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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

nytimes.com

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Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#271

Post by randallsquared »

lozenge wrote: post #186
jblow wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But she's also not taking computer classes in her spare time, and work is approximately he same number of hours leaving approximately the same amount of spare time ... even if she were taking computer classes it would not be a reasonable comparison, because taking computer classes in the 1980s was a much more rare and advanced thing than taking them today. It'd have to be something more like quantum mechanics classes…

Kodak was also paying for Evans' degree, which seemingly was a requirement for her to get her professional-track job. How can somebody have the mind to take classes when they haven't had a holiday in years? Or when they work from 6p.m. to 2a.m.?

> Or when they work from 6p.m. to 2a.m.?

How is this different from anyone else who works full time? In fact, a random college course would be more likely to be before 6pm than after?

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#272

Post by galfarragem »

This.

"I look at the big tech companies, and they practice a 21st-century form of welfare capitalism, with foosball tables and free sushi and all that,” Rick Wartzman, senior adviser at the Drucker Institute and author of “The End of Loyalty,” said. “But it’s for a relatively few folks. It’s great if you’re a software engineer."

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#273

Post by foepys »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #216
foepys wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it would be like I had three big houses, two boats, and 10 cars. What do I need half of this for?

Bernie Sanders has three big houses, a boat, several cars, and multi-million dollar book deals. What does he need half that stuff for?

I don't know. I'm German and how Americans continue to almost exclusively elect millionaires into federal positions amazes me.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#274

Post by JetSpiegel »

fatjokes wrote: post #32
LoSboccacc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you see, part of outsourcing is a sleight of hand where the worker is twice removed from the work giver. it kills the worker negotiating power. if you consider a janitor hired to a company that works for a megacorp, he's bargaining against the wall "this is what megacorp can pay, so there's no way we can raise your salary" - and works both way: megacorp cannot rate, engage and more importantly retain the individuals…

That just means the worker is not as valuable to the company and easier to replace, so they have no incentive to "rate, engage and more importantly retain" the individuals. Why would a business want to pay the premiums (longer vacation, high pay) associated with long-tenure, non-essential personnel? More experience, institutional knowledge, etc. all make an employee more valuable. But how much of that do you need for…

If janitors don't matter, why have them in the first place? Why is Apple wasting shareholders' money on non-essential personnel?

If they had no janitors the productivity for other workers would be 0 (think of the smell), so I would argue janitors are essential personnel.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#275

Post by stale2002 »

vadym909 wrote: post #96
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can hold multiple people accountable, but I'm pretty sure Google should be less accountable than the outsourcing companies. If you want to hold major companies accountable for the outsourcing companies they hire, fine, make a regulatory push for that, but you have to fix the outsourcing companies first before you can seriously argue for that or you're just making major companies pay for the problems of outsourcin…

The regulations already exist. Companies aren't allowed to classify contractors if they do work similar to a fulltime employee or what would be considered full-time work. Like work long term at the company site. The outsourcing happens by finding and taking advantage of loopholes with contracts, firing contractors after 18 months and betting the costs to settle a lawsuit is cheaper than paying benefits to 10s of thou…

Sure, you can't hire somebody as a contractor to do full time work, but you can absolutely hire a different firm to do the work.

Those workers should be full time workers for the cleaning firm, but it doesn't mean that they are full time workers for Apple.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#276

Post by conanbatt »

pcrh wrote: post #238
conanbatt wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inheritance taxes are always avoidable, and they could also have devastating consequences. Even if you could effectively prevent a single coin getting to the hands of your children, that would mean lavish expenditures, not investment.

Tax avoidance is a perennial problem, to be sure. There's always an "arms race" between the taxers and the avoiders, but that isn't a reason not to have taxes in the first place.

In the context of evaluating a tax, the ability to avoid it and the difficulty to apply it is definitely one key design concept.

A tax on people that eat their brocoli would be highly impractical!

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#277

Post by aninhumer »

pjmorris wrote: post #229
conanbatt wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should stop thinking taxes are the solution to inequality. "Cutting all the high trees so the forest looks even".

Taxes are what give fiat currencies their value. No taxes, no fiat currency. If you don't believe me, consider why the US dollar has value at your local store and the Monopoly dollar doesn't.

The reasons fiat currency has value are far more complicated than just "taxes". If that were true, people would only convert their money to dollars as needed to pay tax, but obviously that's not the case.

There is an inherent value to a currency system, and that value amplified by network effects. The government definitely anchors that network (through many mechanisms, not just taxation), but there's still a lot of inertia there regardless.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#278

Post by dexterdog »

collyw wrote: post #167
jblow wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But she's also not taking computer classes in her spare time, and work is approximately he same number of hours leaving approximately the same amount of spare time ... even if she were taking computer classes it would not be a reasonable comparison, because taking computer classes in the 1980s was a much more rare and advanced thing than taking them today. It'd have to be something more like quantum mechanics classes…

It says that she has no paid vacation, so thats a chunk less spare time. My guess is that commuting to Apple's offices will be a large chunk as well. I doubt she can afford to stay in the same area as the high paid tech workers.

Nobody has paid vacation. It's just factored into your salary.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#279

Post by thescribe »

tnzn wrote: post #72
scarface74 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What incentive would anyone have in making more then 400K a year if you were going to be taxed at 90%?

Why would anyone need more than 400k a year for himself in the first place though ?

Just like income tax, inflation will eventually push this down to everyone.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#280

Post by dang »

dexterdog wrote: post #107
kirsebaer wrote: post #16

Gail Evans worked as a janitor at Kodak in the 1980s. "She received more than four weeks of paid vacation per year, reimbursement of some tuition costs to go to college part time, and a bonus payment every March... A manager learned that Ms. Evans was taking computer classes while she was working as a janitor and asked her to teach some other employees how to use spreadsheet software to track inventory... Less than a…

So, IOW they cherry-picked what was likely the most driven of the janitors in the past and compared it to a random one today. That seems honest.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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