151–160 of 164 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The nature of commercial flying is such that actual incidents are pretty rare (150 or so a year recently[1]), and very very expensive. So taking the "data-driven" approach to pushing what's safe really isn't economically feasible, to say nothing of the ethics issues. Instead the principle of "if it seems unsafe, it's probably unsafe" applies. I believe the situation mentioned in the article of riding for fourteen hou…
A crash of a cargo jet (eg. converted airliner approx. $40m value) is such a rare event that "bean counters" can justify a certain level of risk. A good comparison is SpaceX Falcon[0] or Orbital Sciences Antares launch vehicles. If they have a mishap, there is high probability that it'll take 6mo+ to return to flight. There is a significant cost to that ($300m+ cost to SpaceX, for vehicle replacement and compensation…
A few thoughts here. 1) DHL started in the US in 1969 and became German owned a little after 2002 (it has a pretty cool origin story where the founder felt there was a better way to deliver overnight goods to Hawaii than to literally sit a person on a plane and stuff legal documents in his luggage. He used his student loans to... "bootstrap"). IMO the article loses some credibility by using "foreign competition" verb…
Anyone here - not me, but only because I live in Australia - who doesn't recognise they they are the problem, are the problem. We all want things, and we all want them the cheapest. Amazon is the cheapest. And how? This is how. We either get used to a world where things cost less and people all across the delivery chain get treated really shitty, or we all accept that we have to pay a dollar more for that 12-pack of…
The author has a great job where he is well paid and occasionally has to sleep on a plane. What's the problem?
The lack of empathy in the comments is disconcerting. The post is a bit light on details (though the example given of flying 23 hours back-to-back continental flights is terrible if regular) the post deserves better than: 1. Pilots fly for fun. You made the wrong career move. 2. Capitalism! 3. you're lucky - imagine if you were a warehouse worker. He's a pilot, not an accountant or lawyer. He knows that there is pay…
The only solution I see is a syndicalism, or perhaps participatory economics (one of those is real, has existed, the other is an idea possibly with no potential in the real world). Basically the only thing people understand is go fuck yourself. Let's face it. It's a might makes right world. People don't negotiate win win if they can negotiate I win you lose and that's a win, so go fuck yourself. It's always adversarial when a single entity owns both capital and means of production.
But the very idea of worker unions brings about the open question of committing murder by certain capitalists. It's that much of a threat to their ability to say and get away with, go fuck yourself.
The lack of empathy in the comments is disconcerting. The post is a bit light on details (though the example given of flying 23 hours back-to-back continental flights is terrible if regular) the post deserves better than: 1. Pilots fly for fun. You made the wrong career move. 2. Capitalism! 3. you're lucky - imagine if you were a warehouse worker. He's a pilot, not an accountant or lawyer. He knows that there is pay…
I think the lack of empathy is because cargo pilots flying for Amazon still have it much better than warehouse workers. Both job wise (nicer to fly than to pack) and with regards to the pay. Aviation is one of the most regulated sectors in both the US and worldwide. The reason why DHL uses subcontractors is not because they want to save money, they aren't allowed to fly in the US. Which is somehow interesting because…
That means ferrying the pilots as passengers to location; at which point they become pilots for the next leg. It's still shit. It's bad ergonomically, it's very dehydrating, and you're getting a higher dose of cosmic rays. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/aircrew/cosmicionizingradia...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It then still sucks having to be in an aircraft for 23h, but he didn't have to work for 23h straight If you're away from what you'd rather be doing at the company's discretion, you're working.
You might think that, but the law actually currently uses a concept called "portal-to-portal". Companies only need to pay for time that is "integral and indispensable" to the labor in question. In short if you aren't actually earning money for the company, they don't necessarily need to pay you. It originated with mine workers who would have to take a long mine-elevator ride (30m+) to and from the vein, and companies…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There have been many first hand accounts from pilots about their industry's deteriorating work conditions. The denial and pedantry by the Freedom Market™ zealots is exhausting. Being highly trained and performing safety critical work does not exempt pilots from the predation of C (executive management) level exploitation. The root cause is the glut of labor, progressively reducing Labor's bargaining power, since the…
Better tax policy could do a lot. Our regressive tax policy is currently funneling economic growth to an ever smaller pool of people who simply don't need as many people to work for them (directly + indirectly). If the lower/middle class kept more of their paycheck they would spend more on services which would employ more people. Further, the economic death spiral of fewer people with disposable income => reduced dem…
Today's wealthy and politically connected baby boomers cannot be bothered at all with this. They demand low taxes, stuffing the stock market with the bounty rather than starting or expanding businesses, and then charge the national credit card with all the costs of their unwillingness to contribute anything meaningful. Except maybe some halfway decent music - but that does not give them a pass for being greedy, stingy, hoarders.
At the moderate to low end of the pay scale, even 0% taxes fails to mitigate the wage stagnation problem. This really only gets fixed when the cost of hoarding becomes really fucking expensive. So expensive it's saner to take the risk on starting or growing a business, and the ensuing tax deductions that come with that (those are generally 100% tax deductible expenses by the way, with exceptions for gifts and entertainment).
Right now we don't have that. It's hoarding and credit charging time. And this bullshit tax cut proposal is even more of that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There have been many first hand accounts from pilots about their industry's deteriorating work conditions. The denial and pedantry by the Freedom Market™ zealots is exhausting. Being highly trained and performing safety critical work does not exempt pilots from the predation of C (executive management) level exploitation. The root cause is the glut of labor, progressively reducing Labor's bargaining power, since the…
How about a movement that says, "If you can't earn a decent wage working 40 hours a week, sit under a bridge until you die for your country." Reducing the labor pool and showing the elites they can build their own roads, make their own coffee, and fly their own planes unless they allow all citizens to live with dignity after a 40 hour work week. I believe their is much more virtue in doing this than going to war to m…
The part that slays me is we have so much useful work that needs doing, excess capital for want of high quality investments, and people demanding purposeful jobs.
The opportunities are insurmountable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better tax policy could do a lot. Our regressive tax policy is currently funneling economic growth to an ever smaller pool of people who simply don't need as many people to work for them (directly + indirectly). If the lower/middle class kept more of their paycheck they would spend more on services which would employ more people. Further, the economic death spiral of fewer people with disposable income => reduced dem…
Agree. I support any measure that keeps money moving. Including cashectomies for windfall profits. But why, in the name of fairness, isn't the surplus shared with all the stakeholders? We wouldn't be in this pickle to begin with if profit sharing was the norm. Like when I was kid.
It's somewhere in the vicinity of neo-feudalism + neo-aristocracy + prosperity theology. It's an abomination.