Dude has a point. For example, what defines 'racism' - according to many people, the term includes anyone who disagrees with the 'Black Lives Matter' movement in any aspect. Threats? Of course there's the obvious stuff, like 'I'm going to come to your house and kill you' stuff (though deletion of same may constitute tampering with evidence, eh?) But on the other hand we have overly-coddled snowflakes who claim there's somehow a credible threat from some idiot scrawling "Trump 2016" in chalk on their college campus.
I'm also curious to see a complete list of these groups... mostly because there are quite a few groups out there who you definitely do not want setting definitions here.
There is a danger in this, after all - the danger being that political speech is stifled if the hoi polloi decide that something is 'hate' or 'racist' merely because they disagree with it. The two examples I listed up top are true stories, so it's not like GP's post is paranoia...
Most (honest) Satellite Broadband providers will tell you your caps, average latency, average speeds, what happens if you go past the cap, any QoS action, etc. For instance, I have a 30GB daytime cap each month, average latency is 570ms, if I go past the cap my speeds drop from 25mbps to 1-5mbps, etc. I knew all of this before I even called to order the service.
'course, most folks would say "man, your connection sucks", but consider that I could lash a dish/modem on top of an RV and use it anywhere I want in North America. In my case, I use it because I live way out in the sticks. It's good enough for most basic stuff and VPN to work daily (and it's not bad at all for streaming), but VoIP and FPS gaming is shit. I knew this (grew out of the twitch-gaming a long time ago), but the sales lady on the phone went out of his way to let me know all of this (she read it off a script) before I authorized anything.
But yeah - if a Sat. provider is not up-front about all of this? Drop/Avoid them, because most are.
In the iPhone case, the FBI was demanding that encryption be weakened *across the board, for everybody* in order to get the contents of one phone.
In this case, they're asking for a warrant (correctly this time), and only want the existing records for one person, without compromising any innocent parties' privacy.
In a 2005 commencement speech for Stanford University, Jobs states that during this period, he slept on the floor in friends' dorm rooms, returned Coke bottles for food money, and got weekly free meals at the local Hare Krishna temple.
I agree with the first part, but, as others have also pointed out, a jump in minimum wage will suddenly make automation a lot cheaper and a whole lot more attractive in the new ($15/hr) world order...
One company raising its wagers != *all* companies raising their wages (and subsequent costs, etc).
Ford also had the advantage of being among the first to implement full nose-to-tail industrialization (with ultra-standardized parts and processes) in his factories, which cut his costs drastically enough to afford the increased overhead.
I ask because the increased costs can only be "spread out over the production of the employee" when said employees increase their aggregate productivity enough to cover said cost increase. Odds are that's not going to happen. Secondly, costs are not just going up for the end consumer - they'll go up on products sold by wholesalers, suppliers, vendors, call-them-what-you-will, so the business has to take that into account as well.
Meanwhile, product costs going up across the board, across all industries and product ranges, for *any reason at all*, is the classic hallmark of inflation. Smith never debunked that under any condition that I'm aware of, which is why there's now a demand for a citation. Oh, and raising a certain percentage of wages (especially by government edict) will definitely stand as a catalyst for rising costs across the board.
Now if you had said that the employers can just eat it and trim their profits without trying to call on Mr. Smith to justify it? Well that's a nice sentiment and all, but when that happens the shareholders (and if you have a 401k, this means you) would see lower dividends, and stock prices would become sluggish.
Of course, there is an argument you could have used, but chose not to: Only 3% of US workers make minimum wage.
However, that has a problem too. Let's make it simple: The pool secretary gets her raise, and suddenly the executive secretary (her manager, who previously made $15/hr before the hike) will start demanding a raise as well, and this demand will ripple upwards throughout the pay scale. Even simpler: The burger flipper got a raise, but what about the shift leader? Does he not deserve a raise too, since he has more experience and better relative skills? What about the store manager after that happens? The regional chain manager? I trust you can see where this is going...
While I do agree that everyone's wages drive the cost of doing business, there's a problem: Wage discrepancy itself has frig-all to do with determining a workable minimum wage, and for one reason: that metric is honestly based in class envy, and nothing more.
Why? Because there is no sane and objective way to prove the argument that said discrepancy is the cause of poverty. There are a few reasons why, but they're all based on bad assumptions:
First, aggregate monetary wealth is not a static quantity, but grows and shrinks with the economy (usually growing). You do not have everyone fighting for a slice of the same static-sized pie.
Second, there is no way that the average worker making $20,800/yr ($10/hr) has the same skills/education/experience as the average worker making $250k/yr.
The demand and talent pools for each job are radically different - hence the difference. If competent janitors suddenly became ultra-scarce, and the toilets still needed cleaning, you would see janitors making $250k/yr and getting golden parachutes. Conversely, if competent CEOs were everywhere and every company already had one, their wages would drop like a rock.
All that aside, you did leave something out - cumulative effect: 500 $7.50/hr employees in a large company getting a $7.50/hr raise would suddenly cost the company at least an additional $7.8 million/yr, not counting the commiserate rise in FICA and etc. The CEO of the same company literally quadrupling his $250k salary couldn't come near touching that.
Dunno why you were modded as "Troll", because your post makes perfect sense, especially when asking at what point do we set this wage? What calculus is being used to set it?
"Living Wage" is not only vague, but it becomes a moving goalpost... so that can't be it. Setting it against a cost-of-living index might work, but that becomes a moving goalpost as well (and barring massive deflation, it always moves upwards).
So at what objective point does one set this wage without creating a self-feeding loop that pushes it upwards?
Just a few minutes on YouTube browsing videos showing various manufacturing machines and the processes they do suggests that making a machine to cook and build Hamburgers and other fast food orders would be child's play.
The only question is where the point between the capital costs of such a device and the higher wages cross.
Exactly, and a higher employee wage pushes the balance more towards the automation angle.
For instance, let's do a stupid exercise at a fast-food joint. $7.50/hr costs an employer (at full time) roughly $15600/yr *before* counting SS/Unemployment Ins./Healthcare/etc contributions. Call it maybe $19k/yr (we slapped on 20% and rounded up). I suspect that you're going to have a damned hard time finding a burger-flipping machine that will amortize to less than $20k/yr (incl. maintenance contracts).
Now bump the employee's wages to $15/hr, or roughly $37000/yr (we slapped on 20% and then rounded down, just to be fair). $37k/yr is probably well within reach of buying that burger-flipping machine and amortizing it, including an on-site maintenance contract.
Now, as a business franchisee who has to deal with sick-days, high turnover (plus lost productivity caused by it), employee gripes, demands for raises, the usual human-human drama, and other bullshit? Oh, and if that machine can produce more product at a better, more consistent quality than any *two* employees on your payroll? Suddenly that machine looks damned attractive, especially once you realize that it'll be working in the back where no one can see it. For a nominal extra cost, you could probably get a self-cleaning one and save yet one more FTE... so even at $70k/yr to replace the 3 FTE units that you'd spend $110k/yr on? Shit, it's more than doable. As a bonus, if you're a dick about it, you can use the presence of those machines to (very) subtly remind the remaining employees that maybe they should up their game...
Funny... but that does bring up the subject of how quickly such automation would go into effect.
Call day 0 the day the law goes into effect.
By day 1, all businesses that have not started up yet, or who have grown enough to start hiring employees, will probably start looking very hard at adding automation to their list of things to implement, even on a small scale. Consider that some of this is in place now; at the Apple Store, there is no checkout counter, because nearly every employee on the floor is not only the sales-critter and light technical POC, but also handles checkout right then and there with a smartphone/app combination. That eliminates at least 2-3 employees who would otherwise sit around and handle money.
By month 1, most of your existing businesses/franchisees in California with traditionally high turnover will likely start talking to folks willing to sell them automation solutions, so long as the quotes for purchase and maintenance are cheaper than the aggregate labor required to perform the automaton's function. Makes perfect sense - as long as the automaton is more efficient and reliable than the person(s) replaced, why not?
By year 1, we'll see the effects: higher unemployment across certain sectors (unskilled labor, the extremely young, folks in depressed areas, etc), and slower hiring among smaller businesses, since they not only have the option of automation (especially as the market starts seriously filling the demand), but because they're not going to be as willing to take risks on hiring unknown candidates, or on hiring an extra employee (or more) in anticipation of growth (the latter due to increased costs per employee - the business is risking more money now when they do that.)
Agreed w/ sibling... gonna need a citation for that, esp. considering that my wife's ancient iPhone 4 still gets updates (or at least got the last one a few months back.)
...because that's how you give your customers to Verizon.
I've always marveled at the ability of marketing people to complete shove their heads completely up their asses like that.
Seriously - who came up with the thought "OMG the world needs more of our custom and half-baked bloatware!" I ask because I want to burn that individual's house down, then force him to eat the ashes.
Just wait 'til someone launches this onto 4chan and the like.
We'll get the ultimate trolls. Relentless, tireless, merciless. Can't wait to watch the fallout happen.
...so, where did that Facebook API go again? Yeah - can't wait either:
1) chain chatbots to Facebook API 2) harvest hacked accounts (or build up a ton of your own and then), point bots to start using said accounts 3) fire your new shiny massive troll cannon at some FB group or individual you really hate 4) ??? 5) Profit!
On the plus side, maybe it'll finally kill Facebook, Google+, and all that shit...
First, in general agree with you, but only insofar as Netcraft has not yet confirmed it.;)
However, your argument isn't quite water-tight. You see, Microsoft has sunk $$$$billions into the XBox program over the years, and with each new console iteration they sink $$$$billions more. Meanwhile, they sell the hardware either at or below cost (forget which), which meant that they relied on licensing to make any profit off of it - which was $0.00 until like 2007-2008 or so. Even now, they *might* make enough to stop the bleeding, but nowhere near enough to make up for the massive pile of cash they've sunk into it to date, which has been accumulating since 1999 and is still piling up (albeit not as fast given the offset from licensing).
IIRC the whole idea was to first launch a game console, then turn it into a home media center, then turn it again into a central computer for the home, where they would hold ultimate sway. Things didn't quite turn out as originally planned, but they're in it too damned deep to pull out now, especially with an eventual ROI coming (maybe a decade or two from now?), with a possible profit center coming from it in the moderate/long-term future.
Perhaps that, instead of some 'mystery hack', they simply figured out how to use the damned controls that the employer (who actually owned the phone) had in place?
Slashdot Mirror
Almost - they still need the cheesy sound effects and the timer/meter.
Oh, and USENET... it definitely needs some sort of connection to USENET, so that the users can flood it with astoundingly stupid posts...
Dude, you kidding? I'd *kill* to get some of his time to go over the stuff I write!
Why? Because I'd frickin' *learn* from it, that's why...
Seriously - never fear honest criticism from people who are way better at it than you are.
Facebook has that mechanism already, as do most other public fora. It's usually called "Block" or "Ignore".
Of course, I suspect that the actual goal of many of these organizations is not to merely block/ignore folks they disagree with...
Dude has a point. For example, what defines 'racism' - according to many people, the term includes anyone who disagrees with the 'Black Lives Matter' movement in any aspect. Threats? Of course there's the obvious stuff, like 'I'm going to come to your house and kill you' stuff (though deletion of same may constitute tampering with evidence, eh?) But on the other hand we have overly-coddled snowflakes who claim there's somehow a credible threat from some idiot scrawling "Trump 2016" in chalk on their college campus.
I'm also curious to see a complete list of these groups... mostly because there are quite a few groups out there who you definitely do not want setting definitions here.
There is a danger in this, after all - the danger being that political speech is stifled if the hoi polloi decide that something is 'hate' or 'racist' merely because they disagree with it. The two examples I listed up top are true stories, so it's not like GP's post is paranoia...
Doesn't matter - it's still GMO.
Actually, some ISPs already do this in spades.
Most (honest) Satellite Broadband providers will tell you your caps, average latency, average speeds, what happens if you go past the cap, any QoS action, etc. For instance, I have a 30GB daytime cap each month, average latency is 570ms, if I go past the cap my speeds drop from 25mbps to 1-5mbps, etc. I knew all of this before I even called to order the service.
'course, most folks would say "man, your connection sucks", but consider that I could lash a dish/modem on top of an RV and use it anywhere I want in North America. In my case, I use it because I live way out in the sticks. It's good enough for most basic stuff and VPN to work daily (and it's not bad at all for streaming), but VoIP and FPS gaming is shit. I knew this (grew out of the twitch-gaming a long time ago), but the sales lady on the phone went out of his way to let me know all of this (she read it off a script) before I authorized anything.
But yeah - if a Sat. provider is not up-front about all of this? Drop/Avoid them, because most are.
Actually, not in this case.
In the iPhone case, the FBI was demanding that encryption be weakened *across the board, for everybody* in order to get the contents of one phone.
In this case, they're asking for a warrant (correctly this time), and only want the existing records for one person, without compromising any innocent parties' privacy.
Big diff this time.
Funny thing, but you find the same story among celebrities. Most TV, movie, and music superstars are (wait for it...) college dropouts.
But to respond to your post: A look at Jobs' bio during his college years and shortly thereafter does show that the man did live hand-to-mouth for quite awhile before the whole Apple thing:
Expensive, perhaps, but Reed College wasn't exactly a highly-regarded MBA factory, and certainly wasn't anything one would call "prestigious".
No worries - he'll only visit at night (cue sad trombone noise...)
True, but healthcare is not the whole pie, and really doesn't diminish the result.
I agree with the first part, but, as others have also pointed out, a jump in minimum wage will suddenly make automation a lot cheaper and a whole lot more attractive in the new ($15/hr) world order...
One company raising its wagers != *all* companies raising their wages (and subsequent costs, etc).
Ford also had the advantage of being among the first to implement full nose-to-tail industrialization (with ultra-standardized parts and processes) in his factories, which cut his costs drastically enough to afford the increased overhead.
Citation, please.
I ask because the increased costs can only be "spread out over the production of the employee" when said employees increase their aggregate productivity enough to cover said cost increase. Odds are that's not going to happen. Secondly, costs are not just going up for the end consumer - they'll go up on products sold by wholesalers, suppliers, vendors, call-them-what-you-will, so the business has to take that into account as well.
Meanwhile, product costs going up across the board, across all industries and product ranges, for *any reason at all*, is the classic hallmark of inflation. Smith never debunked that under any condition that I'm aware of, which is why there's now a demand for a citation. Oh, and raising a certain percentage of wages (especially by government edict) will definitely stand as a catalyst for rising costs across the board.
Now if you had said that the employers can just eat it and trim their profits without trying to call on Mr. Smith to justify it? Well that's a nice sentiment and all, but when that happens the shareholders (and if you have a 401k, this means you) would see lower dividends, and stock prices would become sluggish.
Of course, there is an argument you could have used, but chose not to: Only 3% of US workers make minimum wage.
However, that has a problem too. Let's make it simple: The pool secretary gets her raise, and suddenly the executive secretary (her manager, who previously made $15/hr before the hike) will start demanding a raise as well, and this demand will ripple upwards throughout the pay scale. Even simpler: The burger flipper got a raise, but what about the shift leader? Does he not deserve a raise too, since he has more experience and better relative skills? What about the store manager after that happens? The regional chain manager? I trust you can see where this is going...
While I do agree that everyone's wages drive the cost of doing business, there's a problem: Wage discrepancy itself has frig-all to do with determining a workable minimum wage, and for one reason: that metric is honestly based in class envy, and nothing more.
Why? Because there is no sane and objective way to prove the argument that said discrepancy is the cause of poverty. There are a few reasons why, but they're all based on bad assumptions:
First, aggregate monetary wealth is not a static quantity, but grows and shrinks with the economy (usually growing). You do not have everyone fighting for a slice of the same static-sized pie.
Second, there is no way that the average worker making $20,800/yr ($10/hr) has the same skills/education/experience as the average worker making $250k/yr.
The demand and talent pools for each job are radically different - hence the difference. If competent janitors suddenly became ultra-scarce, and the toilets still needed cleaning, you would see janitors making $250k/yr and getting golden parachutes. Conversely, if competent CEOs were everywhere and every company already had one, their wages would drop like a rock.
All that aside, you did leave something out - cumulative effect: 500 $7.50/hr employees in a large company getting a $7.50/hr raise would suddenly cost the company at least an additional $7.8 million/yr, not counting the commiserate rise in FICA and etc. The CEO of the same company literally quadrupling his $250k salary couldn't come near touching that.
Dunno why you were modded as "Troll", because your post makes perfect sense, especially when asking at what point do we set this wage? What calculus is being used to set it?
"Living Wage" is not only vague, but it becomes a moving goalpost... so that can't be it. Setting it against a cost-of-living index might work, but that becomes a moving goalpost as well (and barring massive deflation, it always moves upwards).
So at what objective point does one set this wage without creating a self-feeding loop that pushes it upwards?
Well, to be fair we have come pretty close...
Just a few minutes on YouTube browsing videos showing various manufacturing machines and the processes they do suggests that making a machine to cook and build Hamburgers and other fast food orders would be child's play.
The only question is where the point between the capital costs of such a device and the higher wages cross.
Exactly, and a higher employee wage pushes the balance more towards the automation angle.
For instance, let's do a stupid exercise at a fast-food joint. $7.50/hr costs an employer (at full time) roughly $15600/yr *before* counting SS/Unemployment Ins./Healthcare/etc contributions. Call it maybe $19k/yr (we slapped on 20% and rounded up). I suspect that you're going to have a damned hard time finding a burger-flipping machine that will amortize to less than $20k/yr (incl. maintenance contracts).
Now bump the employee's wages to $15/hr, or roughly $37000/yr (we slapped on 20% and then rounded down, just to be fair). $37k/yr is probably well within reach of buying that burger-flipping machine and amortizing it, including an on-site maintenance contract.
Now, as a business franchisee who has to deal with sick-days, high turnover (plus lost productivity caused by it), employee gripes, demands for raises, the usual human-human drama, and other bullshit? Oh, and if that machine can produce more product at a better, more consistent quality than any *two* employees on your payroll? Suddenly that machine looks damned attractive, especially once you realize that it'll be working in the back where no one can see it. For a nominal extra cost, you could probably get a self-cleaning one and save yet one more FTE... so even at $70k/yr to replace the 3 FTE units that you'd spend $110k/yr on? Shit, it's more than doable. As a bonus, if you're a dick about it, you can use the presence of those machines to (very) subtly remind the remaining employees that maybe they should up their game...
Funny... but that does bring up the subject of how quickly such automation would go into effect.
Call day 0 the day the law goes into effect.
By day 1, all businesses that have not started up yet, or who have grown enough to start hiring employees, will probably start looking very hard at adding automation to their list of things to implement, even on a small scale. Consider that some of this is in place now; at the Apple Store, there is no checkout counter, because nearly every employee on the floor is not only the sales-critter and light technical POC, but also handles checkout right then and there with a smartphone/app combination. That eliminates at least 2-3 employees who would otherwise sit around and handle money.
By month 1, most of your existing businesses/franchisees in California with traditionally high turnover will likely start talking to folks willing to sell them automation solutions, so long as the quotes for purchase and maintenance are cheaper than the aggregate labor required to perform the automaton's function. Makes perfect sense - as long as the automaton is more efficient and reliable than the person(s) replaced, why not?
By year 1, we'll see the effects: higher unemployment across certain sectors (unskilled labor, the extremely young, folks in depressed areas, etc), and slower hiring among smaller businesses, since they not only have the option of automation (especially as the market starts seriously filling the demand), but because they're not going to be as willing to take risks on hiring unknown candidates, or on hiring an extra employee (or more) in anticipation of growth (the latter due to increased costs per employee - the business is risking more money now when they do that.)
By year 5? Well...
Agreed w/ sibling... gonna need a citation for that, esp. considering that my wife's ancient iPhone 4 still gets updates (or at least got the last one a few months back.)
...because that's how you give your customers to Verizon.
I've always marveled at the ability of marketing people to complete shove their heads completely up their asses like that.
Seriously - who came up with the thought "OMG the world needs more of our custom and half-baked bloatware!" I ask because I want to burn that individual's house down, then force him to eat the ashes.
Just wait 'til someone launches this onto 4chan and the like.
We'll get the ultimate trolls. Relentless, tireless, merciless. Can't wait to watch the fallout happen.
...so, where did that Facebook API go again? Yeah - can't wait either:
1) chain chatbots to Facebook API
2) harvest hacked accounts (or build up a ton of your own and then), point bots to start using said accounts
3) fire your new shiny massive troll cannon at some FB group or individual you really hate
4) ???
5) Profit!
On the plus side, maybe it'll finally kill Facebook, Google+, and all that shit...
First, in general agree with you, but only insofar as Netcraft has not yet confirmed it. ;)
However, your argument isn't quite water-tight. You see, Microsoft has sunk $$$$billions into the XBox program over the years, and with each new console iteration they sink $$$$billions more. Meanwhile, they sell the hardware either at or below cost (forget which), which meant that they relied on licensing to make any profit off of it - which was $0.00 until like 2007-2008 or so. Even now, they *might* make enough to stop the bleeding, but nowhere near enough to make up for the massive pile of cash they've sunk into it to date, which has been accumulating since 1999 and is still piling up (albeit not as fast given the offset from licensing).
IIRC the whole idea was to first launch a game console, then turn it into a home media center, then turn it again into a central computer for the home, where they would hold ultimate sway. Things didn't quite turn out as originally planned, but they're in it too damned deep to pull out now, especially with an eventual ROI coming (maybe a decade or two from now?), with a possible profit center coming from it in the moderate/long-term future.
Remember - if your computer was drunk, it is not consensual. Running Windows 8 counts as 'drunk' in this context.
Perhaps that, instead of some 'mystery hack', they simply figured out how to use the damned controls that the employer (who actually owned the phone) had in place?