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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.
...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.
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.
(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 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)
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?