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The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

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Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#281

Post by gnipgnip »

thw1438383 wrote: post #97
seanhandley wrote: post #59

As a European (used to free healthcare, statutory maternity leave, and 25 days paid leave per year) it shocked me on first visiting America how third-world it actually feels regarding what people consider a "normal" work/life balance. People work incredibly hard, long hours and often with very little to show for it. It's surreal.

Atleast they get paid relatively more than in the EU. In Japan you're expected to work mad hours (read 11-12 hrs) for what is barely above minimum wage in the US! Add to that Tokyo is hecka expensive. I was quoted a salary of $ 30k for a deep learning position. Now that is third world.

Wow! How much do people manage to generally save in Japan as opposed to SF ?

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#282

Post by nommm-nommm »

dustinmr wrote: post #187
CPLX wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And literally every person who has carried bags to my hotel room has seemed pleased to serve me.

You really have little respect for service workers, don't you? Many people in tourism actually like what they do. Others even see you as the sucker. I came her to agree with the gf comment. It may be partially geographic, as I'm in Miami and about 75% of the drivers I've spoken with are Venezuelan, arrived in the last 2 years or so, and are very happy with their life change and their job driving. And the other 25% ar…

How does saying what the parent say equate to having "little respect?" Some people enjoy their job, no matter what they do, for sure. Absolutely. Some people hate their job but pretend to love their job because part of their job (service) is to give the appearance that they are very, very happy. Pointing that out is not disrespectful.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#283

Post by cmdrfred »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #231
cmdrfred wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We both have health insurance, we make too much for Obamacare but we costed it out and we can afford for one of us to stop working if we had to.

You've never been sick with health insurance, have you? I have, it's stressful as fuck worrying about paying copays, deductibles, coinsurance, etc. And I could afford it! And I had short term disability insurance, so I kept my job and my pay during treatment. I couldn't imagine working a job that didn't have short term disability. I don't know how a lower income people could do it. This was before the ACA though, I d…

I imagine is stressful to have an illness no matter what. I have the option to fairly easily move to the UK since my wife is a citizen there. We did the math and decided we prefer our higher standard of living here (we budgeted it all out and I went as far to do some phone interviews, we would have to move into a small apartment there as opposed to a house and we would both not only make less but pay much higher taxes). Risk/reward is a balance, I prefer the US way but you may differ.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#284

Post by m23khan »

Can't speak for whole of Canada but Toronto is definitely on track to become a city where it is impossible to buy a house and rents are so high that for a family - both husband and wife need to work and one of the spouse has to have a side gig for making the money to feed and clothe the family along with some meagre savings.

Canadian government keeps stating that inflation rate is less than 2% but reality is, in Toronto, it is probably running in excess of 10% for last 10+ years. However, the companies keep pretending that for their existing employees, if they are lucky to get a raise, that raise should be 3% or 4%.

In Toronto, even modest vacations feel like luxury and entertainment options seem to be leave you with a feeling that your pocket is on fire.

Now before my pro-Canadiana countrymen come here and lecture me on how great Canada is (and yes, the free healthcare!!), let me tell you: I like Canada and definitely feel it is the place to be. I am just stating in context of the article, that is all.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#285

Post by cmdrfred »

jacquesm wrote: post #145
cmdrfred wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We both have health insurance, we make too much for Obamacare but we costed it out and we can afford for one of us to stop working if we had to.

Excellent. Make sure you keep a sharp eye on that and the future developments, this is one of those little things that can really ruin your life. It's bad enough to have a serious health issue, if it gets compounded by a financial crisis then you can go from 'ok' to 'really bad' in a surprisingly short time when there is no safety net.

We keep one years expenses at all times as well as our mortgage payment is a little less than the cost of a two bedroom apartment so if a finical crisis hit that left us out on the street we would be there regardless.

The problem with the housing crisis was people had variable rate mortgages that made their payments quickly balloon up under them. We have a fixed rate so that can't happen.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#286

Post by emodendroket »

lovich wrote: post #246
conanbatt wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A software engineer in a startup in berlin earns maybe a median salary of 60k euros ayear at a 40% tax rate. Thats less of what interns make in the us at a 30% tax rate. An experienced engineer at google or facebook make 200k with a sizable signup bonus. As far as I know, theres no comparison between what a soft dev makes in the us and what he makes in europe. This is from someone that lives in south america, and is…

You're comparing median salary in Berlin with the high end in the US, and you are ignoring much of the complexities that were already mentioned such as the incredibley high cost of living in San Francisco where google and facebook pay those salaries. I'm in the Boston market and median salary for devs is around 80-90k when you include all skill levels, but every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute int…

> every single dev I know has roommates or an hour+ commute into the city

They should probably look for housing near a commuter rail then

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#287

Post by donw »

alkonaut wrote: post #268
donw wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, provided a serial number, American police can trace a gun used in a crime to its last legal owner. It takes a number of phone calls -- first to the manufacturer, then to the gun store, then to the first owner, and down the chain -- but it generally works. And, although it's not mandated by law, gun owners do tend to keep records on private party sales. Nobody wants to be in the situation of "we found this…

> If you want to promote safe storage, the best solution would be a tax benefit for buying safe-storage equipment Yes, a tax benefit seems like something you would probably need to add to a bill requiring safe storage, just to get it past lawmakers and special interest groups. > Something else that I would love to see, and stealing a page from the Swiss, is universal gun education That sounds like a good idea. Not su…

I'd actually be fine with a mandatory year of military service, but not sure how well that would sell politically to other Americans.

Personally, I think it would do a lot to connect Americans from different walks of life. I know a lot of people in SF that have no idea what rural California looks like, and that works the same way in the other direction.

As far as licensing goes, that's off the table for historical reasons, and also why I say that we should make gun education universal.

Pretty much every gun control law in the United States, starting after the Civil War, and up to and including California's Assault Weapons Ban and Open Carry Ban, have been primarily to limit gun rights for the poor, and for minorities. It's why the laws are so patchwork, and make so little sense.

So, given that history, public education is the most sensible way to promote responsible gun culture and firearms safety, without imposing the licensing burden that is still used today as a means of discrimination.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#288

Post by nommm-nommm »

cmdrfred wrote: post #283
nommm-nommm wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've never been sick with health insurance, have you? I have, it's stressful as fuck worrying about paying copays, deductibles, coinsurance, etc. And I could afford it! And I had short term disability insurance, so I kept my job and my pay during treatment. I couldn't imagine working a job that didn't have short term disability. I don't know how a lower income people could do it. This was before the ACA though, I d…

I imagine is stressful to have an illness no matter what. I have the option to fairly easily move to the UK since my wife is a citizen there. We did the math and decided we prefer our higher standard of living here (we budgeted it all out and I went as far to do some phone interviews, we would have to move into a small apartment there as opposed to a house and we would both not only make less but pay much higher taxe…

You didn't address my comments at all.

Sure, you prioritizing having a big house over not worrying about having to cough up $5k in even of an illness. Or worrying about losing your health insurance. Medical expenses are covered somewhat by insurance but you're still getting a huge bill if you're significantly ill.

I was damn lucky I could afford it but if I go sick a few years earlier I'd be totally and completely fucked. Of course, if you can't imagine it you can't appreciate it.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#289

Post by coldtea »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #225
coldtea wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's definitely not the case, since the numbers I cited are adjusted for inflation. Inflation adjustment doesn't take into account costs that are prevalent in an era but totally absent in another: like internet access, cellphone bills, and such. Nor how much one not puts into their retirement account / savings to spend on daily needs. If it was just supposed to be relative to the past, we would all be content for…

Inflation adjustment doesn't take into account costs that are prevalent in an era but totally absent in another: like internet access, cellphone bills, and such. I'm glad you've agreed with me that life has done nothing but get better. We're all winners, whereas by modern standards our parents were all losers. As for the other things you bring up, basically none of the facts fit your story. Homeownership has ranged f…

>I'm glad you've agreed with me that life has done nothing but get better. We're all winners, whereas by modern standards our parents were all losers.

Only in the sense that being a loser with a cellphone makes you a winner over a winner in the 60s without a cellphone.

But I don't think "availability/access to gadgets and avocados" is of primary concern when one considers whether "life getting better" over access to housing, steady employment, healthcare access, savings, and other such things.

An example of this "winning":

In 2015, when researchers Ann Case and Angus Deaton discovered that death rates had been rising dramatically since 1999 among middle-aged white Americans, they weren't sure why people were dying younger, reversing decades of longer life expectancy.

In a follow-up to their groundbreaking 2015 work, they say that a lack of steady, well-paying jobs for whites without college degrees has caused pain, distress and social dysfunction to build up over time. The mortality rate for that group, ages 45 to 54, increased by a half-percent each year from 1999 to 2013.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/03/23/52108333...

>College enrollments (as a % of new graduates) has done nothing but climb.

That's the problem of numbers, they say nothing without context.

Though this one is so obvious I'm not sure it's worth discussing.

Isn't it obvious for example that college enrollments have mainly climbed because getting by (getting a job above minimum wage) without one is not as easy as it was in decades past, and are thus becoming de facto mandatory?

Remember those "middle age despair deaths" I mentioned above? "But whites with college degrees haven't suffered the same lack of economic opportunity, and haven't seen the same loss of life expectancy."

And isn't it also obvious that this "climbing of college enrollments" is happening only with increased student debt (from even 0 back in decades past), that has reached enormous amounts for millions of people?

If people in the 40s and 50s has a gun in their head to get a college degree to find a job, and if they took huge loans to be able to afford it, then they would have the same percentage of "climbing college enrollments" too...

>That's because we get more non-wage benefits and fewer dollars per hour. Real compensation per hour has done nothing but rise.

Yeah, wonder what these millions of working class losers are complaining about... Entitled scum, the whole lot of them...

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#290

Post by mrow84 »

dagw wrote: post #260
HarryHirsch wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't run the numbers, but the impression is that the South of England is much more densely populated. The majority of people lives south of the M62 and east of the M5/M6 highways. And then there's greenbelts to prevent the endless exurbanization.

Good point. Greater London, Hertfordshire, Surrey, Essex and Kent all have a higher population density than Holland, and between them count for a significant part of the UK population.

When you go north, and more generally away from population centres, the houses do seem to be quite a bit larger. There, of course, there are other limiting factors, most often wages.
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