I Agree: The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) is an awful treaty. Fortunately it doesn't apply to the EU. The laws in the EU won't be watered down unless it becomes a totalitarian dictatorship. The employee-friendly laws in the EU are ingrained in culture. The only country in the EU where US-style employment laws are making inroads is the UK and even there, the labor laws are much better than the US.
That doen't add up. I did some what-if scenarios and determined 23K to be the lower limit for the ACA.
25K will get you very low ACA payments. Once income drops below 23K you have to go on Medicare. If your state is red, then you are most likely out of luck as most red states did not expand Medicaid.
BTW: Medicaid is raw deal compared to the ACA. In a lot of states, Medicaid can come after any inheritance you leave to your kids to pay back premiums and medical care. Avoid it at all costs.
Who says you have to sit on your ass and watch TV all day long. Get out there and do something meaningful! I'm unemployed. I don't sit on my ass. I have plenty of projects to work on which keep my mind occupied.
49 states have employment at will. One state does not. Montana.
Essentially the US is employement at will except for one state with 1 million inhabitance.
Unfortunately, I don't see this changing so more states become just-cause like Montana anytime soon. The US Chamber of Commerce is way to powerful, and there is no competing organization with similar strength and political connections.
I don't kow how Montana accomplished this, but Kudos to them.
Gee that's tough. I had a friend who thought the same way you did, and resented the ACA's individual mandate. He became unemployed, then while volunteering for a non profit, he fell and could not get up, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Needless to say, after 100K of hospital bills, his retirement savings was wiped out. This all could have been avoided by signing up for the ACA.
What a wonderful healthcare system we have in the US! This coupled with the stubborness of the American mindset (rugged individualism) gets more people in trouble than if our culture and cealthcare were like the rest of the OECD nations.
You are correct. It depends on income. In my case, once I bacame unemployed, our household income dropped to $50K/yr because I was only getting income from rental income and investments. My wife does not work in a full time job either.
I don't think I ever want to be an employee again (And probably won't unless the ACA is repealed). Even though employers are the ones taking the risks, the rewards are tilted too far in thier favor, the tasks they assign to you are not very challenging for the job requirements they ask for, and there's too much office politics. I'm having too much fun doing open source projects.
Companies in the US typically fold and stiff their employees because there are no strong laws which protect employees in this situation which have any teeth.
In the US:
1. There is employment at will. The CEO can dismiss staff with no recourse, provided all back pay is paid in a short time. 2. Most states don't require vacation accruals be paid out. California is an exception here. 3. Senior debt and taxes take precedence over paying employees, and there is a limit to how much back pay can be paid out (180 days or around $12,000 whichever is lower). 4. Most employees are covered by predispute arbitration contracts preventing them from going to a jury trial. California may change this with AB 465 5. State departments of labor are toothless and or afraid of going after businesses. 6. There is no legal mandate to pay severance pay.
French law is much more employee friendly. If a company is on its last legs, the employees should get the wages they worked for/
I can hear the congessperson's bones snapping and popping as the establishment twists thier arms behind thier backs...
The pressure must be intense to pass this. We aren't privvy to the details. Something has to be driving the passage of this extension. As citizens, we must demand that the reasons for extending this law be justified. The proponents must come clean.
That is a flawed question parroted by listeners to conservative talk radio.
Low wage workers aren't asking for that kind of increase, only enough to live in dignity. $15.00 an hour is workable and can be supported by business. $100.00 an hour is not supportable.
The root of the problem is that low wage employees are often poor negotiators, and are not in a position of strength to begin with. They are easily taken advantage of by explotative employers, and landlords. Some checks and balances need to be in place to protect this class of workers, but there also needs to be incentives for the minimum wage worker to improve thier own marketability in the job market.
The biggest expense for a minimum wage worker is housing.
Just rasing the minimum wage will cause rents to rise as landlords will be in a position of strength. Some areas have rent control which would mitigate this, but I would expect landlords would increase rents in the low end of the market to capture some of this money.
Minimum wage coupled with rent control might be workable if food and transportation costs are kept marginal.
All of this artifical control will mess with the markets, but markets can't be left to 100% capitalist control. There have to be limits.
Maybe you should have looked after your employees better, and paid them well enough to ensure they'd stick around. Companies that depend on locking in employees with non-competes are bad actors in my view.
I see no awful problems in California. Maybe you can elaborate further.
I see lots of problems elsewhere (mostly in the middle and sourthern parts of the US). Employers take advantage of people and there's not much they can do about it the way the laws currently stand. At least in California, there are better employee protections than most of the rest of the country.
I fear no employer. Unemployed at the moment, but I'm financially independent. I just refuse to work under some regimes.
This is precisely why I won't leave California. I will never sign a non-compete contract. Noncompetes are what made silicon valley exceptional. People moving from company to company is what makes companies great, and it distributes the top talent across all companies so they get what they need done at their most critical stages of development.
Some states are coming around to this way of thinking. Massachuttes, Oregon, and Illinois are considering severely restricting the use of non-competes.
There are 3 areas of reform in United States labor law which need to happen to fully engage employees and to ensure an level playing field:
1. Ban Non-compete contracts at the federal level. Use non-disclosure contracts instead. 2. Ban pre-dispute arbitration clauses. 3. Reform employment-at-will. Move to "just cause" like the rest of the developed world.
I've been unemployed for 6 months and the job market in San Diego CA for electrical engineers is the worst I've ever experienced.
1. It's mostly recruiting companies doing the hiring. There seems to be a lack of direct company recruiting going on (At least in San Diego, CA). 2. If it is companies doing direct hiring, they want "new college grads" at all times of the year 3. They want master's degrees at a minimum. 4. Thay want someone who can speak Mandarin. 5. The list of skills required is so detailed and complex, it would be very difficult for someone to be a master of everything on that list, and one would have a terrible time maintaining any degree of focus to ensure a good result. 6. They whine to congress about the H-1B cap.
Fortunately for me, I have plenty of money in the bank and in investments, plus I have rental income. I'm 54, and not sure I'll ever get to be employed as an engineer again. I'm mostly keeping my self occupied with personal engineering projects and code. I'm hoping things eventually turn around, but am prepared to retire if they do not.
Rationale: Wages in the US are high compared to the rest of the world. To sell to consumers and customers in the rest of the world, US wages must come down.
2. We prefer to import H-1B's. Opening offices in other countries is not as efficient as bringing skilled people to the US where employers have the upper hand.
Rationale: The US is the only developed country with 'employment at will' This is preferred over 'just cause' used by most of the rest of the world. By importing H-1B's we get the business-friendly legal framework, and we can deport any troublemakers back to thier home country if they rock the boat. Opening offices in other countries is costly and requires a management to be present in the offshore country, and the timezone differences hamper productivity.
3. The US federal government is one of the few in the world set up to put the interests of the 'opulant minority' ahead of the common people.
Rationale: We can pay lobbyists to promote laws in our interest knowing that we will get favorable laws passed which are not popular with the US electorate.
I approve of the FCC decision, but I have a concern about lack of regulation on pricing matters.
I suspect this will end up like POTS. Here is a sample of a future bill.
25/5 Broadband Service Base Fee $39.99 Advertising Fee $20.00 Plant maintenance Fee $20.00 Regulatory Capture Fee $20.00 Washington Lobbying Fee $20.00 Bandwidth Fee for data over the cap limit 100.00
Total amount due this month: $219.99
Some action on the FCC's part to limit these fees will be required in the future.
More illegals and H1B's! That's the answer! Maybe we can get down to Bangledeshi income levels by the time the rethugicans successfully overthrow the US government with a second business plot.
1. Have/Learn marketable skills. 2. Have plenty of money in the bank and as little debt as possible. 3. Have a source of passive income to help with cashflow during times of unemployment (Rents, royalties, etc.). 4. Have as few kids as possible. 5. Be picky on what jobs you accept. Use 1-3 to exit the labor force for as long as necessary to retrain and regroup. 6. Be active politically: e.g. Lobby congress for tighter H-1B restrictions, better labor laws, inclusive capitalism. 7. Live below your means. Try to do as much as possible yourself without hiring contractors, mechanics, gardeners, etc.
No hand holding required. (That is unless you are the one who is insecure) This is just something that the citizens of other countries expect from thier governments and Americans have been conditioned to be "Exceptional individualists" to the point that they are getting robbed blind by opertunistic business entities.
Typical American. Took it completely out of context as usual. Can't tou see that companies such as Intuit are RENT SEEKERS. Geez.
The governments of most advanced countries provide free on-line income tax preparation for thier taxpayers. Not so in 'Murica it where it is "monetized". There is quite a powerful American lobby (Intuit mostly) in place to keep things that way. This is perfect example of what happens when outfits such as faux news brainwash americans that no good can come from a government run program of any kind. The other advanced countries do not charge anything as they see it as something in thier best interest.
I switched to TaxAct last year as the discounts I got from my e-stock brokers were severely curtailed. What happened this year doesn't surprise me in the least. I have schedules D and E, and the only issue with TaxAct that I had 2013 taxes was the State E-filing option. I ended up filing state using paper.
The root of the issue is the FTDI chip is to damn expensive. It performs a relatively trivial function and is not cost effective. It's only claim to fame is it works on a large number of platforms without installing any device drivers. This is why the Chinese want to make counterfeit chips. The genuine part costs too much.
Is the product or service absolutely essential? If not, what about doing without? We pay money for a lot of things which are not absolutely required and end up with a garage full of stuff which we never use and pay to have stored. We also use things which appear to be "free" but have hidden costs. These things are a burden, and should be eliminated.
There is only one way out of this mess. Become financially independent before age 50. Do not let yourself become enslaved by debt. Reject materialism, and seek out providers of the lowest cost products and services.For more details, read some of the articles on http://mrmoneymustache.com. This guy was an engineer, and through will power and determination saved enough money to not be subject to the whims of employers.
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I Agree: The TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) is an awful treaty. Fortunately it doesn't apply to the EU. The laws in the EU won't be watered down unless it becomes a totalitarian dictatorship. The employee-friendly laws in the EU are ingrained in culture. The only country in the EU where US-style employment laws
are making inroads is the UK and even there, the labor laws are much better than the US.
That doen't add up. I did some what-if scenarios and determined 23K to be the lower limit for the ACA.
25K will get you very low ACA payments. Once income drops below 23K you have to go on Medicare. If your state is red, then you are most likely out of luck as most red states did not expand Medicaid.
BTW: Medicaid is raw deal compared to the ACA. In a lot of states, Medicaid can come after any inheritance you leave to your kids to pay back premiums and medical care. Avoid it at all costs.
Who says you have to sit on your ass and watch TV all day long. Get out there and do something meaningful! I'm unemployed. I don't sit on my ass. I have plenty of projects to work on which keep my mind occupied.
49 states have employment at will. One state does not. Montana.
Essentially the US is employement at will except for one state with 1 million inhabitance.
Unfortunately, I don't see this changing so more states become just-cause like Montana anytime soon. The US Chamber of Commerce is way to powerful,
and there is no competing organization with similar strength and political connections.
I don't kow how Montana accomplished this, but Kudos to them.
Gee that's tough. I had a friend who thought the same way you did, and resented the ACA's individual mandate. He became unemployed, then while volunteering for a non profit, he fell and could not get up, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Needless to say, after 100K of hospital bills, his retirement savings was wiped out. This all could have been avoided by signing up for the ACA.
What a wonderful healthcare system we have in the US! This coupled with the stubborness of the American mindset (rugged individualism) gets more people in trouble than if our culture and cealthcare were like the rest of the OECD nations.
You are correct. It depends on income. In my case, once I bacame unemployed, our household income dropped to $50K/yr because I was only getting income from rental income and investments. My wife does not work in a full time job either.
I don't think I ever want to be an employee again (And probably won't unless the ACA is repealed). Even though employers are the ones taking the risks,
the rewards are tilted too far in thier favor, the tasks they assign to you are not very challenging for the job requirements they ask for, and there's too much
office politics. I'm having too much fun doing open source projects.
This always ends badly for employees in the US.
Companies in the US typically fold and stiff their employees because there are no strong laws which protect employees in this situation which have any teeth.
In the US:
1. There is employment at will. The CEO can dismiss staff with no recourse, provided all back pay is paid in a short time.
2. Most states don't require vacation accruals be paid out. California is an exception here.
3. Senior debt and taxes take precedence over paying employees, and there is a limit to how much back pay can be paid out (180 days or around $12,000 whichever is lower).
4. Most employees are covered by predispute arbitration contracts preventing them from going to a jury trial. California may change this with AB 465
5. State departments of labor are toothless and or afraid of going after businesses.
6. There is no legal mandate to pay severance pay.
French law is much more employee friendly. If a company is on its last legs, the employees should get the wages they worked for/
I can hear the congessperson's bones snapping and popping as the establishment twists thier arms behind thier backs...
The pressure must be intense to pass this. We aren't privvy to the details. Something has to be driving the passage of this extension. As citizens, we must
demand that the reasons for extending this law be justified. The proponents must come clean.
That is a flawed question parroted by listeners to conservative talk radio.
Low wage workers aren't asking for that kind of increase, only enough to live in dignity. $15.00 an hour is workable and can be supported by business. $100.00 an hour is not supportable.
The root of the problem is that low wage employees are often poor negotiators, and are not in a position of strength to begin with. They are easily taken advantage of by explotative employers, and landlords. Some checks and balances need to be in place to protect this class of workers, but there also needs to be incentives for the minimum wage worker to improve thier own marketability in the job market.
The biggest expense for a minimum wage worker is housing.
Just rasing the minimum wage will cause rents to rise as landlords will be in a position of strength. Some areas have rent control which would mitigate this,
but I would expect landlords would increase rents in the low end of the market to capture some of this money.
Minimum wage coupled with rent control might be workable if food and transportation costs are kept marginal.
All of this artifical control will mess with the markets, but markets can't be left to 100% capitalist control. There have to be limits.
Maybe you should have looked after your employees better, and paid them well enough to ensure they'd stick around. Companies that depend on locking in employees with non-competes are bad actors in my view.
I see no awful problems in California. Maybe you can elaborate further.
I see lots of problems elsewhere (mostly in the middle and sourthern parts of the US). Employers take advantage of people and there's not much they can do about it the way the laws currently stand. At least in California, there are better employee protections than most of the rest of the country.
I fear no employer. Unemployed at the moment, but I'm financially independent. I just refuse to work under some regimes.
This is precisely why I won't leave California. I will never sign a non-compete contract. Noncompetes are what made silicon valley exceptional. People moving from company to company is what makes companies great, and it distributes the top talent across all companies so they get what they need done at their most
critical stages of development.
Some states are coming around to this way of thinking. Massachuttes, Oregon, and Illinois are considering severely restricting the use of non-competes.
There are 3 areas of reform in United States labor law which need to happen to fully engage employees and to ensure an level playing field:
1. Ban Non-compete contracts at the federal level. Use non-disclosure contracts instead.
2. Ban pre-dispute arbitration clauses.
3. Reform employment-at-will. Move to "just cause" like the rest of the developed world.
I've been unemployed for 6 months and the job market in San Diego CA for electrical engineers is the worst I've ever experienced.
1. It's mostly recruiting companies doing the hiring. There seems to be a lack of direct company recruiting going on (At least in San Diego, CA).
2. If it is companies doing direct hiring, they want "new college grads" at all times of the year
3. They want master's degrees at a minimum.
4. Thay want someone who can speak Mandarin.
5. The list of skills required is so detailed and complex, it would be very difficult for someone to be a master of everything on that list, and one would have a terrible time maintaining any degree of focus to ensure a good result.
6. They whine to congress about the H-1B cap.
Fortunately for me, I have plenty of money in the bank and in investments, plus I have rental income. I'm 54, and not sure I'll ever get to be employed as an engineer again. I'm mostly keeping my self occupied with personal engineering projects and code. I'm hoping things eventually turn around, but am prepared to retire if they do not.
1. We want to drive down wages in the US
Rationale: Wages in the US are high compared to the rest of the world. To sell to consumers and customers in the rest of the world, US wages must come down.
2. We prefer to import H-1B's. Opening offices in other countries is not as efficient as bringing skilled people to the US where employers have the upper hand.
Rationale: The US is the only developed country with 'employment at will' This is preferred over 'just cause' used by most of the rest of the world. By importing H-1B's we get the business-friendly legal framework, and we can deport any troublemakers back to thier home country if they rock the boat. Opening offices in
other countries is costly and requires a management to be present in the offshore country, and the timezone differences hamper productivity.
3. The US federal government is one of the few in the world set up to put the interests of the 'opulant minority' ahead of the common people.
Rationale: We can pay lobbyists to promote laws in our interest knowing that we will get favorable laws passed which are not popular with the US electorate.
I approve of the FCC decision, but I have a concern about lack of regulation on pricing matters.
I suspect this will end up like POTS. Here is a sample of a future bill.
25/5 Broadband Service Base Fee $39.99
Advertising Fee $20.00
Plant maintenance Fee $20.00
Regulatory Capture Fee $20.00
Washington Lobbying Fee $20.00
Bandwidth Fee for data over the cap limit 100.00
Total amount due this month: $219.99
Some action on the FCC's part to limit these fees will be required in the future.
There Fixed that for you:
More illegals and H1B's! That's the answer! Maybe we can get down to Bangledeshi income levels by the time the rethugicans successfully overthrow the US government with a second business plot.
1. Have/Learn marketable skills.
2. Have plenty of money in the bank and as little debt as possible.
3. Have a source of passive income to help with cashflow during times of unemployment (Rents, royalties, etc.).
4. Have as few kids as possible.
5. Be picky on what jobs you accept. Use 1-3 to exit the labor force for as long as necessary to retrain and regroup.
6. Be active politically: e.g. Lobby congress for tighter H-1B restrictions, better labor laws, inclusive capitalism.
7. Live below your means. Try to do as much as possible yourself without hiring contractors, mechanics, gardeners, etc.
No hand holding required. (That is unless you are the one who is insecure) This is just something that the citizens of other countries expect from thier governments
and Americans have been conditioned to be "Exceptional individualists" to the point that they are getting robbed blind by opertunistic business entities.
Typical American. Took it completely out of context as usual. Can't tou see that companies such as Intuit are RENT SEEKERS. Geez.
The governments of most advanced countries provide free on-line income tax preparation for thier taxpayers. Not so in 'Murica it where it is "monetized".
There is quite a powerful American lobby (Intuit mostly) in place to keep things that way. This is perfect example of what happens when outfits such as faux news brainwash americans that no good can come from a government run program of any kind. The other advanced countries do not charge anything as they see it as something in thier best interest.
I switched to TaxAct last year as the discounts I got from my e-stock brokers were severely curtailed. What happened this year doesn't surprise me in the least.
I have schedules D and E, and the only issue with TaxAct that I had 2013 taxes was the State E-filing option. I ended up filing state using paper.
Spot on.
The root of the issue is the FTDI chip is to damn expensive. It performs a relatively trivial function and is not cost effective. It's only claim to fame is it works on a large number of platforms without installing any device drivers. This is why the Chinese want to make counterfeit chips. The genuine part costs too much.
You can't sue them as you agreed not to in the click-through EULA.
Binding Arbitration is a power grab by the corporates to enable them be bad actors
Is the product or service absolutely essential? If not, what about doing without? We pay money for a lot of things which are not absolutely required and end up with a garage full of stuff which we never use and pay to have stored. We also use things which appear to be "free" but have hidden costs. These things are a burden, and should be eliminated.
There is only one way out of this mess. Become financially independent before age 50. Do not let yourself become enslaved by debt. Reject materialism, and seek out providers of the lowest cost products and services.For more details, read some of the articles on http://mrmoneymustache.com. This guy was an engineer, and
through will power and determination saved enough money to not be subject to the whims of employers.