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> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x

> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.

Jiejeing 4y ago
Prices in Switzerland are somewhat similar to or a bit higher (and certainly not 10 times) than the US, except for meat.
- danans 4y ago
  Interesting, do the swiss eat less meat as a consequence?
- 9dev 4y ago
  Try saying that again after paying 16€ for a kebab in Basel compared to 5€ in Germany, a few kilometres to the east. There is definitely a difference.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  This not accurate. Eating out, for example, is very expensive there, even compared to major cities in the US.
  - Jiejeing 4y ago
    I am not really a restaurant person, but when eating in LA or SF, while the prices were cheaper than Swiss prices, the difference was not huge after factoring in the "mandatory" tipping common in the US.
somehnguy 4y ago
1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level? 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help. What a strange comment imo. I can’t take the ‘everything will go up!’ stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10 houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious. By the way, Switzerland’s GDP is 748 billion vs the United States’ 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is meaningless and silly.
- drstewart 4y ago
  >Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help Can you show your work here? Assume Amazon executives cut their salaries to 0, how much extra would they be able to pay workers?
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    It’s something like $300-1000/yr more if we average over all Amazon employees, depending on who counts as “executives”. If the high pay is truly attracting better performers (which I admit is unlikely) they could easily be benefiting the company’s workers a larger amount by increasing demand. Or maybe not and they are kinda useless , but in any case the total cost isn’t that high.
    - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      That doesn't pass the sniff test. Amazon allegedly has about 1.6 million employees. Assuming that the "executive" class is a trivially small number of them, and that the average employee works say 2,000 hours per year, you're suggesting that the cost to Amazon of paying those executives is somewhere between $960B and $3.2T per year. The high end of that estimate is about one fifth of the total earned income for the entire U.S. economy.
  - tjpnz 4y ago
    Everyone would get 213 dollars a year extra if just their CEO didn't receive any compensation. Amazon employs approximately 1 million people in the United States and Andy Jassy received 213 million total comp in 2021.
    - School-Cotton 4y ago
      So, practically none.
      - somehnguy 4y ago
ilikehurdles 4y ago
While I do agree in principle that rapidly increasing wages leads to price inflation, your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland (most recently was there on Saturday and will spend the next few days there starting tomorrow.)
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland Living in Switzerland is clearly way more expensive than living in any of its close neighbors, so please explain me how this is not related to higher wages.
  - GordonS 4y ago
    But... aren't wages in Switzerland also higher than their close neighbours? It's the same thing in Norway - everything seems expensive for visitors, but wages are much higher too.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      The point is that once you raise wages, the cost of living automatically goes up. You don't make everyone rich, you end up paying more for everything.
      - jon_adler 4y ago
        Wouldn’t this situation make imported goods cheaper for everyone?
  - bitcharmer 4y ago
    Yes, and the quality of life for a physical worker is much higher than for someone from the US. What's your point?
TulliusCicero 4y ago
The social effects of this seem to be really good, if you look at quality of life in Switzerland. If wages at the bottom go up and that causes inflation, the overall impact of that is wage compression, or in other words, reduced income inequality. Which is what we want.
- NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
  >reduced income inequality. Which is what we want. Reducing the PPP of rich people while only maintaining that of poorer people seems like a dubious policy outcome, at least in economic terms.
  - TulliusCicero 4y ago
    That's not how it works. The increase in income in the lower quintile outpaces inflation. Well, it wouldn't outpace inflation right now, shit is crazy. But usually, yes.

> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.

Jiejeing 4y ago

Prices in Switzerland are somewhat similar to or a bit higher (and certainly not 10 times) than the US, except for meat.

danans 4y ago
Interesting, do the swiss eat less meat as a consequence?
9dev 4y ago
Try saying that again after paying 16€ for a kebab in Basel compared to 5€ in Germany, a few kilometres to the east. There is definitely a difference.
TulliusCicero 4y ago
This not accurate. Eating out, for example, is very expensive there, even compared to major cities in the US.
- Jiejeing 4y ago
  I am not really a restaurant person, but when eating in LA or SF, while the prices were cheaper than Swiss prices, the difference was not huge after factoring in the "mandatory" tipping common in the US.

somehnguy 4y ago

1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level? 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help. What a strange comment imo. I can’t take the ‘everything will go up!’ stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10 houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious. By the way, Switzerland’s GDP is 748 billion vs the United States’ 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is meaningless and silly.

drstewart 4y ago
>Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help Can you show your work here? Assume Amazon executives cut their salaries to 0, how much extra would they be able to pay workers?
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  It’s something like $300-1000/yr more if we average over all Amazon employees, depending on who counts as “executives”. If the high pay is truly attracting better performers (which I admit is unlikely) they could easily be benefiting the company’s workers a larger amount by increasing demand. Or maybe not and they are kinda useless , but in any case the total cost isn’t that high.
  - NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
    That doesn't pass the sniff test. Amazon allegedly has about 1.6 million employees. Assuming that the "executive" class is a trivially small number of them, and that the average employee works say 2,000 hours per year, you're suggesting that the cost to Amazon of paying those executives is somewhere between $960B and $3.2T per year. The high end of that estimate is about one fifth of the total earned income for the entire U.S. economy.
- tjpnz 4y ago
  Everyone would get 213 dollars a year extra if just their CEO didn't receive any compensation. Amazon employs approximately 1 million people in the United States and Andy Jassy received 213 million total comp in 2021.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    So, practically none.
    - somehnguy 4y ago

ilikehurdles 4y ago

While I do agree in principle that rapidly increasing wages leads to price inflation, your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland (most recently was there on Saturday and will spend the next few days there starting tomorrow.)

ekianjo 4y ago
> your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland Living in Switzerland is clearly way more expensive than living in any of its close neighbors, so please explain me how this is not related to higher wages.
- GordonS 4y ago
  But... aren't wages in Switzerland also higher than their close neighbours? It's the same thing in Norway - everything seems expensive for visitors, but wages are much higher too.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    The point is that once you raise wages, the cost of living automatically goes up. You don't make everyone rich, you end up paying more for everything.
    - jon_adler 4y ago
      Wouldn’t this situation make imported goods cheaper for everyone?
- bitcharmer 4y ago
  Yes, and the quality of life for a physical worker is much higher than for someone from the US. What's your point?

TulliusCicero 4y ago

The social effects of this seem to be really good, if you look at quality of life in Switzerland. If wages at the bottom go up and that causes inflation, the overall impact of that is wage compression, or in other words, reduced income inequality. Which is what we want.

NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
>reduced income inequality. Which is what we want. Reducing the PPP of rich people while only maintaining that of poorer people seems like a dubious policy outcome, at least in economic terms.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  That's not how it works. The increase in income in the lower quintile outpaces inflation. Well, it wouldn't outpace inflation right now, shit is crazy. But usually, yes.