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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.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com...
And the regulations already exist. Uber is completely illegal.
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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.
Did someone mention Donald Trump?
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
If I want to do piece work, whether web sites or chauffeuring someone around, it's none of her friggin' business.
Have you read the constitution? It says the government can regulate your commercial activities.
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.
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.
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(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.
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!
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)
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?
[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.
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.
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.
Hilary has the nerve to mention making money in the gig economy with all of her and her husbands gigs giving speeches.
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.
That's an interesting reply to my original '1%' post. You've taken the employer perspective as many other employers would.
But you say: " 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." - and that's quite wrong.
I ran my own construction company and helped run another. 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. 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. The benefit was (as you suggested) quality work, but even more we learned that their loyalty paid of in monetary and other ways.
There have been companies that cared about employees, and employees who respond with loyalty. There was an entire nation (Japan) with this attitude. This is out of fashion lately but can be found to some extent at companies like Starbucks and Costco and many smaller companies. OTOH there are profitable companies like Walmart whose employees depend on welfare to survive.
You may choose how to run your company. I'd prefer to make slightly fewer millions knowing that my employees can thrive.
...omphaloskepsis often...
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.
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%.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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?
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.
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.