Christmas bonus stuns employees
By ANNE FITZGERALD
Register Agribusiness Writer
12/20/2003
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At a time when several U.S. corporate executives stand accused of enriching themselves by looting the companies that employ them, Iowan Harry Stine has demonstrated what type of executive he is.

Stine, the founder of Stine Seed Co. in Adel, informed his 270 employees recently that they would be receiving a Christmas bonus from the company. This would not be a holiday turkey or a box of candy.

Stine gave employees $1,000 for each year of service to his company - more than $1 million in all.

That figures out to an average check of about $4,000, but with some employees having worked for Stine for 15 to 20 years, some people's checks were quite substantial.

"This was Harry's decision," said Chuck Hansen, production manager and a vice president at Stine Seed. "We probably get more done with less people than a lot of companies, and this is his way of saying thank you."

Stine Seed is one of the largest privately held agricultural seed companies in the nation. The company controls the plant genetics that are the basis for half of the soybean seed sold in the Midwest - one of the largest soybean-producing markets in the world.

The family business and those 270 employees have made Stine among the wealthiest people in Iowa. He has donated millions of dollars to various causes, including his alma mater, McPherson College in Kansas.

Hansen said Stine's benevolence was based on his employees' loyalty and on the performance of a cluster of farming and agricultural businesses Stine owns.

"All of these people help me every day," Stine said. "So it's not a be-nice thing. It's just what should be done."

Stine announced the bonuses after the company's annual post-harvest luncheon, which was held last month at Stine Seed's Dallas County headquarters.

Employees sat in stunned silence after his announcement, said some who attended the event.

"He said that we're a can-do kind of people, that we work in the rain and the mud, and that he just appreciated our hard work," said Kelley Muir, 30, who went to work for Stine Seed seven years ago.

Muir was raised on a farm west of Stine Seed location, and she worked as a summer intern at the company. After graduating from South Dakota State University, she joined the company.

Muir said of her bonus of $7,000: "Most of it's just going to get tucked away."

The money will enable Muir and her husband, who works at a local cooperative, to be more generous at Christmas with their two young children, their parents and their baby sitter.

Cindy Feltz has worked at the company for six years - making her bonus $6,000.

The bonus will make "just a huge difference," she said.

"Through someone else's generosity, I also can be generous," she said.

Similar recent story about a small shoe company in the US. Both privately held companies I think where the owner's values can still make a substantial difference, There is not a managerial class simply charged with producing a profit at the end of the quarter.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

What has changed between the mills and child labour of the early industrial revolution and now? Have things changed in kind, fundamentally, or have they changed in degree? I think it is the latter. It seems to me that if one is prepared to extol the status quo on e has to show that we have moved on from early capitalism in some profound way, otherwise you end up arguing that all that death and misery to fuel the lives of the idle rich is and was acceptable.

The piece about a firm giving large bonuses is the exception, rather than the rule, so merely highlights the routine..nada.

Have a nice christmas!

__________________
'79 280SE
'87 560SEL
'83 280CE
'01 Nissan Micra
'98 VW Passat
'83 911 turbo

How about this: Is the world better or worse-off now than before capital markets?

Isn't it the 'sample size of one' problem?
We only have one history. What if we'd had another, with another system - you'd be asking the same question!

Unless what we have is perfect, there must be a better way. I think there must be a better way, and I think we should at least acknowledge this instead of just counting our cash..unless of course things are perfect.

__________________
'79 280SE
'87 560SEL
'83 280CE
'01 Nissan Micra
'98 VW Passat
'83 911 turbo

EXACTLY!

If things were different then things would be different but they're not so things are the same.

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"What has changed between the mills and child labour of the early industrial revolution and now? "

Your argument was the first cousin to my own: Too many variables from which to infer causation. How does one partial-out the variates on a single historical track?

One doesn't. At best, it is correlative.

Botnst

This article could be posted in any one of a number of threads, but since greed is the primary subject, it best belongs here.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1220-02.htm

Ms. Klein states:
"It has become popular to claim that the White House has been hijacked by neo-conservatives, men so in love with free-market dogma that they cannot see reason or pragmatism. I'm not convinced. If there's one thing last week's diplomatic dustups make clear, it's that the underlying ideology of the Bush White House isn't neo-conservatism, it's old-fashioned greed."

The article covers several topics we've discussed recently, but frames them within an economic context.

I am not following you on this one. In your earlier post, you said that the "courts" said that 3,800 people died. In the post quoted above you seem to have substituted "government" for "courts". While the courts are part of the government, the two words have dramatically different meanings in this context.

I have not followed this story, so I might be missing something, but if a group of plaintiffs proved in court that 3,800 people died in a chemical plant disaster, then the actual number of deaths is probably higher than that. Plaintiffs have the burden of proof, generally, and a court is restricted to what is admitted into evidence. In a disaster like this one, there are going to be deaths that the plaintiffs either can't or won't try to prove because of difficulties with the rules of evidence or for some strategic reason. It really has nothing to do with conspiracies or bribery.

The government counts bodies. So do insurance companies. So do NGO's.

The court decides whether the plaintiffs have proven their case.

Plaintiffs were able to prove 3,800 deaths. It could well be larger than that but certainly not smaller. Lets just guess that the body counters were so inept that they only counted every other body. I don't know how you miss 3,80 bodies, but I suppose it could happen. They would actually have to be miscount by a factor of six, or missing eighteen-thousand bodies. Now if each body weighs say, 100 pounds, that's almost a million pounds of meat rotting away that folks seem to have missed.

Get a shovel.

Botnst

I still don't follow. Are you saying that someone affiliated with a lawsuit counted bodies and came up with 3,800? And Greenpeace claims that someone counted bodies and came with with 21,000 (plus or minus)? If so, then I doubt that those counts are apples to apples. The Greenpeace number, for example, might include people whose deaths were too remotely connected to the disaster to be included in a claim for damages. The way you portray it (3,800 versus 21,000) makes Greenpeace look like a bunch of liars.

Sorry I'm unable to make it more clear. I'll try again.

The number proven in court was 3,800 (actually that's rounded-up). The number was derived by body counts. various folks count bodies, but this was the number that the court decided was most accurate.

Now assume that the folks who counted bodies missed about 20,000 bodies (Greenpeace's and several other NGO's number). Assume that the NGO's are right--that there were 20,000 uncounted but DEAD (that's the NGO's assertion...not just some sort of nebulous affects).

Assume that the average weight per dead body is 100 pounds.

100 X 20,000 = 2,000,000 pounds of flesh laying around Bhopal that folks need to bury.

What I intended to imply by this macabre arithmatic is that a gross undercount would have been obvious even to .gov workers after a couple of days in the tropical sun.

We all know that companies want to make money, that is their goal. Often they will lie to cover some misdeed or other. Gov and lawyers all know this, so everybody is always watching them. That's as it should be. If companies can't be kept in line by internal ethics and rules, then we gota box their ears with the law, fines, and jail.

But NOBODY serves as a watchdog to NGO's. Okay, the IRS looks at them with a benevolent eye. But there is no agency of gov, nobody who's job it is to follow NGO's every move, misrepresentation, misappropriation, or misdeed.

As a result, Greenpeace or any other NGO can say almost anything and poeple swallow it as though it were true. So what if they're wrong, their heart is in the right spot. Right?

Botnst

The rotting flesh part I understood (now there's a sentence I don't use everyday). My skepticism was about whether Greenpeace and the NGO's were counting the same thing. If the Greenpeace number included people who contracted diseases that Greenpeace claims are connected to the disaster, then there might not be any under- or over-counting. Rather, it would be a difference of opinion about what caused those other 18,000 deaths claimed by Greenpeace and the NGO's.

I am not a Greenpeace expert, by any means. All I can say in their defense is that a friend of mine who has made his career working for conservation causes says that they are credible and not as far out in left field as they used to be. While you're right, organizations like Greenpeace are free to say pretty much anything they want, the ones who want to be around for a while and actually have influence won't make claims that they cannot back up.

I agree with that. Greenpeace has worked hard to exagerrate less than it used to. Also, I'm usually in agreement with their causes.

Lets say you're a believer in an NGO. Your NGO does great benefit for mankind. You are going to initiate an advertising campaign in hopes of inspiring people to join your NGO and work for common cause issues.

Is it more effecting to talk about and show pictures of a blind cave salamander or the annual baby seal clubbing?

The cave salamander population is nearly extinct and seals are abundant.

Which is the more honest portrayal of environmental problems?

Botnst

Hey Bonst, species go extinct all the time. Screw'em

The powerful arguments in this thread have convinced me that greed is good, so there will be NO presents this Christmas.


Can anyone give me an example of how they have performed a greedy act that has been for the best? I betcha no takers.

__________________
'79 280SE
'87 560SEL
'83 280CE
'01 Nissan Micra
'98 VW Passat
'83 911 turbo

The original title was put in quotation marks, "Greed". If I properly understood Mike's motive for doing so it was a tongue-in-cheek comment on people who believe that folks who are successful are, by definition, greedy.

So, assuming I'm not mistaken in that assumption, then I will use his definition of "greedy" and proudly proclaim it and exult in my "greediness". I worked hard to become the modest success that I am. I'm greedy for more of the same. The world benefits by people who exhibit that sort of "greed".

Botnst