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Hillary Clinton Takes Aim At 'Gig Economy'
SonicSpike writes with an excerpt from Marketwatch that says at least one major candidate in the 2016 electoral fight has made the "sharing economy" epitomized by Uber and Airbnb a campaign issue. In a major campaign speech in New York City, the former secretary of state didn't mention the ride-sharing service by name. But it was pretty clear what sort of companies she was talking about when she got to how some Americans earn money. "Many Americans are making extra money renting out a spare room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car," she said at the New School. But that sort of work comes with its own problems, she said. "This 'on demand' or so-called 'gig economy' ... is raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future," Clinton added.
Uber is an illegal cab company and should just be shut down. If Uber puts the cab companies out of business it most certainly take away a lot of "real" jobs. Furthermore, we'll all be slaves to "surge pricing". And make no mistake, surge pricing is going to increase drunk driving fatalities.
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...We need to figure out how to kill it with regulations so that my big corporate donors can sleep soundly at night.
Love sees no species.
It was setting up a Secretary of State of a very powerful nation with her own private email server so that she could get around the government's pesky email archiving.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
You can rest assured that the solution requires more laws, more government, more money, and less freedom.
Once corporations have been allowed to erode almost every labor law put into place, watch people become hopelessly dependent on them on a meal by meal basis. We will be exactly like Chinese workers at Foxconn, who consider it to be a wonderful opportunity because the alternative is starvation.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
How can they possibly hope to steal your money when you aren't going through the traditional red tape and entrenched special interests? It just won't do.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com...
And the regulations already exist. Uber is completely illegal.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
When did Slashdot become a proxy for shill political endorsements? So what if a candidate makes a talking point about this. Uber has lobbyists and now is winning over candidates. Sorry, this is not news.
"It's ironic someone who has been driven around in a limo for the past 30 years is giving ride sharing advice.
Hillary Clinton just chided the sharing-economy which is boosted by services such as Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb. We must advocate for innovation and disruption and need to support increased choice which leads to lower prices for all Americans."
If I want to do piece work, whether web sites or chauffeuring someone around, it's none of her friggin' business.
Apparently the path to wealth for the common man is to pay him less
Did someone mention Donald Trump?
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's such a vague comment I wonder why she said it (or why she wasn't told not to say it). It could be interpreted as either being for or against the "gig economy" depending on how you look at it, so my guess will be that it will piss both sides off.
Are the "problems" that they don't include health insurance benefits? That people may be avoiding paying taxes? That they go against what might be considered the above-board way taxis are handled?
I dislike the way that politicians avoid commenting on such issues before elections and the entire "experience hurts" mentality as far as people holding their opinions against them, but this is no better.
when we pay everyone the lowest amount possible
Unfortunately it is not a strange world view to many, less liberty-minded, people.
As a society, we've gotten to the point where we tolerate zero risk in our daily lives. So much so that society wants government to decide what is good for us.
This is a terrible way to live. I want options in my life and I want the free market to create them. I don't want government restricting options available to me, or restricting those that would provide those options to me.
Technology has peaked. Nerd now means you dress up as batman (like Halloween), go see a movie and complain about some social problem that didn't exist 15 minutes ago.
For sure, my car was way nicer than any cab I have been in, which blows the "race to the bottom" claim out of the water.
gosh, your clean car means that taxi drivers get paid more under uber?
Race to the bottom refers to deflation of wages and working conditions due to deregulation.
I'm sorry it was so hard to read the second and third sentences.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Not long before you were born there was a system of employment called 'piece work'. If you work in a sweat shop or on a farm or in a factory, you got paid according to what you produced. Usually this meant that you worked your butt off and still got paid less than hourly workers. This has been frowned upon until recently.
People raising a family, paying a mortgage, saving for retirement or children's education need a reliable income. Corporations don't want to get weighed down with that burden--they want people that they can call when needed and dump when the need passes.
Corporations have been winning for a long time now and this 'gig economy' is the next step.
...omphaloskepsis often...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
We don't need to shovel more money into Goldman Sachs.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
(Hillary's) view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
I want to pay market prices for everything I consume. No one suggested that anything or anyone should be free.
Laws protecting an outdated business model are far different that laws that protect individual laborers.
I'm OK with workplace safety laws. I'm not OK with laws that prop up obsolete businesses.
I want to pay market prices for everything I consume. No one suggested that anything or anyone should be free.
then why don't you pay double for your gasoline? you are getting a 50% discount thanks to government subsidies
and you should also be paying more for milk and other dairy products whose prices are artificially lowered by government actions
Isn't this more in line with Jeb Bush saying what we need is more stable, 40-hour-a-week jobs, as opposed to part-time work and unreliable "gigs?" I don't see this as calling for regulation of Uber et. al but rather trying to boost economic sectors that provide stable employment. But maybe I'm wrong!
Hillary Clinton knows precisely squat about how people make an honest living. She gets paid because her cronies are hedging their bets in case she wins the election.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I think you're a little confused.
You got together a car way better than any taxi, 'for fun', caring nothing for the depreciation of your asset you bring to the table, in order to be a dilettante scab just on a whim.
It's not automatically a race to the bottom for passengers, so long as Uber can continue to get people like you who aren't actually committed, and as long as the passengers' luck holds out.
It's a race to the bottom for that entire employment sector because any driver, either taxi or uber, has to compete with YOU 'for fun' when you don't actually have to get paid because you don't really care. You don't have to care about wearing out your resources because you'll likely just drop out if something happens to your car, you don't have to care about getting paid since you're doing it 'for fun', and as long as Uber or Lyft can get hold of enough people like you, everybody has to compete on your terms.
And you're losing money. You're the sucker, you just get to opt out before you lose everything as it's just a gig, 'for fun'. You don't have to consider wear on your vehicle, your insurance, any of that. You're doing it for some other reason and as long as the company can find more like you
It's one thing when you 'pay to play' at some Sunset Strip nightclub, in order to get your music out there. Yeah, that's no business plan but it's an ego thing and performing on stage and it's easy to see how that type of 'work' ends up for dilettantes and trust-funders, generally unable to provide a living wage to your average musician.
It's VERY WEIRD if you have to be a superstar freakin' cab driver to earn a living because everybody else is losing money on the deal. Just saying. Your activity contributes to a situation where everybody else has to match your level of interaction/committment/cashflow. Cabdriving is not meant to be a hobby you spend some money on to have an interesting experience on weekends. (of course, Uber is liable to take it to 'cabdriving is not for humans' in the relatively near future)
Uber is an illegal cab company and should just be shut down.
It is not clearly illegal in many places and even it it is illegal in places it is not clear that it should be illegal. If Uber is providing competition in the taxi industry then more power to them. If they are innovating in an industry that sorely needs it then I see no reason to prohibit that. It sounds to me like a lot of taxi companies have had a sweetheart deal for a long time and are pissed off that they are having to compete. Not seeing why I should be sympathetic.
If Uber puts the cab companies out of business it most certainly take away a lot of "real" jobs.
If the cab companies get put out of business because they are inefficient and can't compete then they deserve to go out of business. I see no reason that they deserve special protection from competition. The fact that they bought overpriced taxi medallions (read artificial scarcity) is not my problem. That was a risk they took. Just because some drivers get replaced with other drivers is not a problem and it certainly isn't "taking away real jobs".
Furthermore, we'll all be slaves to "surge pricing".
Spare me the hyperbole. "Slaves"? Only if there are no other transportation options. You think Uber will have no competition? Furthermore what is wrong with pricing having something to do with supply and demand? A taxi SHOULD be more expensive when there is more demand for taxis. That's how it works.
And make no mistake, surge pricing is going to increase drunk driving fatalities.
And your evidence for this is what exactly?
So, deflation of wages means that those people who previously couldn't make ends meet, but can now make ends meet and are experiencing an increase in stanadard of living now have worse working conditions? Also, how does race to the bottmom apply to the consumers who experience better service at a lower price?
No, it doesn't. that's a supreme court assault on freedom. The constitution says the feds can regulate "interstate commerce". The Supremes decided that means they can tell you that may not grow corn in your garden but that you must buy health insurance. Neither of those are in the constitution.
Imagine a guy who gets off on driving for Uber Black in a Ferrari F40. They get crazy tips but what they're really doing it for is the awe of the passengers and to be treated like a freaky crazy rich dude for the people. What's that (or more luxurious angles: a Rolls-Royce guy) do to the job market?
The term 'gig economy" is just a euphemism for day laborer. We did this back before unions when there would be lines of people waiting to work, if you got hurt or sick they tossed you out with the rest of the rubbish and hired another replaceable and worthless person to take your place. Is this really what we want to go back to?
The term 'gig economy" is just a euphemism for day laborer. We did this back before unions when there would be lines of people waiting to work, if you got hurt or sick they tossed you out with the rest of the rubbish and hired another replaceable and worthless person to take your place. Is this really what we want to go back
And most people have no real job skills that the market values. So where does that leave us? With a bunch of entitled, low-skilled people who think that being an awesome burger flipper or retail clerk should entitle them to a 2000ft^2 apartment or home, an iPhone, cable package, nice car and full health care coverage. This is despite the fact that their input into the economy is barely a drop in the bucket compared to what they expect to come back to them.
Don't whine about human rights and dignity here. Mathematics doesn't give a shit what you think is the right thing to do. The health care demands coupled with what people want to do with their bodies in modern industrial societies alone is beyond the productive capacity of modern economics to provide. That's why health care is becoming unsustainable even in countries that use socialized medicine aside from Cuba (which has some structural advantages such as being able to use medical workers' family members as incentives to work efficiently)
She seems to be pointing out that they exist, but not really taking much of a stance on whether she thinks that is good or not. In other words, she's just being a politician.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Great idea. Restrict employment opportunities because they are not 'good enough' when real unemployment is over 10%.
[Citation Needed] Considering close to 1/4 of the price of gas in most places in the US is ALREADY taxes, that would be a hard number to back up. Or are you comparing the price here to the even higher taxed fuel in other countries and calling that a "subsidy"?
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The Constitution of the United States (not your personal constitution, not the unwritten constitutional law of Great Britain, etc.) limits the Federal government to the regulation of Interstate Commerce. It should not have the scope to regulate business that does not cross the boundaries of the many States. For example, if I sell produce raised in the garden on my land to my neighbors or at a stand on the road I live on or even to a local store, I am not engaging in interstate commerce as my reach does not cross State lines. Now the State or the County or the City/Town/Village that I live in may regulate my business; but that is not encompassed by the U.S. Constitution. I know there are people who believe that we don't live in such an environment but in a totally top down government like those in many other parts of the world. And there are those who are wishing it were that way and even those who are fighting to make it top down. But it isn't so yet. Hillary Clinton is one of the latter. She and the Democrat Party would like nothing more than turning the States into mere departments of the Federal Government wherein the big cities of the East and West coasts could suck the money, life and freedom from the rest of the country. They desire the world of the Hunger Games.
'Nuf said.
That's really stupid. That's like asking someone, "If you support higher taxes, why don't you just pay it yourself?" Such comments add nothing to the conversation.
If you went to a gas station and said, "I want to pay extra for my gas" the attendant wouldn't even know what to do.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Not long before you were born there was a system of employment called 'piece work'. If you work in a sweat shop or on a farm or in a factory, you got paid according to what you produced. Usually this meant that you worked your butt off and still got paid less than hourly workers. This has been frowned upon until recently.
Piece work is still around and in many cases it is a very appropriate way to pay for services rendered. If I'm an employer and I've got two employees and one is twice as productive as the other, why should they receive equal pay? What is the less productive person doing that makes them worth just as much despite doing less work? If the piece work rate is too low that is a different issue but there is nothing inherently wrong with compensating on a piece work basis.
Furthermore piece work is used in many place you aren't really thinking about it. Doctors get paid per-procedure which is basically piece work. (it's why they have to hustle through so many patients) Truckers often get paid per delivery or per mile which is basically piece work. Lots of professions get compensated on a piece work basis that have nothing to do with making widgets and there is nothing wrong with that. Piece work incentivizes efficient deliver of services.
The problem with piece work is that it can also incentivize shoddy quality if there aren't controls in place to keep quality high. Sometimes that is not easy to do which is why piece work isn't used in some place where it might otherwise make sense.
People raising a family, paying a mortgage, saving for retirement or children's education need a reliable income.
A reliable income can be assured through having valuable skills and working hard. If you lack a valuable skill and/or are not willing to work hard then a reliable income will be hard to come by. People are not and should not be entitled to a reliable income merely for existing - they need to earn it. Your choice to have a family or buy a house isn't my problem. Work hard and develop some skills that others value and chances are you'll do fine.
Corporations don't want to get weighed down with that burden--they want people that they can call when needed and dump when the need passes.
So corporations are supposed to pay people to sit idle and do nothing? How many people do you employ so that they can sit on their ass and collect a paycheck for no work? I'm guessing you've never run a company. I do run a manufacturing company. Paying people to do nothing (read work inefficiently) is pretty much the best way I know of to put a company into bankruptcy. No company should be required to employ someone when there is no work for them to perform or if they are providing sub-standard performance.
when government regulation lowers prices
they only complain when government regulation raises prices
do you hear people complaining about how they pay too little for milk or wheat or butter or gasoline?
without government supports they would be paying a lot more
where are the complaints?
I want to pay market prices for everything I consume. No one suggested that anything or anyone should be free.
then why don't you pay double for your gasoline? you are getting a 50% discount thanks to government subsidies
You do realize that's completely false, right?
I know some nutcases like to pretend that the oil companies get untold billions in subsidies, but when you look at the actual numbers, it's just plain false. There's an "$18 billion" subsidy number tossed around, but that's because they include regular old tax deductions. You know, the kind (and amount) that every business gets. A lot of folks are annoyed that oil companies can deduct exploration costs, but that's no different than any business expense.
The single largest "subsidy" due to direct government spending is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - where the government buys oil - at market prices (no bonuses), and keeps it, until they can use if for things like lowering oil prices when it's politically expedient.
Currently, the US consumes about 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year. Which would mean that, at current $3/gallon prices, we'd have to subsidize by about a half a TRILLION dollars a year. Someone would notice a check that large...
No, government "subsidies" don't cut your gas prices by half - but government taxes increase them by a fairly large amount.
Well, he's paying for the government subsidies through taxes, so why would he pay that fraction again until the subsidies are discontinued? Since the subsidies are many steps above his interaction at the retail stores, by what mechanism would he even pay the extra money if he wanted to?
In your mind, are those the only two options available to us? Have the government restrict the things that we can do for our own good or voluntarily pay extra to subsidized industries. Your argument doesn't make any sense.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
At least Donald Trump has accomplishments he can point to
please provide a link to all of his political accomplishments
Well, he filed for bankruptcy four times, oh wait, you said "political" accomplishments - never mind.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
have you read your state constitution? where did i say US constitution? your state constitution gives your state the right to regulate commerce within its borders and levy taxes
If you want lots of government controls over Uber, Etcy, and any other new idea for making money then vote for Hillary. If you don't, then don't vote for her. It's really that simple.
It all starts at 0
There is the Second Amendment, and lots of guns.
The Republicans may not realize that, but...
Best Slashdot Co
It is illegal. The drivers don't have taxi medallions.
It is NOT illegal in many places. Plenty of places don't require medallions and there are no laws against companies like Uber in those places. Furthermore even if it is illegal IT SHOULDN'T BE. I haven't heard a single compelling economic or moral argument that we should protect traditional cab companies at the expense of companies like Uber.
No cab companies provide real jobs, Uber does not.
Both provide taxi services. Both get compensated for that service. QED both are "real jobs", whatever that means. To be perfectly clear, I don't care about protecting traditional cab companies or their drivers. They can compete like everyone else or they can go out of business. You have provided zero reason why we should protect these companies. If another company can provide the same service, make a profit and provide better value to customers then so be it. By your logic we should all still be working on a farm because that is a "real job".
What I said about drunk driving is obvious.
You made an unsupported assertion without evidence based on your own opinions. Back it up with facts. If you are actually correct that should not be difficult. The fact that you believe it to be "obvious" does not make it true.
the US navy protects oil tankers at sea, they don't collect a dime from the oil companies for the escort service
can we get government escorts when we go grocery shopping?
Hilary has the nerve to mention making money in the gig economy with all of her and her husbands gigs giving speeches.
Intelligently and thoroughly schooling a naysayer in how dangerous China is to US interests, for one.
Your argument doesn't make any sense.
so therefore the whole concept of "wanting to pay market prices" is just bullshit
These problems and more go away when you have a "Star Trek" economy, where everyone's basic needs are covered by society (notice how we skirted that scary word 'government'). Then, if you want to give folks a ride for the heck of it, nobody suffers.
Regulated monopolies are not good for any economy.
the us economy flourished in the 1950s with regulated telephones and regulated taxicabs and regulated airfares
The US economy flourished because it had just modernized during World War II and many other industrial nations had their economies wrecked during the war. Plus US industry was heavily "subsidized" by the government financed reconstruction of many of those countries devastated by war.
When making such comparisons always keep in mind the caveat of the statistician and economist, "all other things being equal". In the 1950s they were not.
If coders contribute code in their free time to an open source project is that bad because it takes that opportunity away from corporate coders who make their living off that kind of work? Is the corporate coder disadvantaged by the open source contributors that are doing it for fun? They don't have to consider having an office, benefits, or any of that.
The Constitution of the United States [...] limits the Federal government to the regulation of Interstate Commerce.
This power to regulate includes protecting businesses that engage in interstate commerce from unfair competition from intrastate-only businesses. Wickard v. Filburn.
Now the State or the County or the City/Town/Village that I live in may regulate my business
And this is the level of government that most commonly bans things like Uber and Airbnb.
Soon, even 1.21 gigawatts won't be enough to make ends meet (in time).
Part of the role of the navy for any country is to protect the shipping routes.
I code for fun. Am I putting paid programmers out of a job?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If you went to a gas station and said, "I want to pay extra for my gas" the attendant wouldn't even know what to do.
Pocket the extra cash?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
You forgot to mention the cost of all the military excursions into and ensuing expenditures on the Middle East. It's anyone's guess how much of the DoD's ~$750 billion annual budget can be traced to protecting oil interests, but I'd be surprised if it were less than 10%.
What counts as a political accomplishment? Convincing everyone you were pro gay marriage the whole time, now that it is popular?
Even though Clinton is wrong on this, you're fooling yourself if you think you can always get past your own immediate self interest to see how changes to the big picture come back around to affect you. I hate getting my car smogged. It's expensive, it's a pain, and it feels like my car couldn't possibly be doing that much damage. But I would hate going to back to the way it was when I was a kid, and my lungs would hurt on Summer afternoons from all the crap in the air.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Yeah... the government already took tax money from me and gave it to oil companies. Obviously, that is not a free market, but I won't fault you for not understanding that because it's above the level of your third grade Social Studies class. By the way, your mom says it's time for dinner.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No one is going to say, "yes," because we all love programming on the side too. Pose a slightly different question, though: "I am an H1B worker taking lower overall compensation. Am I putting better-paid programmers out of a job?" You'll get a resounding "yes."
There are some biases in those answers, but there's also a hidden truth: the for-fun coder usually isn't competing directly with the paid programmer. They usually work on different kinds of programs, or with different target markets, or with different "extras" like support and marketing. Paid programmers often build off the work of for-fun coders who put together important libraries, so it can even be a cooperation rather than competition. Even Microsoft makes money off Linux now, since Linux runs much of their Azure cloud. On the other hand, when you talk about H1B workers replacing regular labor, it's direct competition for the same jobs. The same goes in the taxi sector: there is nothing but direct competition.
gosh, your clean car means that taxi drivers get paid more under uber?
Uber drivers don't have to pay for a medallion (which can cost over $1M), or pay to rent one. It is unlikely Uber drivers make much more than taxi drivers, since taxi drivers are not quitting to join Uber, but I don't see any reason why they would be making much less either, because the dispatchers would just raise their commissions to level the field. Both seem to be mostly recent immigrants, likely lacking green cards, that are the bottom of the economic ladder.
Disclaimer: I have never actually used Uber, because they do not allow pickups to be scheduled in advance. If I need a ride to SFO at 5am, I want to go to bed knowing my ride is going to arrive 15 minutes after I wake up. I can't do that with Uber.
Yes it is bad. Do you work for $2 an hour?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You have to look at the entire cycle
Yeah, right. This is something politicians never do when enacting new laws regarding economic conditions. See "Minimum Wage Laws" and the results of fewer jobs after increasing Min Wage.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
A documentary on the sordid history of the Clintons.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
In the gig enonomy, you no longer work for a boss who controls you. Instead, you choose from what automated service to purchase the management work which he/she formerly performed.
The so-called "gig economy" replaces inflexible and inefficient management and regulatory structures with flexible, competitive, efficient and inherently fair and safe automated services. It is the continuation of two trends: automation and the transition to a more efficient horizontally-integrated economy away from a vertically-integrated economy. Now the workers can choose ad hoc services which were traditionally performed by management, choose as an automated electronic service rather than committing to employment under a fixed management and regulatory structure. Computing as service (cloud computing) and the earlier transition to shipping as a service away from in-house shipping departments are two other examples of horizontal restructuring. Eventually everything except core expertise associated with your business identity will move out-of-house and be purchased as a service.
Both customers and workers benefit from replacing the costly and clunky managers and regulators with a competitive, cheap, safe and fair automated services. It is old-style management and government which is useless and burdensome and it is those interests who Hillary appeals for political support. The gig economy is a power-to-the-people trend which Democrats inherently despise. Their own ideologies are power to the politicians, power to the union bosses, power to the trial lawyers, power to the MPAA, Export-Import bank, medicial insurance companies and any other big-business interest will buy their votes. Power to the bureaucrats and regulators, certainly yes. But not power to the people, never to those poor, stupid common people who must be kept under the thumb of their bosses who are, in turn, controlled by the government.
There is an even more insidious problem for Democrats with the gig economy which is that it exposes the many actual workers directly to the massive taxation and regulatory burdens imposed the federal government. And those workers are aghast and horrified by what they now see. A substantial role of business management is as intermediaries between the government and employees, exposing the insane and massive regulatory and tax burdens to relatively few managers at large corporations while shielding the relatively many workers under them from full knowledge. Now when Democrats attempt to apply the burdensome fines, fees, taxes and regulations directly to many small business and individual workers in the gig economy, there is massive public outrage. Democrat politicians are freaking out. For example:
- Chicago just enacted a lunatic Cloud Tax. The liberal entrepreneurs who previously supported Democrats who enacted that tax are furious.
- from Bloomburg, about Bill DeBlasio :
Expect the same sorts of things from Hillary if she is elected.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
The presidential election isn't until November of 2016. I will not espouse any political opinion, nor will I listen to anything any of these candidates have to say until at least a year from now, preferably longer.
If we don't get this under control, there will be non-stop campaigning 24-7 paid for with your tax dollars. Is this the world you want to live in?
No, what he calls "subsidies" is actually programs that help people live. There are no "subsidies" for oil, they don't exist (at least directly). These are programs like "strategic oil reserve", and "Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program" (HEAP) are counted as ... you guessed it, "Subsidies".
And nowhere, do liberals ever talk about how much Government actually makes off Oil (Profits taxed, gasoline taxes etc), which amount to way more than what the oil companies get in profits.
IF anyone is getting "rich" off "big oil" it is government. And I can't wait till we are all on Renewable fuels that ARE subsidized, and the government loses a huge amount of their income.
And then you'll see liberals come out and want to tax "Solar Panels" and "biofuels" ....
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I know most techies are devout Ayn Rand fans, and love the idea of the invisible hand of the free market controlling everything with no more government in the way. However, let me play Devil's advocate for a second. What will you think when this invisible hand comes for your work? There is nothing stopping most companies from offshoring every single IT job out there, except for the communication and talent issue. Here's the stark reality - the entirety of society since the 50s has been set up around the following:
- A post-high school education of some kind, college or trade school followed by...
- A 40 to 45 year work life providing a living wage in a steady paycheck that increased with time/inflation
- A 20 or so year retirement life in which you would spend down a pension or savings while waiting to die
- A need to purchase housing and put down roots in a community, this engendering employer/employee loyalty
The "sharing economy" wants to drop all that, putting everyone on permanent day laborer status. Establishing roots in a community is replaced with transient living, moving every 2 years or so, and never building up equity in a house. This works great in your early 20s - you live in a hipster loft with 3 roommates in a large city, spend most of your paycheck on restaurants and bars/clubs, and don't mind contract work because you value flexibility. The game changes a lot when you settle down and have children. I'm not "that old", I just turned 40. I really like the idea of staying in one place and having a steady stream of income to pay for my family's expenses. I'm normally a very PC person, but the fact of the matter is that transient living negatively correlates with school district quality -- this applies in cities and migrant worker communities equally. Keeping kids in an environment that doesn't change abruptly all the time lets them focus on learning. Keeping parents gainfully employed and not worrying about where the next meal is coming from lets them focus on their family, a virtuous cycle.
I know there are plenty of contractors in IT and software dev pulling down huge hourly rates, and I can definitely see how they say "Hey, I love this gig economy, don't mess with it." I personally know a couple who don't even have permanent residences since it doesn't make any sense - they make bucketloads of money so they just live in hotels all year jumping from client site to client site. That's not the target of Clinton's remarks IMO -- she's most likely targeting the idea that companies can basically get low-level, poorly compensated employees without paying the costs associated with traditional employees. The macro-level society-level transition from a stable work life to a transient one is going to be pretty scary, possibly on the French Revolution scale. Unless it's managed properly, things will be very messy for the average worker.
Speaking of average workers -- other advocates of the gig economy like to tout how much value they add to their employers' businesses relative to others. People need to look in the mirror and realistically assess their value. Anecdote != data, but I just stayed at a business hotel over the weekend for a family trip. It was a lot of fun listening to the empty suit Accenture consultants bloviating about how awesome they were to each other in the bar. Come on man, you travel the country giving canned PowerPoint presentations to corporate executives who are too scared to make decisions without cover of a consulting firm. That's not value!
Am I saying that FTE work is the best option and no one should be allowed to be an itinerant worker? No way. I'm saying that the playing field should be level between both camps, and it's not right now. That's where that evil word regulation comes in.
Are you coding for a company that would otherwise be paying someone else a wage?
Clever wordplay? When I saw "Uber" I thought the word "gig" referred to a small, horse-drawn carriage. (After looking it up, I see that gig can also be "a light, fast, narrow boat adapted for rowing or sailing".) Then I thought maybe she meant it's harmful, so maybe she meant the pronged-thing-on-a-handle, also known as a frog-sticker. Finally reading the comments, I realized "gig" meant an un-contracted, one-off performance.
seriously, the US took on the role of guarantors of maritime shipping from UK post WWII. The navy doesn't collect a dime for protecting these tankers, but having the only functioning blue water navy capable of projecting power throughout the globe is a huge geostrategic advantage for the US; it gains way more than it loses.
A worker works for who pays them. Hillary's current gig is financed by Goldman, Citigroup, and Chase. She'll say whatever she likes to get elected, and serve the people she works for. Biting the hand that feeds you is bad for business.
You could always vote for someone who takes money almost exclusively from unions and individuals and talked about corporate greed and struggling workers before it was "cool", but hey, how can you get elected without at least 3 major banks funding you?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
A 'subsidy' to some people is the difference between what taxes a company actually pays vs. what "activists" think it should be paying. Or, they'll tack on endless "external costs" which are nebulously defined and/or of dubious nature.
then why don't you pay double for your gasoline? you are getting a 50% discount thanks to government subsidies
There is no such thing as 50% government gasoline subsidy in the United States, nor any combination of indirect subsidies which reduce its price by 50%. You are making up a lie to support your position.
and you should also be paying more for milk and other dairy products whose prices are artificially lowered by government actions
It is the opposite. Prices of farm commodities are artificially raisied, not lowered by the government. These are FDR-era programs, often called "price supports". It was recently the subject a U.S Supreme Court case, Horne v. Dept. of Agriculture in which the court ruled against the government. It is also the entire purpose of the federal corn ethanol mandate to drive up corn prices by artificially stimulating demand.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
You think the consumer will continue to have a better deal if Uber is the only game in town?
Uber already has competition from Lyft, and other ride sharing services. New entrants can easily enter the market.
the loser in that scenario will be the drivers
With ride sharing, the drivers compete by providing quality and value to consumers. With taxis, the drivers compete by bidding up the price of medallions. There is no reason to believe that the latter will lead to higher wages. But there is good reason to believe that the former will lead to better service, and more people riding rather than driving and parking their own cars.
If government imposed artificial scarcity and price controls is such great idea for taxis, then why shouldn't the same model be good for other areas of the economy? Why shouldn't there be a "grocery store medallion" to limit the number of stores, jack up prices, and prevent them from having to compete? How about programmers? Should there be a "programmer medallion" to limit the number of people allowed to write code?
No, I work for $0 an hour on projects that interest me, but which don't seem to have potential as money-making products.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
If coders contribute code in their free time to an open source project is that bad because it takes that opportunity away from corporate coders who make their living off that kind of work?
In theory, those coders are increasing overall efficiency of software development (including commercial sw dev) by reducing duplication of effort among different companies. They do work on their pet project, and that work can benefit whoever wants to use it (barring difficulties with the code license). It's not clear to me that there's a comparable benefit in the situation with cab drivers. Pulling work from the pool of available clients decreases the amount of work that needs to be done at a given time. As far as I can tell in software, the pool of work that needs to be done is nearly infinite.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Translation — despite our best efforts, people insist on taking care of themselves. Worse, some of these companies demonstrate, that the kind and benevolent government organizations of the past are obsolete and now block progress.
This deterioration of government's control and can not be permitted. The government's role as the source of benefits must continue to rise and can not be allowed to ebb.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
All of that shit you buy from China is protected in a similar manner as is anything shipped from Europe. And it isn't an escort but there will be patrol ships out in the more dangerous areas that protect all shipping.
Time to offend someone
But what marketprice do you prefer for your cab drivers?
Higher rates, meaning more money out of pocket, or the occasional rapist (see: various stories about "pirate-taxis", or even Uber drivers).
Government regulation of various products is there to avoid a race "through" the bottom, where things are so very cheap up front, but come with social/environmental costs.
No, I'm coding for users, who, if they didn't have my code, would either 1) purchase software from a company that employs coders or 2) go without.
I think that's the more apt analogy. Uber drivers are not working for the cab companies for free. They're servicing customers who would otherwise patronize the employers of cab drivers.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Not the same thing, though. You're talking about taking a job, of which there is one, but this is about competing for customers, of which there are many.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
How is it bullshit? He can't pay market prices for things because of the way that things are current structured, but he addressed this by saying that he thinks things should be structured differently: "I don't want government restricting options available to me, or restricting those that would provide those options to me." There weren't always oil and dairy subsidies and we could do away with them again.
There are many very reasonable things that I want that aren't currently feasible due to the way that our system is structured, too. The structure of society can change, and has continuously changed throughout history. In the grand scheme of things, ending oil or dairy subsidies is a pretty minor tweak to the system.
I don't totally with his stance but it isn't clear that you're actually putting forth any clear argument at all. What is your actual argument?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
If the open source projects were not available, then a business needing that functionality would have to employ resources in house to do it or contract the work to some other business. I think the analogy works just fine. There is a giant pool of work that needs to be done with regards to software, but it is certainly not infinite. For an individual business, that pool of work is not likely to be all that large.
the US navy protects oil tankers at sea, they don't collect a dime from the oil companies for the escort service
can we get government escorts when we go grocery shopping?
Sure, just make sure you carry along around $2.8 million in valuables with you--according to a bit of poking around, that's the current value market of a full load of oil in a small crude oil tanker. (This was determined via checking Wikipedia for the number of barrels a small tanker holds and the lower of the two per-barrel values given at this time by oil-price.net.)
They also tend to pay taxes and there's a surprising number of people who for entirely non-economic reasons would rather not see the results of an oil tanker sinking or being blown up.
how the fuck do we tax that shit?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Look no further then then the pending overtime regulation overhaul for a fix.
Cheap storage VM.
See "Minimum Wage Laws" and the results of fewer jobs after increasing Min Wage.
Obviously, they should have gone straight for basic income.
Ezekiel 23:20
The real question is: How would you feel if , in whatever job you do for income, someone showed up to work for $0 hour for fun on the project, and they let you go?
Humans being humans. I believe that some of this at its core is behavior hardwired into us from the earlier days of our evolution. Someone is always going to want more than someone else. Some of them will be entirely willing to accomplish that through the use of force or through thievery. That certainly happens in the animal kingdom, and we are animals ourselves. Yes, we could probably provide an equivalent existence for the entire population, but people in the developed nations are not going to lower their own quality of life by any significant amount therefore it's not going to happen. Not now anyway. If we get to the point where we can elevate everyone, then maybe.
A lot of us are doing what is basically busy work. It's not necessary, but as a people, we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves outside of work. Look at the sad lives of people who win large lottery prizes. Some end up worse off than before. I know of people that would qualify for disability, as an example, but they don't for the same reason. Look at areas where a lot of people live on entitlements. They tend to be high crime areas, do they not?
We could get there maybe, but we're not ready for it now.
That is funny. I just ordered a 640Li (~650hp BMW) and was thinking that it would be awesome to pick people up and drive them around in it as an Uber driver. Alas, I would drive too fast and there is not one single anything in my area for such. Of course it does not help that I am many miles from the nearest podunk town and even further from an actual town that has stuff in it. Neither of which is serviced by Uber (or any other taxi) by the way.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The government does not give the oil companies money except when they purchase their products.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You are so funny, here in Crook County IL half the price of gasoline is taxes.
Milk is cheap (about half price again, ha!) usually through "loss leader" pricing by your supermarket or convenience store
The US navy would be out at sea anyway, projecting power globally.
only if he shaves his legs.
because it is really hard to fit all those cars into consolidated sweat shops.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I used to work at a Credit Union financing a Taxi Medallion purchase in New York.
This was a few years ago, and If I remember correctly, it was around US$1,000,000.
Trump is probably going to 'let the world know' how he has been observant and has finally reached the conclusion that Obama is black.
Also, seriously? Obama has been in office for 27 years already as POTUS and spell check still does not know his name by default? And, finally, after about 9 years, I have finally changed that and added it to the dictionary.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I dunno... I'd sex her. I think it is a matter or principle and not a matter of physical attraction. Kind of like how I would so sex Martha Stewart. Afterwards she could knit me a condom, cook me a dinner, and then make a walkway out of credit cards all chopped up. (Why she had that many credit cards is beyond me.) Either way, I would sex them both AND I would sex them both at the same time - on the fucking table at Thanksgiving Dinner. I am an honorable man who adheres to the orders cast down by General Principle.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I do not know what you do for a job but you should probably be doing a bit more than staring blankly at a screen unless your job is to determine the effects of eye strain. There's probably a keyboard and mouse attached to that screen. You might try poking those and seeing what they do. With enough poking you might actually find out what your employer expects (it is probably not staring blankly at a screen) and then you should determine if you are actually qualified to do the work that the employer has hired you to do. If you are unqualified then you should keep this job as long as you can and use the time to surf the internet and leave pithy replies in various comment sections.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Typical nanny state politician. Never miss an opportunity to fuck things up for someone else.
If the people working for uber either wanted or could get a better job they would. They either don't want them or can't get them. So fucking with their "gigs" just means you get nothing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Almost certainly. Of course, you may also be creating other jobs. The more relevant question is if it is moral and/or beneficial for you to code for fun.
Are you writing a piece of software that is needed and which otherwise would likely be written by a company established to fill that need? Then yes, you're putting programmers out of a job.
Are you writing a piece of software that would otherwise not be available, thereby enabling businesses to do new things that were otherwise not possible, creating new products and markets? Then you're probably creating new jobs, albeit not necessarily programmers.
Note that these two questions are not polar opposites, and neither makes any comment on the morality of your actions.
"Gig? What's a gig?
Working for the Company, living in the Company town, and being buried in the Company cemetery is the way life should be.
Now get offa my lawn!"
"Creative Destruction" is the destruction of the "worse" which is replaced by the "better". Hopefully resulting in better overall social welfare.
Would the destruction of the current model of the taxi industry lead to higher general social welfare? If the choice is between concentrating more of the profit at the top and less of it among the workers, probably not. If it means more profit for workers, and more workers, then it would improve social welfare.
Trying to identify which model improves social welfare is the key. Change is scary and disruptive, and not always good. But without technology-driven change, we'd still have a wagon-wheel manufacturing industry. On the other hand, we have lost a great deal of manufacturing, with all the costs and benefits that entails. IMO the costs outweigh the benefits in losing manufacturing.
Unfortunately, we don't see creative destruction in other important areas such as finance or politics. The financial system imploded in 2008, due to consistent patterns of misjudgment and malfeasance. But, they are among the biggest donors to federal politicians, so they received a rescue. I can understand saving the banks, but no executives were penalized, much less jailed. And the business models didn't change. Too Big To Fail just got bigger. Also, we don't see creative destruction in politics where the game is heavily rigged to favor the incumbent. If taxi drivers can convince (i.e. contribute sufficiently to) local, state and federal politicians, they may be able to save their business model, regardless of the social welfare implications.
[Aside: I notice your interesting post is at 0 points: Reminder to certain mods: There's no "-1 disagree"]
Regarding your post - what is the net result of individuals being able to pick up a small gig here and there? What is the social cost of that? Yeah, it can generate some spending money, but is the overall result to drive down wages of workers, while increasing wealth among business owners?
Or does it lower costs for business, both in regulation and wages, leading to greater business innovation and business creation, and greater social welfare?
Or does it lead to deflation as wages are pressured down? How about deflation along with greater income inequality leading to even worse social outcomes?
I don't know - but my point is that policy makers (politicians) should be trying to understand the big picture, guided by what most improves social welfare, and not what gets them the most contributions (hah).
You have to look at the entire cycle
Yeah, right. This is something politicians never do when enacting new laws regarding economic conditions. See "Minimum Wage Laws" and the results of fewer jobs after increasing Min Wage.
Had a look, found your claims are complete bollocks.
All arguments claiming minimum wages increase unemployment are full of "might", "maybe" and "possibly" whilst the ones disputing this claim use more definitive language. The worst they can say is that any change "was not statistically significant".
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Imagine a guy who gets off on driving for Uber Black in a Ferrari F40. They get crazy tips but what they're really doing it for is the awe of the passengers and to be treated like a freaky crazy rich dude for the people. What's that (or more luxurious angles: a Rolls-Royce guy) do to the job market?
A Ferrari F40 won't be permitted on Uber as it's a 2 door car. The same reason a Toyota 86 or Pug 208CC wont be permitted on Uber. Uber requires all cars to be 4 door minimum.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I think a more comparable situation would be another company paying a bunch of foreign coders from a cheap (but not free) labor market to write a clone of the product and sell it for cheaper than my employer does (due to flouting some kind of legal requirement). And in that situation, I'd probably feel about how the taxi drivers do right now.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You leave out the details of how someone gets there or that others do well with an established company.
Such lines of work do not show any net benefit - unless you have the luxury of being able to turn down any line of work.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The only person that would be happy is a person that has the rare luxury of being able to turn down any form of work.
Uber drivers are not of that set, but of a set that would choose more stable arrangements if offered them.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The idea of promoting unstable work arrangements is one that needs to DIAF. Promoting it as "flexibility" with a Potemkin Village doesn't make it true - it only serves to show that the "on-demand" economy cannot stand on merit, but on deception.
Perhaps you might want to read up on your historical friend, the company town, and wonder why we don't want to head back to the vagaries of the 19th century.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If the open source projects were not available, then a business needing that functionality would have to employ resources in house to do it or contract the work to some other business.
Well, yes, either we'd have spent the time to write something in-house or gotten it from other businesses that have those components as their products. We'd either lose the extra dev time or the extra money; either way, the business would function less efficiently, we'd have fewer resources to build the "real" functionality of the product, and we'd have a less-capable product. I see that as a net detriment.
but it is certainly not infinite
Someday, perhaps we'll have to come to the time where all necessary software has been written. We're a ways off from that. Just within the products that I'm involved in, we've got plans for thousands of people-years of development.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The only way an FTE job loses is when someone has enough ability to deflect the negative consequences of turning down work. These people are few, rare, and have the luxury that nearly everyone else doesn't have.
An FTE job provides the necessary stability. Your arrangements do not.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Regarding your post - what is the net result of individuals being able to pick up a small [redacted] here and there? What is the social cost of that? Yeah, it can generate some spending money, but is the overall result to drive down wages of workers, while increasing wealth among business owners?
Correct.
Such arrangements discourage stability and destroy the option for those that thrive best on conventional, FTE arrangements.
Or does it lower costs for business, both in regulation and wages, leading to greater business innovation and business creation, and greater social welfare?
Incorrect.
The only innovation that it "creates" is by creating more "broken windows". The loss in stability is not a positive factor, as it transfers the advantage to the broker/agency/etc, not individuals in general.
No thank you, but the casualization of labor does not lead to anywhere good or sane.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If anything, it's Uber and the like responding with the call of "Individuals have too much stability, KILL THEM."
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
...where the "better" (FTE), is getting replaced by the "worse" (irregular labor such as Uber/1099's/agency).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If government imposed artificial scarcity and price controls is such great idea for taxis, then why shouldn't the same model be good for other areas of the economy? Why shouldn't there be a "grocery store medallion" to limit the number of stores, jack up prices, and prevent them from having to compete? How about programmers? Should there be a "programmer medallion" to limit the number of people allowed to write code?
I suppose the difference is that taxi driving is relatively unskilled (especially if there's no route-knowledge test — less important now that there's sat nav). Supply constraints aim to give these unskilled people an adequate full-time job and wage, which may be more socially desirable than open-slather combined with welfare support. But the unintended consequences have concentrated the power and profits in pimp-like medallion owners, who sub-contract to the drivers. Perhaps the solution is an Uber-like system combined with quotas.
Milk is price controlled by the Federal government. It should actually be cheaper.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Since it's a discussion about a presidential candidate suggesting she will regulate uber, the Federal Constitution is what matters. So basically HRC is saying she wants to violate the Constitution.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Because there is only space for a certain number of vehicles on the street, and if too many taxis are circulating, there will be massive congestion?
How does one force themselves to work unpaid overtime? Even if violating labor laws is possible, who's going to turn you in?
That's an interesting reply to my original '1%' post. You've taken the employer perspective as many other employers would.
You seem to have some fantasy that people who own companies are raking in millions at the expense of those who work for them. Real world businesses are rarely that profitable and most employers would be very happy to have a large well paid work force because it means that the business is doing very well. That is NOT what the real world is like however. In the real world business owners live in terror for much of their existence because they are taking enormous risks. Most people who lose their job can usually find another one. It sucks but it's manageable. Entrepreneurs often literally are risking everything they have.
I ran my own construction company and helped run another.
Fair enough. Then you should understand the need to keep costs under control. A business that goes out of business employs nobody. Most small businesses are under-capitalized and don't have deep pockets.
There is plenty of room in construction work for people to drag their feet, to slack off and take advantage of their employer. In our companies, we took a personal interest in our employees (typically around 30) and their families.
You seem to be implying that I don't care about my employees. Most of our full time employees have been with us for many years. We support our employees as well when we have dips in orders. We employ temp workers to meet labor needs when we have a spike in production. But if there is no work then there is no work. In our industry generally when work dips it is because a job has ended. We compete with China on price and we have customers that will move the business for a few pennies per part savings. So should I adjust labor costs to keep the company healthy or should I continue to employ people while the company loses money risking everyone's job, including my own? Employing more people than I have to means that I must pay everyone less. Should I pay some people a better wage or pay more people a worse wage?
Treating a business like a charity helps no one in the long run. Pay your people as well as you can and treat them as well as possible but you HAVE to make sure the business is profitable. A business that isn't profitable will not be a business for long.
During the inevitable slow periods we tried everything imaginable to keep everyone on payroll. We bid jobs below cost at times just to keep them active.
That's very kind of you but you can only do that if there is a reasonable likelihood of business picking up. Construction is a seasonal business. Manufacturing like what we do is much less so. Our business cycles last years. Getting a new job might take 18 months or longer if it is of any substantial size. We have down periods too but you cannot employ people indefinitely for work you don't have no matter how much you care about them. If we employ too many people or over pay them, we will kill the company faster than you can say "Chapter 11".
I'd prefer to make slightly fewer millions knowing that my employees can thrive.
"Slightly fewer millions"? Cute. That is why I was dubious you have ever owned a business because very few businesses are in a real position to make "slightly fewer millions". If you made millions good for you but most manufacturing companies have profit margins in the single digits if they are profitable at all. Our company makes enough money to cover payroll with just a little left over for some small capital improvements. The owners of my company take home less than $100K annually after tax. Millions? Yeah, actually running a real company isn't the 1% fantasy you seem to think it is for most business owners.
So sayeth Faux news and scattered anecdata. (And the rest of your comment is just the same - rightwingnut talking points.)
Here's the funny thing. My politics are anything but right wing. I'm probably center left if anything. I can count the number of republicans I've voted for in the last 20 years on my fingers with lots left over. I support workers rights, socialized medicine, emissions taxation, a reduced military, and plenty of other items that generally are considered left wing. I listen to John Stewart, Bill Maher and that crowd for entertainment. I don't think you could pay me to listen to the wingnuts on Fox news. So there's that.
If you think what I said is wrong, show me the evidence to the contrary. Actual evidence. Do you have actual evidence that shows that not having valuable skills and not working hard results in better outcomes? By all means show me how I can do well by being lazy and having no skills anyone values. That would make my life a lot easier.
Government taxes account for a whopping 18 cents per gallon.
The state of Oklahoma alone gave the oil industry in this state over 500 million in subsides and tax cuts/credits (which are another form of subsidy) last year.
(meanwhile we had a budget shortfall of ~600 million....just by coincidence....)
Considering the industry is present in most states, if every state gave the industry just half that much support, it would total ~13 billion dollars, just from the states. the Federal government from its own admission pitches in another 4.5 billion or so. Oddly enough, that totals ~17.5 billion.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I'm just going on what you wrote - and it's all rightwingnut talking points.
Do you have any actual evidence that they invariably (as you imply, "can be assured") result in better outcomes? No, you do not. You're just repeating a rightwingnut talking point.
Piss right the hell off, you don't get to make unsupported claims and then insist that I'm the one who has to produce evidence.
Has no one else realized that the ONLY growth we are getting in this country is ways in which people are dodging the government?
Think about it. Are people building new restaurants? Hell, no. You already have to be filthy rich to open a new restaurant, the amount of regulations you need to go through is staggering, and impossible without lawyers and similar ilk to do the heavy lifting. So we get food trucks, instead. Lots of new food trucks, all around areas where regulation-happy government lunatics have kept people from trying to open restaurants. Coincidence? No.
Look at the Tiny House movement. Is this because it's just plain fun to live in a tiny house? HELL no. It's because more and more people can't afford the regulations, taxes, and controls placed, directly or indirectly, by various levels of government, on normal "housing". It's no surprise many tiny homes are on wheels - that puts them in a much-less regulated area, and one the RV industry can be counted on to help defend.
Look at Uber and Lyft. Look at taxies probably the greatest anti-consumer, scam-the-customer-for-all-he's-got cutthroat government regulation. The whole idea is antithetical to free markets and consumer rights. It exists because people who run the taxi companies are constantly funneling money back to politicians who promise to protect them from the slightest competition. Uber and Lyft find a way to get around these regs and the next thing you know is everybody and his brother wants to regulate and/or ban them and why? Is it because consumers are complaining? No, it's because the taxicab companies want it that way.
The "gig" economy exists because of Democrats and their job-killing policies. It takes the vast risk out of hiring someone you otherwise have to support with all kinds of government-required expenses, Obamacare far from the least among them. She helped create the "gig" economy, it's a direct result of her and her miserable party's proclivity for destroying old-fashioned jobs to fuel their social "justice" agenda.
We could go on and on with this. People are desperate to get out from under a stifling government. It's about time we realized that all of this is a reaction - an allergic reaction - to Big Government, and maybe start voting the damned thing smaller.
Government is the greatest destroyer of wealth ever created, and it has proven itself as an antidote to capitalism, the greatest creator of wealth ever spawned. With less government we wouldn't need to work so damn hard to get around it!
I'm not sure what this has to do with government protecting failing business models.
I'm not under 30 - and I don't worship Ayn Rand.
My dad died of cancer while I was in college - I constantly think about being older, weaker...etc. That's why I started saving for retirement at a young age.
Social safety nets are a good thing for the most needy. I have a problem with Government that has grown beyond "safety nets" into dictating winners and losers in our economy.
That can not be permitted to continue.
choose what they want to do; to force us all to have to turn to the government for every option, and to only have government approved options.
I see zero innovation from taking this stand, and I do not for a moment believe her goal is to protect the public.
She wants more of us registered in insecure government databases, that when they get hacked they will never take any responsibility for. They want to be able to find new innovative ways to tax us all, and give us nothing in return but propaganda an platitudes.
Hillary isn't just for big government and big, old, outdated corporations. Oh wait. Yeah, that's exactly what she's for.
The United States is about choosing one of two fake "choices", and it's tired, and it's defenders are idiots.
You know what? I occasionally listen to the few low digit Slashdotters who bother to hang around. Sometimes they have something to offer, either through experience or through some strange osmotically gathered wisdom.
However, concerning this comment:
What. The. Actual. Fuck. Is nobody allowed to do what they do BECAUSE THEY SIMPLY ENJOY IT? Must everybody be forever beholden to the GOLDEN FUCKING DOLLAR? What kind of sad fucking world do you even live in? Must EVERYTHING be paid and even SUFFERED for?
"Do what you love and the money will follow" vs "do what this small protectionist market wants and fuck you" and you seem to actively choose the latter? You would actually PREFER to have people working as cab drivers because they have NO OTHER SKILLS than having experienced, happy and motivated "amateurs" who know their territory, know their clientele and, most importantly, understand their market?
If your country isn't bankrupt, it's a stroke of luck, because you and your ilk are completely and utterly redundant. Enjoy your bizarre take on protectionism while it lasts. I truly hope for your sake that your retirement isn't far off because I think you might have already lost your marbles.