The majority of adults should be able to earn enough to support a family (partner + 2 children). The minimum wage should be somewhere below that, but not too far below.
Minimum wage is for those just entering the work force. It should be enough to support 1 person. Other than that, the government should engage in policies that tend to restrict the labor force somewhat. For example, don't subsidize child care. More parents chose to stay home, that's fewer people in the work force, households with a stay at home parent tend to be financially more efficient - they generally don't need as many vehicles, can shop more efficiently, cook more food and eat out less. Fewer people in the work force = more negotiating power for those that remain = more pay.
Which means that they can run without electricity, but they won't run without diesel fuel.
Incorrect. As long as they have an electrified rail available, they could be bone dry and operate just fine. See 'subways', they don't even have diesel engines.
Until then battery electric vehicles remain a novelty.
You're moving the goal-posts here. Earlier you only said electric vehicles, not battery electric.
Some of the largest vehicles on earth, such as the Bagger 288, are electric. Some of the smallest as well. Diesel comes into it's own only when separated from the grid. Now, this is a very valid use case, and I don't disagree that battery prices need to come down.
But battery electric vehicles will be more than a novelty LONG before ships, trains, and long-haul trucks are nearly-exclusively battery electric.
Or do you consider consumer automobiles 'novelty items'? Chop the price of battery packs down to 1/2-1/3rd of where they are now, and electric cars will make perfect sense as commuter vehicles. Cities will love them for the lowered air pollution in their area, etc...
Local control(somewhat) is fine. The main problem is that our poorest areas can't afford something like this. Our richest areas need idiots who can't afford to live there to move out.
At the same time, we might need to ensure that the people with the power and money do not actually just raise the cost of living by an equal amount.
You can't charge what people don't have. Though yes, you'd have to continually 'tune' the benefit levels and ratios - my $500 month/$5/hour is just an estimate.
This is where people make mistakes. You buy gold and get it in person, between paying retail and asseyment fees for selling it, you're never going to get your money back.
Me, I buy lead, copper, and brass in prepackaged units, though I do some assembly myself as well.
You just said it yourself. All the crook has to do is stand near an ATM and wait for somebody with a smartphone to use it.
Or, you know, hold a gun or a knife to them and make them withdraw the max they can for you. You know, the traditional method.
Or attach a skimmer to the reader, so the inserted card goes through your reader before entering the machine, and you have a camera placed to catch the pin. Like what happens in eastern europe all the time.
Last sentence of my original post was "A hybrid system is possible". So yeah.
A BIG of around $500/month per adult*, fedjob starting at somewhere around $5-10/hour. Yes, I'd increase pay for more skilled work. Sit on your bum - $500/month. Kinda doable if you get several roommates. Not intended to be generous. Still, when I was younger it would have been quite the safety net - "Screw, you, my biggest expense, rent, is covered if I can't stand this place anymore."
Work full time for $5/hour, that's ~$833/month** in wages. Add in the BIG and it's 1,333, or $16k/year. Right on the federal poverty line for an individual. Very survivable in most areas of the USA with a roommate or two.
Capable of more than sweeping floors(badly)? Get $10/hour, $26k/year. Not a bad living for helping out your fellow man. Plus, if a $10/hour fedjob is 'easy' to get, that puts a floor on what the businesses can offer. Also gives the feds incentive to keep minimum wage reasonable - they have to hire everybody UNDER it, after all.
I'll note that I haven't addressed healthcare - I figure that if you're paying a BIG, you can cover basic healthcare as well.
*Defining how you handle children is an extremely complex nut. **($5*40*50)/12. 52 gives $867, but meh.
They've started to put batteries into the drive train though. Lets them save fuel when there are hills and such.
all the energy to move the vehicle come from the fuel.
That's the thing about electricity - there's fuel being used somewhere. Don't forget that some trains are hybrid - they can use power lines or a third rail when available to avoid having to burn on-board diesel.
That may be true but I suspect the motor uses plenty of rare earth metals. While the GPP may have where those metals end up in the car wrong they do end up in the car somewhere.
Your suspicions are most likely incorrect, unless you count copper as a rare earth metal. Most serious EV vehicles use AC motors. This is explicitly true for Tesla. No rare earths are required for it's motor.
FTA: Unlike the DC brushless rotor, the induction rotor has no magnets – just stacked steel laminations with buried peripheral conductors that form a “shorted structure.”
It's the hybrids that are using DC motors that need magnets, preferably rare earth ones.
An electric motor can certainly be made without rare earth metals but it will be heavier and less efficient.
Not when you want performance, or go over a certain performance level:
Thus, the induction machine when operated with a smart inverter has an advantage over a DC brushless machine – magnetic and conduction losses can be traded such that efficiency is optimized. This advantage becomes increasingly important as performance is increased. With DC brushless, as machine size grows, the magnetic losses increase proportionately and part load efficiency drops. With induction, as machine size grows, losses do not necessarily grow. Thus, induction drives may be the favored approach where high-performance is desired; peak efficiency will be a little less than with DC brushless, but average efficiency may actually be better.
Diesel engines rule the road, rail, and sea.
Speaking of rails... Have you heard of the "Diesel-electric transmission"? They've been in nearly all locomotives for many decades. We've had diesel electric ships since 1903, and their use is becoming more popular.
The concept is simple enough. Rather than having a mechanical gearbox, you hook your diesel engines up to a generator, then run power lines to electric motors that power the wheels. The diesel provides the energy, the motors provide the power for movement.
Well, let me know when electric tractor/trailers are on the market.
Until we get batteries that can compete with fuel oil and diesel fuel on weight, volume, and cost we will continue to see electric vehicles as novelties and penis size compensators.
Not really, the weight and energy density of diesel is not necessary for all applications, and batteries have (recently) become cheap enough that electric is finally cheaper than diesel - at least in the applications most suited for them. Tesla is looking to cut costs in half again for their batteries, allowing them to break into the market a step down from the luxury section.
Saying that electric won't be suitable for semi-tractor trailers anytime soon is like saying that jet engines aren't suited for use because they can't reach the moon. Long haul tractor trailers are the most demanding common application I can think of, the most suited for diesel. Long before they go electric, it will be highly practical and economical for 99% of consumer automobiles to be electric. Including trucks such as UPS delivery vehicles.
'm not exactly enamored by that but it seems to be the most logical choice if one wants prosperity and stability. I'm open to suggestions.
I happen to agree with you. My only alternative is, like I said, a guaranteed job program. Which tends to end up being more expensive and getting less work done than hiring people suited for the work that needs to be done and paying the rest welfare. It's complicated.
Anyways, for a job program, step 1 is that it shouldn't displace regular employees. IE it shouldn't be for maintenance, though I'm sure it'll end up doing some. Instead, I think that they should work to create conditions such that they can find outside work, stimulated by the fedjobs work.
As such, I'd want them to be restricted to 'infrastructure creation'. Stuff that can be put on hold if the economy heats up and starts hiring them. I define infrastructure, in this case to be anything that increases the productivity or quality of life of citizens that can be expected to last at least 20 years with routine maintenance. So education is infrastructure. A building is infrastructure. A park is infrastructure, etc... Mowing the park is maintenance, not infrastructure.
Sometimes infrastructure can be on the part of business - say, a cable company's wires. The benefits of fedjobs should be public, not private. Fedjob workers shouldn't be helping private corporations, at least not directly. The closest I'm willing to go is the installation of utility lines and equipment for a not-for-profit, government or cooperative company.
If the economy heats up, you'd simply slow or stop the starting of new infrastructure projects as you lose workers, then slow and stop existing projects. Hopefully you'd have enough warning to get said projects into a state where they can be slowed or stopped without breaking down/losing existing work.
While at her income level hiring a lawyer might not be worth it, I'm going to say that 'company email stops working' isn't a proper notification of release from employment.
As such, she should still be paid for her hours until she receives proper, formal, notification.
Should it be a living wage to work as a fry cook? Should it be a living wage to work in a convenience store?
Good questions. My first question: How do you define a 'living wage'? I generally define one as sufficient for a single person to live on, with a suite-mate. I've had online discussions though, with people who seriously wanted the minimum wage to be sufficient for single full time income earner to support a family of 4. In addition, as a military member who's deployed a number of time, my 'standard of living' is a bit lower than some.
Personally, I'd prefer to not set a minimum wage at all. I'd prefer to avoid mandating benefits either - mandating healthcare for full time workers, for example, has resulted in whole segments of employers only hiring part time workers.
But you still have to counter the race to the bottom. As such, I support a support system - either a mandatory employment program (I tend to call it 'FedJobs'), or something like a basic guaranteed income(BIG), such that employers who offer too little simply don't find any employees. Whether because citizens find working for the feds more profitable or because they find the wages too pathetic to work for under a BIG. A hybrid system is possible.
it's someone from UL trying to instill fear and drum up business for their private, for profit company.
I was going to drum up that UL is a not-for-profit, but it turns out that you're right and I'm behind the times. UL went 'for-profit' back in 2012. Though it seems that the for profit branch is still owned by the non-profit parent company. So I wonder how the hell that works out.
I mean, I like businesses. I like companies doing their best to make a profit. Part of the whole libertarian thing. But also as part of the libertarian thing, I'm extremely supportive of non and not-for profits like the UL used to be, cooperatives, and employee-owned companies. My ideal utility company, for example, is a cooperative not-for profit.
UL discarding their 'not-for-profit' status makes me uncomfortable. Before, while I wouldn't term them perfect, I could at least say that the company's primary concern was safety above all else. Sure, they'd charge money - but they needed to keep the lights on. Not needing to turn a profit, they would be mostly immune to the corruption of having to satisfy their customers by passing goods that might not actually be as safe as they could be.
Lots of posts here on Slashdot have confirmed that women aren't deemed worthy, when customers wanted to talk to someone.
Odd, I haven't seen that at all. There's a few, but there's easily been more that have shown preference for female workers(especially younger with big boobs).
Because of institutionalised sexism, customers demand is for male services.
So both males and females are demanding males to provide services to them? That's a bit beyond 'institutionalized'. My point remains though - female workers are not as cost effective as males, for a variety of reasons.
You error is to believe that capitalism is efficient. It isn't. It works better than other systems from time to time. Or less worse.
There have been businesses in the past that attempted to exploit mostly female work forces. They did well enough, but said industries tended to end up dominated by female workers.
Start marking the bitcoins 'paid' as ransoms like this as 'dirty', and get as many vendors as possible to ban 'dirty' bitcoins'.
A user notices that X amount of his bitcoin has been marked dirty and unacceptable, and he has to sell it at a loss is going to get pissed at where he got it from - and probably implement checking for dirt himself. Then the anonymizers and places that accept ransom bitcoins for laundering will have regular users start avoiding them, etc...
I would hope that these studies are totaling up the entire compensation package (wages, insurance, retirement funding, stock options, etc..) of each person.
From what I've seen, the studies that show a much lower number for women don't count the entire benefit package, the studies that come up with women closer to parity against the men do.
First, "F still has excess production capacity at" should be $0.72, not $1.
You're already falling into the trap.
Nope. You just need to read closer. I think you posted this before reading my entire post. I used a standard logical argument, basically. Assume the negation is true - IE that men and women are identical. If said negation was true, as per my analogy, women's wages should naturally adjust to the men's. They don't though, so men and women aren't actually identical. Yes, I have the same theories you do as to why - women take maternity leave, work less overtime, tend to select jobs that are more stable and heavier on benefits. Men tend to take risks more - riskier but higher paying jobs, work overtime for more money, and aren't as obsessed with benefits.
For the most part, the raw numbers hide the real story, men and women aren't doing the same jobs, or working the same hours.
For example, in my bolt analogy, I said this: "but what if M is stainless and F isn't?"
Indicating that M(en) are doing jobs that W(omen) can't or won't do.
Let's say that theoretical female and male employees are theoretically identical except for the flag "F" or "M". Let's also treat them as an asset. Like, say, a Bolt. Said Bolts, from company "M" has a "M" embossed on the top. From company "F", it has a "F". The bolts are identical otherwise, delivered at the same cost, speed, etc...
Bolts from M cost $1 each. Bolts from F cost $0.72. If I'm a business, I'd be an idiot to buy Bolt M, bolt F is substantially cheaper. I can offer cheaper products buying from F. Under such a scenario, as a business I'd buy bolt F exclusively if possible. But F can't produce enough, so they're only meeting half of my demand. I'd offer F, say, $0.75 per bolt to ensure my supply. Problem, next thing I know, F has raised their prices, and I'm paying $0.85, and M is offering a sale at $0.85 so it can sell bolts as well.
The conclusion, as an amateur economist, but decent at math and science, is that if M can stay in business at $1 and F still has excess production capacity at $1 each, is that the "M" and "F" aren't actually identical. Maybe bolt F is just as strong as M mechanically, but what if M is stainless and F isn't? Then M will be used exclusively in various tasks - exterior applications, corrosive environments, etc...
Same deal with male and female employees. If the $0.72 cents is hanging around, maybe it's because there actually ARE differences, and businesses aren't actually, on average, paying men more for no good reason. Identifying what those reasons could be is the real trick.
The fact is, if women were a better value at 72 Cents on the dollar, any business would be foolish to hire men.
Indeed. Some studies have found that women are paid MORE than men, once you factor in job field, experience, hours worked, seniority, etc...
I've heard that women tend to be valued less in the work center because of: 1. Heavier use of benefits vs straight pay 2. Tend to take more time off, and work fewer hours(means less seniority as well) 3. Select more flexible, but lower paying, employment options. 4. Choose more for stability over pay (Men buy stocks, Women buy bonds.)
Everything below $15K or whatever the minimum survivable income is, is tax free.
Anything above that..pays a flat tax.
Hell, make it refundable. I've seen people still seriously argue that my tax scheme is still 'regressive' when this is what I argue for: Every adult US Citizen in good standing* receives $500/month as a big. 30% flat tax rate with exceptions being rare as hell.
Hell, they'll get upset at me when I mention that the current US tax system is more regressive than a flat tax(with a big standard deductible/exemption) - due to the way long term capital gains are treated, those I consider 'truly rich' make most of their money via capital gains, specifically long term, and end up paying a lower percentage than the upper-middle class.
Now..I don't have an answer for the capital gains taxes....sure you might wanna hit the rich there, but when you do...you also hit the lower wealth classes..as that they are investing their retirement and it gets hit with those same taxes, that as you say...affect them worse than it does the wealthy.
IRAs, 401K, etc... With a little bit of thought and the even more favorable capital gains rates for lower income people, it's entirely possible. At my income level I'm doing nearly all Roth IRA.
The simplest solution, I think, would be to split income into 2 categories - I'll call them 'earned' and 'unearned'. Earned is wage income and such. Unearned is investment income - from what you own, not what you do. If you put short term trading gains into Earned, that's just a rule.
Anyways, have a standard exemption and tax table for each - and they are to be the same. So if you make $1M in a year, if it's ALL wages or if it's all investment income, you pay $x in taxes. If you make that same $1M, but it's $500k wages, $500k investment, then you pay $y, where $y is less than $x.
We average about 1 mass shooting event a week in the USA. Horrible, yes. Over the last 5 years or so, I remember THREE events that involved Islam. For example, the Hasan Fort Hood shooting was in 2009, and is thus too old.
I can be generous and say about 1 Islam involved shooting a year. This still gives us a rate of about 2% of mass shootings involving Islam, which I would dispute is a 'big role'.
I saw no indication that they knew this attack was planned through other channels like HUMINT. I don't know why they think being able to decrypt random cell phone comms would have ensured that they stopped this attack.
Indeed. Plain old coding systems would be enough. Texting a bunch of people something like "My uncle Pete died, the viewing is at XYZ" would be enough to kick things off. Just to be fancy XYZ in the message could be 48 hours AFTER the attack is to take place. You could even send it, and variations of it, to all sorts of people who might not even be involved.
Between a half and a quarter, depending on the mix of isotopes in your "waste". Which is not a tiny fraction. The caesium has a half life of 30 years (so decays to a quarter ; 137 isotope) ; the strontium (1/4, 28 years), barium (1/64, 10 years), iodine (negligible, 60 days), xenon (negligible, 30 days).
How's it still at 1/4 if the halflives you list are all at 1/4 or less after 60, much less 90 years?
Should be closer to 80% of radioactivity gone by then.
Also, 'Nearly as much'. Yes, it's still radioactive and dangerous, just not as bad as it was before.
Technically, it'd be one survey with a test and control group. You as the test group about elephants, and the control group about humans.
The results do not surprise me. A lot of people, religious or not, hold to a 'humanity is special' paradigm. Hell, they think they themselves are special. For example, do a survey as to whether people figure they're better or worse than the median/average driver. Most will answer that they're better.
There's a lot of people who will insist that "I ain't evolved from no monkey!" (poor English deliberate)
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The majority of adults should be able to earn enough to support a family (partner + 2 children). The minimum wage should be somewhere below that, but not too far below.
Minimum wage is for those just entering the work force. It should be enough to support 1 person. Other than that, the government should engage in policies that tend to restrict the labor force somewhat. For example, don't subsidize child care. More parents chose to stay home, that's fewer people in the work force, households with a stay at home parent tend to be financially more efficient - they generally don't need as many vehicles, can shop more efficiently, cook more food and eat out less. Fewer people in the work force = more negotiating power for those that remain = more pay.
Which means that they can run without electricity, but they won't run without diesel fuel.
Incorrect. As long as they have an electrified rail available, they could be bone dry and operate just fine. See 'subways', they don't even have diesel engines.
Until then battery electric vehicles remain a novelty.
You're moving the goal-posts here. Earlier you only said electric vehicles, not battery electric.
Some of the largest vehicles on earth, such as the Bagger 288, are electric. Some of the smallest as well. Diesel comes into it's own only when separated from the grid. Now, this is a very valid use case, and I don't disagree that battery prices need to come down.
But battery electric vehicles will be more than a novelty LONG before ships, trains, and long-haul trucks are nearly-exclusively battery electric.
Or do you consider consumer automobiles 'novelty items'? Chop the price of battery packs down to 1/2-1/3rd of where they are now, and electric cars will make perfect sense as commuter vehicles. Cities will love them for the lowered air pollution in their area, etc...
Local control(somewhat) is fine. The main problem is that our poorest areas can't afford something like this. Our richest areas need idiots who can't afford to live there to move out.
At the same time, we might need to ensure that the people with the power and money do not actually just raise the cost of living by an equal amount.
You can't charge what people don't have. Though yes, you'd have to continually 'tune' the benefit levels and ratios - my $500 month/$5/hour is just an estimate.
Buy metal. Start stacking.
This is where people make mistakes. You buy gold and get it in person, between paying retail and asseyment fees for selling it, you're never going to get your money back.
Me, I buy lead, copper, and brass in prepackaged units, though I do some assembly myself as well.
You just said it yourself. All the crook has to do is stand near an ATM and wait for somebody with a smartphone to use it.
Or, you know, hold a gun or a knife to them and make them withdraw the max they can for you. You know, the traditional method.
Or attach a skimmer to the reader, so the inserted card goes through your reader before entering the machine, and you have a camera placed to catch the pin. Like what happens in eastern europe all the time.
Last sentence of my original post was "A hybrid system is possible". So yeah.
A BIG of around $500/month per adult*, fedjob starting at somewhere around $5-10/hour. Yes, I'd increase pay for more skilled work. Sit on your bum - $500/month. Kinda doable if you get several roommates. Not intended to be generous. Still, when I was younger it would have been quite the safety net - "Screw, you, my biggest expense, rent, is covered if I can't stand this place anymore."
Work full time for $5/hour, that's ~$833/month** in wages. Add in the BIG and it's 1,333, or $16k/year. Right on the federal poverty line for an individual. Very survivable in most areas of the USA with a roommate or two.
Capable of more than sweeping floors(badly)? Get $10/hour, $26k/year. Not a bad living for helping out your fellow man. Plus, if a $10/hour fedjob is 'easy' to get, that puts a floor on what the businesses can offer. Also gives the feds incentive to keep minimum wage reasonable - they have to hire everybody UNDER it, after all.
I'll note that I haven't addressed healthcare - I figure that if you're paying a BIG, you can cover basic healthcare as well.
*Defining how you handle children is an extremely complex nut.
**($5*40*50)/12. 52 gives $867, but meh.
There are no batteries in the drive train,
They've started to put batteries into the drive train though. Lets them save fuel when there are hills and such.
all the energy to move the vehicle come from the fuel.
That's the thing about electricity - there's fuel being used somewhere. Don't forget that some trains are hybrid - they can use power lines or a third rail when available to avoid having to burn on-board diesel.
That may be true but I suspect the motor uses plenty of rare earth metals. While the GPP may have where those metals end up in the car wrong they do end up in the car somewhere.
Your suspicions are most likely incorrect, unless you count copper as a rare earth metal. Most serious EV vehicles use AC motors. This is explicitly true for Tesla. No rare earths are required for it's motor.
FTA: Unlike the DC brushless rotor, the induction rotor has no magnets – just stacked steel laminations with buried peripheral conductors that form a “shorted structure.”
It's the hybrids that are using DC motors that need magnets, preferably rare earth ones.
An electric motor can certainly be made without rare earth metals but it will be heavier and less efficient.
Not when you want performance, or go over a certain performance level:
Thus, the induction machine when operated with a smart inverter has an advantage over a DC brushless machine – magnetic and conduction losses can be traded such that efficiency is optimized. This advantage becomes increasingly important as performance is increased. With DC brushless, as machine size grows, the magnetic losses increase proportionately and part load efficiency drops. With induction, as machine size grows, losses do not necessarily grow. Thus, induction drives may be the favored approach where high-performance is desired; peak efficiency will be a little less than with DC brushless, but average efficiency may actually be better.
Diesel engines rule the road, rail, and sea.
Speaking of rails... Have you heard of the "Diesel-electric transmission"? They've been in nearly all locomotives for many decades. We've had diesel electric ships since 1903, and their use is becoming more popular.
The concept is simple enough. Rather than having a mechanical gearbox, you hook your diesel engines up to a generator, then run power lines to electric motors that power the wheels. The diesel provides the energy, the motors provide the power for movement.
Well, let me know when electric tractor/trailers are on the market.
Consider yourself informed.
Until we get batteries that can compete with fuel oil and diesel fuel on weight, volume, and cost we will continue to see electric vehicles as novelties and penis size compensators.
Not really, the weight and energy density of diesel is not necessary for all applications, and batteries have (recently) become cheap enough that electric is finally cheaper than diesel - at least in the applications most suited for them. Tesla is looking to cut costs in half again for their batteries, allowing them to break into the market a step down from the luxury section.
Saying that electric won't be suitable for semi-tractor trailers anytime soon is like saying that jet engines aren't suited for use because they can't reach the moon. Long haul tractor trailers are the most demanding common application I can think of, the most suited for diesel. Long before they go electric, it will be highly practical and economical for 99% of consumer automobiles to be electric. Including trucks such as UPS delivery vehicles.
'm not exactly enamored by that but it seems to be the most logical choice if one wants prosperity and stability. I'm open to suggestions.
I happen to agree with you. My only alternative is, like I said, a guaranteed job program. Which tends to end up being more expensive and getting less work done than hiring people suited for the work that needs to be done and paying the rest welfare. It's complicated.
Anyways, for a job program, step 1 is that it shouldn't displace regular employees. IE it shouldn't be for maintenance, though I'm sure it'll end up doing some. Instead, I think that they should work to create conditions such that they can find outside work, stimulated by the fedjobs work.
As such, I'd want them to be restricted to 'infrastructure creation'. Stuff that can be put on hold if the economy heats up and starts hiring them. I define infrastructure, in this case to be anything that increases the productivity or quality of life of citizens that can be expected to last at least 20 years with routine maintenance. So education is infrastructure. A building is infrastructure. A park is infrastructure, etc... Mowing the park is maintenance, not infrastructure.
Sometimes infrastructure can be on the part of business - say, a cable company's wires. The benefits of fedjobs should be public, not private. Fedjob workers shouldn't be helping private corporations, at least not directly. The closest I'm willing to go is the installation of utility lines and equipment for a not-for-profit, government or cooperative company.
If the economy heats up, you'd simply slow or stop the starting of new infrastructure projects as you lose workers, then slow and stop existing projects. Hopefully you'd have enough warning to get said projects into a state where they can be slowed or stopped without breaking down/losing existing work.
While at her income level hiring a lawyer might not be worth it, I'm going to say that 'company email stops working' isn't a proper notification of release from employment.
As such, she should still be paid for her hours until she receives proper, formal, notification.
Should it be a living wage to work as a fry cook? Should it be a living wage to work in a convenience store?
Good questions. My first question: How do you define a 'living wage'? I generally define one as sufficient for a single person to live on, with a suite-mate. I've had online discussions though, with people who seriously wanted the minimum wage to be sufficient for single full time income earner to support a family of 4. In addition, as a military member who's deployed a number of time, my 'standard of living' is a bit lower than some.
Personally, I'd prefer to not set a minimum wage at all. I'd prefer to avoid mandating benefits either - mandating healthcare for full time workers, for example, has resulted in whole segments of employers only hiring part time workers.
But you still have to counter the race to the bottom. As such, I support a support system - either a mandatory employment program (I tend to call it 'FedJobs'), or something like a basic guaranteed income(BIG), such that employers who offer too little simply don't find any employees. Whether because citizens find working for the feds more profitable or because they find the wages too pathetic to work for under a BIG. A hybrid system is possible.
it's someone from UL trying to instill fear and drum up business for their private, for profit company.
I was going to drum up that UL is a not-for-profit, but it turns out that you're right and I'm behind the times. UL went 'for-profit' back in 2012. Though it seems that the for profit branch is still owned by the non-profit parent company. So I wonder how the hell that works out.
I mean, I like businesses. I like companies doing their best to make a profit. Part of the whole libertarian thing. But also as part of the libertarian thing, I'm extremely supportive of non and not-for profits like the UL used to be, cooperatives, and employee-owned companies. My ideal utility company, for example, is a cooperative not-for profit.
UL discarding their 'not-for-profit' status makes me uncomfortable. Before, while I wouldn't term them perfect, I could at least say that the company's primary concern was safety above all else. Sure, they'd charge money - but they needed to keep the lights on. Not needing to turn a profit, they would be mostly immune to the corruption of having to satisfy their customers by passing goods that might not actually be as safe as they could be.
Lots of posts here on Slashdot have confirmed that women aren't deemed worthy, when customers wanted to talk to someone.
Odd, I haven't seen that at all. There's a few, but there's easily been more that have shown preference for female workers(especially younger with big boobs).
Because of institutionalised sexism, customers demand is for male services.
So both males and females are demanding males to provide services to them? That's a bit beyond 'institutionalized'. My point remains though - female workers are not as cost effective as males, for a variety of reasons.
You error is to believe that capitalism is efficient. It isn't. It works better than other systems from time to time. Or less worse.
There have been businesses in the past that attempted to exploit mostly female work forces. They did well enough, but said industries tended to end up dominated by female workers.
Pretty much - People only don't bother checking when the rate is low enough to not matter.
it just needs to be non-seizable
Start marking the bitcoins 'paid' as ransoms like this as 'dirty', and get as many vendors as possible to ban 'dirty' bitcoins'.
A user notices that X amount of his bitcoin has been marked dirty and unacceptable, and he has to sell it at a loss is going to get pissed at where he got it from - and probably implement checking for dirt himself. Then the anonymizers and places that accept ransom bitcoins for laundering will have regular users start avoiding them, etc...
I would hope that these studies are totaling up the entire compensation package (wages, insurance, retirement funding, stock options, etc..) of each person.
From what I've seen, the studies that show a much lower number for women don't count the entire benefit package, the studies that come up with women closer to parity against the men do.
First, "F still has excess production capacity at" should be $0.72, not $1.
You're already falling into the trap.
Nope. You just need to read closer. I think you posted this before reading my entire post. I used a standard logical argument, basically. Assume the negation is true - IE that men and women are identical. If said negation was true, as per my analogy, women's wages should naturally adjust to the men's. They don't though, so men and women aren't actually identical. Yes, I have the same theories you do as to why - women take maternity leave, work less overtime, tend to select jobs that are more stable and heavier on benefits. Men tend to take risks more - riskier but higher paying jobs, work overtime for more money, and aren't as obsessed with benefits.
For the most part, the raw numbers hide the real story, men and women aren't doing the same jobs, or working the same hours.
For example, in my bolt analogy, I said this: "but what if M is stainless and F isn't?"
Indicating that M(en) are doing jobs that W(omen) can't or won't do.
... And your point would be?
Let's say that theoretical female and male employees are theoretically identical except for the flag "F" or "M". Let's also treat them as an asset. Like, say, a Bolt. Said Bolts, from company "M" has a "M" embossed on the top. From company "F", it has a "F". The bolts are identical otherwise, delivered at the same cost, speed, etc...
Bolts from M cost $1 each. Bolts from F cost $0.72. If I'm a business, I'd be an idiot to buy Bolt M, bolt F is substantially cheaper. I can offer cheaper products buying from F. Under such a scenario, as a business I'd buy bolt F exclusively if possible. But F can't produce enough, so they're only meeting half of my demand. I'd offer F, say, $0.75 per bolt to ensure my supply. Problem, next thing I know, F has raised their prices, and I'm paying $0.85, and M is offering a sale at $0.85 so it can sell bolts as well.
The conclusion, as an amateur economist, but decent at math and science, is that if M can stay in business at $1 and F still has excess production capacity at $1 each, is that the "M" and "F" aren't actually identical. Maybe bolt F is just as strong as M mechanically, but what if M is stainless and F isn't? Then M will be used exclusively in various tasks - exterior applications, corrosive environments, etc...
Same deal with male and female employees. If the $0.72 cents is hanging around, maybe it's because there actually ARE differences, and businesses aren't actually, on average, paying men more for no good reason. Identifying what those reasons could be is the real trick.
The fact is, if women were a better value at 72 Cents on the dollar, any business would be foolish to hire men.
Indeed. Some studies have found that women are paid MORE than men, once you factor in job field, experience, hours worked, seniority, etc...
I've heard that women tend to be valued less in the work center because of:
1. Heavier use of benefits vs straight pay
2. Tend to take more time off, and work fewer hours(means less seniority as well)
3. Select more flexible, but lower paying, employment options.
4. Choose more for stability over pay (Men buy stocks, Women buy bonds.)
Ok, then make it easy.
Everything below $15K or whatever the minimum survivable income is, is tax free.
Anything above that..pays a flat tax.
Hell, make it refundable. I've seen people still seriously argue that my tax scheme is still 'regressive' when this is what I argue for:
Every adult US Citizen in good standing* receives $500/month as a big.
30% flat tax rate with exceptions being rare as hell.
Hell, they'll get upset at me when I mention that the current US tax system is more regressive than a flat tax(with a big standard deductible/exemption) - due to the way long term capital gains are treated, those I consider 'truly rich' make most of their money via capital gains, specifically long term, and end up paying a lower percentage than the upper-middle class.
Now..I don't have an answer for the capital gains taxes....sure you might wanna hit the rich there, but when you do...you also hit the lower wealth classes..as that they are investing their retirement and it gets hit with those same taxes, that as you say...affect them worse than it does the wealthy.
IRAs, 401K, etc... With a little bit of thought and the even more favorable capital gains rates for lower income people, it's entirely possible. At my income level I'm doing nearly all Roth IRA.
The simplest solution, I think, would be to split income into 2 categories - I'll call them 'earned' and 'unearned'. Earned is wage income and such. Unearned is investment income - from what you own, not what you do. If you put short term trading gains into Earned, that's just a rule.
Anyways, have a standard exemption and tax table for each - and they are to be the same. So if you make $1M in a year, if it's ALL wages or if it's all investment income, you pay $x in taxes. If you make that same $1M, but it's $500k wages, $500k investment, then you pay $y, where $y is less than $x.
*IE not a criminal on the run.
We average about 1 mass shooting event a week in the USA. Horrible, yes. Over the last 5 years or so, I remember THREE events that involved Islam. For example, the Hasan Fort Hood shooting was in 2009, and is thus too old.
I can be generous and say about 1 Islam involved shooting a year. This still gives us a rate of about 2% of mass shootings involving Islam, which I would dispute is a 'big role'.
I saw no indication that they knew this attack was planned through other channels like HUMINT. I don't know why they think being able to decrypt random cell phone comms would have ensured that they stopped this attack.
Indeed. Plain old coding systems would be enough. Texting a bunch of people something like "My uncle Pete died, the viewing is at XYZ" would be enough to kick things off. Just to be fancy XYZ in the message could be 48 hours AFTER the attack is to take place. You could even send it, and variations of it, to all sorts of people who might not even be involved.
Between a half and a quarter, depending on the mix of isotopes in your "waste". Which is not a tiny fraction. The caesium has a half life of 30 years (so decays to a quarter ; 137 isotope) ; the strontium (1/4, 28 years), barium (1/64, 10 years), iodine (negligible, 60 days), xenon (negligible, 30 days).
How's it still at 1/4 if the halflives you list are all at 1/4 or less after 60, much less 90 years?
Should be closer to 80% of radioactivity gone by then.
Also, 'Nearly as much'. Yes, it's still radioactive and dangerous, just not as bad as it was before.
Technically, it'd be one survey with a test and control group. You as the test group about elephants, and the control group about humans.
The results do not surprise me. A lot of people, religious or not, hold to a 'humanity is special' paradigm. Hell, they think they themselves are special. For example, do a survey as to whether people figure they're better or worse than the median/average driver. Most will answer that they're better.
There's a lot of people who will insist that "I ain't evolved from no monkey!" (poor English deliberate)