Re: God bless the coal miners!

On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 16:54:10 -0600, Wilbur Slice
<wilbur@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 14:39:55 -0600, Ken Cashion <kcashion@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 10:48:59 -0600, Wilbur Slice
>><wilbur@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 03 Jan 2006 10:01:22 -0600, Ken Cashion <kcashion@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>It's not his problem. His problem is that he doesn't get paid for work he's
>>>>>doing.
>>>>
>>>> Work has no value. I can dig holes and fill them in all
>>>>day...lots of work there, but little constructive use of my time.
>>>
>>>Doesn't matter. The work itself has value - most laborers like that
>>>get paid by the hour. Whether the work has any "value" to the
>>>business owner is irrelevant, they will, must and should be paid for
>>>their work. The financial risk is the business owner's.
>>
>> Sorry...I think not.
>> They are not being paid to work. They are being paid to
>>produce.
>
>No, sorry. Proof of that is that if they work and produce nothing (no
>coal, shale, whatever), they still get paid. The company might lay
>them off and close the mine, but for the hours they actually worked,
>they do get paid, whether or not they produced anything of value for
>the employer.

Wilbur, would it be possible to know before hand if the ore
had a known marketable yield. I don't know, but I see your point.
They are necessary for the mine to make any money but on any given
hour, the mine may not be making money.
I think the produce was iffy back in the early 1900s. If the
miners got paid on a tonnage basis...and many did...it wouldn't make
the miners any difference if the tonnage was rubble or marketable ore.
I guess I had better not go into the mining business. <g>
But that doesn't stop me from wondering about it.

>There ARE some situations where workers get paid to produce - it's
>called piecework. Sometimes farm workers are paid by the bushel the
>pick, or facory workers are paid by the bicycle they assemble, etc.
>But I'm pretty sure mine workers are not paid by the ton of coal they
>produce.

They were at one time but maybe not anymore because of the
general changes in equipment and the like.

>> They are being paid to make money for their employer. Each
>>hour, they should make for the employer more than they are being
>>given.
>
>Sorry, no. Most employees of a corporation are not involved in the
>revenue stream. Sales people are. Consultants (like myself) are,
>through direct billings. But maintenance personnel, HR, secretaries,
>security guards, etc. do not make any money for a company. They are
>overhead - expenses. That's not to say their work is not important or
>necessary, but it isn't involved with making money for the employer.

OK, lets back up. Corporate stream is a long way from diggin'
in a 1900 slate mine. But yes, some employees make it possible for
other employees to make money for the company. And by consequence,
even those employees are "making" money.
With the exception of mandated workers the government
requires, money is coming in to pay everyone's wages. (Obviously.)
We generally had sales on overhead and they were paid from
that (think of it as excess profit) and their commissions, which they
themselves created by their salesmanship.
We had project money that was contracted for with some
potential customer. Those guys' salaries were pretty much set up for
the duration of the contract. Added to what they got paid under the
contract was company profit by percentage, accounting costs, and
overhead (to top up the overhead funding source), and we had to keep
some contingency in there for unforeseen and inadvertent events. This
was often 15% for a moderately risky job.
So everyone was getting their pay from that.
Back to ditch digging. No overhead, no insurance, no
hospitalization, no paternity leave, etc. I have a guy tell me he
wants a 100' ditch. I tell him how much I want to do it and I know
what the labor rates are in my area, how hard or easy it will be to
hire the labor, and add some figure to the labor rate that will make
it worth my while.
I go down town and there is a Mexican (actual event) standing
at the post office with a pair of work gloves in his back pocket and
dressed for work.
"Hey, you work?"
"Dig a ditch. Three days."
"Get in." (Yeah, I do love free enterprize.)
Now that sort of business, I could manage. <g>

>And some entities, like, say, NASA, don't actually sell a product at
>all. The employer doesn't make money, and yet the employees get paid.
>Even if they crash a lander on Mars.

I was talking about labor. <g> Yeah, it is different for
agencies. By definition, an agency (NASA) takes money from some
source (congress) to do what the money source (congress) says they
want done. Then the agency takes their operating cost from that and
the rest is put on a contract to pay JPL and Lockheed (and maybe a few
others <g>) to do what congress wants done...only the agency is not
just a contract issuing agency...GSA could do that...NASA then becomes
a technical monitor on the contract. This is because NASA knows how
to do what congress says wants done. And then we crash a lander on
Mars. <g>

>> If digging a ditch, I would think it should be on a near
>>hourly basis.
>> If operating a small company, the guy might only need to be
>>productive a few times a year to "cover" his salary.
>
>How many trash cans must the janitor empty before the company has made
>enough money to cover his salary?

Good point and you are back to corporate structure again. A
better question would be, how many trash cans must a highly paid
executive empty before it would be cheaper to hire a lowly paid
janitor to do it so the highly paid executive can do what he is paid
to do?
In this case, it might not take many trash cans. Depends more
on the executive's income and productivity than the janitor's. <g>
My wife was a secretary for McDivitt and a bunch of other guys
at NASA over the years and she had one guy that if he could not reach
his coffee cup, that meant he wanted a cup of coffee. Bettie would
get him a cup as soon as she saw it.
On special occasions, he would call her in, give her his
credit card, tell her that it was his wife's birthday and that she
likes blue and soft, fuzzy things. She would leave for a couple of
hours and come back with a wrapped present and card. She would
describe it to her guy so he wouldn't look surprized when his
appreciate wife opened it that night.
(The next morning, she would call Bettie and compliment her on
her good taste and tell her how well it fit. She knew how this
'Office Wife' business worked." <g>)
At a meeting, near noon, Bettie would go in to the meeting and
start around the room with her steno pad, quietly asking, "I am going
to the cafeteria for sandwiches...what do you want?"
Then she would go over, bring back the sacks of sandwiches and
go around the room...sometimes on her knees not to interfere with the
projector... and give them their lunches and collect her money.
At the end of the day, if asked if she did anything
constructive, she would say, "Sure. I keep Owen hard at work at his
desk all day and I avoided a long and wasteful lunch break for the PDR
meeting." She was right, too. She had had a very profitable day.

>> If some dude is making a few million a year and twice that in
>>bonuses and profit sharing, then he only needs to be clever once in
>>his career and be worth his pay.
>
>Sooo... the more money you make, the less you have to work?

That is basically it. But at some point, you have to be very
clever...and to do that, it might mean you spend 10 hours a day paying
attention to all sorts of details and understanding everything going
on around you. But other than that, no work at all. <g>

>> When a company has a net worth in
>>excess of some big countries' budgets, one mistake can cost more than
>>the guy is worth. By the same token, making one clever and wise
>>decision can be worth many times his career's salary.
>> As an example, when I was making $25,000 a year, I was the
>>last one who could have found a $250,000 redundant charge. If I had
>>not caught it, the company would have paid it. Though my supervisor
>>laughed, he understood when I said, "OK, I am through for the next ten
>>years. My salary is made. Now YOU be clever."

>And you all laughed, because that was, of course, a joke.

Well, it actually happened exactly that way. Martin-Denver
made a redundant charge on overhead and I caught it. The contracting
officer had already written the authorization for payment. This was
1965 or so...it was for a mockup on my Skylab F-coronagraph
experiment.
But they didn't let me goof off the next ten years, though.
They told me it was for the LAST ten years NOT the NEXT ten years. Now
that wasn't particularly funny.

>>>> The miner is getting paid what his work is worth. His work is
>>>>producing nothing of value. He gets a share of that nothing.
>>>
>>>Nope. Not unless when the mine rakes in huge profits the worker also
>>>gets a share of those huge profits. But guess what? In the vast
>>>majority of cases they don't. The workers get paid an hourly rate. If
>>>the mine does not produce, they still must be paid.
>>
>> No.
>
>Yes. By law.

Well, yeah...now. <g>
We are jumping back and forth between what was the case and
why in a 1900 Welsh slate mine and a current corporate structure.
Times and laws change. That is why it is nice to try to understand it
all. Much of history is so context sensitive, the "lessons" cannot be
transferred.

>> And all their unproductive work
>>will have contributed to the closure...but they will never understand
>>this.
>
>No, no, no. It wasn't "their unproductive work" that contributed to
>the closure. it's not THEIR fault if there are no diamonds left in
>the diamond mine. It's the lack of diamonds (or coal, whatever) that
>causes the mine to be closed.

>Sure, if there ARE diamonds in the mine and the miners just aren't
>getting them out, that's different - then their lack of productive
>work would indeed be their fault.

Where did the diamonds come from? I thought we were bringing
out slate. I don't know anything about something as speculative as
diamond mining, or opals, for our Austrasia readers.
The degree of likely hood in slate mining and diamond mining
makes the information hard to transfer.
In the case of the slate mines, the slate was obvious, but to
remove it, the stuff around it had to be removed, as well. They
didn't get paid to remove the stuff to get to the slate for which they
were paid.
Once upon a time, I was buying calcite from rivers in Mexico.
A guy would bring a load of straw and geodes to us in Houston. This
was because the guys at the border had an a listed duty on geodes but
not on crystalline riverside calcite. So under the straw and geodes
were these junks of funny shaped glassy looking mica stuff.
We would buy his geodes to take home and I would start
negotiating with him for the price of the calcite. I had an aquarium
that I had filled with three sorts of silicon oil. This would have
nearly the same index of refraction as the calcite.
I would have a monowave light behind the aquarium and a
polarizing screen in front. I could put the calcite in the oil and it
would virtually disappear...disappear all but the twining and other
optical defects.
He and I would discuss what the total area was bad. then
subtract that volume's weight from the weight of the whole and that is
what I bought. He did not get paid for finding, lugging, risking
arrest, the part I could not use.
I think I have forgotten the point...but isn't that a good
story? <g>

>>>I worked on a project for 3M for 4 and a half years back in the
>>>1980's. They ended up not selling any of those systems and they shut
>>>the project down. Do you think I didn't get paid?
>>
>> They ended up not selling those systems ... but do you think
>>that your salary was on overhead for four years?
>
>Yes, of course. What do you think it was? The company made no money
>from the work I did. but I got paid nonetheless.

And the overhead funds were coming from the overhead
percentages added to previous contracts...possibly even the ones you
had worked on earlier.
Project/contract money being ear-marked for overhead funds,
does not alter the fact that someone brought that money into the
company and they didn't get all of it.
I don't think they did that that way in small 1900 Welsh
slate mines. Maybe they did. But it would surprize me.

>> Somebody was
>>producing money for that company. (I hope I didn't have stock in it.
>><g>)
>
>
>Post-it notes and Scotch Tape. Neither of which had anything to do
>with my project. So my work there (and everybody else on that
>project) did not contribute to 3M's revenues. They made no money from
>our work. And yet we all got paid.

Good. <g>

>>>> The
>>>>mine owner gets his share of nothing in the cost of wear on machinery,
>>>>etc.
>>>
>>>The mine owner bears the financial risks. That's capitalism. He also
>>>reaps the financial rewards.
>>
>> True, but it is still a give and take situation. He needs the
>>labor. They need to work for him. However, it is true that he can
>>just shut the place down and go play golf and live off his money.
>
>Of course he could. But he doesn't because he wants to make more
>money.

And Wilbur, isn't that one of the important things in this?
There is a limit to how much someone needs but when the rich buys
stuff, there are people being paid to produce that which he wants.
Some of these dudes just like to make money. They don't need it. They
will most likely never spend it all. They may not even know how much
they have. It doesn't matter. They have what they want and still
they are busy working danged hard to make more money.
Making money is simply their job.
It is interesting that this worthy occupation has gotten such
a bum rap. Sam Walton was a neat guy with his mom and pop department
store, and then he became admired when he started putting in more
Wal-Marts. We know what happens when people become redundantly
wealthy. They metamorphocise into some evil, dishonest, exploiting,
SOB that no one likes...while they continue to make him richer...well,
not Sam...but his daughter.
All very confusing. But interesting. And I am interested in
it.
I can understand working at what you like...and if you like to
make money then that is good, but I have always made money to buy
stuff...or pay for stuff I had already bought.
We need lots more people who just want to make money. Maybe
they will put in another Wal-Greens in Picayune, or bring in another
tree clearing company. I will not begrudge them the money they make.

>> The workers cannot do this.
>
>Sure they can. Escept they have to play par-3 nine-hole courses. And
>they have to carry their own clubs.

Wilbur, that is funny. I wish some far-sighted fellow would
put in a miniature golf course here.

>> No production and there will be nothing to pay the miners.
>
>Not true. That's WAY too simplistic an analysis. First of all,
>typically a mining company owns more than one mine, and if one mine
>isn't producing, others are, and the non-producing miners are paid
>from that money. And even if a company isn't making a profit at all
>(maybe not even any *revenue* at all) they STILL have to pay their
>employees. By law. And the employees get paid first - before any
>creditors.

I think you are thinking in a more recent context than 1900
slate, but you are correct. Some dude might have owned all the slate
in Wales, and then, yes, he could have balanced one's losses with
another's gain. I didn't think of that. That slate mine I was in
didn't seem very important but it could have been just one of many
some guy had.

>Some companies operate for YEARS withotu profits - and yet they pay
>their employees.

Again, this 1900 small business was hardly the businesses of
today where you must be prepared to lose twice your investment before
you start turning a profit.
I am way to conservative to get involved in something like
that. The guys who do that danged sure deserve to make a bundle.

>> I read the other day that 8% of Americans are millionaires. I
>>need to check that. It could be true. But, of course, a million
>>isn't like a million used to be. <g>
>
>If you own a house in California, you're probably a "millionaire".

I was thinking of capital but yeah, if we start adding in
property, it can go up in a hurry, can't it. In CA, I think you have
to have a clear title to be considered a millionaire...otherwise, you
are still living from check to check. <g>

>> Remember, all this started with there being two viewpoints to
>>most issues. By my offering a contrary viewpoint does not mean that I
>>condone or promote the activity expressed in my observation.
>
>But your analysis was simply factually wrong.

Not in the context of the original discussion -- how miners
were paid in a 1900 Welsh slate mine. My analysis was only a
recitation of history.
I have no idea about how this stuff is done now. I do know
that the Welsh slate mines suffered a labor loss when so many miners
just threw down their picks and moved to PA.

>> I could say that Hitler's boots were always polished real
>>good. (That is true.) But I hardly would suggest that was of much
>>significance in the behavior of the overall man. <g>
>
>
>He loved his dog, too.

And he honored his father and mother. <g>

Wilbur, I always enjoy your posts.

Ken -- who now has to go fix an r/c helicopter so both rotors
rotate. It spins like crazy when half stops working. (I know the
feeling. <g>)
.

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