Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions • Hacker News Board

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#61

Post by kspaans » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

ptaipale wrote: post #37

techdragon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 40 hour work week isn't a productivity related number... It's a cultural construction born from early 20th century union political efforts. For instance in Denmark, the work week is typically 32 hours and has been this way for decades... Works fine for them... Not sure how well it would work in a culture like America where working as hard as possible is considered a good thing... Regardless of how stupidly obviou…

37, not 32. http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/compara... There are particularly many part-time workers in Denmark, and flexibility of labour market is high (including close to zero protection from layoffs), and this has resulted in Danes working fewer hours per worker than other Western nations (1490 hours per year per employee on the average) but on the other hand the labour marker participation r…

When I interned for the Federal Government in Canada my wages were for 37.5 hours per week (7.5 hours per day, 30 min unpaid lunch was the implied structure).

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#62

Post by ptaipale » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 7:07 PM UTC

kspaans wrote: post #61

ptaipale wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37, not 32. http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/compara... There are particularly many part-time workers in Denmark, and flexibility of labour market is high (including close to zero protection from layoffs), and this has resulted in Danes working fewer hours per worker than other Western nations (1490 hours per year per employee on the average) but on the other hand the labour marker participation r…

When I interned for the Federal Government in Canada my wages were for 37.5 hours per week (7.5 hours per day, 30 min unpaid lunch was the implied structure).

It's the same 37.5 hours with all office jobs where I live, Finland. Blue-collar jobs are 8 hours per day (1 hour unpaid lunch implied), they then accumulate more holiday days so that the annual working time is roughly the same.

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#63

Post by bjt » Mon, Aug 29, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

johnm1019 wrote: post #31

bjt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think any discussion of the good and bad side of unions needs to distinguish between public and private sector ones. In the private sector, union negotiations are naturally constrained by the knowledge that if the company isn't profitable, everybody loses. I think there are cases in the private sector where unions make a lot of sense (e.g. mining towns where there's one dominant employer). In the public sector that…

Unless it's Detroit. Or Puerto Rico.... or....?

Detroit is still there. And so are unions.

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#64

Post by dang » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 1:40 AM UTC

pastProlog wrote: post #35

hueving wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"helped in the past" != "helpful now" Burning coal has been a tremendous help to society, but that doesn't mean we should continue to do it when we find better alternatives for each of its use cases. Can you name some of the advancements unions have brought to employees in the US over the last 10-20 years? Does that outweigh their anti competitive nature that has led to companies moving manufacturing out of unionized…

Can you name some of the advancements that heirs who have never worked a day in their lives have brought in the US over the last 10-20 years? Who live off the labor of those of us who do work, the labor time of which they expropriate with their dividends and profits? The heirs, the parasites who live off the labor of those of us who do work are the ones who have to explain what good their parasitism is doing in this…

You've been using HN primarily for political and ideological purposes. Please stop doing that. It's not a legitimate use of this site; it poisons the spirit of collegial curiosity that we hope for here. If you want to do political battle, please do so in other places.

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#65

Post by EliRivers » Wed, Aug 31, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #57

EliRivers wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could; that would be better. Such a contract would have to surrender some control to the other co-owner; in effect, you've given something away, while you were alive. Trusts do a similar thing; the Duke of Westminster just "inherited" a large chunk of London, but he can't just do whatever he wants with it (that said, it is clearly tilted way too far in his favour). I've no doubt some people would try to cheat the…

> Such a contract would have to surrender some control to the other co-owner No, it wouldn't. You could easily structure this contract such that the person on the receiving end has no control until the original owner dies.

We call that a "will". They already exist. The new owner pays inheritance tax because they've inherited things. Labelling it something else doesn't change it. People already tried.

I did say that people already tried this sort of thing and that the taxman has come down on them in the past. This has really been tried and really not worked.

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#66

Post by hueving » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 6:47 AM UTC

icantdrive55 wrote: post #32

hueving wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"helped in the past" != "helpful now" Burning coal has been a tremendous help to society, but that doesn't mean we should continue to do it when we find better alternatives for each of its use cases. Can you name some of the advancements unions have brought to employees in the US over the last 10-20 years? Does that outweigh their anti competitive nature that has led to companies moving manufacturing out of unionized…

Off the top of my head, try being a non-union Electrician, Plumber, etc. in San Francisco for a day. At the end of that day, you will drop to your knees, and thank god for those lefty unions. At the end of a few years, you just might be able to afford a house. Actually San Francisco has a lot of union jobs, and they arn't moving to China. Personally, I think people in tech will look back, and wish they had some Union…

>What's the better alternative?

Let's look at the BART. It's one of the worst and most expensive transit systems in the US. It costs $4 to ride it from SFO to the nearest caltrain stop a couple of miles away. Part of the reason is that the train operators can easily rake in 6 figures with overtime for doing something that could easily be automated or made more efficient with centralized control at a minimum. The bay area has given up affordable/useful subways to subsidize a bloated union-based operation.

>Personally, I think people in tech will look back, and wish they had some Union protection. It's the one profession I'm shocked hasen't completely moved overseas.

You're gravely mistaken if you think unions protect jobs from moving away. Labor costs that greatly exceed the market rate are the primary reason the jobs move elsewhere.

>Actually San Francisco has a lot of union jobs, and they arn't moving to China.

Oh? Point me to all of the union heavy manufacturing jobs in SF. You will find that difficult because they don't exist anymore. The only union jobs that are left here are ones that have no competition because they are local (e.g. your electrician example).

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#67

Post by dpark » Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 4:40 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #65

dpark wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such a contract would have to surrender some control to the other co-owner No, it wouldn't. You could easily structure this contract such that the person on the receiving end has no control until the original owner dies.

We call that a "will". They already exist. The new owner pays inheritance tax because they've inherited things. Labelling it something else doesn't change it. People already tried. I did say that people already tried this sort of thing and that the taxman has come down on them in the past. This has really been tried and really not worked.

> We call that a "will". They already exist. The new owner pays inheritance tax because they've inherited things.

You're hypothesizing a world where inheritance isn't a recognized thing and asserting that in such a world, it would be impossible to effectively recreate inheritance with clever contracts. I'm telling you that you're wrong. It would be trivial in any world where contracts and transfer of ownership are accepted to recreate an inheritance system.

Re: Housing Plans in California & New York face resistance from construction unions

#68

Post by EliRivers » Sat, Sep 03, 2016, 9:15 AM UTC

dpark wrote: post #67

EliRivers wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We call that a "will". They already exist. The new owner pays inheritance tax because they've inherited things. Labelling it something else doesn't change it. People already tried. I did say that people already tried this sort of thing and that the taxman has come down on them in the past. This has really been tried and really not worked.

> We call that a "will". They already exist. The new owner pays inheritance tax because they've inherited things. You're hypothesizing a world where inheritance isn't a recognized thing and asserting that in such a world, it would be impossible to effectively recreate inheritance with clever contracts. I'm telling you that you're wrong. It would be trivial in any world where contracts and transfer of ownership are ac…

I am speaking of this world; the world in which we live today. In this world, "inheritance" is a thing we already know about. In this world, when actions are taken to stop something we know about, people don't suddenly forget about it.

We have laws already against people trying to dodge inheritance tax, and when people try to do that, it is frowned upon. In this world, should inheritance tax effectively become 100%, and based on the knowledge people have now, I see no reason why society would not notice people trying to break the law by clever use of contracts to recreate the inheritance system. This is something that already happens; laws come into being, some people try to break those laws, it is frowned upon. This happens already. Fact.

"It would be trivial in any world where contracts and transfer of ownership are accepted to recreate an inheritance system."

This would be some other world entirely. Sure, in that world that you're hypothesising, you can have whatever you like. I'm talking about this world; the world in which we already live, where we have hard evidence of people already trying to dodge inheritance tax with contracts and getting busted for it, and hard evidence of new laws being created and people being busted for breaking them. You have no such evidence (hardly your own fault; your world doesn't exist), so I find your argument less convincing. I will find any argument based on hypothetical worlds where you simply assert whatever you like as fact to be unconvincing.

If you have no facts and no evidence to present, the usefulness of this conversation is at an end.