But you count the costs and it turns out you will break even in 50 years or if anything goes bad never, like, one bad hire will drown you.
You look at Google, Apple, Facebook stocks ... there is always a risk but no one got fired for buying IBM right? If you put your money in that stocks you don't have to worry about bad employees, sanitary inspections, paying rent, bad customers.
That is what those Adults and Experts are trying to tell you, local business is not some "magic" that makes money or loses it. Behind every local business with shitty jobs there are people, don't make every business equal to faceless Facebook, Google or Apple. Your local pizza shop has an owner who is as much an employee as his staff.
No. News sources are focusing on business instead of labor's issues, because news statistically favors business interests, not labor's.
If your hypothetical business owner is unable to start a business without paying a reasonable wage, then that business should not exist. And your hypothetical business owner should invest in Apple, Facebook, or otherwise.
If this causes less business entrepreneurship, then so be it. A business that cannot pay employees is not a business that adds value to society, and nothing of value is lost. This is a fundamental tenet of capitalism, the same way we say that businesses that cannot sell their product also deserve to fail.
I definitely did not write about business that cannot pay its employees. I wrote about business that lets people put the food on the table, which means also pay the bills.
Tax positive externalities at 100%
It's an apt comparison.
Value is a tricky expression here. There is a short term value and a long term value, and they may be very different.
Let us say that a mom-and-pop restaurant that cooks fairly healthy meals is squeezed out by McDonalds and shuts down. 50 years down the line, the fast food triumph has serious consequences on health of the nation.
But immediate market interactions cannot capture this development. The short term "Yay for salty and sugary food for less money!" win does not include the fact that you are buying an invisible "Type 2 diabetes and morbid obesity at the age of 40" item, too.
This is a false and dangerous, in that it ignores that the world isn't a free market, wage markets don't exist in a vacuum. Businesses might be able to pay higher wages if they weren't hindered by high rents, or if other restaurants raise prices in unison (e.g., in reaction to higher labor prices).
Just because a business can't pay a living wage in some setup doesn't mean it has no contribution.
This limit needs be adjusted, that’s all.
For a small business, the business and the owner can be practically one in the same. So in some cases I think that verbiage is pretty spot on.
Pretty sure a business can have plight.
People do say things like ‘the company suffered losses’, but isn’t anthropomorphising.
Would you say that a rock suffers "misfortune" if it topples off a cliff into the sea? Is it "difficult" for a glacier to maintain its integrity in the face of global warming? Is my car unfortunate to have been scratched in a parking lot? (OK, I do believe that last one, but I'm anthropomorphising my car to talk about my own human misfortune)
When we say things like "that Lions football team suffered a crushing defeat", we're engaging in metonymy -- referring to the suffering of the members of the team but speaking metaphorically about "the team".
For example, I think it's perfectly normalized to say "that Detroit Lions team suffered a crushing defeat", even though the Detroit Lions are a profit-making enterprise.
The group of people are the labourers being exploited, and they're separate from the group of owners that the corporation represents.
It is also not free to give unemployment benefits, it requires higher taxation which moves the sustainability bar higher and more businesses close, etc etc.
They take on all the same risk as owners do
Each growth stage presents tough choices of additional risk, as well.
An employee doesn't shoulder any of this. There is a world of difference!
Also, the current system enforces the artificial scarcity of capital available to those who need to work for a living instead of living off of their assets.
The vast majority of businesses are small businesses, if they go broke the owner is just as broke as the employees.
Jobs at more stable places are available and people will take them. The businesses need to fail or be sold.
Good! I've been hearing about "the business side of the problem" my entire life -- lectured sternly about it, in many cases. All while few of the Adults and Experts - people with Real Power, in other words - dare even mention some of the topics laid out in the link.
> I'm just saying that both sides of the equation need to be examined, i.e. the plight of the worker AND the plight of the business.
There is no "plight of the business". There's a business that's making money, losing it, or breaking even. The people working there may feel the consequences, but a business cannot "suffer".