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Add to FavoritesThe idea of the majority of people being overpaid would in effect mean that the majority of people have too much money and don't know what to do with it all. If anything the complete opposite of this situation is true, most people have just enough money to get by and not a lot more then that. There are billions of people living in poverty in the world today in fact there are more people living on less and the equivalent of a dollar per day than there are living above that figure.
The basic structure of any business is that it is roughly pyramid shaped. Take for example a standard factory, you would have the production line workers at the bottom, for an easy figure we have 100. Next there is one supervisor watching every 10 workers. And above them 1 manager for every 5 supervisors, and lastly the factory owner at the very top. The higher you get the more you are paid and the fewer people there are at your level. This is basically the same across any business or organization, and means that the majority of people being overpaid is simply impossible.
When you start in a lot of jobs these days the most you can expect a lot of the time is minimum wage, and little or no other bonuses along with it. Those being medical and dental plans, illness or extended leave pay etc. Coupled with that is the fact that a lot of the time there is no obligation on particularly larger companies to raise the amount that they pay their workers by he amount that inflation is going up each year. So for example if inflation is 3% in a particular year, it is very unlikely that most people will receive a 3% pay increase to match this. Meaning that in real terms their money will buy them less and that they have become poorer.
The kind of people who are being paid more and more every year are those at the very top of the earnings scales to begin with. Company bosses, directors, higher up officials and politicians are those who usually benefit the most from any salary increases. Often it is these people who are receiving the massive pay increases and bonuses while the majority of the people, who are lower down in the company, are losing their jobs or are struggling to live on the pittance they are being paid.
For example the British M.P's (members of parliament) recently voted in favor of giving themselves a 10% pay increase, even though they are already earning over 60k per year in most cases. As well as the fact that they can claim around another 50k in free expenses paid by the tax payers. At the same time they voted against backdating a police pay increase of 2%, which is still below inflation anyway.
Similarly it is accepted policy between corporation directors to receive a massive payout if the business fails and is forced to shut down. Often many millions of dollars while most of the companies employees aren't given anything, and for basically failing to do their job correctly as well. Not only that but they are then often simply given another job paying in excess of 500k per year by another similar company because of their connections within the industry and the fact that the very rich always look after each other.
So the fact is that the majority of people aren't paid enough, which is why many people these days have to take second jobs and why usually now both of the parents in a family have to work. Not so long ago the money earned by one parent was enough to support the entire family while the other partner stayed at home to raise the children. But these days that isn't usually possible, which shows in fact that people are being paid a lot less comparatively than they used to be.
Learn more about this author, Scott Heritage.
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Yes
I would like to discuss a growing problem in the world today - that is, in my opinion, the lazy people all around us. Everywhere I go I see people say that they are not paid enough, yet at the same time, they have hours of time to kill my using the Internet or taking three-hour lunch breaks.
Let's start with the medical profession, which I think is the biggest culprit. I'm sure everybody has experienced the doctor's waiting room, where you have to wait hours to see the doctor, yet you see the nurses, receptionists, and doctors talking about irrelevant topics, such as a coworker's pregnancy or what to eat for lunch, behind the counter for hours. We have to endure endless hours of boredom reading the outdated magazines left out for us, Court TV on the TV in the waiting room, staring at the walls of ugly artwork or fellow patients, and listening to the medical staff. I see little work being done but I see nurses going on strike all the time. Why is this?
They don't work yet they want to be paid big bucks for it. I just don't find that logical. Then when you call the doctor's office at 9 a.m., the receptionists tell you that the doctor won't be in until the afternoon. When you call up at noon, everyone is out to lunch. At one o'clock, everyone is still at lunch. Two o'clock the same deal. At three o'clock, the doctor is in but he never returns your call and the nurse doesn't relay his message to you unless you call them, even though they told you that they would call you back. Why is this? Simple. People are lazy.
Why are doctors paid thousands of dollars for simple checkups and routine procedures that only take a few hours or less? They aren't the reason why our insurance is so high because they believe that their profession is really worth such a high premium. Many of them do not work hard enough to deserve this high salary. Most of the doctors that I have dealt with will not even talk on the phone with me because they think they are above that. Instead, they have their staff workers call us to relay information and, in the process, usually screw up the information in the process and make us wait even longer for our prescriptions or other dire information. I have also heard horror stories from patients with doctors who take their time and act like they are put out of their way by having to help us. What the heck are they paid for if not to help us? For $500 an hour, I guarantee that I would be on the phone within five minutes of the patient calling me. Doctors are one of the biggest examples of people who are overpaid and lazy.
Next, I want to talk about office workers. I know a lot of people that work in offices and are on the Internet for hours at a time doing nothing related to the job. These are the same people that complain about being underpaid and stressed out. How can they be underpaid and stressed out if they aren't even doing their job? They aren't paid for surfing the Internet to talk on MySpace for half of the day. Why is this? Again, the answer is simple. People are lazy!
Just the other day, the gas man was here at my house check the meter. He found a little leak that took under 15 minutes to fix by tightening the pipes. It is a simple job yet he told my uncle that he should be paid more for its job. This is ridiculous because even the dumbest of people can read a meter and tighten a little pipe. If you ask me, that guy is probably way overpaid. If I was his boss and I heard him complain about his salary, I would give them a pay cut on purpose. Why did he think he's underpaid? Because people are lazy.
Mail delivery workers have an easy job. I am not talking about UPS, which is a hard job because of the heavy packages. I am talking about the Mail workers who just deliver light envelopes. Almost every Mail worker that I see complaints about being underpaid. With the extremely high prices for postage that we are required to pay for our packages, they have no right to complain. They are paid well, the hours are good, and they have a great retirement plan. Why do they complain about their pay? Because people are lazy.
What about welfare recipients? They all expect a free handout for no work done. Many of them have a half a dozen children all receiving welfare while the parents sit on their butts all day eating and drinking like it's going out of style. They can get a job but what do they do? When their children become too old to receive welfare, they just have another few kids to keep the checks coming. They can work but why don't they go to work? Because people are lazy. Welfare recipients use their children as a scapegoat to collect money from taxpayers. The system is set up perfectly for repeated abuse. If welfare was stopped, millions of people would complain that children are starving and dying. We don't control the maximum number of children that these lazy people can have and so they used it as an excuse to collect free money. It really is a great system for people like this.
Other guilty parties include politicians, who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars on the job and probably needs outside of the job with taxpayer money. What makes these people even worse is that they can give themselves raises and vote for it themselves, which is ridiculous since most of them are put there in their job by democracy or force (i.e. Castro). Athletes are also overpaid just for throwing a ball. Teachers always say that they are underpaid and many people agree. I agree only with a rare percentage of teachers; the rest are overpaid.
I am tired of hearing people complain about being underpaid. What we need is a communist system in which workers are paid for their worth and actual amount of output that they provide to society. So far, no communist system as been set up properly to form a perfect economy and society because of that rich people who abuse the communist systems. If that abuse can be resolved, and I think that communism is the perfect answer to reward the hard workers and punish the lazy people in the world. I know that many people consider communism evil but is paying lazy people too much money while our truly deserving people grow hungry because they are only paid minimum wage and work three jobs just to stay above water with their bills. Many countries, especially America, have set up a system of perpetual income discrepancies that will never be equitable with the current set up.
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Learn more about this author, John Gugie.
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