A real letter from a CEO to his employees.
rense.com
rense.com
And my comment still stands:
-- This guy is a dick. If I were working for him and got this letter, I'd hand in my resignation.
To the author: You're not the navel of the universe. I'm oh so sorry you've had to work hard for your shit. So has everyone else. In your darkest hour of disdain for the hapless employees you've hired to help expand your business, never forget: if it wasn't for all these people, you wouldn't be rich, because you wouldn't be able to hire all those people to make money for you. --
So, while you physically arrive at the office at 9am, mentally check in at about noon, and then leave at 5pm, I don't. There is no "off" button for me. When you leave the office, you are done and you have a weekend all to yourself. I unfortunately do not have the freedom. I eat, and breathe this company every minute of the day. There is no rest. There is no weekend. There is no happy hour. Every day this business is attached to my hip like a 1 year old special-needs child. You, of course, only see the fruits of that garden -- the nice house, the Mercedes, the vacations... you never realize the back story and the sacrifices I've made.
-1, Condescending prick
Then he goes on to:
The question I have is this: Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?
-1, self-centered "I'm the navel of the universe" prick
If any new taxes are levied on me, or my company, my reaction will be swift and simple. I fire you. I fire your co-workers. You can then plead with the government to pay for your mortgage, your SUV, and your child's future.
-1, disdain for hapless employees.
51% of our society's problems (which, rightly or wrongly, we look towards our government for solutions and leadership) cannot be solved by the DoD.
If you want "smaller government", you're going to have to demand a smaller standing army. And a spending cap for the DoD. His wealth isn't just being seized, but squandered.
That's simply not true. The DoD's money doesn't go on salaries for Infantrymen. It doesn't even go on rifles and boots and jeeps.
I'll give you a clue, how many planes do the Taliban have in their Airforce? How much does an F22 cost and how many of them is the USAF buying? What about the Al-Queda Navy, how many aircraft carriers they got? What does a Seawolf-class submarine cost? That's where your taxpayer dollars end up. Soldiers (and Marines) are cheap and if anything we need more of them.
ends up in the hands of the DoD, supporting the war
Not true. It also supports most of the research done in this country.
Either get a smarter foreign policy, or raise taxes to fund our policies
It's amazing how the meaning behind "Supporting the Troops" would change.
I'm curious, what's your source on that. I've heard dozens of statistics on that, all very different, all skewing the data in some way. Some of them only measure discretionary spending, some exclude it, etc.
Measuring discretionary spending isn't skewing the results.
With regard to discretionary spending; there is a difference between including it as part of the US budget and portraying it as the US budget. I only cited is as an example; I make no claims about any particular survey.
Sorry about that, was in a rush. Here's one for total spending:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget,_2...
Here's one for discretionary:
http://www.cdi.org/issues/discret.html
Here's one in relation to GDP, as well as historical discretionary:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php
there is a difference between including it as part of the US budget and portraying it as the US budget
Yes, absolutely. I think one would have to be quite confused about all this to mix up the two. One is what the president proposes and congress debates and votes on. The other is that, plus the laws that have already been passed in the past. The GDP figure is even farther complicated by uncertain estimates.
This might be my bias coming in, but it's pretty clear that if you want to talk about what our elected officials are doing with our money, we have to talk about discretionary spending.
What does threaten your job however, is the changing political landscape in this country...
Now, the economy is falling apart and I, the guy that made all the right decisions and saved his money, have to bail-out all the people who didn't."
Umm news alert, both Obama and McCain supported the flawed '700 billion' (in reality unlimited) bailout for the bankers. What's even better is that a Republican administration made the initial proposal for and has lead the largest bailout in US history.
I may lean to the right... but this letter (if real) just reads as a veiled threat to employees and not to mention it's really short on details... nor does it address the real problem: politicians on both sides of the aisle spend money like drunken sailors
That nasty black man wants to tax me more so he can tax you less. I value you so much that if this happens I will immediately fire the lot of you. That's because I'm a noble altruistic person, unlike you useless unproductive slackers whom, by the way, I value.
So, I'm not telling you how to vote, but if you vote for the guy who says he wants to help the middle classes rather than the rich then it may make you lose your job.
Fuck you^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HLove,
The boss.
"Dear audio memoirs. Today I was racist by word substitution again. This -- this is the hardest racism not to be." - The T-Rex
Apart from that, I think not only in US but all around the world, these kinds of taxes should be reduced. But in only favor of the employees. I mean, an employer should have an option to pay tax or spend that amount on creating new jobs. Otherwise, rich bussinessowners spend that tax money (or save it for worse days) and also still spend their employees when their bussiness is not good.
Here's a guy who respects his employees.
I'm middle-aged, burned out and on the verge of a breakdown. I'm casting around for someone to blame for my feelings of ill-directed rage.
Please help me.
Love,
The boss.
The gist of his message makes sense, business and employers need more encouragement/incentives to produce and build... don't kill inspiration, innovation. The part of firing your workers near the end because he pays too much taxes is a childish. What about the employees who think they pay too much taxe. Should they all just quit and shut down the business? Two way street buddy....
And, if the company is making money, I'm sure you'll be able to sell the business to someone willing to make a go of it. Why would you just shut it down? Seems a little dumbass too me.
Unfortunately we live in a day and age of perpetual complainers. Rich, poor and everyone in between believes they are entitled to everything and anything that satisifies there primal cravings.
That's the guy and the company website.
Seems like they're still going!
Likewise, there are certain legal penalties attached to performing the duties of an engineer without certification. Its like architects in the U.S. -- they put a final "seal" on their blueprints. Its their name/career/license on the hook if the building falls down and kills people.
Well, to me it just looks like canadian Engineers(TM) are afraid of competition.
To clarify, in Canada:
- You cannot call yourself an engineer unless you're a graduate of a CEAB accredited program.
- You can perform engineering without being a certified engineer.
- You cannot approve final designs without being a licensed professional engineer, which involves graduating from an accredited program (or recognized foreign equivalent), as well as passing technical competency and ethical integrity exams.
- Engineers are held personally liable for the consequences of their work. No passing the buck to your employer, and no "just following orders" Nuremburg excuses.
- Engineering advice you give, on duty or off, just like doctors and lawyers, unless otherwise indicated, are legal engineering advice, and you can be held accountable for its consequences. E.g. Advising your neighbor that'd he'd need a 5" support column for his deck, and if you're wrong, he can sue you for damages.
The difference is that non-software engineering is routinely life-or-death, and there are enough considerations in your average engineering task that you really don't want someone who hasn't been comprehensively educated doing the job.
He throws around a lot of gravitas and some big numbers and then goes, "Oh poor me, these taxes are crushing me." without providing any real objective proof of it.
So you paid $288k of taxes for that quarter. That was out of how much revenue? how much profit? hm?
* He could hire his employees because they were educated (paid and/or subsidized by taxes.)
* He could take on loans and other debt because the financial system is regulated to ensure investor confidence.
* Companies can get their products to customers efficiently because of roads/bridges/etc.
I'm not saying taxes are too low, or even just right, or even sensible at all, but they have to be considered in context. He pays quite a bit in taxes, but how does that relate to what he puts into the economy and what he takes from the "commons" of the economy?
If the government really wanted to create "security" in the financial system they would increase the reserve limit for banks to 25% and print bills to the difference in the money supply.
Roads, bridges, etc... do allow companies to move products - most employers are very happy to pay for these developments. Most of these, however, are paid with gas taxes and tolls (at least here in Canada).
The three points you mention cost money, but make up a tiny percent of the American budget. The main money leaches are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, and the military. The author of that letter mentions welfare, but this minor in the scheme of things.
Don't get me wrong, I think that sending a letter like that is completely unwise, but I agree with the spirit of his letter.
And where did these engineers go to school? Did they attend a public or private university? Was the school subsidized by land grants from the government? Did the students benefit from government-guaranteed student loans? Was the school able to attract professors because of government-sponsored research? Etc., etc.
"The spirit" of his letter is a naive oversimplification - the idea that "lower taxes always increase innovation" is simple to justify, but has little evidence in the real world.
"Who is stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs and serves over 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or, the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check?"
What he apparently doesn't know is that 75% of the (American) economy falls under "Consumer Spending". That is, if you and I don't blow our paycheck buying clothes and cars, we don't have an economy.
So really, the government is doing The Right Thing(tm) by stimulating the economy. It just upsets this guy because he feels that "Trickle Down" is better, because then the economy is sitting around waiting for this guy to buy/lease another Mercedes.
Economists still argue what works best to stimulate businesses. There's no one right way to do it. Some believe in deregulation. Some believe in low business taxes. Some believe in business-ownership tax incentives. Some think lax credit laws or "high liquid markets" make it happen.
Others, like the letter writer, believe in trickle down and low taxes for business. An aside, anyone with a functioning brain that lived through the Reagan era knows this to be a complete falsehood. Second, its been observed (again, this is like some people say, so take with a grain of salt) that many pro-low tax people cannot control their lifestyle spending.
Therefore, the only way to increase their ability to repay on their debt/save money is to reduce their tax burden.
I've worked for a small business owner like this. They're small minded and arrogant beyond belief. They don't respect the people who work for them. "Penny smart, but pound foolish" as the expression went. He was sure to talk to us, off company time, in 2004 to remind us how dangerous it would be to vote for John Kerry because of his plan to force businesses to offer health care. At the time, none of us working there had health care, except the owner. He had a private policy which he could afford because he paid himself such a high salary. We would make $20/hr (with no benefits) and he would pocket $60/hr from our labors.
He was eventually forced to offer health care anyway, once most of his top employees (and me!) left to companies that provided benefits and didn't treat you like cattle.
The fact of the matter is, if he had the business, he'd hire the employees, as they would be making him money.
Just like the myth that he'd "pay his employee's more" if he didn't have to pay their payroll tax. Odds are, he'd pay his employees the going rate for their labor. Or, if he believes his employees deliver an above-the-market quality of labor, he'd pay them at what is an appropriately scaled competitive wage. The rest he would pocket.
You hire someone because you need someone to do a job. You don't have a mythical set of employees doing nothing/odd jobs simply because you have a "tax surplus".
Yes. Like I said before, you hire for your business based on need. The idea you'd have "more employees" because of a "tax surplus" is a myth. Especially from business owners that condescend to their employees and coerce their votes. I've worked for people just like this guy, and believe me, the idea he is spouting off is ridiculous.
Do you mean keeping your own money? If so, why not just say so?
People hire based on need. But people also hire based on productivity, available workforce, labor laws, legal considerations, tenure, etc. There are all kinds of modifers to the basic "need" I may need another employee, but the bar might be so high to hire them that I don't do it. In that case, existing employees just have to work harder.
Simply because a company has a need doesn't change their break-even analysis. And taxes hit the break-even analysis directly as overhead. Right? Or am I missing something?
(Again, yes, you're right about the break even analysis).
Aside from the basics (roads, schools, telephone lines) that the taxes on his employees pay for, there is one thing the payroll tax pays for as well: Unemployment insurance. Now, nobody wants their business to fail, but the failure rate for businesses is quite steep. This is a tax that literally protects the employees from the bad business decisions made by the business owner, even if he ends up bankrupt.
Unemployment also keeps the supply of labor at a fairly constant rate. Say I worked for one of this business owner's competitors, who went out business, and have a mortgage. To make ends meet, I immediately take a job in an unrelated field. Now, that business cannot hire me because I've stopped looking for a job. (I know, i'm simplifying here, bear with me.) Unemployment lets me spend more time on the market, looking for offers in my field.
Sort of like FDR's Treasury Secretary said about the New Deal. "People don't eat over the long term. They eat everyday."
However, I still think the public education system is one of the few things keeping chaos from breaking out. Consider the 80/20 rule the first 20% of public school money provides the vast majority of the benefit after that it's far more expensive the keep things moving. School could be year round with 3 cycles of children, and each child going every other year and we would spend far less money and still get most of the benefit from teaching reading, writing, basic arithmetic, basic heath etc. Or we could have vouchers and mandatory testing etc. But, removing any from of public school system would be a bad idea.
PS: The real question is always what point do diminishing returns kill the gain. I think we could double the amount of money we spend on education and still come out ahead.
I scoff at the idea that "in America you're limited by you and you alone". It's an idealized extrapolation of our less regimented society, true, but if you grow up as a poor black boy or girl in the ghetto, the forces that are going to keep you there far outweigh the forces that will allow you to leave. See Hurricane Katrina: most of the poor folk that didn't evacuate were too ridiculously poor to even afford to evacuate. The same goes with someone who grows up in a rural town; if they want to leave town and go to college or otherwise make something of themselves, all of the factors in their environment are working constantly against them. I'm tired of people born into privlege (me included) feeling that growing up in an environment where the only barrier to success is your own motivation somehow applies to everyone else.
I mentioned in another submission about how one of the greatest misconceptions of the past 50 years is that our environment is somehow completely unrelated to our well-being and the choices we feel we have. I'm not about to say people can start blaming their bad judgement on their environment, but the other extreme is no better a way of understanding our country.
I was exposed to less of society than most people and in a culture much, much further than societies norms than black culture is.
I'm also dark enough to experience prejudices, if any indeed existed. One thing that life has taught me, you're treated the way you expect to be treated and the way you act accordingly. Perception is reality. You hold the key to how people perceive you.
Everything I have in life I earned by myself, I haven't finished college yet but have a decent job. I taught myself enough *nix and networking experience to move through jobs to where I'm making the mean salary for a single person in my city.
The only barrier that has ever held me back is myself. I've also experience big setbacks in life. If you feel sorry for yourself and stop moving, sure, life sucks you in. If you pick yourself and keep on striving, you can do almost anything you desire to.
Quoting Sir Winston Churchill:
"We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
You know what also kills innovation and business? Not investing in public education. Not providing health care to workers. Not providing a legal system to make laws, a judicial system to interpret laws and contracts, etc. Not investing in fundamental research. Not regulating the money supply... one could go on for tomes.
If business taxes "hurt" business, then what you get for them "helps" business. In this trade-off neither extreme is desirable.
I am European. I worked at two start-ups in two different EU countries before coming to California for grad school. What I experienced is that social welfare has its costs. If you found a start-up and are trying to survive, high-taxes only work against you.
Well, then we're definitely just coming from different places, and arguing that we should head in opposite directions, while looking at the same goal. By American standards, California has very high tax rates, as well as an excellent system of public higher education.
I'm also glad we agree that taxation should be about maximizing overall productivity, not about idealistic comfort.
It's written exactly the way most (literate) chainletters are.
And lots of those use real names / institution names to add legitimacy, too.
Looks like they do plenty of work that is funded through taxes of some kind.
As for tax & politics: businesses prosper in South Africa, but we have insane taxes (most of which goes towards projects that will never benefit any business), mountains of strict regulations and political uncertainty.
sigh It's sad that the people that reaffirm their political beliefs using this crap have such primitive understandings of business, law, etc.