Doug Pensinger wrote:
> Since owners/shareholders benefit from ... dedicated employees,
Erik Reuter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If they benefit from dedicated employees, then that will show up in
profits. If it does, then there is no need for government intervention.
It depends on the time horizon of those calculating profits.
For example, with a short time horizon, a company makes a profit when
executives fire loyal, long term employees who receive high wages and
replace them with cheaper, young employees.
However, over a period of 20 years or so, the company loses when it
does that.
Countering this is the argument that with modern electronic
communications and search tools, especially the Internet, the
inexperienced are able to search for and find lessons that only the
experienced knew earlier.
This is an argument for an expected decrease in pay to the educated
and experienced that is different from and independent of overseas
outsourcing: that is to say, this argument says that even with
protection, wages in a country like the US will decrease.
Doubtless there is some truth to this argument. However, I don't know
how people learn *when* to search except by experience.
After all, the people at Lockheed who provided information to JPL in
unlabeled, old English units rather than metric units did not know
that in the early 1990s, Lockheed had signed an agreement to provide
JPL with the information in metric units. Nor did the people at JPL
know that the engineers at Lockheed did not know. The people at
Lockheed thought they were doing right; and so did the people at JPL.
Hence the loss of a Mars probe (paid for by US taxpayers).
So it looks to me that time horizon is relevant. That in turn means
that the rate of discount that investors use is relevant.
I have heard -- but I cannot remember where, so no references -- that
people use different rates of discount of the future when thinking
about different topics. For example, when considering their children
growing up, they have a different time horizon and therefore a
different rate of discount than when considering where to store some
money for a short time for something else, such as a major purchase.
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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