How much is "enough"?
IAAL, a question:
a. If a business has been financially able to pay bonuses in the past, the financial reality is that they may not be necessarily be able to in the future. Markets change. Businesses that have done well in the past go bust. Doesn't such a presumption make CP responsible to pay CS on sums the employer has NO obligation to pay them?
Certainly averaging a "short cycle" such as three years in an interest rate sensitive industry, like mortgages, can give a very false financial picture if one picks three "up" years, just prior to the inevitable "down" cycle. Do the courts recognize this, or just make the NCP responsible to pay CS on amounts his employer chooses whether to pay or not (isn't that the definition of BONUS?). Because you can't modify retroactively, and most won't know until year end that the bonus cannot be paid that year.
Does the number of years used in "averaging" vary with the typical cycle of the given industry so that if reflects the "average" reality of pay for that industry?
Wonder if the bonuses at some Mutual Funds will be the same this year? Especially the funds that lost a bunch of institutional investors?
b. Overtime. If a person is unfortunate enough to have their CO established during a period in their life in which they are working an extra job, are they forever (or at least until their children are 18) OBLIGATED to work 60 hours a week? If they quit second job, are they "voluntarily underemployed"? And if they don't, does CP get to come on here and complain that NCP is "not even home" during most of the scheduled visitation time so they want to cut that time back, etc?
Seems that as long as the families have what's needed to live, parents should have a right to cut EXTRA hours to spend time with their families while they can. It's a choice I made, giving up a second job and the extra income, because I didn't have the stamina anymore and my SNs daughter required more of my time. So we go out less, shop for better clothes bargains, watch older 19* TVs and drive older cars and so on. Big deal, is our kid "sufferiing"? Not in the least.
Unltimately, the important thing is the time spent with family. My kid will remember that more than whether she gets a GameBoy or $90 basketball shoes. It's hard enough for NCPs to get the time they need to spend with their kids. I know I cherish all the time my dad spent DOING THINGS with me before he died. Any extra material things never were as important - and today are not ever remembered. I'd take the time together with dad over the money and the extra "stuff" it could have bought anyday. He gave me all the "support" I needed., even if it wasn't always the same MONEY my friends parents brought home.
I realize this is merely perspective, but I think that the concept that "support" is ONLY money, is a false premise.
