Day 2

Dan Price. That is the CEO I was thinking of in yesterday's blog. Thinking of his story, made me think of Sara Blakely and then Graham Walker. Dan Price cut his salary from $1 million/year to $70K and made $70K the minimum for any employee that worked at his company. Sara Blakely sold her business for more than $1 billion and gave every employee $10K cash and two first-class plane tickets anywhere.

Graham Walker sold his company for $1.7 billion and ensured $240 million of it went directly to his employees.

There are good companies led by brilliant people who make a very healthy profit and still manage to reward their employees.

Why aren't we celebrating them more? They seem more admirable and worthy of emulation than people who can't pay their employees a living while exploiting those employees' efforts for shareholder dividends *cough* Amazon *cough cough* Walmart.

According to Robert Reich, 87% of Amazon's employees and 91% of Wal-mart's employees make less than $20/hr. That's $41k/yr.

That doesn't seem like smart business. It seems like lazy, greedy business and borderline slave labor. If a CEO was that smart, you'd be able to build a sustainable business where your employees want to stay because they are valued and not exploited or forced to stay so they have health insurance.

Why is any business legally able to pay dividends to shareholders if their employees are on government assistance? Why is any business allowed to pay wages so low that someone working full-time can't afford to live on their own (I won't even get into the lack of "benefits" like healthcare, sick days, family leave, etc). Why is any board approving pay packages where a CEO makes 6,666 times the average employee (looking at you, Starbucks). And this one hurts. I've been a Starbucks member since 2009, Gold member until it's removal in 2019. I used to tell people it was my happy place. Ugh, I just can't anymore.

How stupid do we look (and are we acting) when we idolize these people for how outrageous and inhuman they become and worship at the alter of unchecked and unquestioned capitalism.

I believe in capitalism. I love free markets, but our markets are no longer free. Our markets no longer benefit the people of the economy. There are still good companies. Profitable on paper, provide quality goods and services to their customers, treat their employees with dignity and respect.

Nucor is a $40 billion dollar steel company whose factory works at times earn more than their management through production bonuses, actual meritocracy where contribution and effort is recognized financially. In 60 years, the company has never laid anyone off.

Why don't we admire these companies? I think we're too busy surviving, striving, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the new levels of obscene wealth that we're bombarded with in media as it's painted with wonder instead of disgust.

We're so used to "billionaire" being thrown around, do we really even comprehend it? A billionaire, at a minimum, $1,000,000,000, has the equivalent of 16,393 YEARS of the median American salary ($61K).

And they don't pay taxes. They don't contribute to roads and infrastructure, to education, to children's social services, and definitely not to healthcare.

We need to break up the monopolies and make small, local business viable again. Local communities should be able to support themselves. Everything in our lives should not be driven to the breaking point of absolute profit. Everything shouldn't come from or be owned by a conglomerate.

We need more business leaders interested in creating something to last. And we need a system that allows it.