Banker Leaves 1% Tip On $133 Lunch Bill In Defiance of 'The 99%'

[cichlisuite]

i agree with mr rutherford.

 

i don't like the attitude that working as a stock broker/corporate lawyer/accountant/whatever is contributing to society any more than a chef or a waitress. the attitude of "get a job and contribute to society" is b.s. to me in a lot of ways as there are heaps of "legitimate" jobs that are detrimental to society. most businesses treat society and its citizens as a pretty little girl that can be manipulated into handing out more cash than the actual service or good is worth. we like to call this "profit"

Agree with you both. It's a stone-age cave mentality. It's a shame people think that being technologicaly advanced makes us any better or higher-evolved. It's the consciousness that needs to advance as well. If you are a wealthy lawyer/banker/whatever and pay a below-minimum wage to someone who cleans your office is nothing more than having a slave society. And all this shit about genetics and natural selection and whatnot is there only to motivate/inspire people to become another generation of slave owners and buy into the cult of money. Because, frankly, no one wants to work for a minimum wage. Some people must realize that without other fields of work (being that a garbage man, an office cleaner, construction worker, etc) their life as it is now, would never exist.

[eugene]

you've picked yourselves an easy and (currently) hateful target - banker/broker/whatev. how about doctors ? should they be getting the same hourly wage as waiters ?

[goDel]

Will I go to hell if I actually thought there was some irony in the whole "+Tip: GET A REAL JOB" thing? It was a tip. A potentially life altering tip. Worth a lot more than the entire meal.

 

People can be so sheepishly materialistic sometimes. On one side they're going: the world would be so much better without money. And the next the very same people go: he only paid a 1% tip!!!!!

 

The outrage.

[goDel]

I think it's just a silly argument. Jobs like waiters and picking up garbage are generally jobs anybody can do. There's hardly any prerequisites. If you're a trained MD you can put drinks on a table. And if you're an english teacher as well. But curing or teaching people require a specific set of tools not everyone has or can acquire. So, less people are there to do the job. Add some simple economic theory, and you have people making more money doing those kinds of jobs.

 

Is WATMM turning into some communist outback of the internet?

[eugene]

depends on the doctor. some are state employees working for a specific cause and get paid far less than a private MD who gets extra cash for pushing meds on people that might not need them. obviously there's a middle ground there, i'm just illustrating the extremes. i think that if a doctor is allowed their own title of "Dr." in front of their name, then there's a lot of other professions that deserve the same recognition.

 

GoDel - just because people think money is a problem doesn't mean they don't live in a society that is controlled by it. do you want us to burn all our money and hope for the best? that'd be like saying anarchists can't complain about the president or congress.

dr. in front of the name implies some serious academic education most of the time.

i just wanted to push it a bit further, without getting stuck on particulars. basically the question is how do you come up with a just/sensible wage for different professions ?

[goDel]

that'd be like saying anarchists can't complain about the president or congress.

 

Well, to some extent that would be a good thing. A true anarchist should cut all ties he/she has to society and start his/her own anarchistic society instead of complaining while still making use of all the things society gives him (roads, electricity, clean water...).

 

If you want to have change, you contribute and take part. Complaining is what kids do. When they're still dependent on their parents.

[goDel]

i don't think the argument is saying that everyone deserves the same pay. i think the argument is more that it is unbalanced, but this is in the eye of the beholder.

I agree more than my posts are showing. But the thing is, arguments are often so general that things are easily stretched to imply just a lot of silly stuff. Even if clearly not intended. And yes, that's where I love to enter. All these general points on society, bankers, financial institutions. And the obvious elephant in the room is the inability of government to properly regulate the market. Especially in the US. As far as I'm concerned, the entire society was to blame for the '08 crash.

 

The fact the a banker is giving a 1% tip is newsworthy is completely bonkers in and of itself. The banker, or anyone, is free to give whatever he/she wants. If waiters don't make enough money, this banker is not the one to blame.

[Squee]

I actually thought this was kind of funny.

[Friendly Foil]

At least the server is actually working, and not just sitting on his/her ass all day long in a fancy office looking serious and twiddling thumbs.. fucking rich pricks.

[goDel]

and i don't agree that the "entire" society was to blame for what happened back in '08. really? everyone? even widdle kids and people in comas? even if it were true, i'd have to say that some people were a lot more responsible for what happened than just your average trader joe.

 

Perhaps an example is at place. Lets say the argument is about companies exporting all kinds of jobs the China, for example. So, obviously those companies are the ones to blame right?

Wrong! Take a couple of jeans manufacturers. One which which makes their jeans entirely in the US and the other in China for about 1/10th of the cost of making them in the US. Which jeans would you expect "society" would buy? The expensive one which is entirely made in the US? Or the cheap ones made in China? In the end the cheap jeans would far outsell the more expensive ones.

 

It's pretty easy to blame companies for just about anything. But those companies do just about anything to please their consumers to give them the cheapest goods possible.

 

So with one hand we're pointing fingers to those awful companies, but with the other we pick the cheap stuff fabricated in China and confirm their awful policies. In a way it's the competition which drives them to do all those silly things. And society (and government) is as much part in that competition as those companies are.

 

Same holds for the financial markets. Although regulation is much more important here. And where there's regulation, there are voters. In a way the entire society is to blame for badly regulated markets. I know it's a stretch. But putting the blame on financial institutions in general can be argued to be a stretch in and of itself.

 

Somewhere a playing field has been defined, and the competition between the various players force them to optimize their strategies. Competition is usually enforced by the consumers. Society. And the playing field is defined by governments. Institutions which represent society.

[goDel]

in the case of that example, i don't blame consumers for wanting the cheaper jeans. for starters, the market is so saturated with goods made in china and india most of us literally have no choice beyond going to a specialist and the difference in the cost is insane - proper "american" made jeans would cost so much more in comparison that most people would not be able to afford them without perhaps dipping into their savings or making cutbacks of some sort.

 

Well, yeah, the current market is perhaps saturated. But the point is about the process by which the market became saturated with foreign fabricated goods. And putting the full blame on the companies is in my opinion not taking the full (his)story into account. There are a lot of decision makers involved. And they can be roughly put in three groups: consumers, companies and governments. All of them taking part in the blame.

 

For instance Foxconn in China and it's government defining the local playing field for running such a company. There are lots of decision makers involved. Apple is certainly not the only one to blame. Consumers and governments play as much a role in the entire process.

 

Take note that I don't say companies are innocent. I'm only saying they don't take the full blame.

 

and the companies that decide to exploit workers in those countries are not innocent and i don't buy into them doing it out of respect for the consumer's wallet - if that were the case they would not make such an obscene profit off each pair of jeans sold. the markup on an item of clothing that cost less than 50c to make should not be anywhere near as much as it is but levi's must love me so much - that's why i have to fork out $20 just for the right to have cheap jeans.

 

I'm not sure if I can follow your reasoning here, but the average consumer picks the cheapest price with he/she thinks/feels would be a reasonable price. If a company decides to go cheaper, consumers tend to doubt the quality of said goods. But this is going more to nitpicking a silly detail which is not really relevant for the point. Which is: the consumer decides which product he/she consumes. The company plays to these decisions. And not necessarily out of respect, or anything. Don't know where that came from.

 

plus by sending jobs overseas they're also sending money that should be going towards the US overseas as well. in this case, the consumer is not to blame. at the very least these people you're blaming are just ignorant, and they can't be blamed for something they don't know about. this is different from properly knowing and understanding the ramifications of cheap, quasi-slave labour and still buying into it.

Of course. And this is usually the point where government enters the playing field. Or rather, the defining of the playing field. Just like you're going to say...

 

i do agree that if we're going to have a system like this, regulation is key to keeping things in order. but try telling that to the republicunts that run your congress.

 

Voted by society. And we're back at square one.

[eugene]

depends on the doctor. some are state employees working for a specific cause and get paid far less than a private MD who gets extra cash for pushing meds on people that might not need them. obviously there's a middle ground there, i'm just illustrating the extremes. i think that if a doctor is allowed their own title of "Dr." in front of their name, then there's a lot of other professions that deserve the same recognition.

 

GoDel - just because people think money is a problem doesn't mean they don't live in a society that is controlled by it. do you want us to burn all our money and hope for the best? that'd be like saying anarchists can't complain about the president or congress.

dr. in front of the name implies some serious academic education most of the time.

i just wanted to push it a bit further, without getting stuck on particulars. basically the question is how do you come up with a just/sensible wage for different professions ?

there's plenty of other professions that require "serious academic education". and why should that be any more respected than someone who makes exceptional art, music, films or whatever? like i said, these things are in the eye of the beholder.

and yes, "how do you come up with a just/sensible wage for different professions"? this would be something for the public at large to figure out, not a select few posters on a message board.

getting art makers into this discussion is kinda cheating, their produce is a purely "in the eye of the beholder" thing. doctors' or waiters' service/produce is much more concrete, and so are the qualifications and education required to perform those jobs. basically what i don't understand is why you still haven't mentioned that effort involved (mental or physical) and skill should be rewarded accordingly and instead you keep on juggling concepts like "respect".. i don't really expect an academic explanation, just the basic ruling concepts guiding you. i don't think that you should disrespect a human being based on his occupation, but i don't see a problem with grading various occupations. hierarchy is not such a horrible thing when the means of advancing on it are open.

[Guest boo]

people spend serious amounts of money in fancy restaurants. it's definitely a career that you can progress in. it's possible to earn fuckloads from being a waiter or sommelier.

[eugene]

getting art makers into this discussion is kinda cheating, their produce is a purely "in the eye of the beholder" thing. doctors' or waiters' service/produce is much more concrete, and so are the qualifications and education required to perform those jobs. basically what i don't understand is why you still haven't mentioned that effort involved (mental or physical) and skill should be rewarded accordingly and instead you keep on juggling concepts like "respect".. i don't really expect an academic explanation, just the basic ruling concepts guiding you. i don't think that you should disrespect a human being based on his occupation, but i don't see a problem with grading various occupations. hierarchy is not such a horrible thing when the means of advancing on it are open.

first off, i'm not disrespecting them based on his/her occupation and once again i want to stress that i'm not suggesting all jobs are equal...that's not the argument here. my basic argument was that i feel some occupations are rewarded too greatly, while others are paid far too poorly. there is a basic inequality present.

 

it was an abstract "you", it was just my opinion, not directed at anyone in particular.

so what occupations are rewarded too greatly and which ones too poorly, and why ?

and i didn't understand that part about inequality, plz explain.

 

sorry for "interrogating" but this is just too interesting of a topic..

[goDel]

fair enough, but that goes back to my point about ignorance. you're talking about a society that has been tricked into voting republican by being distracted with empty buzzwords / terms like "family values".

 

Let me put my point differently: by putting the blame more on companies, or governments even, and putting society in the victim-seat, its ignorance is simply being encouraged. It's just a different way of saying: yeah society is ignorant, and it is supposed to be. Being part of a society involves no responsibilities.

 

Personally, I'm tired about these endless discussions about naming scapegoats. When the discussion should be about taking responsibility. Be it the responsibilities of companies, governments or the people on the street. All played a part in the '08 collapse. If banks didn't play by the rules, they should be forced back into the playing field. If the playing field wasn't working optimal, government should work a little harder. If the people on the street were ignorant in what they bought, or more important perhaps, who they voted to define/control the playing field (being the market, or better, the playing field of democracy itself) they should act less ignorant.

 

Occupying Wallstreet was just a beginning. It was an expression of the sentiments in society, imo. And that brings us back to the point about complaining citizens. Complaining as an instrument to achieve change only gets you a certain distance. Outside of the parent-child relationship complaining never gets you to the goal.

 

So the whole deal about "banks should suffer the consequences for their actions" is IMO just another way of saying "we the people are poor victims. we're ignorant. and we're supposed to be ignorant. it's all your fault. we take no responsibility in the way things turn out the way they did".

 

It's true that people suffer from consequences of which they personally had no direct influence (for instance the lack of jobs). But the underlying causes are always bigger than just "it's the companies exporting all the jobs, silly". The sentiment is understandable. But putting the blame on companies won't solve anything, and in a way is a continuation of the ignorance of society.

[goDel]

Well, I guess I fail at getting my point across. So there. I give up.

[danshoebridge]

Will I go to hell if I actually thought there was some irony in the whole "+Tip: GET A REAL JOB" thing? It was a tip. A potentially life altering tip. Worth a lot more than the entire meal.

 

People can be so sheepishly materialistic sometimes. On one side they're going: the world would be so much better without money. And the next the very same people go: he only paid a 1% tip!!!!!

 

The outrage.

 

The thing that really pissed me off with this story was actually his 'tip', not the money. Having worked both in service and now a higher-up professional job, telling someone they're not doing a 'real' job is the calling card of a guy who is clearly an enormous bellend.

 

If this guy thinks waitressing isn't a real job, what the fuck is he doing going to a restaurant? I spoke to a guy recently who made his money as an entrepeneur, he had some bizarre randian mindset that taxes, government etc were immoral, and in a perfect world, EVERYONE would be doing his job, making money off everyone else (with 'the weak', I dunno, starved to death or something). These people don't realise that in order for them to make (and spend) their enormous amounts of money, they require a wider society, with people doing all sorts of 'lower' jobs, including waitressing.

[eugene]

i guess the argument is more "how can you measure worth?".

it's really more of a belief thing than something that can be proven with a set list of reasons. another one of those "in the eye of the beholder" things. lets just say that there are some people with such obscene amounts of money that you cannot possibly say they deserve all of it...is it a moral or ethical thing? effort and work can't directly be translated into a finite, set scale. this sort of goes back to my point that money is ultimately worthless without the value that we as humans attach to it.

 

if you really want i could sit here all night and type out a list of what jobs i consider over / under paid but it's really just down to my own personal opinion.

well i don't feel like questioning your beliefs but the bolded part is quite problematic i think, is that also a gut feeling/belief that some people are undeserving of their wealth ?

just give a few examples, maybe some pattern will come up.

[goDel]

I think the first disagreement is in what actually caused the crash. The second might be on which parts of the equation suffered the most (companies/consumers/governments). In the EU it's perhaps a bit more obvious all sides suffer. In Greece it's even more obvious the people suffer way more than companies/governments. But I wouldn't say the same holds in general.

[goDel]

as far as i'm concerned, occupy is one massive complaint!

 

That's exactly how I see it, btw. The complaining point was a general point, not specifically pointed at you or anyone on this forum. And yes, this means that I'm not exactly proud of what the Occupy movement has achieved. To put it that way.

 

Apart from what happens in the middle east. But I think that's an entirely different movement, although some occupiers might argue differently.

[Hugh Mughnus]

Anyways I don't believe it takes a particular genius to foresee that if you don't want to work at mcdonalds or deliver pizzas when you're 37 years old, you have to work hard early in life. Isn't it a complex iteration of natural selection that resolves some to work these jobs at these ages and complain about it on their twitter pages where they have 6 followers?

 

Don't take any of that post seriously. I just like to troll.

 

you're actually completely right

 

no, you are completely fucking wrong. you think the person that works 80 hour weeks but makes less money than a stock broker didn't work hard enough? im so fucking angry at the first statement and your agreement with the statement that im about to fucking cum pure seething rage...i can't answer this right now...ill be back later after i cool down.

 

How is that wrong? A person works these jobs as a result of the choices they make throughout life. If your environment does not permit opportunities you must change your environment. If you don't have the foresight to educate yourself and utilize what your environment has to offer or change your environment, you end up in the job you deserve.

 

I'm not saying what was written on the receipt was right, to the contrary it's BS and I would not do that myself.

 

But yeah, the person working 80hrs a week in the service industry didn't work hard enough or lacked some intrinsic intelligence or ability to get an adequate job that pays well. They're doing what they need to to get by, I understand that. But it's completely ridiculous to think oh, these people should be paid extremely well since they had to take a serving job by default because they either didn't make it through university or didn't study in high school and inherently have no real skills to offer the world.

 

Truth hurts. If the system is corrupt and everyone knows it, leave the fucking system behind and move somewhere else.

[Hugh Mughnus]

For the couple thousand corrupt managers, lawyers, politicians et-al you are complaining about, there are millions of people that have worked extremely hard to get where they are and earn those 400k/annum salaries. And for some reason they should suffer some sort of lashings because the popular media has the sheeple thinking everyones corrupt?

 

It's absolute BS.

 

If a person has worked their ass off to get where they are why should they feel guilty for collecting a large paycheque when their colleagues don't and instead they're content to steal company time, call in sick for no reason, stand around when their boss is not looking, etc?

[Hugh Mughnus]

And your original comment about the stock broker? Yeah, he works hard too you know, theres a lot of risk involved with playing the markets.

 

If it was so fucking easy, why doesn't buddy boy the waiter head over and do the same job?

 

Oh right, it takes 4-10 years of post secondary education that first you need to have good grades in high school for. Oh right, on top of the education, you need to be able to handle the stress and risk of essentially betting away millions of dollars a day. Oh right, you need to work extremely long hours on and off company time, assessing the market, the environment, and the people in it to understand how the market might shift.

 

But of course, any joe-blow serving me a fucking toasted sandwich that they may or may not have spit on since they are so bitter at the world should make the same amount as the stock broker, since there is literally no pre-requisites to getting one of those jobs.

 

That makes a lot of sense.

 

I admire your sense of reality.

[goDel]

For the people having some interest in the bankers point of view, the following blog might be interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/voices-of-finance

and this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/joris-luyendijk-banking-blog

 

A good example of how journalism should be done, imo: well researched articles instead of the opinionated garbage which is sold so often nowadays. (and consumed by the ignorant...)

[goDel]

 

 

So, how can bankers live with themselves?

 

Many bankers see themselves as part of a global elite – spaceship finance – with little sense of national belonging

So what would you like to know about bankers, I like to ask people, and most answer: how can they live with themselves? How can bankers take home those salaries and bonuses when the rest of us are facing austerity and very painful cuts in public services?

 

 

A little while ago I put this to a financial recruiter. I'll call him Philippe. Philippe is working with the well-paid bankers everyone else seems so angry with. They come to him when they want to move to a new job, or he poaches them on behalf of banks or financial firms. Being at the high end of the industry he has extensive conversations with clients about their motives, fears and ambitions.

So how can they live with themselves?

"They feel unjustly singled out", said Philippe. "What I hear is: look, nobody would run a bank with the intention of wrecking it, would they? Banks lent to people who couldn't repay. But nobody forced these people to take out loans that they must have known were far beyond their means. Banks may have been enablers, but in the end it was reckless individuals who did this. But what politician is going to blame this crisis on his voters, some of who must have been among the reckless borrowers? Much easier to heap it all on the bankers."

This is a common refrain in the City, where people like to compare themselves to "over-enthusiastic waiters", in the recent words of one CEO.

"Then again", Philippe continued, "many of my clients simply don't seem to care a whole lot about what the general public think. These are extremely well-educated and multilingual professionals. Many are in mixed marriages with kids who have lived on two or three continents. These people don't belong anywhere and don't feel beholden to any national project. They want to pay as little in tax as they can, and they want to be safe. That's it. Rule of law is very important for them.'

This chimes with many interviews I've done. As one partner in a major UK financial law firm put it: '"When I go to these banks I am struck by how international they are. On each division there's the 'token Brit' but often that's it. The rest can be from anywhere."

That's London and those are Philippe's clients. They sound almost like the crew of "spaceship finance", don't they? The ship happens to have landed in London for now, but can take off any time. Philippe said: "A highly educated professional in the City of London has much more in common with a peer in Hong Kong, New York City or Rio de Janeiro, than with a monolingual, mono-cultural teacher or nurse somewhere up in Birmingham or Manchester. Solidarity for the new global elite is not geography-based or tied up with a state."

Knowing this was for the Guardian, he added with a mischievous smile: "This is where the left seems lost. It insists on solidarity across the nation, with higher tax rates for rich people to help their less fortunate countrymen. But this solidarity is predicated on a sense of national belonging, to which the left is allergic; national identity comes with chauvinism and nationalism, and creepy rightwing supremacists. It's quite ironic how postmodernists and many contemporary social thinkers on the left will tell you that all sense of belonging is a construct, tradition is invented and nations are simply fantasies or imagined communities. Well, the global financial elite agrees."