The following appeared in a speech by a stockholder of Consolidated Industries at the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting:
“In the computer hardware division last year, profits fell significantly below projections, the product line decreased from 20 to only 5 items, and expenditures for employee benefits increased by 15 percent. Nevertheless, Consolidated’s board of directors has approved an annual salary of more than $1 million for our company’s chief executive officer. The present board members should be replaced because they are unconcerned about the increasing costs of employee benefits and salaries, in spite of the company’s problems generating income.”
The author concludes that the current board members of Consolidated Industries exigently ought to be substituted because they abandon the problem of increased expenses on employee benefits. To substantiate this conclusion, the author points out that the computer hardware division confronted with the diminished profits below projections, the decreased product lines, and the higher expenses on human resources. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author’s representative error and questionable assumptions.
Most conspicuously, the present issues ranging from dropped profits, decreased product line, and expensive expenditures for employee benefits occur only in the computer hardware division. Hence, it is senseless to conclude that the board members of Consolidated Industries ignore the whole company. A company comprises multitudes of departments, such as customer service, administration, marketing, accounting, production, supply, research and development, and so on. This argument would have been strong, if the author offers the performance of other divisions of Consolidated Industries, too. Otherwise, the readers can never judge whether the present board members are truly unconcerned about the company.
Also, the author’s line of reasoning is that the approval of exceed $1 million for the company’s employees would make the situation even worse. Nevertheless, this assumption is not necessarily valid. Perhaps, such extremely high salary is the important solution which could alleviate current problems in computer hardware division. The board found out that the root cause of the issues is the lack of executive with excellent managerial skills. Thus, they decided to attract a versatile manager from other companies by large amount of money. On the contrary, if the board members are too frugal, the problems would never end.
In addition, if the company does not pay proper benefits for the employees, the possible outcome is that the situation would be even worse. The cut of employee profits could much destroy the employees’ morale. The problem would expand to the major crisis. Many good employees may resign and turn to Consolidated Industries’ business rivals. Consequently, the company would suffer from the even worse situation, as well as even lower profits.
In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional evidences about the overall performance of every division in Consolidated Industries. Furthermore, the author has to prove that the approbation of annual salary of more than $1 million for our company’s chief executive officer is unreasonable indeed. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuade the readers.
“In the computer hardware division last year, profits fell significantly below projections, the product line decreased from 20 to only 5 items, and expenditures for employee benefits increased by 15 percent. Nevertheless, Consolidated’s board of directors has approved an annual salary of more than $1 million for our company’s chief executive officer. The present board members should be replaced because they are unconcerned about the increasing costs of employee benefits and salaries, in spite of the company’s problems generating income.”
The author concludes that the current board members of Consolidated Industries exigently ought to be substituted because they abandon the problem of increased expenses on employee benefits. To substantiate this conclusion, the author points out that the computer hardware division confronted with the diminished profits below projections, the decreased product lines, and the higher expenses on human resources. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author’s representative error and questionable assumptions.
Most conspicuously, the present issues ranging from dropped profits, decreased product line, and expensive expenditures for employee benefits occur only in the computer hardware division. Hence, it is senseless to conclude that the board members of Consolidated Industries ignore the whole company. A company comprises multitudes of departments, such as customer service, administration, marketing, accounting, production, supply, research and development, and so on. This argument would have been strong, if the author offers the performance of other divisions of Consolidated Industries, too. Otherwise, the readers can never judge whether the present board members are truly unconcerned about the company.
Also, the author’s line of reasoning is that the approval of exceed $1 million for the company’s employees would make the situation even worse. Nevertheless, this assumption is not necessarily valid. Perhaps, such extremely high salary is the important solution which could alleviate current problems in computer hardware division. The board found out that the root cause of the issues is the lack of executive with excellent managerial skills. Thus, they decided to attract a versatile manager from other companies by large amount of money. On the contrary, if the board members are too frugal, the problems would never end.
In addition, if the company does not pay proper benefits for the employees, the possible outcome is that the situation would be even worse. The cut of employee profits could much destroy the employees’ morale. The problem would expand to the major crisis. Many good employees may resign and turn to Consolidated Industries’ business rivals. Consequently, the company would suffer from the even worse situation, as well as even lower profits.
In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional evidences about the overall performance of every division in Consolidated Industries. Furthermore, the author has to prove that the approbation of annual salary of more than $1 million for our company’s chief executive officer is unreasonable indeed. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuade the readers.
