Interpreted charitably, you are making an argument that people's comp should be higher.

But I don't see any argument that paying that higher comp in the form of shares instead of in the form of cash is any better?

(Unless you want to imply that people are too dumb and need to be protected from themselves, and that why we need to give them more stocks instead of more cash? Or something else?)

> Interpreted charitably

No need for your charity, thanks. I'm simply making the argument that you must live in a bubble if you think that enough people have the excess liquidity and market knowledge for this to be an applicable solution to the general population.

> Unless you want to imply that people are too dumb and need to be protected from themselves

Not being wise in the markets != being dumb.

Protected from themselves? No, protected from speculators and exploiters.

Nudging people to own a substantial chunk of their net worth in one single company protects them from speculators and exploiters? OK..

When the alternative is owning no chunk of any company? Yes, still orders of magnitude better.

Nothing prevents people from investing also in other companies if they feel like. Or are you implying they are "too dumb" to consider the possibility?

Shared ownership also protects employees from speculative decisions like mass layoffs made only to give more value to shareholders. It also prevents the alienation of working on something you don't own and gives a strong incentive for everyone to give their best.

> Nothing prevents people from investing also in other companies if they feel like

I thought you just said that this isn't a viable option for most people? Now it is on the table?

> are you implying they are "too dumb" to consider the possibility

For what it's worth, reading through this thread, it seems like you were the one who claimed most people don't have "market knowledge"...

Oh please, you don't even know anymore what's your argument, do you? You just hate to be reminded that the bubble you live in is in now way accurately reflective of the reality most people live in.

I am not the person you were arguing with, so sure maybe I don't know what the other guys argument is lol

I was just commenting on what I was seeing in your comments - sorry that I struck a nerve..

I'm not sure what bubble you think I'm living in, given how little you know about me. But in "your bubble" it doesn't seem like there's a way to reconcile two very antithetical propositions: 1- people don't have the resources/knowledge to invest, but also 2- they can use their excess resources to diversify away from having significant investment with solely their employer. How does that work?

And just to re-iterate, no one besides you has brought up the intelligence of "most people" when it comes to the ability to invest. So...?

>you are making an argument that people's comp should be higher.

That's a good argument to make.

Among the entire workforce of a successful employee-owned org, I would think there would be no disagreement, IOW nothing to argue about.

It surely depends how successful, but all you need is to do the math to know for sure.

Beyond a certain threshold, companies where most of the workers are living paycheck-to-paycheck can end up paying them more and that bugaboo can go away completely. Whether or not they are actually awarded or entitled to any shares in their employer yet. Even during a time when it's just the rest of the employees owning the company.

What good are shares if you're never going to sell? I mean never sell your shares nor (vote to) sell the company.

The only thing shares like that entitle you to is dividends. And you only get dividends when the company makes enough money to declare a dividend. Over and above any shortcomings that might need to be overcome.

The net difference is that distributions that go to outside investors under the more-familiar arrangement, are instead returned only to employees when they are the only shareholders.

And sometimes that could be a very life-changing difference for doing the exact same work. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

That's why you do the math.

If they are really living paycheck to paycheck, giving them shares in the company instead of paying them isn't going to help much either.

Or are you suggesting that employees just get a fixed share when they join the company? That model exists, but it typically only works for companies that need no outside capital to get started. Like law firms.

Peasent brain, they think they too can be rich like their corporate owners one day so they will support them and justify this brain rotted thinking until they die poor.

I presume it'll work exactly as well as paying them partially in stock, as the stock and cash are interchangeable.

The people who need money now will just sell the stock as soon as they can.

People need to stop using this stat. It's completely useless. There are literally people making top percentile incomes saying they're living paycheck to paycheck in these surveys because they interpret the survey questions wildly different than other people. A tiny, tiny percentage of Americans would literally go hungry if they didn't get their next month's paycheck the rest would have to cash out some small percentage of their S&P 500 ETF.

> A tiny, tiny percentage of Americans would literally go hungry if they didn't get their next month's paycheck

"71.93% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Have $2,000 or Less in Savings"[0].

So no, it's not a tiny percentage. $2k or less in savings means being one emergency expense away from not being able to pay rent or your house loan next month.

- [0]: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-pa...

This only shows how big economic illiteracy is. Not how much people are earning vs the cost of living.

> Economic illiteracy

I respect your opinion but the stats presented before does not “shows“ illiteracy but low investments. Lack of liquidity to invest seems a very plausible raison because a revenu threshold has to be passed to be able to buy food before founds. This stat is probably almost a proxy for how many Americans are below that threshold.

It is really hard to believe that 71.93% of Americans are on the verge of homelessness and starvation. Much more plausible (and even mentioned in the linked article under "Lack of budgeting and financial planning" and "Social pressures") are just bad habits.

Of course there are economic literate people who really are struggling, but I doubt they make even half of those 71.93%.

In this case you are revealing your own (statistical) illiteracy. It’s referring to 70% of people who claim to be living paycheck to paycheck, not 70% of all people.

There’s a range of goods and services accessible on may consider after food but before investments : medical expenses, gas to visit family on week end…

The personal savings rate has slowly halved over the past 60 years[0].

Did everyone become illiterate or maybe the inflation rate has exceeded the growth rate of wages[1], among other things?

What's funny is that on two comments rejecting my argument one accuses me of considering people "too dumb" to take their own financial decisions, the other tells me people are actually too dumb and that's why they are in financial trouble.

- [0]: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/personal-savings

- [1]: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

The article you linked mentions "Lack of budgeting and financial planning" and "Social pressures" for reason of living paycheck to paycheck. And those are self reported values.

Last 60 years we experienced enormous growth of advertising - is it really hard to believe that many people are having big problems with limiting their spending.

>> "71.93% of Americans Living Paycheck to Paycheck Have $2,000 or Less in Savings"[0].

It's a meaningless statistic. They can still have high net worth and/or large incomes even if they don't keep cash on hand.

Well it might please you then that about 50% of the respondents report low income as the cause for living paycheck by paycheck. Even more report high monthly bills as a cause.

Just read it, it's all in there.

People thinking their income is to low is not exactly news. I haven't personally met anyone who would ever claim their income is to high. Why do you think I haven't read it? Do you always agree with everything you read?

I believe you didn't read it because your argument is quite poor and doesn't mention some relevant points the article makes.

I may not always agree with everything I read, but at least I take the time to read it before openly disagreeing with it.

I'm sorry to disappoint you. I did read it and found it unconvincing to say the least.

I'm confused about that figure, since not having any savings to fall back on seems to me to be the definition of living paycheck-to-paycheck. How is that not 100%? The argument you're making seems tautological, and doesn't really account for the elasticity of people's spending habits, or the income ranges they fall into in the first place.

In genera, "self reporting" needs to be viewed as the untrustworthy statistics it is. I hear it a lot recently in the social siences. And media happily parrotting the results, as proof of whatever they are currently trying to push. I wonder how much of these self-reported issues would be seen in a completely different lens if those asked were forced to discuss their answers within a certain peer group. "What, you say you're poor, with that car and that house?"

Also consider that some of the respondents are actually "bragging" about living paycheck-to-paycheck so they don't seem any poorer than anybody else, when they are actually not even sustainable and deeply know they are heading downward toward bankruptcy or something like that unless things look up.