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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

Really think about it for a second; $8.5 billion in profit. That's an insane amount of money. How many companies with that kind of profit are actively dodging taxes from aggressive accounting, getting deals with local governments, or any other way? Not that the government would spend the extra tax revenue wisely. Instead, what if they took $1 billion of that to increase the pay of the lowest earning employees significantly while not increase the highest earners at all, or paying 100% of health care (medical, dental, vision, and mental), or any of the other things to help improve employee relationships. Then, start focusing on the external things that could be directly improved by taking less profit to improve things for those so much is taken. That's still $7.5 billion in profit.

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> How many companies with that kind of profit are actively dodging taxes from aggressive accounting, getting deals with local governments, or any other way?

I don't think it's fair to imply that McDonald's is doing anything shady. They have over 2 million workers (although not directly, it's a franchise model). They make a lot of profit but, proportional to the total workforce, it's about average. Hardly something to be outraged about.

If you spread $1 billion evenly among two million workers, that's about $500 per employee per year. That is roughly 25 cents an hour for a full-time worker. Paying 100% health care would be several billion dollars.

The underlying implication here is whether companies should make any profit at all. If the amount of profit allowed is non-zero, what is the correct number? And if there is a correct number, what do you propose to do about it?

The average American, which McDonald’s workers are on the low end side, can’t handle a 500 dollar emergency.

500 dollars a year to every worker would make a material difference in most of their lives.

Ok. Lets do it. Tell me how?

Call your representative and push for such legislatio. join a labor coalition in your area, Be it a union, a special interests group, etc. If they can get a local bill to petition, help get signature gathered and donations raised.

Do this for some 3-10 years and there will start to be national movements and pressure for federal bills addressing this. Assuming we don't just kowtow to fascism as we are now in my country.

Such legislation? That's pretty hand-wavy.. what specifically are we asking for here?

I probably do not live in your region, so you'll need to look up your relevant organizations. Which would include existing bills and proposal that can already save a lot of legwork.

My main thesis here is that this isn't something you have to (nor can) do alone. And there are others who probably already have the ball rolling. Joining a larger cause can create a better effect than creating a narrative in your head that corporations are all powerful and paid off your representatives.

I’m sorry, was your problem with the implementation of a theoretical lowering of profits for McDonald’s that would result in $500 per employee or your original argument I responded to implying that $500 per employee was immaterial?

I want to make sure I’m kicking my field goal at the right goal post before you move them.

I never stated I had a problem. The original poster seemed almost offended that McDonald's made a "large" profit. So my question is, what is the correct amount of profit that company should make? And, conversely, what happens if a company has losses?

As for whether employees should make more money, I'm definitely not against that. Seems to me, raising the minimum wage and tying it to inflation would be a good start.

I'm not offended. I'm just thinking of how large $8.5 billion is and what could be done with some of that profit while still keeping a shit ton of profit. It's not like I suggested spending $8.25 billion, I just suggested a measly $1 billion, maybe $2b

I replied to this paragraph that was a subset from your original post

> If you spread $1 billion evenly among two million workers, that's about $500 per employee per year. That is roughly 25 cents an hour for a full-time worker. Paying 100% health care would be several billion dollars.

I responded by saying this, which was the entirety of my post

> The average American, which McDonald’s workers are on the low end side, can’t handle a 500 dollar emergency. 500 dollars a year to every worker would make a material difference in most of their lives.

You responded with this entire post

> Ok. Lets do it. Tell me how?

Was I misunderstanding something? I am fully guilty of responding to a misconceived strawman, or mistaking one poster for another on this site so I have no problem if that’s what occurred.

If what I laid out as the state of responses is however the state of reality than I want to know what specifically you are asking so we can stick to one argument and not weave past each other.

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