What is great about Work, Wealth and Profit?
What is great about Work, Wealth and Profit?
I would suggest that all of these actions are worthy,
and indeed essential for the common good of people and society.
For from work, we obtain wages, and we are able to
provide food and shelter.
Usually, in the rich countries our wages can also provide
us with comparative luxuries such as fashion clothes, cars and holidays.
With our wealth, we can enjoy a comfortable
lifestyle, and luxury blessings beyond the vast majority of the world’s comprehension.
And with profit, as in what remains from sales after
all the costs and taxes, we can pay ourselves ‘dividends’ or invest in the
growth of our enterprise.
Wages
However, when the world goes wrong, we can see examples
of CEOs earning multiples of 100x or higher than the lowest paid staff member. We also see examples of bonus incentives that
result in multi-million pound pay-outs.
How can this be right where workers on minimum wage
do not get to share in the success of the business, and struggle to pay for a
reasonable standard of living.
Especially when compared to the excessive pay of the Board and other senior
executives.
One of the causes of this has been the appointment of
golf-club chums to the Executive pay board.
And as a ‘quid pro quo’ the appointment of Directors onto the boards of
their golf chums companies. It is no
wonder that each executive pay board recommends obscene rewards to their golf-club
buddies,
There is an argument that every PLC should have a maximum
multiple pay differential of say 10 or 20, and that bonuses should be tied to
company performance say in 10 year time. And would it be great if there was a major adjustment
dependent on customer satisfaction and staff satisfaction and staff reward.
Short term performance bonuses tend to skew short-term
behaviour which is not always good for the medium to long term health of a
company, its’ shareholders and staff.
Wealth
I remember so well a close friend, who was a
successful financier, quoting the passage from the Bible about the love of
money being the root of all evil. This
is so true, and a belief he shared with me.
To the above, I would like to add the consumption of
excessive show-off assets such as super-yachts, multi-million pound parties.
Both of these charges can be laid on Sir Phillip
Green, and plenty of others.
If one’s wealth is so vast that it needs Accountants
and tax advisors to maximum the returns, and also tax havens and trust funds so
as to legally evade paying what the ‘man in the street’ would call the fair
amount of tax, then maybe this behaviour is indeed driven by the love of money.
Yes. I can see how spreadsheets are useful to assess
the value of your net worth, but what is your driver ? Maybe it would be useful to have this
spreadsheet as your 2nd page, and the 1st page could be ‘giving’
spreadsheet and the plans which you have to benefit the poor.
Wealth. in the right hands, can be so beneficial to
society. We just have to consider Bill
and Melinda Gates, and how they have invested their blessings. They have recognized that simply holding
wealth into the many £bns is worthless, and indeed would be strangling their
children’s drive and energy to succeed.
Profit
Profit is good (often)
We can think of so many craftsmen or small-scale
fishermen, that work for the benefit of obtaining a surplus/profit to enable
their families to be fed.
However, if the simple small scale fisherman then
bought a large industrial fishing vessel, then OK the yield and profit may
increase, but he could also destroy the natural fish stock levels in his lake,
and cause medium to long term damage to so many families in his community.
The same profit incentive drove the multi billion
pound owners of the Italian fashion houses to look for a cheaper source of
labour for their designer wear, where they could obtain $1,000 for a skirt in
the USA, but where Italien wages meant that the profit was only $950 per
skirt. These mega-wealthly Italian families
settled on a cheap supply of labour in China, where at minimal wages, they
could pollute the Wuhan rivers and countryside, and also increase their profits
to $980 per skirt.
Over the years, Wuhan became the supplier of designer
Italian goods that were dressed up with branding and sucker advertising.
And this was how a deadly virus transferred from a
previously un-heard of part of China into Europe.
All driven by the pursuit of excessive profits.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the World reset with a system
that paid fair living wages, that encouraged generosity, and where business
decisions were made on the basis of the long term benefit to everyone.
Love and Peace
Please see the collection of musings by Control and
clicking the link below.
The Bible, where many of society values still come
from, makes references to many good reasons why these 3 emotive words can be
extremely beneficial.
I listed below some of the texts, which I hope that
you find useful.
Work-
Proverbs
13:4
The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the
diligent is richly supplied.
2. Thessalonians
3:7-8
We were not idle when we
were with you, . . . but with toil and labor we worked night and
day, that we might not be a burden to any of you.
1.Thessalonions 2:9
You remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day,
that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the
gospel of God.
Wealth-
Matthew 6:19-21
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and
where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your
heart will be also.
“No one can serve two masters, for
either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the
one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money
For the love of money is a root of all
kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from
the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
He who loves money will not be
satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is
vanity.
Profit-
Luke 19:11-27
The Parable of the Gold Coins
This is the story of a wealthy master who gave his 10
servants a gold coin each, and said ‘see what you can earn while I am away’
The point is this: whoever sows
sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap
bountifully.
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