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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Fri 12 Apr 07:22
If only all politicians were prepared to do their homework and present their case as well as novice US Democratic congresswoman Katie Porter.
In this short video, she grills JP Morgan’s billionaire CEO, Jamie Dimon, on the real-world consequences his bank’s low wages have had on a single mother’s life.
Porter found that the woman, a bank teller on a starting salary of $2,424 a month, was $567 short at the end of each month after taking out basic rent, travel, utilities, phone, child care and food costs. In other words, the bank was not prepared to pay some of its full-time staff a basic living wage whilst its CEO walks off with an annual salary of $31 million!!!
The banker's inability to adequately answer her questions is very telling.
What a shame that these guys didn't get properly nailed to the mast when governments around the world had the opportunity to do so after the GFC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=155&v=2WLuuCM6Ej0
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Topic Originator: The One Who Knocks
Date: Fri 12 Apr 08:59
Surely that woman's case has nothing to do with working in a bank though? If she worked as a waitress and only made 1900 pounds every month would the restaurant owner be grilled about not paying his staff enough to get by on?
The U.S minimum wage $7.25 per hour (£5.50) so this bank teller is on double that. Now of course thats not to say she is on a good wage because that minimum wage is pathetically low but the bank teller is on a considerably higher wage than a number of low skilled state and federal employees. So perhaps the congresswoman needs to grill her colleagues in the House as well.
And although my eyes were open
They just might as well be closed
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Topic Originator: londonparsfan
Date: Fri 12 Apr 09:37
I see the point you're making but it's highly unlikely the senior staff at the restaurant will be on the same cash money as the top bankers.
The wage disparity between senior staff at a restaurant and their employees vs senior staff at a bank and their employees is likely to he significantly smaller in most cases.
There's no doubt though that low wages for working class employees isn't limited to banks.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Fri 12 Apr 12:02
I think LPF correctly interprets the underlying point the congresswoman was making and that is the wage disparity between the top and the bottom of these banking operations. It is just so out of kilter.
No wonder then, that there are growing calls, even in America, for there to be much higher taxes on the top earners.
A couple of years ago, I had lunch in Melbourne with one of the best-known shipowners from Norway - he operates a huge multi-billion dollar conglomerate. He quite proudly told me that he earns precisely twice what his most senior ship's captain earns as he thinks that is a fair reflection of his responsibilities. After-tax profits from the company are split between future operating capital, an allocation for investment in further assets, the owner's family trust and a profit-sharing scheme for employees.
Of course, his 100 years old company is family owned rather than on the stock market, so he has the freedom to do this, but if you look at say the top 20 shipping companies in the world, you would note two things - one is that the bulk of them are family owned; the other is that most of them have been around for 60 years and more.
What I take from this is that longevity, success and stability in business should be based on long term thinking, not on the short term/fast buck mentality that pervades so much commercial activity today.
Somewhere along the line, we were all duped into thinking that the "markets" knew best, that the shareholder was king, not the customer and that employees were "units" to be exploited rather than "assets" to be rewarded for their efforts.
I like to think that there will be a return to the older - fairer - ways one day.
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Topic Originator: calpar
Date: Sat 13 Apr 10:25
You never mentioned what he paid the Filipinno staff though did you?
Nice lobster?
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Sat 13 Apr 12:26
Whoah whoah.She was short $567 dollars a month?The bank isn't obligated to take into account her personal situation,that's her business.
They paid her the going rate for the job.What Jamie Dimon makes is irrelevant to her circumstances.
If you want to make it relevant.Does she have the same skills as Dimon,No.Is she competent to run a world wide bank.No.Does she have the same drive as Dimon did to make to the top.Possibly,it's available.
It's just so much easier to say Dimon makes too much money and should take less and give the rest to someone who doesn't have it.If he feels that way let him give it personally.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sat 13 Apr 14:07
What part of employee profit sharing scheme do you not understand, calpar? His company pays well above standard ITF wage rates. A Filipino second mate earns the same as a Norwegian second mate.
He is not alone in Norway in adopting this philosophy in terms of wage distribution between executives and ordinary workers.
And I am pretty certain we didn't have lobster for lunch...
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Topic Originator: DBP
Date: Sun 14 Apr 08:10
You said he earns twice what a senior captain earns.
So before anyone can really comment what we need to know is what does a senior captain earn compared to the lowest earning person in the company?
Only then can we comment or indeed compare it to the bank in question
Post Edited (Sun 14 Apr 08:11)
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sun 14 Apr 12:32
I would imagine a senior captain in his company would be on about US$150,000 a year, so the CEO/Owner would be drawing about $300,000 a year based on what he said.
Whatever way you look at it, that's a long way south of the banker's $31 million, which is obscene, and of course a whole lot closer to the income of the lowest paid employee.
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Sun 14 Apr 13:30
Why is it obscene?Does anyone know what Dimon has sacrificed to get to the top?the responsibility he has?
Again,it's easier to disregard those questions and says he's rich,doesn't deserve it and should give some of it away to people who have neither the skills nor the drive to attain what he has.
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Topic Originator: The One Who Knocks
Date: Sun 14 Apr 14:47
It's like when Trump would criticise the Clinton's over there vast wealth. Bill and Hillary had the intelligence and drive to make vast sums of cash and shouldn't have been criticised for that.
And although my eyes were open
They just might as well be closed
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Sun 14 Apr 14:50
Bernie Sanders.Millionaire.
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Topic Originator: The One Who Knocks
Date: Sun 14 Apr 14:53
Exactly. He had the drive and initiative to make money and shouldn't be criticised for that.
And although my eyes were open
They just might as well be closed
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Sun 14 Apr 15:28
It's ok.He hates himself daily for participating in the system.
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Topic Originator: DBP
Date: Sun 14 Apr 15:39
Thanks ozpar but you've answered a completely different question.
As a side note, if you're going to compare bonuses then you'd need to factor in lots of other things to the equation, e.g. company revenue, cost and profit changes, number of staff and customers, company size, products/services and complexity, changes made to the organisation, competitiveness, etc.
Now I'm not in favour off anyone getting huge salaries (including footballers) but I'm sure the scale and complexity of the two organisations are completely different and the resource market for the two men is completely different, so you're really comparing apples and oranges.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Sun 14 Apr 17:04
DBP: I answered a completely different question? In what way? How can I know the salary of the lowest earner in that company? You could probably make a fair guess at it and you wouldn't be too far away from mine.
Okay, let's say, for the sake of argument, that it is a first-year seafarer, then his income would likely be in the order of $8k to $10k pa. The minimum ITF basic wage for a seaman is about $620 a month, but this company pays a fair bit more than ITF rates (plus bonuses).
But I wonder what the relevance is of comparing the senior captain's wage to the lowly deck boy's, when all the while I was discussing the CEO's wage? I had already made the point that the Norwegian's wage was considerably closer to all of his employees than the banker's was.
If there is a comparison to be made, then it would be for the bank CEO to be paid precisely twice what his most senior bank branch manager receives. Of course, such an idea would never occur, would it?
Now, contrary to your assumption, the Norwegian company is highly complex with offices spread throughout the world, spanning at least eight sectors of the maritime industry as well as energy and offshore interests, commodity trading, logistics, etc. It employs just under 25,000 people internationally with a bit less than a third of that based in Norway. It has at least five offices in Australia that I know about, not to mention extensive warehousing facilities.
A Google search tells me JP Morgan employs about 250,000 worldwide. So if we use that metric, then the banker should earn 10 times what the Norwegian does - that would be $3 million and that sounds fair enough to me.
Finally, on the question of bonuses, of course there are many factors to take into account, but those for the Norwegian firm are no less complex than a bank's. When you look at a modern containership, can you begin to imagine how many customers are represented on that ship? And then spread that over a fleet of ships and dozens of trades? You are talking about millions of customers... just like a big bank. So not really apples and oranges, eh?
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Topic Originator: Rastapari
Date: Wed 17 Apr 15:07
Quote:
The One Who Knocks, Sun 14 Apr 14:47
It's like when Trump would criticise the Clinton's over there vast wealth. Bill and Hillary had the intelligence and drive to make vast sums of cash and shouldn't have been criticised for that.
Haiti might contend that.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Tue 23 Apr 10:49
Just as a footnote to this thread, it was interesting to note today that Walt Disney's grand-daughter has launched a scathing attack on the "insane" $US65.6 million pay package claimed by the company's CEO, which she says could have been used to fund a 15-per cent pay rise for all Disneyland employees.
While lauding Bob Iger as a "brilliant" leader who "most certainly" deserved a bonus, Abigail Disney said it was "insane" that the head of the company earned more than 1,000 times that of the average Disney employee.
"There are just over 200K employees at Disney. If you took half that $65 million bonus… I am quite certain you could move significant resources down the line to more evenly share in the great success," she wrote.
"What difference would it make in the quality of life for those that gave up half their bonus? None. Zero. Maybe they can't afford a third home. Or another boat. I'm not being facetious here. That's the kind of sacrifice we'd be talking about for high-level execs."
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Tue 23 Apr 12:26
Lol...Abigail Disney."I am rich,i feel guilty about being rich,other should too"Hilarious.
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Topic Originator: wee eck
Date: Tue 23 Apr 13:55
It's a ridiculous salary, whoever is making the point. I'd love to meet one of these highly-paid individuals just to get an idea of what makes them so special.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Tue 23 Apr 14:10
Ah, richie... not since Andrew Carnegie have we seen a Fifer so infected by the USA's extreme right viewpoint.
Old Andy made a mint exploiting his steelworkers, but at least he saw the light before he died and spread some of that wealth around a bit...
It's time you went down the Glen for a bit of inner reflection, laddie.
:)
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Tue 23 Apr 14:20
"Extreme right"..wind yer neck in.
I guess if your not for immediate wealth redistribution that makes you so sort of neo-nazi.Poor argument sir.
Like i said guilt makes folks say and do some strange things.
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Topic Originator: The One Who Knocks
Date: Tue 23 Apr 15:26
It's about as poor an argument as your ridiculing of Abigail Disney.
And although my eyes were open
They just might as well be closed
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Topic Originator: wee eck
Date: Tue 23 Apr 15:57
''Like i said guilt makes folks say and do some strange things.''
That's certainly true of your President.
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Topic Originator: richie5401
Date: Tue 23 Apr 23:58
She set herself up for it TOWK's...She playing the white privilege card and managing to portray herself as a victim...not an easy thing to do but she got there.
Wiggy and guilt,eck.Does his conscience stretch that far?Doubtful
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