CEO says COVID gave us bad habits, prescribes unemployment of 40-50%
CEO says COVID gave us bad habits, prescribes unemployment of 40-50%
Property developer and CEO Tim Gurner: "We need to see unemployment rise. Unemployment has to jump 40, 50 percent in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around."
Counterpoint: maybe he needs to learn that he'd be nothing without the backs of the workers for him to stand on.
Just want to clear the record and say that every business owner thinks this, it's just that this jackass has the stupidity to say it out loud. They don't want to pay more, which has become a necessity since the pandemic due to low unemployment rates. By having a larger labor pool, they can cut wages to take advantage of people's desperation.
Hi there, business owner here. I wouldn’t dare to think this about my employees as they drive our business forward. I’m also a huge proponent of working from home (1 day in the office is nice, but not mandatory). I also try to compensate them and cut them in on our profits - before I take my own cut mind you. Happy workers = better productivity.
This is the "Millenials eat too much avocado toast" guy. He lives on rage bait and generating headlines.
Yeah I'm not giving this guy a second thought. He's just an idiot
Yeah, I was like "Tim Gurner? Where have I heard this name before?"
This is the guy that made the original avocado toast comment. He is prime eat the rich material of ever there was any.
This is the guy? Doesn't he know avocados grow on trees?
He should see what we did to the czars and repeat himself.
For everyone saying "A 50% increase in unemployment would only take us from 3.8% to 5.7%, that's not bad" keep in mind that 37,000 people die for every 1% increase in unemployment. This man is essentially wishing for the deaths of 70,000 americans.
Edit: just realized he's probably talking about Australia from his accent. Not sure about the numbers for Australia on unemployment deaths, but I imagine the point should still stand.
Yes, deaths, but also wishing for poverty and misery. What a humane soul.
keep in mind that 37,000 people die for every 1% increase in unemployment. This man is essentially wishing for the deaths of 70,000 americans.
Wait really? How?
Economic instability has been found to increase overall mortality, infant deaths, fatalities from cardiovascular disease, cirrhosis, suicide, and homicide as well as morbidities, alcoholism and admissions to mental hospitals. M Harvey Brenner has publications studying the phenomenon going all the way back to the 50s if you're interested in the scientific literature.
Probably suicide or stress related
37,000 people die for every 1% increase in unemployment
This is a made up figure from the movie The Big Short, it isn't an actual figure, lmao.
Also, this is about Australia.
No, the number comes from a macroeconomics text book written by Gregory Mankiw and its based on research by Harvey Brennan studying the correlation since the 1950s.
We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around
This angers me. If it wasn't for employees many employers be living in a box under the turnpike, because shit doesn't get done by wishful thinking alone.
He does not understand economics.
He is a “Property Developer”. In his “perfect world” of employees working 16 hour days and not getting paid, that also means that half of the rental homes do not have tenants, half of small businesses in shopping centres don’t have customers and half of all his “Developed Properties” are empty.
He is just a Fuckwit who was given a silver spoon and doesn’t actually comprehend how reality works.
We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around.
Employment is a mutually-beneficial agreement. I pity whoever has that CEO as a boss that thinks so lowly of their subordinates. We need to remind employers that they also depend on their employees.
Keep in mind that “jump 40-50%” is not the same as “unemployment at 40-50%”…your headline is sensationalist (or just a misunderstanding of the numbers). This guy’s take is still absurd, regardless.
Absurdly evil af.
Right? A 50% increase of current levels puts at like 5% which is not crazy still
Holy shit what an actual psychopath
I heard "Let them eat cake."
Both in the sense that this is a bullshit thing to say, and in the sense that this is the sort of thing that, if misquoted, could get innocent (at least of saying something like that) people hurt.
I hear it more as "Let them eat cock", there's no implication of naiveté in his statement, just malice.
This goes right into my spreadsheet of examples how winning at capitalism does not require much intelligence or foresight. In fact, too much of either hurts your chances.
All it requires is an incredible amount of egocentrism and a dash of psychopathy.
Not true! You also have to be significantly lucky. I've met plenty of egocentric psychopaths who are stuck in small-time hustles and utterly pissed about it.
Not agreeing with the sentiment, but your title is wrong, OP. He didn't say unemployment should be 40-50%. He said it should increase by 40-50%, which equates to a move from 3.8% to 5.7%
Can we start with the CEOs?
About 40-50% culling of management would hopefully lead to a more sustainable system.
Their relentless hunt for profits is damaging every ecosystem they enter.
He needs to see pain in his life.
Tim is literally a freeloader making money off of other people's labor... scum. . .
He isn't even self made. His grandfather gave him a loan and his boss supported him in his initial start
I'm pretty sure even Adam fucking Smith would think he's a bastard.
Does he really not understand that employers make their money from their employees?
He got his start with a loan from his grandfather and with extensive support from his boss
No, you see, employers just give employees jobs out of the goodness of their hearts. And that's why we need to worship them. All hail the "job creators", who don't at all lay off thousands and thousands of their employees the second they're no longer needed (like we've seen happen in tech tons this year).
So like, how would one go about trying to figure out where this guy lives?
If I see this fuckwit in the street I’m laying him out.
So I guess that means corporations are actually hoping for a recession so they can "tighten the belt" and fire some workers and the remaining ones will work extra hard to make up the difference. Again.
The beatings will continue until
moraleproductivity improves.Edit: Sorry, morale is irrelevant.
No, that's completely wrong.
He said it should go UP by 40-50% ie about 6% - which is still low by Australian standards.
Unemployment averaged 8% in the 1980s and 10% in the 1990s.
Okay but increasing unemployment is meant to do exactly what this petty oligarch wants: discipline labor, preventing workers (that's us) from eking out a little more from a very lopsided economic system.
Marx referred to the unemployed aa the reserve army of labor for capital. The bourgeois use it to say: "Want safer conditions? Enough money to pay rent and go to the doctor? Tough shit, there are hundreds of people I can call on to take your job."
The unemployment rate is carefully curated by the capitalist class to prevent low rates and their worst nightmare, full employment.
He is free to stop hiring if he thinks that way. If unemployment jumps it's because business is in the shitter.
Counterpoint: Guillotines
A 1% increase is associated with 37000 additional deaths. 40% unemployment would be classicide.
Not to defend this PoS but I think he means a 40% increase to unemployment, as in if unemployment is at 10% he thinks it should be 14%.
US unemployment rate is 3.8% as of August, so this guy is calling for roughly 70k people to die so that he can get back to his power fantasy and his pesky employees will stop having uncomfortable conversations with him about petty grievances like "feeding their families" and "keeping a roof over their head"
Engineering manager here: I am very lucky to have my team, I need them more than they need me, and I think anyone saying otherwise is fooling themselves.
Who's taking bets on how long until this guy's head is left in a box for another billionaire to open?
What's in the box, Elon?
He is a fucking Property Developer. That is the definition of someone who doesn’t actually do any real work.
I don't know what parallel universe this idiot is living in but nothing has changed over here. People know they work for an employer, we sure as hell know the employer doesn't give a rat's arse about their employees, we'd like them to, but we know they don't.
What's he on about?
Anyway he's a property developer so I think that perhaps his opinion is somewhat biased, and therefore should be ignored.
Or maybe it’s really just time to eat the rich?
Yeah, let's see how many of these guys survive when unemployment is at 50% and people are starving and desperate.
"Eat the rich" will become a much more literal rallying cry.
Wow that guy looks like a creep
Big Fight Club moment.
The Fed and the federal government will give him exactly what he wants.
He'd go well with some rosé wine and sauteéd onions on the side.
🧐🍽🍴🔪
The bourgeoisie are class conscious and act in their own interest. We should do the same.
