Forum Post: Did I hear that right?

From my Blog Site, www.sailletales.com, where it was posted on Saturday:

Yesterday evening, while my wife watched the evening news, I was working my keyboard. At one point I heard her exclaim, and I went into our den to ask her what had happened. It had been another segment regarding the Occupy Wall Street Protest. She told me that Mayor Mike Bloomberg had been caught on camera, speaking ostensibly to the protesters, saying something to the effect of, “You’re working against your own interests – the one percent pays your salaries!”

Did I hear that right? Really?

I was taken with how well this illustrates the very basic divide between most working Americans and those who figure into that one percent. They actually believe that they pay the salaries of the people who work for them. It borders on seeing pay for employment as some kind of hand-out; crumbs tossed to the needy throngs by their gracious lords.

This is at the heart of the conservative, pro-business Republican lie. Mr. Mayor, the truth is, your workers pay their own salaries. Your customers are the source of the funds, not your own deep pockets. American workers either produce profits, or they don’t have a job. Workers expect that. It is reality.

Back in the day, when business was simply a concept of providing product to the demands of a market, the cost of providing that product included pay for workers. Satisfying the customer was the primary motivation and road to growth, not skimming as much short-term profit to divert into owner pockets as possible.

American workers rose to the demands of the market with amazing productivity and innovative solutions to market vagaries. Somewhere along the way, the proud one-percenters began begrudging their workers a decent standard of living: decent wages, healthcare and retirement. All of the things the owners and management enjoyed as a result of the workers productivity. Not as a result of God’s special blessing on those born into wealth, or those attaining great wealth. It has always been about the productivity of the workers. Jobs were added as market demand outstripped the production levels a company had enjoyed. More jobs meant more eventual profits.

At a point in our economic evolution, those people complaining about the class warfare promulgated by the protesters in Zucotti Park, decided that if they could wield their strength to cower politicians into revising or dumping protective legislation, their profits could be even larger. Forget about satisfying customers, the shift to satisfying shareholders took hold. It required several decades to put it all into place, and the results have made them richer than any group in history.

But there’s one thing they seem to have forgotten in their rush to grab the brass rings. The profit came from the workers and from satisfied customers. Fact: when the financial industry decided that a product no longer had to actually satisfy a customer’s needs, such as derivatives based on bundled, sub-prime debt or predatory lending or stock fraud; when they decided to bypass the time honored structures of creating profit through product innovation that serve a need (besides more profit for the top tier, that is…) they brought our entire Nation’s economy to its knees. They killed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. Further anger was fueled when no heads rolled. Justice was side-stepped. No wonder there are signs and protesters.

To billionaires, this basic argument may seem simplistic, but I believe it reveals just how completely disconnected the Bloombergs and the rest of the top tier are from the majority of us and from reality. A day’s pay for a day’s work is not magic. It is not charity. It is what drives America forward. Those of you who skim off the profits to amass huge wealth are not the ones who create it. You should be grateful. Get used to it. Believe it.