4 ms·

Eh, it's really just Germany+, and they're a pretty productive country. For example, profit sharing is "stock compensation" rephrased and not terribly uncommon

Eh, it's really just Germany+, and they're a pretty productive country. For example, profit sharing is "stock compensation" rephrased and not terribly uncommon [1]. Some of the most productive companies like Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon pay with stock. [1]: http://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/2409883.pdf http://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/2409883.pdf

fastball 6y ago
It very much does not sound like Germany+. > Enshrine the right to organize As in with a constitutional amendment? Because the NRLA already guarantees this. > Require equal profit sharing across all employees Germany does not do this and neither should the US. > Require significant worker representation on corporate boards Germany does not do this and neither should the US. > Heavily tax relatively high salaries, e.g. if everyone makes $1m then 0 tax. If one person makes $100k and 99 others make $1, insane super tax them down to $100 (include tricky stuff like bonuses or whatever) Germany doesn't do this and neither should the US. > Heavily tax nationally high salaries with a progressive income tax. The US already does this, as the US does not have a flat tax rate for income tax. > Heavily punish tax dodging Addressing symptoms not causes. Reduce tax avoidance by simplifying the tax code. It's that simple. > Set the minimum wage to a living wage and pin it to the CPI Probably a good idea. > Abolish "right to work" Terrible idea.
- camgunz 6y ago
  I don't know how to say this without sounding super condescending but, if you want to have a discussion, please contribute to it in a meaningful way. You aren't asking questions, citing sources, or even making good new points. Beyond that, you're really uninformed. Here's an example where you could have done even a little token searching; the title of this article is "Workers on Corporate Boards? Germany’s Had Them for Decades" [1]. Another example is when you write: > Addressing symptoms not causes. Reduce tax avoidance by simplifying the tax code. It's that simple. It truly is not that simple. There's a reason tax codes are complicated and broadly speaking, it's that you have to choose winners and losers to simplify them and that's politically and policy-wise very, very difficult. I'm sure you'd like to dispute that, but the way you'll dispute it is with normative, opaque statements like "it's that simple" or "terrible idea" which will take you 8 minutes. The way I'll engage is by searching the internet and citing a post, and asking good questions to keep the conversation going. That will take an hour. I'm not gonna do that, and I think this breakdown makes it clear why. I think you should keep in mind what you're asking of people you're having a discussion with, either implicitly or explicitly, and how your responses indicate what you're expecting to get out of a discussion. From where I sit, you're not looking to learn anything or to inform me of something, you're looking to win an argument. Sometimes that's productive but it's surprisingly rare, and besides that, I'm not interested. I haven't learned anything from you over the 3-4 threads you've chased me down on, but I do feel a little worse about humanity, and I get enough of that already. And overall, I'd urge you to take a moment to consider the damage you do by logging onto public forums and spreading your ill-informed, normative opinions around. It greatly reduces the signal to noise ratio, and because it takes a lot of time to respond to things like this, it effectively DoS's productive conversations. I love a good internet argument as much as the next mega-arrogant software engineer but, we need to keep in mind the effect that has. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/opinion/warren-workers-boards.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/opinion/warren-workers-bo...
  - fastball 6y ago
    What is all this research you are talking about you doing? I don't see it. You've provided two links in response to two of your many points. You've made claims like "this is Germany+" without actually supporting that claim. The burden of proof is on you to prove this is Germany+ (as the one making the claim), not me. I have no interest in winning the argument, I have an interest in the truth and sound fiscal and social policies that result in a good balance of strong economy + innovation + lack of exploitation. For all the things in the discussion that you claim Germany does that make its economy stronger, you need to demonstrate that. For all the things in the discussion that Germany is not doing, you need to justify why they are good, as the one making the claim that they are good ideas. You have not done so. You made a list, and are now claiming everyone else is arguing in bad faith when they ask you to justify that list. My response was not very high effort because I was not actually responded to a thoroughly sourced list. It was just a list. You accurately stated that I was incorrect about co-determination in Germany. I read your point as "majority representation on boards", when what you actually said was "significant" – an error on my part. Germany does indeed do that, and as such the policy would indeed fall under "Germany+". However, I maintain that amongst all your other bullet points, the only other point that 1. Germany does 2. US does not is living wage. And one (good) argument for why the federal minimum wage is not particularly looked after / updated is because the US is a federation of strong states, so minimum wage is better handled by states individually (which they currently do). Cost of living in Montana is very different from NYC.
    - camgunz 6y ago
      Nice, this is great! I now feel like digging in might be productive here. > You've made claims like "this is Germany+" without actually supporting that claim. I wasn't like, making a legal statement or whatever. You're arguing "this is communism with extra steps" and my point generally is that these prescriptions largely exist in democratically socialist, productive, EU countries. There are actually not that many communist countries that aren't also authoritarian so, I don't think the "communist" characterization is super useful. But, either way I'll expound. - Enshrine the right to organize You wrote that the NLRA already created this "right", but it's been hobbled by the Taft-Hartley act [1] and subsequent legislation in multiple states [2]. On the other hand, Germany (like many other EU countries but unlike the US) has ratified the "Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention", which, well it's in the name [3]. - Require equal profit sharing across all employees Profit sharing is pretty common across EU countries, but it takes different forms and certainly isn't equal. The coop corporate structure is closer to my thinking here but, admittedly it's not mainstream yet. - Require significant worker representation on corporate boards We covered this one but, yeah generally the idea here is for workers to have a big say in how their company is run. Definitely not the majority though; my personal preference would be that there were no majority and representation would be equally divided between workers, c-suite/owners, and shareholders, but baby steps. - Heavily tax relatively high salaries, e.g. if everyone makes $1m then 0 tax. If one person makes $100k and 99 others make $1, insane super tax them down to $100 (include tricky stuff like bonuses or whatever) High CEO pay is (variously) subject to tax penalties in Germany [4] [5]. And it seems to be working; their ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay is 136x, just over half the US' at 265x [6]. That's not wonderful and I'm sure there are other factors but, these problems are tricky and one policy probably won't fix it all in one fell swoop. It's also worth saying CEO pay is generally bad and not meritocratic [7]. - Heavily tax nationally high salaries with a progressive income tax Germany's 3rd tax bracket is higher than anything in the US and kicks in around $69k (USD) [8]. - Heavily punish tax dodging Germany does this a little [9] [10] but, obviously not enough. Re: simplify the US tax code, no administration since Reagan has done this, for reasons outlined here [11] [12]. TLDR tax prep is big business, and--like I said before--our tax code does a lot, and changing it creates winners and losers. - Set the minimum wage to a living wage and pin it to the CPI Germany has a comparatively high minimum wage of €9.35 ($11.33), but I don't know enough to say if that's a living wage or not. Something that's nice about their (relatively new, 2015) law is they have to update it at least every 2 years [13]. - Abolish "right to work" I've been wrong about what this is called my whole life. Apparently what I mean is "at-will employment". Mea culpa. But, still the US has it and Germany doesn't. We should get rid of it. --- OK that's my prescriptions. I do feel like what I've described is the natural evolution of democratic socialist policies in the EU, exemplified not just by Germany but other big EU countries as well and definitely don't qualify as communism. But I think a lot of people think democratic socialism is communism so, maybe we just have a definitions problem. I'll quickly respond to your minimum wage point and say that you can peg minimum wage to a State's CPI, and cities can create their own minimum wages. New York/New York City do this, for example. I wouldn't say that States are handling this well; 1 in 4 kids grows up in poverty so, something is off. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Organise_and_Collective_Bargaining_Convention,_1949 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Organise_and_Collecti... [4]: https://www.firma.de/en/company-formation/ceo-salary-in-a-gmbh-how-much-is-a-gmbh-ceo-allowed-to-earn/ https://www.firma.de/en/company-formation/ceo-salary-in-a-gm... [5]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11573-020-00978-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11573-020-00978-y [6]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/424159/pay-gap-between-ceos-and-average-workers-in-world-by-country https://www.statista.com/statistics/424159/pay-gap-between-c... [7]: https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-and-curbing-the-rise-of-inequality/ https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-... [8]: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-personal-income https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-per... [9]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubs-group-face-93m-penalty-115611282.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubs-group-face-93m-penalty-11... [10]: https://www.espn.com/soccer/news/story/_/id/1613004/bayern-munich-ceo-karl-heinz-rummenigge-accepts-fine https://www.espn.com/soccer/news/story/_/id/1613004/bayern-m... [11]: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/why-are-taxes-so-complicated https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/why-are-taxes-... [12]: https://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11417676/elizabeth-warren-tax-return-free-filing-tax-day-intuit-hr-block-turbotax-automatic-simple https://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11417676/elizabeth-warren-tax-... [13]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_Germany

fastball 6y ago

It very much does not sound like Germany+. > Enshrine the right to organize As in with a constitutional amendment? Because the NRLA already guarantees this. > Require equal profit sharing across all employees Germany does not do this and neither should the US. > Require significant worker representation on corporate boards Germany does not do this and neither should the US. > Heavily tax relatively high salaries, e.g. if everyone makes $1m then 0 tax. If one person makes $100k and 99 others make $1, insane super tax them down to $100 (include tricky stuff like bonuses or whatever) Germany doesn't do this and neither should the US. > Heavily tax nationally high salaries with a progressive income tax. The US already does this, as the US does not have a flat tax rate for income tax. > Heavily punish tax dodging Addressing symptoms not causes. Reduce tax avoidance by simplifying the tax code. It's that simple. > Set the minimum wage to a living wage and pin it to the CPI Probably a good idea. > Abolish "right to work" Terrible idea.

camgunz 6y ago
I don't know how to say this without sounding super condescending but, if you want to have a discussion, please contribute to it in a meaningful way. You aren't asking questions, citing sources, or even making good new points. Beyond that, you're really uninformed. Here's an example where you could have done even a little token searching; the title of this article is "Workers on Corporate Boards? Germany’s Had Them for Decades" [1]. Another example is when you write: > Addressing symptoms not causes. Reduce tax avoidance by simplifying the tax code. It's that simple. It truly is not that simple. There's a reason tax codes are complicated and broadly speaking, it's that you have to choose winners and losers to simplify them and that's politically and policy-wise very, very difficult. I'm sure you'd like to dispute that, but the way you'll dispute it is with normative, opaque statements like "it's that simple" or "terrible idea" which will take you 8 minutes. The way I'll engage is by searching the internet and citing a post, and asking good questions to keep the conversation going. That will take an hour. I'm not gonna do that, and I think this breakdown makes it clear why. I think you should keep in mind what you're asking of people you're having a discussion with, either implicitly or explicitly, and how your responses indicate what you're expecting to get out of a discussion. From where I sit, you're not looking to learn anything or to inform me of something, you're looking to win an argument. Sometimes that's productive but it's surprisingly rare, and besides that, I'm not interested. I haven't learned anything from you over the 3-4 threads you've chased me down on, but I do feel a little worse about humanity, and I get enough of that already. And overall, I'd urge you to take a moment to consider the damage you do by logging onto public forums and spreading your ill-informed, normative opinions around. It greatly reduces the signal to noise ratio, and because it takes a lot of time to respond to things like this, it effectively DoS's productive conversations. I love a good internet argument as much as the next mega-arrogant software engineer but, we need to keep in mind the effect that has. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/opinion/warren-workers-boards.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/06/opinion/warren-workers-bo...
- fastball 6y ago
  What is all this research you are talking about you doing? I don't see it. You've provided two links in response to two of your many points. You've made claims like "this is Germany+" without actually supporting that claim. The burden of proof is on you to prove this is Germany+ (as the one making the claim), not me. I have no interest in winning the argument, I have an interest in the truth and sound fiscal and social policies that result in a good balance of strong economy + innovation + lack of exploitation. For all the things in the discussion that you claim Germany does that make its economy stronger, you need to demonstrate that. For all the things in the discussion that Germany is not doing, you need to justify why they are good, as the one making the claim that they are good ideas. You have not done so. You made a list, and are now claiming everyone else is arguing in bad faith when they ask you to justify that list. My response was not very high effort because I was not actually responded to a thoroughly sourced list. It was just a list. You accurately stated that I was incorrect about co-determination in Germany. I read your point as "majority representation on boards", when what you actually said was "significant" – an error on my part. Germany does indeed do that, and as such the policy would indeed fall under "Germany+". However, I maintain that amongst all your other bullet points, the only other point that 1. Germany does 2. US does not is living wage. And one (good) argument for why the federal minimum wage is not particularly looked after / updated is because the US is a federation of strong states, so minimum wage is better handled by states individually (which they currently do). Cost of living in Montana is very different from NYC.
  - camgunz 6y ago
    Nice, this is great! I now feel like digging in might be productive here. > You've made claims like "this is Germany+" without actually supporting that claim. I wasn't like, making a legal statement or whatever. You're arguing "this is communism with extra steps" and my point generally is that these prescriptions largely exist in democratically socialist, productive, EU countries. There are actually not that many communist countries that aren't also authoritarian so, I don't think the "communist" characterization is super useful. But, either way I'll expound. - Enshrine the right to organize You wrote that the NLRA already created this "right", but it's been hobbled by the Taft-Hartley act [1] and subsequent legislation in multiple states [2]. On the other hand, Germany (like many other EU countries but unlike the US) has ratified the "Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention", which, well it's in the name [3]. - Require equal profit sharing across all employees Profit sharing is pretty common across EU countries, but it takes different forms and certainly isn't equal. The coop corporate structure is closer to my thinking here but, admittedly it's not mainstream yet. - Require significant worker representation on corporate boards We covered this one but, yeah generally the idea here is for workers to have a big say in how their company is run. Definitely not the majority though; my personal preference would be that there were no majority and representation would be equally divided between workers, c-suite/owners, and shareholders, but baby steps. - Heavily tax relatively high salaries, e.g. if everyone makes $1m then 0 tax. If one person makes $100k and 99 others make $1, insane super tax them down to $100 (include tricky stuff like bonuses or whatever) High CEO pay is (variously) subject to tax penalties in Germany [4] [5]. And it seems to be working; their ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay is 136x, just over half the US' at 265x [6]. That's not wonderful and I'm sure there are other factors but, these problems are tricky and one policy probably won't fix it all in one fell swoop. It's also worth saying CEO pay is generally bad and not meritocratic [7]. - Heavily tax nationally high salaries with a progressive income tax Germany's 3rd tax bracket is higher than anything in the US and kicks in around $69k (USD) [8]. - Heavily punish tax dodging Germany does this a little [9] [10] but, obviously not enough. Re: simplify the US tax code, no administration since Reagan has done this, for reasons outlined here [11] [12]. TLDR tax prep is big business, and--like I said before--our tax code does a lot, and changing it creates winners and losers. - Set the minimum wage to a living wage and pin it to the CPI Germany has a comparatively high minimum wage of €9.35 ($11.33), but I don't know enough to say if that's a living wage or not. Something that's nice about their (relatively new, 2015) law is they have to update it at least every 2 years [13]. - Abolish "right to work" I've been wrong about what this is called my whole life. Apparently what I mean is "at-will employment". Mea culpa. But, still the US has it and Germany doesn't. We should get rid of it. --- OK that's my prescriptions. I do feel like what I've described is the natural evolution of democratic socialist policies in the EU, exemplified not just by Germany but other big EU countries as well and definitely don't qualify as communism. But I think a lot of people think democratic socialism is communism so, maybe we just have a definitions problem. I'll quickly respond to your minimum wage point and say that you can peg minimum wage to a State's CPI, and cities can create their own minimum wages. New York/New York City do this, for example. I wouldn't say that States are handling this well; 1 in 4 kids grows up in poverty so, something is off. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft%E2%80%93Hartley_Act [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Organise_and_Collective_Bargaining_Convention,_1949 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Organise_and_Collecti... [4]: https://www.firma.de/en/company-formation/ceo-salary-in-a-gmbh-how-much-is-a-gmbh-ceo-allowed-to-earn/ https://www.firma.de/en/company-formation/ceo-salary-in-a-gm... [5]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11573-020-00978-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11573-020-00978-y [6]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/424159/pay-gap-between-ceos-and-average-workers-in-world-by-country https://www.statista.com/statistics/424159/pay-gap-between-c... [7]: https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-and-curbing-the-rise-of-inequality/ https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-... [8]: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-personal-income https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-per... [9]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubs-group-face-93m-penalty-115611282.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubs-group-face-93m-penalty-11... [10]: https://www.espn.com/soccer/news/story/_/id/1613004/bayern-munich-ceo-karl-heinz-rummenigge-accepts-fine https://www.espn.com/soccer/news/story/_/id/1613004/bayern-m... [11]: https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/why-are-taxes-so-complicated https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/why-are-taxes-... [12]: https://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11417676/elizabeth-warren-tax-return-free-filing-tax-day-intuit-hr-block-turbotax-automatic-simple https://www.vox.com/2016/4/13/11417676/elizabeth-warren-tax-... [13]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_Germany