Interesting article by a billionaire - So what do I see in our future? Pitchforks.

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Originally Posted by FromMyColdDeadHand

I hadn’t thought of it being direct or sponsored like that, but some kind of feedback loop on scholarship resources and economic needs really needs to be done. Tax the bejesus out of those top 20 endowment school’s endowments. That’s dead money doing nothing.

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No, I'm pretty sure it comes in from the Left and goes out to further the agenda of the Left.
Ivy League Schools are factories of Socialism.
Harvard is sitting on Hundreds of Millions of Tax Free Dollars. The sum total of all of the Ivy League money squirreled away was staggering to me when I read about it.

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Originally Posted by FromMyColdDeadHand

I don’t know what to do with people that somehow think that profits aren’t tied to business success (sales). You can’t have profit if you aren’t meeting a demand, as in sales. You can only skinny so much profit out, especially in the long term. Run your company based on short term profits and eventually you get squished.

I think the Ford quote and wages does show that the macro-economic conditions are paramount to these things working. You had the twin technological changes of assembly line and internal combustion engine at the same time. That is a pretty powerful one-two punch.

You also can look at the times when that was written, perhaps as a way to immunize Ford from being seen as other socially irresponsible big business people.

Ford sold a good that people wanted and were willing to pay for. He also decreased costs through efficiency and lowered prices and expanded sales.

Since when did working at McD have to be a career for people. It used to be a marginal job for most people, not a way to raise a family while working the counter. It used to actually teach skills to people. I know a lot of successful and intelligent business people who worked there during school and had positive experiences and good life lessons. None work there now.

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I think the key advantage of Ford paying his employees better than the competition is that he improved employee morale and more importantly he was able to hire the best workers available and those workers knew that working a Ford was the best job that they would have and therefore that drove improved performance and better motivation. Also, when Ford needed to expand and grow has business, because of his company's reputation of high wages, he could hire the pick of job applicants. Like everything else in life, with employee performance, skill, and motivation, you get what you pay for.