k Earnings per employee: $72,074 $72k bonus (but nothing more) is theoretically possible, for 161k people. In a good year, not in 2019 with the MAX troubles. Assuming shareholders are somehow OK with this. And assuming you need $0 for growing your business (like new factories, machines, acquisitions, hiring more people). And assuming you're leaving yourself with zero room for error (no cash cushion for a bad year), because sure as hell Wall Street will not give you investment-grade credit once you need it so that your bonds can go into old people's retirement accounts and slowly blow up there.