Where is Bush, or Congress, or the Senate, or any federal elected or unelected official granted any power to do this in the Constitution? This is complete cronyism focused on a few priviledged companies who are close to those elected. Anyone who doesn't vote NO on this idea is just as guilty.
I have a business to run here, actually two. I have bills to pay, right here in the Chicago area. I have some great ideas that I'd like to risk my money on, in order to help myself and my family. I have some long term things to purchase that will make my life better. I could care less about Mars or the Moon or higher orbits. None of that affects me, except in a negative way.
These tyrants (Bush, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, whatever Statist is focused on by the media) want to take YOUR money and give it to their friends. Don't believe it if you think they will do exactly what you want them to do with Mars. It will be immensely over budget. It goes directly against the Constitution's limit on federal government's powers. It will continue the slippery slope towards more lost freedom.
I'm sick of it. My money is MY MONEY. Your money is YOUR MONEY. The feds have no power to spend it unless we continue to allow Statists in office. None of them care for you, your family, your community, or your morals and values.
This is bad for capitalism, and bad for almost every citizen except for those few who directly work for a company involved in this scheme.
Mod duffbeer703 up. I speak about the loss of our Senate to the majority all the time, but many people look at me like I'm kidding or wrong. Many citizens have no idea that Senators should not be majority elected, but instead should be elected directly by those who are more concerned for the individual State.
I believe this is one of the worst alternation ever, but I believe the income tax and the loss of the gold standard are worse.
This is a great article. I don't like E-voting, but not because I fear of fraud or deceit -- I don't like the majority or the form of democracy our country has taken on in the last 100 years or so.
Not wanting to troll or start an argument, I just wanted to remind people that this country was founded on a Constitution that should severely limit what the federal government can do. Some of the Constitution's protection of natural rights extends to limit the individual State powers as well.
E-Voting is just one step towards "complete" democracy, where the majority makes all the rules. This frightens me more than I can explain on paper. The majority should never have any control over the minority (even over a minority of one) property rights or natural rights. If the majority ruled, 51% of the country can take away what 49% own. This is not America. This is not freedom.
Democracy unrestrained will fold into some sort of socialism eventually, as we have seen in the past 100 years. We need to hit the brakes and return to a strong local government and a weak federal government, and we need to do it now.
A programmer's worth may not manifest itself in the price of the software. While I am vehemently against copyright (and copyleft), I am not against the right of people to make money with their skills. I feel a good programmer is worthless without others.
A good programmer needs to first be able to produce something that others want. If that programmer wants to be able to make money, they can do it in a few ways. Sell the software (which requires good marketers, good distributors, and good retailers). They can also offer the software for free and find a way to entice software installers/consultants to reimburse the program (maybe for updates, etc).
I can see how giving away software seems to value that software at $0, but that is never the case. Businesses always look at the total cost of ownership, even if they don't seem to outright. A business that pays zero for software may discover a year later that they had more outages, bugs, and employee frustrations, and the cost of ownership may have meant lost business.
On the other hand, the company may have bought $500 off the shelf software, and had no employee complaints. Even though they didn't directly assess the TCO, the software stays valuable because "if it ain't broke..."
If you're the world's great programmer, it won't matter unless you work with others. That's called the free market. Writing the most bug free version of "Hello, World" will get you zilch, because there is no market for it. It has no worth to anyone.
Writing a competitor to Windows might have worth, but only if your software can be marketed correctly, can be distributed efficiently, can be installed effortlessly, can be supported by a variety of consultants, and can run with little downtime for the end user.
If you keyhole the programming industry, you ignore the most important facets of the free market: individuals, groups, and corporations working together to provide what everyone wants. Some need software, some need money, some need uptime, some need someone to hold their hands to comprehend why they need to provide some of the above.
Don't pay attention to just one individual, you'll fall prey to those who want to control you and force you to make bad decisions.
Copyrights and Intellectual Property are protected through the use of force by the only monopoly legally allowed to use force: our government.
Copyright makes sense in some ways, but if you look at copyright historically, much of the greatest art and music was produced with no protection for the author. Great literary works and poetry also had no protection under copyright until recently.
In the past 300 years, we decided in order to protect the "rights" of a creator, we need government to step in and threaten anyone who wanted to steal such creations and use them without compensating the artist. Fine.
Our Constitution gave very limited protection (7 years, extendable for another 7 years maximum). To many free thinkers, copyright was a great concern, as it now gave government a new power it didn't have before. As many of the free marketeers here know, every new government power is a slippery slope towards ultimate government power.
Copyright has been made into a monopolizing power for corporations, and now capitalism and the free market is blamed! Capitalism would never allow copyright -- if you create something, don't release it until you have the best way to market or distribute it. Should I have a better tactic, I should be able to move it too. Creating a product or art is only part of the profitability -- marketing, distribution, and other parts of selling the item are just as important.
Copyleft is no better. In the end, you still need some entity to enforce it. If its a free market entity, people will have no reason to support your copyleft as they aren't forced to. If you allow government the ability to enforce it, they will only use coecion through force to protect it, and that again creates a monopoly.
When it boils down to software, there might not be any reason to copyright or copyleft or protect the software through the monopoly of force. There are free market protections in place already!
If you were the author of Windows, and someone wanted to promote the product without your consent, you could submit to the buying public that they should buy your product as they'd get your support. They'd get your updates (as you have the source code) quicker than through your competitor. They'd get the support of knowing they can submit new ideas to you that might get into the code (your competitor wouldn't have that ability, no source code). Your customers would also have the knowledge that they'd be supporting you to continue to make better products.
Where does copyright fit into this? Is copyright preventing rampant piracy? Not a chance. If you want to protect your software from getting copied, force your software to register itself online at every use. Fixed. No pirating.
If you want to protect your software from getting copied, how about hardware locks like in the past? Sure, some have been worked around, but in the end, the pirates would have to work extra hard to do so. If you price it properly, business would have no incentive to pirate.
Copyright and copyleft are both automations created that can only work through force. Only government has the legal mandate to initiate force. And once we allow that power, we have no power to restrain it should it get out of hand.
You make a great point, indeed, except I disagree on the following grounds.
If an employer has numerous people willing to work without disability insurance provided by the employer, why should government force the employer to provide the insurance? The "majority" vote here is by the majority of workers willing to work without said insurance.
Now, throw government forced disability into the mix. If business didn't provide it by contract, and government would stay out of it, the free market would offer incentive to new insurance companies offering disability insurance that the work can buy themselves, IF THEY WANT.
Right now, every pays a crazy amount to federal and local disability insurance, much more than you'd pay if you had the ability to shop around for it.
As it is, you're correct. Our Supreme Courts have lost all touch with the Constitution. Whereas the Constitution says NO, the Supreme Court reads "maybe." Whereas the Constitution says NEVER, the Supreme Court reads "sometimes." Whereas the Constitution reads "GOVERNMENT CAN NOT" the Supreme Court adds "USUALLY."
It's so sad. A document that bans government from becoming tyrannical is instead manipulated to say that government can define what tyranny means.
What a few repliers don't understand is that much of the reason why people are overworked is not because the employers force them to, but their lifestyles do.
You, I, families, friends, and enemies all pay more than half our income in taxation at every level. This requires both parents to work. This requires all of us to skip out on quality time.
Government has messed up health care costs, causing them to skyrocket. This means you and I all have to work more.
Government has offered welfare to millions who don't need it. Guess what? These welfare rejects are taking up your free time. These welfare rejects are taking up your would-be savings for that vacation. These welfare rejects are causing your health insurance to skyrocket as hospitals are mandated to give them free coverage, so they double or triple bill the insurance companies, who we pay for.
Don't dictate to me that its the employer's responsibility to give us a fair deal. Government has long taken over those responsibilities by forcing an "equal playing field" and all of us pay for the incompetence of the bureaucrats who now run the business world.
I'd rather work hard for what I deserve, and not have to pay the way for those who are lazy.
Business are here to offer a product to people who desire that product at a certain price. When someone buys something, both parties in the transaction profit. This is true in the case of two individuals swapping one item (money) for another item (goods or services). Party A, the consumer, profits by gaining a product they wanted. Party B, the supplier, gains the money. Both end up with more value than they initially had.
What is idiotic is the belief that regulations are there to help an individual consumer. Why? If an individual refuses to purchase an item or service at a certain price, the item or service will go away. If another individual will provide the payment, it validates that item or service.
There is no such thing as the downtrodden in society, except for those extremely mentally or physically challenged. If you are poor, it is more often because you are lazy.
If you lose your job and end up homeless, it is because you over-extended your budget by spending and not saving.
The idea that there are thousands of families starving in America is a fallacy created by those who want to control others. This is a fallacy disppelled by many simple facts, included the fact that my own business has a "help wanted" sign in the window.
When has the free market been a fallacy? In the situations you're describing, where employers abused employees, said abuses occurred only because government was involved! Business interests can only abuse when they have the power of coercion behind them.
The only organization that can use coercive threats is government. That's mandated by the public will!
Bush's EPA is enforced by the majority's will. The private free market UL is not coercive.
If the toxins are secret, you still accepted the job. You accepted the risk. You accepted the reward. If you don't want risks, don't accept the reward of the salary offered. Work a job you know has low risks.
You have a great point, but the free market still dictates rules to cover your situation as well.
If you came to me with a great business idea, and desired $5000 of my money to invest in it, you'd have a better chance of getting it if you disclosed all portions of that idea. You might offer me a small return on my money.
On the other hand, if you had a secret idea and wanted me to risk my investment, you'd better guarantee me a huge return.
The same is true in the job market!
First, if I offered you a job, where all the chemicals you'd be dealing with are publicly known and tested, I'd probably offer you an average salary as based by other businesses in the industry. If I wanted you to work with unknown or secret chemicals, I would have to offer you more money, or maybe even a guarantee that they were safe. Either way you're protected.
If some other possible worker wanted to work with the secret chemicals for less money, they are free to. Maybe they're willing to take the greater risk for less reward than you are. Why am I forced to disclose anything to you. You make the decision as to what risk you will take, and what reward you want.
Err, wait, no you didn't. I just searched through the Constitution, and nowhere can I find a single clause that gives the majority (via "democratically elected representatives") the power to mandate employers to do ANYTHING.
Ergo, OSHA is unconstitutional. Therefore, your argument falls apart.
We may be a union of sovereign States that offer laws enticed by the whims of the majority, but in reality, the majority should be restrained by the limitations of the Constitution. No one should be told how to treat others based on federal government's coercive desires.
Unfortunately for employees, free society creates madmen who defraud employees into believing they have rights that they shouldn't have. When the free market had the freedoms it needed, everyone had better treatment. Once government involved itself in the relationship of Employers and Employees, everyone in the long run was harmed by increased prices, decreased availability of products, and horrendous taxation schemes that help only the few who happen to be friends of the elected.
Poor people? Who is poor? How many poor people are fat in this country? How many poor people have cell phones? How many poor people have cable TV?
Don't quote to me about the poor people. I don't see them. I've spent times at soup kitchens, and those poor people have mental problems, so I offer my help.
Most "poor people" by your standard are too lazy to go out and learn a skill. You can get by on McDonald's pay. After working at McDonald's for a year, you're making $9+ an hour. Get any job and prove your worth, and you won't be poor.
Office workers who are overstressed should not work those jobs. If they are obese, they should not eat the foods they are eating, or exercise more.
It is not the investors, the boardmembers, or the employers' responsibilities to make sure their employees are happy or stress free or skinny. It is the investors job to keep the business running.
If employees are unhappy, there are literally millions of positions open at other companies. Stop accepting risky jobs, the free market honestly offers you better positions, albeit maybe for less money.
Why should an employee get an equal share of the profits?
The employer, be it an individual, a small group of individuals, or a corporation of individuals, is taking a risk with their time and money. Only the employer deserves the reward of profits. They also are the only ones who deserve the risk of bankruptcy.
An employee gets the reward they are worth -- pay, benefits, time preference of their schedule. Employees don't take the same risks the employers take.
If an employee is underpaid, its their own fault and problem. The market pays you what you are worth. If you are worth more than you're getting paid, find a better job.
Who pays the Underwriter's Laboratory? The consumers of goods. If a lamp is to be sold by Target or Walmart, they want to reduce their risk in selling the product and REQUIRE the manufacturer of the product to get a UL stamp. The manufacturer of the lamp pay part of their R&D costs in getting that approval. The cost of the lamp goes up, and Target passes this cost onto the consumer.
You, as the consumer, may want to save money, so you go to some grey market import store and buy a non-UL certified lamp for 1/2 price. You take a risk that it could catch fire. Maybe your insurance company requires you buy only UL approved lamps. Your risk, your reward.
Let's move this thought to the free market of job offerings and acquisitions.
A company offers a job in building widgets. They know this job requires certain skills. They offer this job at a certain rate.
Employees seeking this job have these skills. Without OSHA, the possible Employees may have 2 or 3 or 300 or 1000 different companies seeking them. The Employees know how much they want to make. Some smart Employees will also want safe jobs, so they will seek Employees who are certified by trusted testing companies. Other Employees might want to take a risk (more dangerous job) in order to get a higher reward (more pay). They may decide to work at a non-certified company.
If you can make $50,000 with your skills from a "UL"-certified safe company, or $75,000 at an uncertified company, you can equate this with buying a $10 certified bulb, or a $2 uncertified bulb.
Employees are not easy to replace. If a certain job has a lot of people willing to fill it (McDonald's), the pay scale will be LOW. That is because the Supply of workers is HIGH, the Demand for the job is LOW. HIGH SUPPLY + LOW DEMAND = LOW PRICE ("pay").
If your skills as a worker are in demand, your pay will be high.
How is this hard to understand? If you have bills to pay, those bills were incurred by your free will. If you are unskilled, you better be living at home and working hard to learn skills. If you gain skills, you can now gain additional higher bills.
Your post is fraudulent in assuming that people with high bills are unskilled. That is not my problem, or an employer's, if you take on big bills and don't have a skill to market to pay for them.
Yes, Joe Worker is on equal ground with any employer. Joe Worker can refuse that job. If Mike Worker believes the job is a good one, he'll do it. If Joe Worker, Mike Worker, and Peter Worker all decide that the job risks aren't worth the rewards, and Big Business Inc can't find anyone to accept that job, the laws of supply and demand come into play as they always do. The Supply of workers at that pay is low, the Demand for those workers, if high, will dictate that the Price to pay for this work goes up. It will continue to rise until someone accepts it. On the other hand, Big Business Inc may use the laws of supply and demand by lowering the risk of the job and take safety precautions which may entice the market of available workers to accept the new safer job at a certain rate.
In my opinion (as well as any AnCapper in general), Employers and Employees are equal. No one should force anyone to work, and no one should force anyone to employ. Employers offer a job, a salary, and a work condition. Employees can accept or deny it.
It is not the employer's responsibility in a free market to provide a "safe working environment." It is the employer's responsibility to offer an environment, a job, and a pay that an employee is willing tow work in, perform, and decide is a decent rate to accept.
In a free market, no one forces anyone to work any job in any environment against their will. If you feel the job is unsafe, don't work at that rate in that environment. If you are unsure of the chemicals you have in your environment, consult independent authorities on the subject and see if there are health risks.
Employees profit from accepting a certain job in a certain environment at a certain pay scale. They make the call. If no one wanted to do said job in said facility at said rate, then the employer would follow supply and demand rules in employment and either make the pay more, the environment safer, or a combination of the two.
This is exactly why government-enforced agencies such as OSHA should be abhorred by employees!
When an independent organization such as the UL tells someone that a product is bad, the free market is allowed to decide if they want to base their purchasing judgement on truly independent agencies.
When government enforces rules through coercion, companies can use the famous line "We followed the government's rules" and pass the buck.
In these situations, it is much more acceptable to pass the buck and just blame the rules rather than allow the free market to create independent agencies that can set various warnings for both employees and employers alike.
This situation is a hard one for AnCaps like myself to resolve.
While it seems like IBM may have had some knowledge of statistsically higher death rates among these workers, there is also the belief that I hold that every worker are responsible to find out what risks a certain job holds.
Employers and employees really are on equal ground more than the general media wants you to believe. Both parties gain a profit from the jobs performed. If an employee wants to perform a job at a certain income, why is it the employer's role to let them know of any risks beforehand, unless the employee explicitly requests a risk assessment?
Cancer is such an odd condition. I honestly believe cancer isn't directly caused by one simple situation. So many variables can go into it. Smoking may cause cancer, but I believe smoking doesn't -- it is only a risk factor. Did these employees all eat regularly at a certain facility? Did they all live near factories that may have also contributed to the enhanced risk?
I read all the articles, and I'm fairly sure I agree with the jury that IBM should not be held liable. On the other hand, if employees asked in advance about the risks involved, and IBM blatantly lied, then they should be held guilty.
One thing is clear: the lesson learned is that you should always ask your employer in advance of any health risks involved in future work, and get their reply in writing.
This is outrageous. Why are "We the People" allowing such an abuse of power?
We pay for every dollar spent on wasted programs such as these. The Constitution does NOT allow our federal government the power to tax us to spend on this program (or most other military programs).
Its a waste. It means I have less control of my own money, and I lose even more in bureacratic red tape and pork.
Its not just the Republicans, either. Do you see any Democrats voting against the out of control spending of the federal agencies?
I wish others here would realize that government spending won't solve any of the problems today. All it does is give each and every one of us less control of our property, our money, and our persons.
Problems like these aren't resolved by preventing payoffs by "big business" or even by "a rich individual." Problems such as these are resolved by limiting the power of the elected official.
The UN has too much power. When you offer a person or a group of people, aka "elected officials" too much power, they'll be corrupted easily.
In the US, we used to have a really limited federal/central government. You could throw all the money you wanted at a Congressman or a President, but the Constitution limited them from doing anything to help you. Our great tyrant, Abe Lincoln, changed all that.
Just as the power of the US federals has spiraled out of control, so has the power of the UN. The more power we offer them, the more money will pay for the whims of the wealthy.
Greens, Democrats, Republicans, they all love the UN. They may say they don't, but while the UN swallows up more and more responsibility, do you really ever see even one of our elected officials tell us to get out of the UN?
I don't even have a landline phone anymore, except at my business. Caller ID helps restrict telemarketers fairly well there.
I use my cell phone as my primary personal phone, and telemarketing companies are not allowed to call it because it would place the call cost burden on me. Situation solved.
On the other hand, you don't own your phone number. Most (if not all) phone companies offer a low cost service to blocking unknown callers.
Our Constitution is pretty firm on what Congress has the power to do on a federal level, and I can not see how Congress has the power to control who can call you and who can't. If someone is a burden, find one of the many solutions that already exist, rather than placing yet another law on the books that really helps no one and harms many.
Personally, I used to like telemarketing calls. It was a fun way to waste away 5 or 10 minutes harassing them back with numerous oddball questions.
I don't get spam anymore thanks to filters, and I don't get telemarketing phone calls anymore thanks to my cell phone.
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Where is Bush, or Congress, or the Senate, or any federal elected or unelected official granted any power to do this in the Constitution? This is complete cronyism focused on a few priviledged companies who are close to those elected. Anyone who doesn't vote NO on this idea is just as guilty.
I have a business to run here, actually two. I have bills to pay, right here in the Chicago area. I have some great ideas that I'd like to risk my money on, in order to help myself and my family. I have some long term things to purchase that will make my life better. I could care less about Mars or the Moon or higher orbits. None of that affects me, except in a negative way.
These tyrants (Bush, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, whatever Statist is focused on by the media) want to take YOUR money and give it to their friends. Don't believe it if you think they will do exactly what you want them to do with Mars. It will be immensely over budget. It goes directly against the Constitution's limit on federal government's powers. It will continue the slippery slope towards more lost freedom.
I'm sick of it. My money is MY MONEY. Your money is YOUR MONEY. The feds have no power to spend it unless we continue to allow Statists in office. None of them care for you, your family, your community, or your morals and values.
This is bad for capitalism, and bad for almost every citizen except for those few who directly work for a company involved in this scheme.
Mod duffbeer703 up. I speak about the loss of our Senate to the majority all the time, but many people look at me like I'm kidding or wrong. Many citizens have no idea that Senators should not be majority elected, but instead should be elected directly by those who are more concerned for the individual State.
I believe this is one of the worst alternation ever, but I believe the income tax and the loss of the gold standard are worse.
This is a great article. I don't like E-voting, but not because I fear of fraud or deceit -- I don't like the majority or the form of democracy our country has taken on in the last 100 years or so.
Not wanting to troll or start an argument, I just wanted to remind people that this country was founded on a Constitution that should severely limit what the federal government can do. Some of the Constitution's protection of natural rights extends to limit the individual State powers as well.
E-Voting is just one step towards "complete" democracy, where the majority makes all the rules. This frightens me more than I can explain on paper. The majority should never have any control over the minority (even over a minority of one) property rights or natural rights. If the majority ruled, 51% of the country can take away what 49% own. This is not America. This is not freedom.
Democracy unrestrained will fold into some sort of socialism eventually, as we have seen in the past 100 years. We need to hit the brakes and return to a strong local government and a weak federal government, and we need to do it now.
Surprise, I disagree.
A programmer's worth may not manifest itself in the price of the software. While I am vehemently against copyright (and copyleft), I am not against the right of people to make money with their skills. I feel a good programmer is worthless without others.
A good programmer needs to first be able to produce something that others want. If that programmer wants to be able to make money, they can do it in a few ways. Sell the software (which requires good marketers, good distributors, and good retailers). They can also offer the software for free and find a way to entice software installers/consultants to reimburse the program (maybe for updates, etc).
I can see how giving away software seems to value that software at $0, but that is never the case. Businesses always look at the total cost of ownership, even if they don't seem to outright. A business that pays zero for software may discover a year later that they had more outages, bugs, and employee frustrations, and the cost of ownership may have meant lost business.
On the other hand, the company may have bought $500 off the shelf software, and had no employee complaints. Even though they didn't directly assess the TCO, the software stays valuable because "if it ain't broke..."
If you're the world's great programmer, it won't matter unless you work with others. That's called the free market. Writing the most bug free version of "Hello, World" will get you zilch, because there is no market for it. It has no worth to anyone.
Writing a competitor to Windows might have worth, but only if your software can be marketed correctly, can be distributed efficiently, can be installed effortlessly, can be supported by a variety of consultants, and can run with little downtime for the end user.
If you keyhole the programming industry, you ignore the most important facets of the free market: individuals, groups, and corporations working together to provide what everyone wants. Some need software, some need money, some need uptime, some need someone to hold their hands to comprehend why they need to provide some of the above.
Don't pay attention to just one individual, you'll fall prey to those who want to control you and force you to make bad decisions.
Copyrights and Intellectual Property are protected through the use of force by the only monopoly legally allowed to use force: our government.
Copyright makes sense in some ways, but if you look at copyright historically, much of the greatest art and music was produced with no protection for the author. Great literary works and poetry also had no protection under copyright until recently.
In the past 300 years, we decided in order to protect the "rights" of a creator, we need government to step in and threaten anyone who wanted to steal such creations and use them without compensating the artist. Fine.
Our Constitution gave very limited protection (7 years, extendable for another 7 years maximum). To many free thinkers, copyright was a great concern, as it now gave government a new power it didn't have before. As many of the free marketeers here know, every new government power is a slippery slope towards ultimate government power.
Copyright has been made into a monopolizing power for corporations, and now capitalism and the free market is blamed! Capitalism would never allow copyright -- if you create something, don't release it until you have the best way to market or distribute it. Should I have a better tactic, I should be able to move it too. Creating a product or art is only part of the profitability -- marketing, distribution, and other parts of selling the item are just as important.
Copyleft is no better. In the end, you still need some entity to enforce it. If its a free market entity, people will have no reason to support your copyleft as they aren't forced to. If you allow government the ability to enforce it, they will only use coecion through force to protect it, and that again creates a monopoly.
When it boils down to software, there might not be any reason to copyright or copyleft or protect the software through the monopoly of force. There are free market protections in place already!
If you were the author of Windows, and someone wanted to promote the product without your consent, you could submit to the buying public that they should buy your product as they'd get your support. They'd get your updates (as you have the source code) quicker than through your competitor. They'd get the support of knowing they can submit new ideas to you that might get into the code (your competitor wouldn't have that ability, no source code). Your customers would also have the knowledge that they'd be supporting you to continue to make better products.
Where does copyright fit into this? Is copyright preventing rampant piracy? Not a chance. If you want to protect your software from getting copied, force your software to register itself online at every use. Fixed. No pirating.
If you want to protect your software from getting copied, how about hardware locks like in the past? Sure, some have been worked around, but in the end, the pirates would have to work extra hard to do so. If you price it properly, business would have no incentive to pirate.
Copyright and copyleft are both automations created that can only work through force. Only government has the legal mandate to initiate force. And once we allow that power, we have no power to restrain it should it get out of hand.
You make a great point, indeed, except I disagree on the following grounds.
If an employer has numerous people willing to work without disability insurance provided by the employer, why should government force the employer to provide the insurance? The "majority" vote here is by the majority of workers willing to work without said insurance.
Now, throw government forced disability into the mix. If business didn't provide it by contract, and government would stay out of it, the free market would offer incentive to new insurance companies offering disability insurance that the work can buy themselves, IF THEY WANT.
Right now, every pays a crazy amount to federal and local disability insurance, much more than you'd pay if you had the ability to shop around for it.
As it is, you're correct. Our Supreme Courts have lost all touch with the Constitution. Whereas the Constitution says NO, the Supreme Court reads "maybe." Whereas the Constitution says NEVER, the Supreme Court reads "sometimes." Whereas the Constitution reads "GOVERNMENT CAN NOT" the Supreme Court adds "USUALLY."
It's so sad. A document that bans government from becoming tyrannical is instead manipulated to say that government can define what tyranny means.
What a few repliers don't understand is that much of the reason why people are overworked is not because the employers force them to, but their lifestyles do.
You, I, families, friends, and enemies all pay more than half our income in taxation at every level. This requires both parents to work. This requires all of us to skip out on quality time.
Government has messed up health care costs, causing them to skyrocket. This means you and I all have to work more.
Government has offered welfare to millions who don't need it. Guess what? These welfare rejects are taking up your free time. These welfare rejects are taking up your would-be savings for that vacation. These welfare rejects are causing your health insurance to skyrocket as hospitals are mandated to give them free coverage, so they double or triple bill the insurance companies, who we pay for.
Don't dictate to me that its the employer's responsibility to give us a fair deal. Government has long taken over those responsibilities by forcing an "equal playing field" and all of us pay for the incompetence of the bureaucrats who now run the business world.
I'd rather work hard for what I deserve, and not have to pay the way for those who are lazy.
Business are not here to serve anyone.
Business are here to offer a product to people who desire that product at a certain price. When someone buys something, both parties in the transaction profit. This is true in the case of two individuals swapping one item (money) for another item (goods or services). Party A, the consumer, profits by gaining a product they wanted. Party B, the supplier, gains the money. Both end up with more value than they initially had.
What is idiotic is the belief that regulations are there to help an individual consumer. Why? If an individual refuses to purchase an item or service at a certain price, the item or service will go away. If another individual will provide the payment, it validates that item or service.
There is no such thing as the downtrodden in society, except for those extremely mentally or physically challenged. If you are poor, it is more often because you are lazy.
If you lose your job and end up homeless, it is because you over-extended your budget by spending and not saving.
The idea that there are thousands of families starving in America is a fallacy created by those who want to control others. This is a fallacy disppelled by many simple facts, included the fact that my own business has a "help wanted" sign in the window.
When has the free market been a fallacy? In the situations you're describing, where employers abused employees, said abuses occurred only because government was involved! Business interests can only abuse when they have the power of coercion behind them.
The only organization that can use coercive threats is government. That's mandated by the public will!
Bush's EPA is enforced by the majority's will. The private free market UL is not coercive.
If the toxins are secret, you still accepted the job. You accepted the risk. You accepted the reward. If you don't want risks, don't accept the reward of the salary offered. Work a job you know has low risks.
You have a great point, but the free market still dictates rules to cover your situation as well.
If you came to me with a great business idea, and desired $5000 of my money to invest in it, you'd have a better chance of getting it if you disclosed all portions of that idea. You might offer me a small return on my money.
On the other hand, if you had a secret idea and wanted me to risk my investment, you'd better guarantee me a huge return.
The same is true in the job market!
First, if I offered you a job, where all the chemicals you'd be dealing with are publicly known and tested, I'd probably offer you an average salary as based by other businesses in the industry. If I wanted you to work with unknown or secret chemicals, I would have to offer you more money, or maybe even a guarantee that they were safe. Either way you're protected.
If some other possible worker wanted to work with the secret chemicals for less money, they are free to. Maybe they're willing to take the greater risk for less reward than you are. Why am I forced to disclose anything to you. You make the decision as to what risk you will take, and what reward you want.
Wow. You beat me there.
Err, wait, no you didn't. I just searched through the Constitution, and nowhere can I find a single clause that gives the majority (via "democratically elected representatives") the power to mandate employers to do ANYTHING.
Ergo, OSHA is unconstitutional. Therefore, your argument falls apart.
We may be a union of sovereign States that offer laws enticed by the whims of the majority, but in reality, the majority should be restrained by the limitations of the Constitution. No one should be told how to treat others based on federal government's coercive desires.
Unfortunately for employees, free society creates madmen who defraud employees into believing they have rights that they shouldn't have. When the free market had the freedoms it needed, everyone had better treatment. Once government involved itself in the relationship of Employers and Employees, everyone in the long run was harmed by increased prices, decreased availability of products, and horrendous taxation schemes that help only the few who happen to be friends of the elected.
Nice try.
Poor people? Who is poor? How many poor people are fat in this country? How many poor people have cell phones? How many poor people have cable TV?
Don't quote to me about the poor people. I don't see them. I've spent times at soup kitchens, and those poor people have mental problems, so I offer my help.
Most "poor people" by your standard are too lazy to go out and learn a skill. You can get by on McDonald's pay. After working at McDonald's for a year, you're making $9+ an hour. Get any job and prove your worth, and you won't be poor.
You don't work, you don't eat? So work.
Office workers who are overstressed should not work those jobs. If they are obese, they should not eat the foods they are eating, or exercise more.
It is not the investors, the boardmembers, or the employers' responsibilities to make sure their employees are happy or stress free or skinny. It is the investors job to keep the business running.
If employees are unhappy, there are literally millions of positions open at other companies. Stop accepting risky jobs, the free market honestly offers you better positions, albeit maybe for less money.
Why should an employee get an equal share of the profits?
The employer, be it an individual, a small group of individuals, or a corporation of individuals, is taking a risk with their time and money. Only the employer deserves the reward of profits. They also are the only ones who deserve the risk of bankruptcy.
An employee gets the reward they are worth -- pay, benefits, time preference of their schedule. Employees don't take the same risks the employers take.
If an employee is underpaid, its their own fault and problem. The market pays you what you are worth. If you are worth more than you're getting paid, find a better job.
Who pays the Underwriter's Laboratory? The consumers of goods. If a lamp is to be sold by Target or Walmart, they want to reduce their risk in selling the product and REQUIRE the manufacturer of the product to get a UL stamp. The manufacturer of the lamp pay part of their R&D costs in getting that approval. The cost of the lamp goes up, and Target passes this cost onto the consumer.
You, as the consumer, may want to save money, so you go to some grey market import store and buy a non-UL certified lamp for 1/2 price. You take a risk that it could catch fire. Maybe your insurance company requires you buy only UL approved lamps. Your risk, your reward.
Let's move this thought to the free market of job offerings and acquisitions.
A company offers a job in building widgets. They know this job requires certain skills. They offer this job at a certain rate.
Employees seeking this job have these skills. Without OSHA, the possible Employees may have 2 or 3 or 300 or 1000 different companies seeking them. The Employees know how much they want to make. Some smart Employees will also want safe jobs, so they will seek Employees who are certified by trusted testing companies. Other Employees might want to take a risk (more dangerous job) in order to get a higher reward (more pay). They may decide to work at a non-certified company.
If you can make $50,000 with your skills from a "UL"-certified safe company, or $75,000 at an uncertified company, you can equate this with buying a $10 certified bulb, or a $2 uncertified bulb.
I disagree with you completely.
Employees are not easy to replace. If a certain job has a lot of people willing to fill it (McDonald's), the pay scale will be LOW. That is because the Supply of workers is HIGH, the Demand for the job is LOW. HIGH SUPPLY + LOW DEMAND = LOW PRICE ("pay").
If your skills as a worker are in demand, your pay will be high.
How is this hard to understand? If you have bills to pay, those bills were incurred by your free will. If you are unskilled, you better be living at home and working hard to learn skills. If you gain skills, you can now gain additional higher bills.
Your post is fraudulent in assuming that people with high bills are unskilled. That is not my problem, or an employer's, if you take on big bills and don't have a skill to market to pay for them.
Yes, Joe Worker is on equal ground with any employer. Joe Worker can refuse that job. If Mike Worker believes the job is a good one, he'll do it. If Joe Worker, Mike Worker, and Peter Worker all decide that the job risks aren't worth the rewards, and Big Business Inc can't find anyone to accept that job, the laws of supply and demand come into play as they always do. The Supply of workers at that pay is low, the Demand for those workers, if high, will dictate that the Price to pay for this work goes up. It will continue to rise until someone accepts it. On the other hand, Big Business Inc may use the laws of supply and demand by lowering the risk of the job and take safety precautions which may entice the market of available workers to accept the new safer job at a certain rate.
It is actually simple, not asinine.
That's your free choice to make.
In my opinion (as well as any AnCapper in general), Employers and Employees are equal. No one should force anyone to work, and no one should force anyone to employ. Employers offer a job, a salary, and a work condition. Employees can accept or deny it.
It is not the employer's responsibility in a free market to provide a "safe working environment." It is the employer's responsibility to offer an environment, a job, and a pay that an employee is willing tow work in, perform, and decide is a decent rate to accept.
In a free market, no one forces anyone to work any job in any environment against their will. If you feel the job is unsafe, don't work at that rate in that environment. If you are unsure of the chemicals you have in your environment, consult independent authorities on the subject and see if there are health risks.
Employees profit from accepting a certain job in a certain environment at a certain pay scale. They make the call. If no one wanted to do said job in said facility at said rate, then the employer would follow supply and demand rules in employment and either make the pay more, the environment safer, or a combination of the two.
This is exactly why government-enforced agencies such as OSHA should be abhorred by employees!
When an independent organization such as the UL tells someone that a product is bad, the free market is allowed to decide if they want to base their purchasing judgement on truly independent agencies.
When government enforces rules through coercion, companies can use the famous line "We followed the government's rules" and pass the buck.
In these situations, it is much more acceptable to pass the buck and just blame the rules rather than allow the free market to create independent agencies that can set various warnings for both employees and employers alike.
This situation is a hard one for AnCaps like myself to resolve.
While it seems like IBM may have had some knowledge of statistsically higher death rates among these workers, there is also the belief that I hold that every worker are responsible to find out what risks a certain job holds.
Employers and employees really are on equal ground more than the general media wants you to believe. Both parties gain a profit from the jobs performed. If an employee wants to perform a job at a certain income, why is it the employer's role to let them know of any risks beforehand, unless the employee explicitly requests a risk assessment?
Cancer is such an odd condition. I honestly believe cancer isn't directly caused by one simple situation. So many variables can go into it. Smoking may cause cancer, but I believe smoking doesn't -- it is only a risk factor. Did these employees all eat regularly at a certain facility? Did they all live near factories that may have also contributed to the enhanced risk?
I read all the articles, and I'm fairly sure I agree with the jury that IBM should not be held liable. On the other hand, if employees asked in advance about the risks involved, and IBM blatantly lied, then they should be held guilty.
One thing is clear: the lesson learned is that you should always ask your employer in advance of any health risks involved in future work, and get their reply in writing.
This is outrageous. Why are "We the People" allowing such an abuse of power?
We pay for every dollar spent on wasted programs such as these. The Constitution does NOT allow our federal government the power to tax us to spend on this program (or most other military programs).
Its a waste. It means I have less control of my own money, and I lose even more in bureacratic red tape and pork.
Its not just the Republicans, either. Do you see any Democrats voting against the out of control spending of the federal agencies?
I wish others here would realize that government spending won't solve any of the problems today. All it does is give each and every one of us less control of our property, our money, and our persons.
Problems like these aren't resolved by preventing payoffs by "big business" or even by "a rich individual." Problems such as these are resolved by limiting the power of the elected official.
The UN has too much power. When you offer a person or a group of people, aka "elected officials" too much power, they'll be corrupted easily.
In the US, we used to have a really limited federal/central government. You could throw all the money you wanted at a Congressman or a President, but the Constitution limited them from doing anything to help you. Our great tyrant, Abe Lincoln, changed all that.
Just as the power of the US federals has spiraled out of control, so has the power of the UN. The more power we offer them, the more money will pay for the whims of the wealthy.
Greens, Democrats, Republicans, they all love the UN. They may say they don't, but while the UN swallows up more and more responsibility, do you really ever see even one of our elected officials tell us to get out of the UN?
There is one. Ron Paul.
I don't even have a landline phone anymore, except at my business. Caller ID helps restrict telemarketers fairly well there.
I use my cell phone as my primary personal phone, and telemarketing companies are not allowed to call it because it would place the call cost burden on me. Situation solved.
On the other hand, you don't own your phone number. Most (if not all) phone companies offer a low cost service to blocking unknown callers.
Our Constitution is pretty firm on what Congress has the power to do on a federal level, and I can not see how Congress has the power to control who can call you and who can't. If someone is a burden, find one of the many solutions that already exist, rather than placing yet another law on the books that really helps no one and harms many.
Personally, I used to like telemarketing calls. It was a fun way to waste away 5 or 10 minutes harassing them back with numerous oddball questions.
I don't get spam anymore thanks to filters, and I don't get telemarketing phone calls anymore thanks to my cell phone.