From: ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark)
Subject: Why pick on the kids? Let's get the fat cats!
Summary: We overpay execs and underpay producers, so no-one wants to produce.
Keywords: overpaid salary-cap wages tax complexity
Organization: ITC, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Date: 26 Aug 92 00:04:57 GMT

I left school 8 years ago. That year our principal had all of the seniors in
one room and asked "How many of you (there was 167 of us) are going to be
tradesmen?" Two (2) people put up their hands.  Those two also were two of
the least capable academically in the year. What all of the people wanted to
do was become accountants, solicitors, scientists, engineers, bank managers
etc. So two people will produce our houses or manufactured goods (obviously
quite a few of those who left in Junior would end up in labouring or
manufacturing jobs) and the rest will produce nothing tangible. The rest
will rely upon the fees, taxes etc charged upon those 2 and the Junior
leavers to maintain their jobs. Why is this expectation that everyone can
become a manager or white-collar worker and "somebody else" will do the real
work? The major reason is unfair income bias towards these non-productive
service employments.  Why should a teenager who sees Mum and Dad slaving
away in a factory and a delicatessan respectively not quite making ends
meet, whilst next door the husband-wife team leave in their Mercedes to sit
in an air-conditioned office doing people's tax returns want to become a
tradesman or farmer. The prestige of being a tradesman is lost, only 
'deadheads' become tradesmen. I beleive we must do something to stop the
runaway salaries of executives and to encourage the now-stagnant wages of 
primary and secondary producers.I feel we must introduce a salary-cap for
business based on their turnover and limit expenditure on third party
consultation. I know people will say that we will lose all the high-powered
whiz-kid execs overseas. However, these people probably made their
reputations in boom times and let's face it speculative decisions are just
that speculative: the lucky ones whose decisions worked out (regardless if
they were good decisions) become known as whiz-kid execs and get paid
mega-salaries. A salary cap might also solve the QINTEX problem of bleeding
dying businesses by execs voting themselves bigger wages whilst creditors
are put off until bankruptcy day.  Also this will limit the skyrocketing
fees charged by such companies for consultancy work, which allowed them to 
vastly overpay their employees.  Further measures would be required to limit
other overpaid positions, but the tone would be set. Then we will have a lot
more capital floating about to give the kids of today a job and to pay our
producers of saleable goods a greater wage, which will increase their status
and therefore eventually job satisfaction. It is not the fault of the
executives themselves (in most cases) that these mega-salaried jobs are
available, it is due to naivete of employers who just think "Hey that bloke
landed $20 mill worth of deals for my company last year, I've got to keep
him".  They ignore the fact that in that year the cleaner probably could
have landed those deals and consequently vastly overvalue their high-powered
executive.  So which of the whimpoid parties in this country are willing to
put forward such an initiative for public debate.

By the way I'm the ultimate hypocrit as I'm a researcher here at Griffith
Uni, not overpaid (though more than the national average), but one of the
many non-productive members of society (though I work pretty hard).
Non-productive does not mean bludging, just not producing saleable goods. we
need some support services just not as much as we have now. The national 
beauracracy level is rising due to an increasing legal complexity that
requires servicing. The average person on the street now needs an
accountant. Then after a while the accountant (or solicitor) gets a seat in
parliament to help increase the taxation and legal complexity to ensure
his/her profession is of increased need. Anyway that's enough ideas for now,
let's hear some scathing response.



Newsgroups: aus.politics