• Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I hate it when corpos use the “oh we can’t lower prices because our staff is getting paid too much”-narrative. What about the CEO who takes half the profits for himself?
    It’s the workers who create value for a company, they don’t take it away by getting paid for their work.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The sad fact of the matter is… math

      A corporation might have 10 C-level guys dividing $50 million amongst themselves and 10.000 workers earning $70K, which costs about $100K due to overheads (health insurance, retirement, etc). Together, that’s a billion, which is 20x more than the C level guys.

      The C level guys aren’t the big expense, not by a long shot.

      Labour, government and shareholders divide most of the earnings amongst themselves.

      For the record, I do think we need to tax the wealthy more and the workers less.

        • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I have no disagreement on this argument.

          But C-suite compensation is not a significant part of prices.

          Energy prices, tax, labour costs and the cost of capital (i.e. returns to shareholders and creditors) are what drives prices.