Oh so that's how you don't pay taxes!

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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>Yeah work kid work....work doign what you love and one day...one day you may get a job!

That's what I did. Worked for free for years on everything from stage lighting to flight simulators to some of the early NuBUS specifications.

What did you eat and how did you pay your rent for all those years while you were working for free?

Sounds like Bill went even further than I did with his free work, but my very first job was not a paid gig. I needed some sort of business experience so coming out of school (back when nickles had pictures of bees on them) I approached a Century 21 Real Estate office and offered to build a software application for them for free that they could use in their internal office. What I gave them was not sophisticated and after leaving them after a few months I wonder if they even used it. But it was just the sort of experience I needed to help myself land my first real job (which by itself was a bit of a joke compared to what I went on to build later in my career). How did I feed myself? The same way I did when I was in school. As far as I was concerned I was still in school when I did this free work.

I don't agree with everything Bill has to say on these forums, but from what I have read in this thread, he is spot on 100% correct. People need to stop thinking that they are entitled to a massive salary. You only get the massive salary when you can stand out above everyone else and prove to the company that you are worth the extra compensation. Business is not in business to employ people. That is only a by-product. Business is in business to make money. When they need people to help them make money they will hire them. But if a business can cut x% of their work force and still maintain the same production levels then that is a sign these workers who were cut were not productive.

Knock yourselves out on this thread people. I have a task to do today and I am already behind because I came here instead of doing what I needed to do.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[shah269 0]

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And the biggest reason is the consumers want cheaper products.

BTW, companies don't pay taxes the consumers pay it. Because companies pass that cost on to the consumer. So if you raise taxes on companies they just raise the price of their products.

Yeah we did it to ourselves. WELL i guess we can all just work for free and hope one day we get a real job.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[Remster 24]

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Higher dividends right?

Many feel that when a company starts paying out dividends, it's them admiring you can do more with the money than they can.

Remster

[billvon 2,435]

>What is unemployment?

The fact that some people are unemployed. You mean what's the number? Around 9%.

>OK now look at demand?

Demand is such that unemployment is 9%.

>And now look at worker productivity.

Pretty high overall.

>Yes the first 10% is great! That's fat, but the second and third waves...you start cutting
>deeper and due to the economic conditions . . .

At some point your productivity goes down, and at that point you start suffering. That's the tradeoff all companies make.

>And no you don't need a huge organization to demonstrate power. It's all about
>meeting Wall street projections and keeping the company profitable and spitting out
>dividends. But most importantly not paying any taxes.

Yep, those are all parts of running a successful business - making as much money as possible, keeping your shareholders happy and spending as little money as possible.

[mircan 0]

OK. I get it now. Internship is related (mostly) to students. It is mandatory for our students to get some internship time in order to graduate.

From this post I understood that when you finish your college, you have to work for free some time to maybe/maybe not get a job.
I payed for most of my school by myself so I so I had a problem with this concept. I mean, you have to live of something while you are doing internship.
If you are not getting paid, you have to work anoter job, or you could still be at a college or you could live with your parents. You have to eat somehow.

But if you don`t do internship as a college kid, what are your options after you graduate? Eight hours a day doing internship, then flipping burgers for eight more and do that for couple of years. And then after couple of years of internship you can maybe get a job? Did I get it right?

dudeist skydiver #42

[billvon 2,435]

>From this post I understood that when you finish your college, you have to work for
>free some time to maybe/maybe not get a job.

That's one option, yes.

>I mean, you have to live of something while you are doing internship.
>If you are not getting paid, you have to work anoter job.

Also yes, that's one way to do it.

>But if you don`t do internship as a college kid, what are your options after you
>graduate? Eight hours a day doing internship, then flipping burgers for eight more and
>do that for couple of years. And then after couple of years of internship you can
>maybe get a job? Did I get it right?

That's one way to do it, although I have never heard anything that extreme (or that formalized). More often it's a lot less formal, like working a lousy government engineering job while helping out at a friend's company on a really cool project. After a few months the new grad says "hey, I really like this work!" Cool project leader says "hey, this new grad is a pretty sharp kid!" New grad is hired.

Happens in engineering, business, sports - heck, even skydiving. There are people on world records who are paid well to be there, who get flown around the world and put in decent hotels and then paid to be on the jump and give people advice. Did they graduate from AFF, go to Dan BC and say "I want that job?" Nope. They spent years doing it for free, indeed often PAYING to be on big ways before they got the opportunity to do that.

Is that worth it for you? Maybe, maybe not. Up to you.

[mircan 0]

Ok. Got it. OP made it sound a lot worse.

Here, for that kind of work you also don`t get paid, but usually you get at least travel expenses (buss pass ) and lunch money (so that you can go to work and not starve in the process).

dudeist skydiver #42

[kelpdiver 2]

http://www.businessbuzzwordbingo.com/bbbingo.html

[shah269 0]

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Ok. Got it. OP made it sound a lot worse.

Here, for that kind of work you also don`t get paid, but usually you get at least travel expenses (buss pass ) and lunch money (so that you can go to work and not starve in the process).

My first internship in the US was $1k a month in pay.
My second internship was in Finland, $2k a month + a place to crash.

They got what they paid for.

My favorite part "Well if your parents are well off...."
Love that crap! The only way you can ever have this job is if your parents are well off enough for you to work at this job for free and then because of your parents we will give you this job....SUCK IT!

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Higher dividends right?

Many feel that when a company starts paying out dividends, it's them admiring you can do more with the money than they can.

It's far more accurate to say that the investor is seeking companies that can increase their net cash flow. This can be paid out in the form of dividends, used to acquire other companies, or to grow internally, and presumably be reflected in a higher stock price.

Merely increasing the dividend isn't necessarily good, if not sustainable. Nor is hoarding all of the cash and doing nothing with it.

[billvon 2,435]

>The only way you can ever have this job is if your parents are well off enough for
>you to work at this job for free and then because of your parents we will give you this
>job....SUCK IT!

Or if you want it badly enough to put up with an internship and wash dishes.

For people who don't want such a job, that's fine too.

[shah269 0]

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Merely increasing the dividend isn't necessarily good, if not sustainable. Nor is hoarding all of the cash and doing nothing with it.

Thought / questions.

But as more and more people retire and they start demanding higher returns on their 401k's aren't companies under ever increasing pressure to increase or maintain their dividends?

As such forcing companies to either find new sources of revenue or to increase their profit margin?

You know we may snipe at each other but this is anything but a straight forward issue. In a way we are our own worst enemy.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[kelpdiver 2]

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But as more and more people retire and they start demanding higher returns on their 401k's aren't companies under ever increasing pressure to increase or maintain their dividends?

uh, no. Dividends are not the only thing investors seek. Apple last paid a dividend in 1995...do you think its investors are upset?

[beowulf 1]

I think the bigger issues are when the Gov trys to manipulate or control a market, like the housing market.

[billvon 2,435]

>But as more and more people retire and they start demanding higher returns on their
>401k's aren't companies under ever increasing pressure to increase or maintain their
>dividends?

Yes!

>As such forcing companies to either find new sources of revenue or to increase their
>profit margin?

Yes, although that's nothing new - that's been going on ever since the free market came into being.

>You know we may snipe at each other but this is anything but a straight forward issue.
>In a way we are our own worst enemy.

Absolutely. Capitalism runs on greed. And while greed works well as a driver for capitalism, there are a great many problems with it. (Which is why all working capitalistic systems have a fair amount of regulation.)

[shah269 0]

kelpdiver, Bill stop arguing!

kelpdiver, Bill stop arguing!

Yes but now there is more pressure than before. More and more people are retiring and thus the pressure on the system has gotten greater and greater.

Yes? No?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[billvon 2,435]

>I think the bigger issues are when the Gov trys to manipulate or control a
>market, like the housing market.

Or like the anti-monopoly laws (regulating how companies can wield their power) or slavery laws (regulating labor) or environmental laws (regulating how much cost companies can pass on to others.) The government must take an active role in regulation of any economy. As always, some of that intervention works well (regulation of monopolies and labor) and some doesn't (housing market.)

[billvon 2,435]

>Yes but now there is more pressure than before.

There's more pressure now than during the Great Depression of 1929? Definitely not!

[beowulf 1]

Yes sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. They kind of threw out common sense when it came to the housing market.

[weekender 0]

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kelpdiver, Bill stop arguing!

kelpdiver, Bill stop arguing!

Yes but now there is more pressure than before. More and more people are retiring and thus the pressure on the system has gotten greater and greater.

Yes? No?

i do not think there is more pressure due to your reason. historically speaking when people retire they move from riskier securities, ie stocks to less risky fixed income products. such as bonds and notes. (real notes, not the ones you made up at the biggining of this thread, i say smiling).

so if there is more pressure its not coming from retirees. they tend to seek modest gains. i believe retail brokers refer to it as moving from "growth to income". so by your reasoning companies would feel less pressure to show greater gains since there would be less people seeking the higher risk stock securities.

"The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird."
John Frusciante

[kelpdiver 2]

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kelpdiver, Bill stop arguing!

Yes but now there is more pressure than before. More and more people are retiring and thus the pressure on the system has gotten greater and greater.

Shah, START LISTENING!

It's silly or ignorant to focus on dividends instead of total return. And even if we accepted the hypothesis that there are more people returning and 'more pressure' on the system, that hardly forces companies to do anything. They're going to seek growth because that's what companies do. They'll succeed or fail on their own merits, with retiree demands being essentially irrelevant.

Besides, if the numbers we hear about average retirement portfolios is true, they aren't really major stakeholders anyhow. The institutional investors (pensions) have the positions, not the retirees.

[Remster 24]

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Shah, START LISTENING!

You made a funny

Remster

[shah269 0]

OK so now, unlike say in the 80's you have these massive institutional pension programs jumping in and stating that a given market or a company MUST Provide a X amount of divined?

What I'm asking is simple, what forces companies to start downsizing and squeezing it's workforce and seeing "interesting" methods of skipping out on taxes.

Other than profit. I know it sounds nuts, but profit and risk go hand in hand. Right now from the looks of it more companies are taking greater risk to make greater profit off existing demands for goods and services.

So where is the push coming from?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[billvon 2,435]

>OK so now, unlike say in the 80's you have these massive institutional pension
>programs jumping in and stating that a given market or a company MUST Provide a X
>amount of divined?

There were ~250,000 pension plans covered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty program in 1980. By 2005, there were less than 80,000 qualified plans. So there are far, far fewer pension programs today - and there are far more 401k type plans for individuals.

So the 1980's were much worse in that respect.

>What I'm asking is simple, what forces companies to start downsizing and squeezing
>it's workforce and seeing "interesting" methods of skipping out on taxes.

Capitalism.

>Other than profit. I know it sounds nuts, but profit and risk go hand in hand.

That's exactly right. (So does failure and risk.)

[weekender 0]

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OK so now, unlike say in the 80's you have these massive institutional pension programs jumping in and stating that a given market or a company MUST Provide a X amount of divined?

What I'm asking is simple, what forces companies to start downsizing and squeezing it's workforce and seeing "interesting" methods of skipping out on taxes.

Other than profit. I know it sounds nuts, but profit and risk go hand in hand. Right now from the looks of it more companies are taking greater risk to make greater profit off existing demands for goods and services.

So where is the push coming from?

you have a great habit, as i mentioned over and over, of stating your personal opinions as fact. your reality does not match mine. i graduated school 20yrs ago and do not see any greater push for revenues than before. some have argued that our system of quarterly reporting causes short term decisions that are not beneficial over the long term. thats most likely true but is not new, so a mute point in relation to your argument.

companies have always looked to avoid taxes, thats much older than me. i again, do not see companies acting disproportionately different than they have in the past in respect to taxes.

I read balance sheets and value companies for a living. In my 20 years i have studied thousands and thousands of publicaly traded companies. i do not agree with your premise. there is no increased effort for profits or tax avoidance.

you make bold sweeping comments based on personal opinons then change the subject the moment someone points out your premise is flawed. in this thread alone its happened repeatedly. your hilarious but frustrating.

"The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird."
John Frusciante