Nobody questions that, it's obvious that the coverage needs to be mandated and defined in the law. The problem is more "does it makes sense that contraception is included in the basic healthcare coverage mandated by law?".
Technically speaking the risks are insurance claims due to unwanted pregnancy. Assuming unwanted pregnancies do actually cost the healthcare insurance money, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies reduces the claims to be paid. Subsidizing contraception is an investment made to prevent more claims, and it might be a good investment if the money invested is less than the cost of the claims it prevented.
It's absolutely traditional: an insurance covers some risk which might happen in the future. Incentiving practices which help in reducing the probability of this risk or the magnitude of the claim is a very old strategy to try to reduce the cost of future claims. Typical health insurance claims cost much less if the problem is discovered soon and treatment administered as soon as possible, so incentiving regular checks or a healthy lifestyle ultimately helps the insurance's bottom line.
Usually even if you have healthcare you need evidence that you actually need a procedure or medication to get it covered, otherwise you'll have to pay it yourself or get it paid with a private insurance. Here we have universal healthcare coverage and contraception is obviously not covered unless you for some reason actually *require* it and a medic gives you a prescription (like for every other procedure or medication).
You're describing a job position which relies almost completely on product-specific experience, which means that a new employee for this position without the specific experience would not be productive until successfully trained. Not all high-pay jobs are like that: in some positions you can be a great asset for the company even if you don't know the product-specific details in-depth yet.
The problem is that not-so-great recruiters have difficulties in recognizing which jobs require a product-specific experience and which allow for a more generic profile as long as the correct skills are there, so in case of doubt they tend to be over-specific.
About hiring juniors and training them, it's always a risk but you should be able to retain more of them. If all of them run away as soon as they can I would investigate the issue, maybe your company is not proposing a career path interesting enough.
The other reason is that many companies are not interested in training people anymore: they want someone already trained to put to the task immediately without additional costs.
It takes a big man to apologize when there is no gain in doing it. In this case I guess the intention to defuse a tricky situation harming the brand's reputation played a role too.
The fact is that the army-issued rifle is not a private weapon and you are allowed to use it only "on duty". You cannot even use it for personal defense in your own home. Said that, getting a private weapon and ammunition is very easy, you just need a permit which is not granted only in very specific cases (mentally ill, with a criminal record...).
Bank secrecy is not absolute, it merely means you need to get a warrant if you want to inspect someone's bank data, and if you actually have good reasons to believe that someone is doing something fishy the warrant is not an issue. What many foreign states want is actually unlimited access to any and all customers data without the need for probable cause, which is against the Swiss constitution.
Strict bank secrecy laws were not amended: to do that the government would actually need to change the constitution, since that's where this protection is defined. Every change to the constitution needs to be approved by popular vote, so even if the government caves in to the US requests, it has to actually convince the majority of Swiss voters to approve the amendments in the mandatory vote.
What actually happened is that many Swiss banks got threatened with lawsuits in the US and decided that US customers were more hassle than they were worth it.
The sad thing is that there is people who still think that more money automatically equals more quality:
Chingos said there’s no way that Georgia or other states can write their own high-quality tests at a lower cost.
“If they’re going to spend less than the consortia, they’re going to get a worse test,” he said. “There may be reasons why Georgia thinks the PARCC tests aren’t appropriate for Georgia, but there’s no way to get around the math here.”
The math might be sound, but the logic is definately lacking.
I'm not advocating special treatment for any technology. As I said, coal is not the long term solution and the reason is the same as with current technology nuclear power: as soon as you take into account the externalities and have to pay for them they become very expensive. Allowing these externalities to be basically subsidized you can ignore these costs and allow for inferior technologies to stay viable and relevant. These technologies should get obsoleted much faster, but as long as these costs are offloaded there is simply not enough incentive.
Long term coal is not the answer, but current technology nuclear power is not either. We'd never make any progress on nuclear power itself if there is no incentive in pushing new generation technologies. Let's stop subsidizing nuclear power accident liability costs: either you manage to design it to be safe enough to be privately insureable, or it's not safe enough to get built.
This scandal is an issue exactly because it involves nuclear power. Nuclear power to be safe requires far higher security standards that any other generating system. The alternative you propose is that the government does everything itself without contractors. I cannot even imagine how much higher would be the cost of building and maintaining a nuclear power plant under these limitations.
Apex predators are "essential" in the sense that spontaneusly emerge in ecosystems. When apex predators starts failing it's bad only for the current equilibrium of the ecosystem, which will be replaced by a new equilibrium (not necessarly worse than the previous) in which there will be most likely another apex predator. Actually exactly the same applies in business.
They are effectively banning some kind of publications from their shops: that's censorship by definition. Of course it's within their rights, but that doesn't mean it's not censorship, it simply means it's legal (which doesn't imply it being a good or bad decision).
You cannot compare what is meant as "tip" in the US vs "tip" in Europe. In the US you are supposed to leave roughly 15-20% of the bill price. In Europe you are not expected to tip at all, but if you were satisfied with the service it's customary to leave a small amount of "pocket change" money. This form of tip is nowhere near the amount expected in the US.
However, not everything is better in Europe: a glass of water might cost €2. Even McDonalds charges €0.60 (~ $1) for a cup of tap water.
In my country restaurants are mandated by law to provide tap water on request free of charge, but this varies between different EU countries. Said that, requesting tap water is not customary, I would feel embarassed to ask for that unless I have a particular need (e.g. to take a medication). Also there are no complimentary refills, so at the end beverages tend to make a significant part of the bill.
Switzerland has gotten rich by allowing criminally obtained money to be stored in it's banks and then refusing to cooperate with the authorities of nations from where it was obtained illegally.
Swiss authorities are perfectly willing to cooperate as soon as you actually provide probable cause and get a warrant. The reason is pretty simple: in Switzerland bank informations are considered confidential and privacy law protects them. I find somewhat strange that we expect a warrant to be required to access e.g. a Facebook account but somehow bank accounts informations are supposed to be freely accessible by any government.
business that shows families having dinner in its advertisements says it doesn't want to depict gay families, even though gay families probably make up a tiny percentage of their market: ERMAGERD BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT
All of this happened in Italy so actually America is for once not involved.
The chairman didn't state he didn't want to depict gay families due to marketing or economic reasons, he stated that the very idea of gay families is against his personal values and the values of his company. He also basically stated "if you have a problem with that feel free to buy another brand". Guess what? Many actually stated that they do have problem with that and were going to do exactly what he suggested. No surprise he and the company backpedalled lightning fast.
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody questions that, it's obvious that the coverage needs to be mandated and defined in the law. The problem is more "does it makes sense that contraception is included in the basic healthcare coverage mandated by law?".
Technically speaking the risks are insurance claims due to unwanted pregnancy. Assuming unwanted pregnancies do actually cost the healthcare insurance money, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies reduces the claims to be paid. Subsidizing contraception is an investment made to prevent more claims, and it might be a good investment if the money invested is less than the cost of the claims it prevented.
It's absolutely traditional: an insurance covers some risk which might happen in the future. Incentiving practices which help in reducing the probability of this risk or the magnitude of the claim is a very old strategy to try to reduce the cost of future claims. Typical health insurance claims cost much less if the problem is discovered soon and treatment administered as soon as possible, so incentiving regular checks or a healthy lifestyle ultimately helps the insurance's bottom line.
Usually even if you have healthcare you need evidence that you actually need a procedure or medication to get it covered, otherwise you'll have to pay it yourself or get it paid with a private insurance. Here we have universal healthcare coverage and contraception is obviously not covered unless you for some reason actually *require* it and a medic gives you a prescription (like for every other procedure or medication).
Of course you can test incomplete software. The relevant tests should fail until the implementation is complete and correct.
It wouldn't make the law automatically bad, it would just make it proactive instead of reactive.
You're describing a job position which relies almost completely on product-specific experience, which means that a new employee for this position without the specific experience would not be productive until successfully trained. Not all high-pay jobs are like that: in some positions you can be a great asset for the company even if you don't know the product-specific details in-depth yet.
The problem is that not-so-great recruiters have difficulties in recognizing which jobs require a product-specific experience and which allow for a more generic profile as long as the correct skills are there, so in case of doubt they tend to be over-specific.
About hiring juniors and training them, it's always a risk but you should be able to retain more of them. If all of them run away as soon as they can I would investigate the issue, maybe your company is not proposing a career path interesting enough.
The other reason is that many companies are not interested in training people anymore: they want someone already trained to put to the task immediately without additional costs.
It takes a big man to apologize when there is no gain in doing it. In this case I guess the intention to defuse a tricky situation harming the brand's reputation played a role too.
The fact is that the army-issued rifle is not a private weapon and you are allowed to use it only "on duty". You cannot even use it for personal defense in your own home. Said that, getting a private weapon and ammunition is very easy, you just need a permit which is not granted only in very specific cases (mentally ill, with a criminal record...).
Bank secrecy is not absolute, it merely means you need to get a warrant if you want to inspect someone's bank data, and if you actually have good reasons to believe that someone is doing something fishy the warrant is not an issue. What many foreign states want is actually unlimited access to any and all customers data without the need for probable cause, which is against the Swiss constitution.
Strict bank secrecy laws were not amended: to do that the government would actually need to change the constitution, since that's where this protection is defined. Every change to the constitution needs to be approved by popular vote, so even if the government caves in to the US requests, it has to actually convince the majority of Swiss voters to approve the amendments in the mandatory vote. What actually happened is that many Swiss banks got threatened with lawsuits in the US and decided that US customers were more hassle than they were worth it.
Chingos said there’s no way that Georgia or other states can write their own high-quality tests at a lower cost.
“If they’re going to spend less than the consortia, they’re going to get a worse test,” he said. “There may be reasons why Georgia thinks the PARCC tests aren’t appropriate for Georgia, but there’s no way to get around the math here.”
The math might be sound, but the logic is definately lacking.
I'm not advocating special treatment for any technology. As I said, coal is not the long term solution and the reason is the same as with current technology nuclear power: as soon as you take into account the externalities and have to pay for them they become very expensive. Allowing these externalities to be basically subsidized you can ignore these costs and allow for inferior technologies to stay viable and relevant. These technologies should get obsoleted much faster, but as long as these costs are offloaded there is simply not enough incentive.
Long term coal is not the answer, but current technology nuclear power is not either. We'd never make any progress on nuclear power itself if there is no incentive in pushing new generation technologies. Let's stop subsidizing nuclear power accident liability costs: either you manage to design it to be safe enough to be privately insureable, or it's not safe enough to get built.
This scandal is an issue exactly because it involves nuclear power. Nuclear power to be safe requires far higher security standards that any other generating system. The alternative you propose is that the government does everything itself without contractors. I cannot even imagine how much higher would be the cost of building and maintaining a nuclear power plant under these limitations.
Apex predators are "essential" in the sense that spontaneusly emerge in ecosystems. When apex predators starts failing it's bad only for the current equilibrium of the ecosystem, which will be replaced by a new equilibrium (not necessarly worse than the previous) in which there will be most likely another apex predator. Actually exactly the same applies in business.
They are effectively banning some kind of publications from their shops: that's censorship by definition. Of course it's within their rights, but that doesn't mean it's not censorship, it simply means it's legal (which doesn't imply it being a good or bad decision).
We still give tips.
You cannot compare what is meant as "tip" in the US vs "tip" in Europe. In the US you are supposed to leave roughly 15-20% of the bill price. In Europe you are not expected to tip at all, but if you were satisfied with the service it's customary to leave a small amount of "pocket change" money. This form of tip is nowhere near the amount expected in the US.
However, not everything is better in Europe: a glass of water might cost €2. Even McDonalds charges €0.60 (~ $1) for a cup of tap water.
In my country restaurants are mandated by law to provide tap water on request free of charge, but this varies between different EU countries. Said that, requesting tap water is not customary, I would feel embarassed to ask for that unless I have a particular need (e.g. to take a medication). Also there are no complimentary refills, so at the end beverages tend to make a significant part of the bill.
.
Switzerland has gotten rich by allowing criminally obtained money to be stored in it's banks and then refusing to cooperate with the authorities of nations from where it was obtained illegally.
Swiss authorities are perfectly willing to cooperate as soon as you actually provide probable cause and get a warrant. The reason is pretty simple: in Switzerland bank informations are considered confidential and privacy law protects them. I find somewhat strange that we expect a warrant to be required to access e.g. a Facebook account but somehow bank accounts informations are supposed to be freely accessible by any government.
business that shows families having dinner in its advertisements says it doesn't want to depict gay families, even though gay families probably make up a tiny percentage of their market: ERMAGERD BOYCOTT BOYCOTT BOYCOTT
All of this happened in Italy so actually America is for once not involved.
The chairman didn't state he didn't want to depict gay families due to marketing or economic reasons, he stated that the very idea of gay families is against his personal values and the values of his company. He also basically stated "if you have a problem with that feel free to buy another brand". Guess what? Many actually stated that they do have problem with that and were going to do exactly what he suggested. No surprise he and the company backpedalled lightning fast.
His family name is Barilla so yes, "Barilla" is in hot water... anyway he is not the CEO, he is the chairman.
He voiced his personal opinion but also stated very clearly that it's also the position of the company:
We have a different idea in respect of gay families. To us the idea of sacral family remains a fundamental value of the company.
Original text from La Zanzara:
Noi abbiamo un concetto differente rispetto alla famiglia gay. Per noi il concetto di famiglia sacrale rimane un valore fondamentale dell'azienda.
Nuclear, on the other hand, basically can't be turned off.
Actually France has nuclear power plants designed to be able to throttle the output down to as low as 30% during normal operation.