The US will go the way of China if this ever becomes popular enough to happen. The US business community, the far right, and the southern states will not tolerate such a change, and a "second business plot" will happen and be successful. The rest of the industrialized world has decent laws in place to protect its employees, but not the US and China. Where else will the fat cats go to if a maximum wage is adopted in the US? China? I would think that would not want to go to China unless they are assured they will have complete control there as well. With no place to flee to with thier capital, they will fight to the bitter end here in the US.
Did Intel, Qualcomm, Cisco, Oracle or move out of California?... I thought not... If they do, then it will be an issue.
Also, Texas allows non-competes and it is this reason, along with the horrible weather, and no state initiative and referendum why I would never move there. I do like the gun laws in Texas though....
All citizens deserve a basic level of protection against exploitation from greedy entities. This isn't Lake Wobegon where everyone is "above average". As I stated previously, this type of behavior needs to be discouraged. There are too many "fish being shot in the barrel" in this country. Time focus our efforts on something more worthwhile...
The lube is already there: It's called "Employment At Will" and only the US practices this. The rest of the civilized world uses the contract form of employment.
People who are truly good at what they do should be paid well....
Actually it is quite the opposite: MoneyInTheBank == Freedom. If you truly want to be free, you must make the effort and do this, otherwise you will always get the short end of the stick.
If you really want indentured servitude, just continue with the secret no-poach agreements, and the H-1B visa program....
California has one vital thing going for it: Weather. Executives want to live here because of it. Executives want to have there employees close to manage them. (Especially at a start up) That's why Gov. Perry was largely unsuccessful in wooing California tech companies to Texas. While large scale manufacturing can be done anywhere, R&D is still predominately stateside and on the Left coast due to the favorable weather.
Any smart employee will have at least 1 year of living expenses banked. In that case, the opposite could very well happen, and the company could be begging for the employee to return at double the rate of the prior contract.
Taking advantage of ignorance is to be discouraged. This is one of my pet peeves about the American way, and it is a fundamental flaw in the American way of thinking. There should be basic protections in place to prevent these shenanigans from happening in the first place.
Let the free market work its magic. Companies should start using employment contracts for stellar performers so that they don't have to fear them leaving for competitors, and the contract can be renegotiated every 2-3 years, if the stellar employee doesn't like the terms, they can walk when the contract expires.
Time to add anti-poaching to the California Business and Professions code to make it strictly forbidden. This keeps coming up year-after year. There needs to be a law to protect the free market for talent. California should lead the way, but it would be really nice to see it at the Federal level as well.
I guaranteed income is the right solution, but I don't have much faith in it happening; especially in the United States. It goes against the ingrained Puritan work ethic.
When someone becomes unemployable, they currently either go on SSI, or are supported by their families. A TED conference predicted there could be up to 75% of the population in an unemployable state in a few decades' time. There is no way that 75% of the US population could be on SSI or supported by their families. This isn't going to be pretty and people are going to suffer before it gets better.
It really doesn't matter if the middle and lower classes revolt and march on Washington with their firearms.
The arms allowed to be possessed by the government are no match for the arms which could potentially be used by the US government against its citizenry. Partial list: Full auto weapons, ordnance, drones, chemical weapons and H-Bombs. Do you think puny little pistols, rifles and shotguns would be effective against those?
Do you think that the rest of the world will stand up to the US if they get a bit heavy-handed with their citizenry?
Any change will need to happen in a more subtle way.
1. No noncompete contracts written on flypaper. 2. Temperature and and humidity are lower in the summer. 3. Sane limitations on invention agreements 4. More people beleve in evolution instead of creationism. 5. California has initiative and referendum. Texas doesn't. 6. Even though Texas has no personal income tax, property taxes are twice as high as California's.
"The best way to resolve chronic network congestion in the long term is to invest and expand capacity. Yet, a review of the publicly available financial document for some of the largest ISPs in the country shows a decline in capital expenditures—the costs associated with building, upgrading and maintaining a network, such as construction, repairs, and equipment purchases—for their wireline networks.Many ISPs are spending less money on capital expenditures now, both as a ratio to revenue but also even in raw dollars,than they have in years past."
Lack of competition coupled with the payment of lucrative dividends by telecommunications is the culprit. AT&T pays 6% and Centurytel pays 7.5%. There needs to be an incentive to redirect the money to modernizing the networks. Maybe a tax credit for re-investing in plant and equipment, or a lower corporate tax rate if the dividend rate is reduced, and the money used for plant and equipment.
As I've said in prior posts, telecom dividends are evil. AT&T pays a 6% dividend, and Centurytel pays a 7.4% dividend. Dividend payments cause the telecom companies to put off upgrading infrastructure as long as possible because of the cost of the dividend payout. If dividends were unlawful or heavily taxed for telecom companies, you'd see the incentives change for the better: More overbuilds and therefore more competition which would drive the upgrade of the cable plant.
Additionally, those companies paying high dividends also treat their customers badly since they have a defacto monopoly or duopoly, and thier primary purpose of existance is to ensure management is overpaid, then pay out highest quarterly dividend possible. This is a perverse incentive. Corporations need to have balanced corporate charters which balance the need for profit against the needs of other stakeholders such as customers and employees.Persuing short term profits and quarterly results versus delighting your customers is one of the things which has ruined this country.
Speed is not as relevant as it once was. Caps are the big problem now for residential service. The providers are offering speeds in the 10's of megabits per second, but the caps are set so low that the service has no value for the money. There needs to be more competition in residential broadband or more regulation if there is not sufficient competition. The only way out of the caps is to order business service in my area (which I have done, but at $119/mo is quite expensive).
Both AT&T and Cox have caps in place for residential customers in my area. Cox has no cap (yet) for business customers.
If it can only be solved by regulation in certain areas of the country, then a moratorium on dividends or a 100% corporate tax on dividends of companies in areas with little competition might provide the necessary incentives to change things. Communications companies pay ridiculously high dividends to shareholders, and I'm convinced this is one of the roots of the problem. This money could be redirected over the long term to build a better Internet in this country, and the communications companies would stand to benefit from it.
There has been talk recently of the FCC investigating the cap thresholds, but that is just going to lead to a court battle in my opinion (at least in the past it has)
If you have registered your domain with Godaddy, and used a third party DNS, everything will be fine. I've found it's better to use a 3rd party DNS as it allows more flexibility in managing the domain name.
If it is something you can do without, then these types of pricing models are acceptable, as the buyer can always say: "No I'm not going to pay that for the product". Examples of products which could be dynamically priced: music, movies, sporting events, airline tickets, cable tv, communications (i.e. mobile phones, ISP's), concerts, hotel stays, restaurants, and theme park admissions.
If it is something which is income dependent, or the cost to provide the service varies with risk and complexity, then a regulated form of dynamic pricing applies. Examples: Taxes, Insurance, Home improvements, Loans.
If it is an essential item such as food, clothing, housing, healthcare, prescription drugs, or energy, then dynamic pricing should be prohibited, and everyone should pay the same price.
What's stopping the credit reporting agencies from getting in to this as a business opportunity?
Say I get disconnected because of infringement from AT&T and sign up for service with Cox. How tould Cox know I was an infringer?
I can see it now... Order up a copy of your "infringement report" for $25 from Choicepoint, Experian, or Trans-union, and fly-by-night outfit offering to clear your record for an up-front fee.
The IPO process is broken and needs to be reformed in a bad way. Company insiders and brokerage houses are gaming the system. They are trying to use the public markets as a dumping ground for new public companies so that the new public companies and the brokerages can "take the money and run" and leave public investors holding the bag.
There needs to be new federal legislation enacted to level the playing field for public investors.(BTW: information asymmetry is one of the things destroying the US and preventing everyone here from seizing on opportunities, but that is a subject for another thread). Public investors need to have the same information that the insiders, brokerages, and road show attendees do. Unless this is corrected, public investors will lose faith in IPO's and the country will be sorry for it.
There are UL, CSA and CE marks which go on equipment which convey "This product was tested and found to be reasonably safe". There could also be a mark which goes in the product documentation and on the nameplate which is recognisable by consumers who are concerned about exploitation of workers. The safety marks require bi-annual inspections of the factory and also the submission of objective evidence that the product was manufactured with all the safety critical components in place. The same thing could be done with the supply chain for a procut all the way up to final assembly similar to what has been done with RoHS
Maybe the EU could incorporate this requirement right into the existing CE mark. If you then wanted to sell your product in the EU, you would have to prove that it was manufactured in a way which did not exploit workers throughout the entire supply chain. This would never happen in the US, though, as the Corps control the government there, and there is a culture of only caring about the price and not about the workers who made the product.
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Correct. Couple this with a requirement that all companies pay a living wage, and most of the problem would be solved.
The US will go the way of China if this ever becomes popular enough to happen. The US business community, the far right, and the southern states will not tolerate such a change, and a "second business plot" will happen and be successful. The rest of the industrialized world has decent laws in place to protect its employees, but not the US and China. Where else will the fat cats go to if a maximum wage is adopted in the US? China? I would think that would not want to go to China unless they are assured they will have complete control there as well. With no place to flee to with thier capital, they will fight to the bitter end here in the US.
If enough of us vote for a change then it will either happen, or there will be a Coup.
The truly stellar performers are not rank-and-file, and should be handled differently and with above-board negotiations.
Did Intel, Qualcomm, Cisco, Oracle or move out of California?... I thought not... If they do, then it will be an issue.
Also, Texas allows non-competes and it is this reason, along with the horrible weather, and no state initiative and referendum why I would never move there.
I do like the gun laws in Texas though....
All citizens deserve a basic level of protection against exploitation from greedy entities. This isn't Lake Wobegon where everyone is "above average". As I stated previously, this type of behavior needs to be discouraged. There are too many "fish being shot in the barrel" in this country. Time focus our efforts on something more worthwhile...
The lube is already there: It's called "Employment At Will" and only the US practices this. The rest of the civilized world uses the contract form of employment.
People who are truly good at what they do should be paid well....
Actually it is quite the opposite: MoneyInTheBank == Freedom. If you truly want to be free, you must make the effort and do this, otherwise you will always get the short end of the stick.
If you really want indentured servitude, just continue with the secret no-poach agreements, and the H-1B visa program....
Mod parent up... Somebody gets it
California has one vital thing going for it: Weather. Executives want to live here because of it. Executives want to have there employees close to manage them. (Especially at a start up) That's why Gov. Perry was largely unsuccessful in wooing California tech companies to Texas. While large scale manufacturing can be done anywhere, R&D is still predominately stateside and on the Left coast due to the favorable weather.
Any smart employee will have at least 1 year of living expenses banked. In that case, the opposite could very well happen, and the company could be begging for the employee to return at double the rate of the prior contract.
Taking advantage of ignorance is to be discouraged. This is one of my pet peeves about the American way, and it is a fundamental flaw in the American way of thinking. There should be basic protections in place to prevent these shenanigans from happening in the first place.
Let the free market work its magic. Companies should start using employment contracts for stellar performers so that they don't have to fear them leaving for competitors, and the contract can be renegotiated every 2-3 years, if the stellar employee doesn't like the terms, they can walk when the contract expires.
Time to add anti-poaching to the California Business and Professions code to make it strictly forbidden. This keeps coming up year-after year. There needs to be a law to protect the free market for talent. California should lead the way, but it would be really nice to see it at the Federal level as well.
I guaranteed income is the right solution, but I don't have much faith in it happening; especially in the United States. It goes against the ingrained Puritan work ethic.
When someone becomes unemployable, they currently either go on SSI, or are supported by their families. A TED conference predicted there could be up to 75% of the population in an unemployable state in a few decades' time. There is no way that 75% of the US population could be on SSI or supported by their families.
This isn't going to be pretty and people are going to suffer before it gets better.
It really doesn't matter if the middle and lower classes revolt and march on Washington with their firearms.
The arms allowed to be possessed by the government are no match for the arms which could potentially be used by the US government against its citizenry. Partial list: Full auto weapons, ordnance, drones, chemical weapons and H-Bombs. Do you think puny little pistols, rifles and shotguns would be effective against those?
Do you think that the rest of the world will stand up to the US if they get a bit heavy-handed with their citizenry?
Any change will need to happen in a more subtle way.
I agree. California is much better:
1. No noncompete contracts written on flypaper.
2. Temperature and and humidity are lower in the summer.
3. Sane limitations on invention agreements
4. More people beleve in evolution instead of creationism.
5. California has initiative and referendum. Texas doesn't.
6. Even though Texas has no personal income tax, property taxes are twice as high as California's.
From TFA:
"The best way to resolve chronic network congestion in the long term is to invest and expand capacity. Yet, a review of the publicly available financial document for some of the largest ISPs in the country shows a decline in capital expenditures—the costs associated with building, upgrading and maintaining a network, such as construction, repairs, and equipment purchases—for their wireline networks.Many ISPs are spending less money on capital expenditures now, both as a ratio to revenue but also even in raw dollars,than they have in years past."
Lack of competition coupled with the payment of lucrative dividends by telecommunications is the culprit. AT&T pays 6% and Centurytel pays 7.5%. There needs to be an incentive to redirect the money to modernizing the networks. Maybe a tax credit for re-investing in plant and equipment, or a lower corporate tax rate if the dividend rate is reduced, and the money used for plant and equipment.
As I've said in prior posts, telecom dividends are evil. AT&T pays a 6% dividend, and Centurytel pays a 7.4% dividend. Dividend payments cause the telecom companies to put off upgrading infrastructure as long as possible because of the cost of the dividend payout. If dividends were unlawful or heavily taxed for telecom companies, you'd see the incentives change for the better: More overbuilds and therefore more competition which would drive the upgrade of the cable plant.
Additionally, those companies paying high dividends also treat their customers badly since they have a defacto monopoly or duopoly, and thier primary purpose of existance is to ensure management is overpaid, then pay out highest quarterly dividend possible. This is a perverse incentive. Corporations need to have balanced corporate charters which balance the need for profit against the needs of other stakeholders such as customers and employees.Persuing short term profits and quarterly results versus delighting your customers is one of the things which has ruined this country.
Speed is not as relevant as it once was. Caps are the big problem now for residential service. The providers are offering speeds in the 10's of megabits per second, but the caps are set so low that the service has no value for the money. There needs to be more competition in residential broadband or more regulation if there is not sufficient competition. The only way out of the caps is to order business service in my area (which I have done, but at $119/mo is quite expensive).
Both AT&T and Cox have caps in place for residential customers in my area. Cox has no cap (yet) for business customers.
If it can only be solved by regulation in certain areas of the country, then a moratorium on dividends or a 100% corporate tax on dividends of companies in areas with little competition might provide the necessary incentives to change things. Communications companies pay ridiculously high dividends to shareholders, and I'm convinced this is one of the roots of the problem. This money could be redirected over the long term to build a better Internet in this country, and the communications companies would stand to benefit from it.
There has been talk recently of the FCC investigating the cap thresholds, but that is just going to lead to a court battle in my opinion (at least in the past it has)
If you have registered your domain with Godaddy, and used a third party DNS, everything will be fine. I've found it's better to use a 3rd party DNS as it allows more flexibility in managing the domain name.
If it is something you can do without, then these types of pricing models are acceptable, as the buyer can always say: "No I'm not going to pay that for the product". Examples of products which could be dynamically priced: music, movies, sporting events, airline tickets, cable tv, communications (i.e. mobile phones, ISP's), concerts, hotel stays, restaurants, and theme park admissions.
If it is something which is income dependent, or the cost to provide the service varies with risk and complexity, then a regulated form of dynamic pricing applies. Examples: Taxes, Insurance, Home improvements, Loans.
If it is an essential item such as food, clothing, housing, healthcare, prescription drugs, or energy, then dynamic pricing should be prohibited, and everyone should pay the same price.
What's stopping the credit reporting agencies from getting in to this as a business opportunity?
Say I get disconnected because of infringement from AT&T and sign up for service with Cox. How tould Cox know I was an infringer?
I can see it now... Order up a copy of your "infringement report" for $25 from Choicepoint, Experian, or Trans-union, and fly-by-night outfit offering to clear your record for an up-front fee.
Ah, the American way....
The IPO process is broken and needs to be reformed in a bad way. Company insiders and brokerage houses are gaming the system. They are trying to use the public markets as a dumping ground for new public companies so that the new public companies and the brokerages can "take the money and run" and leave public investors holding the bag.
There needs to be new federal legislation enacted to level the playing field for public investors.(BTW: information asymmetry is one of the things destroying the US and preventing everyone here from seizing on opportunities, but that is a subject for another thread). Public investors need to have the same information that the insiders, brokerages, and road show attendees do. Unless this is corrected, public investors will lose faith in IPO's and the country will be sorry for it.
Disclosure: I own no FB stock.
There are UL, CSA and CE marks which go on equipment which convey "This product was tested and found to be reasonably safe". There could also be a mark which goes in the product documentation and on the nameplate which is recognisable by consumers who are concerned about exploitation of workers. The safety marks require bi-annual inspections of the factory and also the submission of objective evidence that the product was manufactured with all the safety critical components in place. The same thing could be done with the supply chain for a procut all the way up to final assembly similar to what has been done with RoHS
Maybe the EU could incorporate this requirement right into the existing CE mark. If you then wanted to sell your product in the EU, you would have to prove that it was manufactured in a way which did not exploit workers throughout the entire supply chain. This would never happen in the US, though, as the Corps control the government there, and there is a culture of only caring about the price and not about the workers who made the product.