If you work 40 hours a week you should be able to keep a roof over your head and support your family, and you shouldn't be living in poverty.
Um, no. No, you shouldn't be able to do that. Some people are really unproductive. All you do by forcing wages higher is make them unemployable (in the long run, if not in the short run). Negative income taxes like the EITC are a very elegant response to this. Perfect? No, but no human system is.
Yes you should. And don't give me this "higher wages hurt the economy" BS. Even as far back as the time of Henry Ford people understood that workers were also consumers. Why you'd want to impoverish the people who drive economic growth is beyond me.
And yet all of those things - roads, amenities, regulatory authorities and the tax system to pay for them - all of them predate e-commerce. All of them date back to a time when account ledgers were physical books (ledgers) and cash was king. Think about that.
Note that the socialist utopias are moving to e-cash.
I'll keep my dollars, thanks. No need to bother the tax man every time I buy something from a local vendor.
As long as you didn't drive to said vendor on a government-funded road under government-funded street lights using gas that was purchased from a government-inspected pump (so as to make sure that you pay for a gallon and get a gallon) then sure. Don't bother paying the same sales taxes that the rest of us pay.
I mean, if you sit down with a company and say "I would like to work for you" and they say "OK we'll pay you $X for Y-work-done, but you get no benefits, etc" nobody's FORCING you to take that job, are they?
If you don't like it, decline the job and look elsewhere.
If you're desperate for work, then perhaps you HAVE to accept a shitty deal to get a job? Or, you should improve yourself and your skills to make yourself a more attractive candidate for a better position?
I don't really understand why there's this presumption that every job MUST be the perfect life-affirming career with 20 weeks child-leave, infinite sick days, and a complete package of benefits?
Because human beings are human beings with needs and with rights. If you work 40 hours a week you should be able to keep a roof over your head and support your family, and you shouldn't be living in poverty. If you're a woman then you should be able to reproduce and not be expected to return to work the next day if you don't have enough vacation time accrued. It doesn't matter if you're driving a taxi, flipping burgers or running a $20 million company. If you're running a business and can't afford to pay your workers enough money to get by on, then that business is not sustainable. Find something more lucrative and more profitable to work on.
We covered this in college in our Manufacturing Management course. The law in the UK has a lot of grey areas concerning what constitutes and employer/employee relationship, and it's not as simple as who's cutting the paycheque. Who do you report to? Who's controlling the method of work? Who determines your hours? There's a multitude of factors that have to be taken into consideration and weighed up collectively on a case-by-case basis. The word "reasonable" shows up a lot in these laws, and that's wide open to interpretation. The precedent that this sets is going to be interesting.
Watching in the cinema is a completely different experience. Going out of the house and making a journey somewhere builds up the sense of occasion, especially when it's combined with a nice meal somewhere beforehand. Watching a film as part of a large audience is also a better experience than watching at home. Sure there are certain audiences that are annoyingly chatty, but for the most part I have a good experience with fellow film-goers. Watching as part of an audience helps you to pick up on things that you wouldn't notice otherwise. Also, the inability to pause means that you have to put your phone away and give the film your undivided attention. Watching at home leaves you prone to more distractions.
If Silicon Valley tech labor is so cheap, how come tech workers are still out-bidding the working class and mopping up all the housing in San Francisco?
I think studies show that women spend nearly as much time on domestic chores as ever.
Yes, washing without a machine was a long and laborious task, but it may shock you to learn that people didn't wash 1-2 full changes of clothes a day in the time before the washing machine.
Bunkum. I'm old enough to remember my mom leaning over the bath scrubbing clothes on a washboard for a family with five children. Her first automatic washing machine was a godsend. Now with families getting smaller I have my doubts about your studies.
No, but I have met, numerous times, that guy at the party who loves to interject in every conversation his standing gripe about how much he hates people who don't have TVs.
I don't understand the idea of making kids do chores.
YOU chose to have them and they didn't get a say in it - why should they have to work for you?
Because they are not your customers and you are not their servant. They are your children who have to learn that they are not the center of the universe, that the world does not owe them a living, and that there's no way you'll get by in this life without working. Chores are the first act of learning to be a good citizen.
This single task robot has nothing better to do. It is silly to spend money to make it faster just so it can have more idle time.
A washing machine has a single task and nothing better to do. So does a tumble drier. Modern appliances speed up and simplify the task of cooking and performing laundry. Labor-saving devices in the home liberated women from a life of domestic servitude. It has been one of the most significant social and economic changes of our time. Nothing "silly" about it.
The UK switched to gas years ago. It was Thatcher and her successor John Major who phased out the British coal industry since it was uneconomical. Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal, whereas in the UK it was the left that was trying to keep it alive in the interests of the workers. I guess the definition of conservative in America must require anything that beats the crap out of the environment whether it pays its way or not.
There's something about a physical interface that I just never get with a touch-sensitive screen. I miss the clunk of the keys on the old Macs of the 1980s. I remember being able to text without looking at the phone. I always thought that Star Trek TNG crew members had a raw deal having to tap panels all the time. Even Tom Paris in Voyager complained about it once.
Or is that 10 C? Funny how nobody was around to measure the temperature, yet we have people who are absolutely confident in what the temperature was back then.
You're kinda missing the point of theatres. Watching a film as part of a large audience is a better experience (assuming everyone is well behaved) because the collective reaction of an audience to humorous or shocking moments lets you pick out things that you might not notice when watching alone.
Sorry you had such bad experiences in the past, I know I've had them too. It depends on where you live. I watched a movie once in Stockport, UK and the audience was a crowd of teenage idiots who chatted and smoked their way through the movie. I certainly didn't go back to that cinema, but I went to others and had no problem.
Now that I live in Silicon Valley I don't have a lot of trouble with fellow audience members apart from the occasional bit of popcorn crunching at the start of the feature (close your mouth before you start chewing FFS!). I particularly enjoy watching classic films in the old art-deco Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, where they have the organ coming up out of the floor and the fella playing tunes in between shows. That's an experience you definitely can't reproduce at home!
Note how the VW emission scandal came to light thanks to US regulators. We often think of the EU being ahead of the game in this sort of thing, but European car emissions testers are private entities that compete for business. This creates an incentive to "cook the books" and give manufacturers an easy time. US regulators, on the other hand, are public entities and have no such incentive to be nice to the auto manufacturers. Hence, a stricter testing regime that uncovered a culture of corner-cutting and cheating that existed in VAG. Mark my words, VW will not be the last Euro manufacturer to have been found screwing with emissions data.
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If you work 40 hours a week you should be able to keep a roof over your head and support your family, and you shouldn't be living in poverty.
Um, no. No, you shouldn't be able to do that. Some people are really unproductive. All you do by forcing wages higher is make them unemployable (in the long run, if not in the short run). Negative income taxes like the EITC are a very elegant response to this. Perfect? No, but no human system is.
Yes you should. And don't give me this "higher wages hurt the economy" BS. Even as far back as the time of Henry Ford people understood that workers were also consumers. Why you'd want to impoverish the people who drive economic growth is beyond me.
And yet all of those things - roads, amenities, regulatory authorities and the tax system to pay for them - all of them predate e-commerce. All of them date back to a time when account ledgers were physical books (ledgers) and cash was king. Think about that.
Okay, I've thought about it. What do I do now?
Note that the socialist utopias are moving to e-cash.
I'll keep my dollars, thanks. No need to bother the tax man every time I buy something from a local vendor.
As long as you didn't drive to said vendor on a government-funded road under government-funded street lights using gas that was purchased from a government-inspected pump (so as to make sure that you pay for a gallon and get a gallon) then sure. Don't bother paying the same sales taxes that the rest of us pay.
I mean, if you sit down with a company and say "I would like to work for you" and they say "OK we'll pay you $X for Y-work-done, but you get no benefits, etc" nobody's FORCING you to take that job, are they?
If you don't like it, decline the job and look elsewhere.
If you're desperate for work, then perhaps you HAVE to accept a shitty deal to get a job? Or, you should improve yourself and your skills to make yourself a more attractive candidate for a better position?
I don't really understand why there's this presumption that every job MUST be the perfect life-affirming career with 20 weeks child-leave, infinite sick days, and a complete package of benefits?
Because human beings are human beings with needs and with rights. If you work 40 hours a week you should be able to keep a roof over your head and support your family, and you shouldn't be living in poverty. If you're a woman then you should be able to reproduce and not be expected to return to work the next day if you don't have enough vacation time accrued. It doesn't matter if you're driving a taxi, flipping burgers or running a $20 million company. If you're running a business and can't afford to pay your workers enough money to get by on, then that business is not sustainable. Find something more lucrative and more profitable to work on.
We covered this in college in our Manufacturing Management course. The law in the UK has a lot of grey areas concerning what constitutes and employer/employee relationship, and it's not as simple as who's cutting the paycheque. Who do you report to? Who's controlling the method of work? Who determines your hours? There's a multitude of factors that have to be taken into consideration and weighed up collectively on a case-by-case basis. The word "reasonable" shows up a lot in these laws, and that's wide open to interpretation. The precedent that this sets is going to be interesting.
Watching in the cinema is a completely different experience. Going out of the house and making a journey somewhere builds up the sense of occasion, especially when it's combined with a nice meal somewhere beforehand. Watching a film as part of a large audience is also a better experience than watching at home. Sure there are certain audiences that are annoyingly chatty, but for the most part I have a good experience with fellow film-goers. Watching as part of an audience helps you to pick up on things that you wouldn't notice otherwise. Also, the inability to pause means that you have to put your phone away and give the film your undivided attention. Watching at home leaves you prone to more distractions.
If Silicon Valley tech labor is so cheap, how come tech workers are still out-bidding the working class and mopping up all the housing in San Francisco?
Trump was simply more persuasive in the marketplace of ideas, this he won.
The popular vote says otherwise.
I think studies show that women spend nearly as much time on domestic chores as ever.
Yes, washing without a machine was a long and laborious task, but it may shock you to learn that people didn't wash 1-2 full changes of clothes a day in the time before the washing machine.
Bunkum. I'm old enough to remember my mom leaning over the bath scrubbing clothes on a washboard for a family with five children. Her first automatic washing machine was a godsend. Now with families getting smaller I have my doubts about your studies.
No, but I have met, numerous times, that guy at the party who loves to interject in every conversation his standing gripe about how much he hates people who don't have TVs.
Well played, sir. Well played.
I don't understand the idea of making kids do chores.
YOU chose to have them and they didn't get a say in it - why should they have to work for you?
Because they are not your customers and you are not their servant. They are your children who have to learn that they are not the center of the universe, that the world does not owe them a living, and that there's no way you'll get by in this life without working. Chores are the first act of learning to be a good citizen.
This single task robot has nothing better to do. It is silly to spend money to make it faster just so it can have more idle time.
A washing machine has a single task and nothing better to do. So does a tumble drier. Modern appliances speed up and simplify the task of cooking and performing laundry. Labor-saving devices in the home liberated women from a life of domestic servitude. It has been one of the most significant social and economic changes of our time. Nothing "silly" about it.
The UK switched to gas years ago. It was Thatcher and her successor John Major who phased out the British coal industry since it was uneconomical. Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal, whereas in the UK it was the left that was trying to keep it alive in the interests of the workers. I guess the definition of conservative in America must require anything that beats the crap out of the environment whether it pays its way or not.
Headline writers are often not the same people as the article authors.
Now that he's unemployed, he'll be eligible for free Obamacare! .
Free Obamacare? The unemployed get free health insurance? Since when?
Only in America..
Oh boy. You people really don't know much about the outside world, do you?
No but I remember that angry anti-government white dude who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma.
Should we do more? that depends on which side of the political spectrum you fall onto.
No it doesn't. The global climate doesn't care what side of the aisle you're on.
There's something about a physical interface that I just never get with a touch-sensitive screen. I miss the clunk of the keys on the old Macs of the 1980s. I remember being able to text without looking at the phone. I always thought that Star Trek TNG crew members had a raw deal having to tap panels all the time. Even Tom Paris in Voyager complained about it once.
the planet warmed by about 3 degrees
Or is that 10 C? Funny how nobody was around to measure the temperature, yet we have people who are absolutely confident in what the temperature was back then.
Core samples.
So when Trump's policies fail, it will be the work of those shameful Democrats somehow.
He'll undoubtedly try that, but it's hard to see him getting away with it if the Repubs hold a grip on all branches of government.
Would you prefer it if they took some non-existent electric train?
You're kinda missing the point of theatres. Watching a film as part of a large audience is a better experience (assuming everyone is well behaved) because the collective reaction of an audience to humorous or shocking moments lets you pick out things that you might not notice when watching alone.
Sorry you had such bad experiences in the past, I know I've had them too. It depends on where you live. I watched a movie once in Stockport, UK and the audience was a crowd of teenage idiots who chatted and smoked their way through the movie. I certainly didn't go back to that cinema, but I went to others and had no problem.
Now that I live in Silicon Valley I don't have a lot of trouble with fellow audience members apart from the occasional bit of popcorn crunching at the start of the feature (close your mouth before you start chewing FFS!). I particularly enjoy watching classic films in the old art-deco Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto, where they have the organ coming up out of the floor and the fella playing tunes in between shows. That's an experience you definitely can't reproduce at home!
Note how the VW emission scandal came to light thanks to US regulators. We often think of the EU being ahead of the game in this sort of thing, but European car emissions testers are private entities that compete for business. This creates an incentive to "cook the books" and give manufacturers an easy time. US regulators, on the other hand, are public entities and have no such incentive to be nice to the auto manufacturers. Hence, a stricter testing regime that uncovered a culture of corner-cutting and cheating that existed in VAG. Mark my words, VW will not be the last Euro manufacturer to have been found screwing with emissions data.
Automation has been going on since the industrial revolution. It has never discriminated. Technology does not stop to ask the color of your skin.