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Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

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Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#61

Post by CryptoPunk »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #28
CryptoPunk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their interests in efficient delivery of healthcare and effective protection of the environment align with the general population's. Not so their interest in laws restricting the contracting rights of employers.

Given that laborers vastly outnumber employers, their interest in securing collective bargaining rights aligns with the general population's as well.

It's not in the general population's interest for collections of workers to be able to extract wealth from employers by imposing collective bargaining on them. This is Econ 101. You don't raise the standard of living through expropriation of wealth.

In the long run, involuntary transfers of income and other violations of market rights stunt wage growth by reducing the incentive to invest, and to perform well at one's workplace, both of which inhibit growth in productivity.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#62

Post by tengbretson »

jblow wrote: post #60
tengbretson wrote: post #23

Good grief. Do these people think the ability to write the kind of garbage published by Slate is in any way rare?

It’s exactly the opposite. If you have skills that are rare (and exist at a level below demand), you have a lot of bargaining power. Unions are for people who didn’t have much bargaining power in absence of the union.

Collective bargaining power stems from the ability to combine the leverage of the individuals towards a common purpose. That still relies on the individuals having some baseline of leverage. You see this when you read about Walmart firing an entire store's staff just on the rumor of a union forming.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#63

Post by everdev »

dagw wrote: post #36
everdev wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Impartial" is an admirable aim, but ultimately unreachable and undefinable. We all bring our unique upbringing and view of the world to our creative efforts. I think most media outlets like Slate gave up chasing this goal. Unfortunately, the consumers have rewarded them for doing so.

We all bring our unique upbringing and view of the world to our creative efforts. I don't even think that "impartial" is necessarily even worth striving for. No one is impartial and I'd much rather journalists be open and honest about their world view and assumptions rather than trying to hide them behind some thin veneer of "impartiality". As long as you're not being underhand or deceptive in your reporting there is…

Very fair point. I think most media (and consumers) would agree with you as they've found success with opinion-based programming and editorials.

I usually get frustrated with opinion-based content though because it seems to me that it's more about posturing, being the loudest/funniest, looks/appearance, etc. and less about trying to uncover good solutions to real problems.

However, as you mentioned, no one is impartial, so that leaves me with very little content I enjoy consuming which is not that great either in terms of staying informed or engaged.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#64

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

cwyers wrote: post #10
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An independent one.

Independent of what? There is no living outside of things. Everybody has to live somewhere, they have to eat, they have to get medical care when they get sick, they have friends, they have family. It's impossible to just show up to things without preconceptions. Being a human doesn't work that way.

Great point. Independent of an organization paying them for their work. It's impossible for a writer to not let their own preconceptions seep through but it is possible for writers to not let their editors' or institutions' preconceptions seep through. Hope that helps clear that up.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#65

Post by dagw »

everdev wrote: post #63
dagw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all bring our unique upbringing and view of the world to our creative efforts. I don't even think that "impartial" is necessarily even worth striving for. No one is impartial and I'd much rather journalists be open and honest about their world view and assumptions rather than trying to hide them behind some thin veneer of "impartiality". As long as you're not being underhand or deceptive in your reporting there is…

Very fair point. I think most media (and consumers) would agree with you as they've found success with opinion-based programming and editorials. I usually get frustrated with opinion-based content though because it seems to me that it's more about posturing, being the loudest/funniest, looks/appearance, etc. and less about trying to uncover good solutions to real problems. However, as you mentioned, no one is imparti…

I get where you're coming from, and if all you want is a chronological list of things that happened there always Reuters. But let's say Congress passes a bill. One story could be "Today the bill passes X votes to Y, all Republicans and 47 Democrats voted for. Here's a link to the complete text to the bill" But that's not really what I want. What I want is for someone to tell me the potential implications of the bill, and that cannot be done in a truly unbiased way since you're essentially speculating. Then it is better to have two 'biased' people putting forward their best, honest and good faith arguments for and against the potential impact of the bill. Ideally with both of them being willing to concede the relative merits of the others argument.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#66

Post by JBReefer »

woodpanel wrote: post #45
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #16

Interested to see how this plays out. I'm a Slate Plus member, mainly for the extra segment on the Slate Political Gabfest. Ironically, none of the three hosts of that show have worked at Slate in years, which is probably a large part of what makes it enjoyable. For reasons I'd be hard-pressed to explain, I listen to a number of other Slate podcasts, even though I often find them irritating. Most (but not all) Slate…

> like college bloggers writing an angry screed about how everything in the world is terrible. In my country we seem to have this phenomenon for most of the established media, even more so with newer news outlets. I think of this as a problem for our society, because the repercussions from the 'fourth-column' becoming this way are spilling over to the other three columns: E.g. once clearly differential political part…

$10 you're talking about Germany

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#67

Post by jakelazaroff »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #61
jakelazaroff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that laborers vastly outnumber employers, their interest in securing collective bargaining rights aligns with the general population's as well.

It's not in the general population's interest for collections of workers to be able to extract wealth from employers by imposing collective bargaining on them. This is Econ 101. You don't raise the standard of living through expropriation of wealth. In the long run, involuntary transfers of income and other violations of market rights stunt wage growth by reducing the incentive to invest, and to perform well at one's…

Wealth can be expropriated in both directions. Employers by default have more power; collective bargaining is just a check on their ability to exploit laborers.

It also doesn't follow that increased incentive to invest in employers translates to higher wages for laborers — why wouldn't employers keep wages stagnant and pocket the money themselves? (In practice, this is often what happens.)

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#68

Post by CryptoPunk »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #67
CryptoPunk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not in the general population's interest for collections of workers to be able to extract wealth from employers by imposing collective bargaining on them. This is Econ 101. You don't raise the standard of living through expropriation of wealth. In the long run, involuntary transfers of income and other violations of market rights stunt wage growth by reducing the incentive to invest, and to perform well at one's…

Wealth can be expropriated in both directions. Employers by default have more power; collective bargaining is just a check on their ability to exploit laborers. It also doesn't follow that increased incentive to invest in employers translates to higher wages for laborers — why wouldn't employers keep wages stagnant and pocket the money themselves? (In practice, this is often what happens.)

Employers in a market economy have no power in the general sense to expropriate wealth. Their only power is in offering employment terms better than the next better offer. Offering the market rate for a unit of labor is not wealth expropriation. It's compensating people for exactly what their labor is worth.

Force people to pay any more than the market rate for labor, and you're artificially under-valuing investment capital, and thus disincentivizing delayed-consumption/long-term-investment. In other words, you'll be incentivizing people to save/invest less of their income than is optimal for maximum economic development, and it is economic development that is responsible for virtually all reductions in poverty and improvements in quality of life for the general population.

>>It also doesn't follow that increased incentive to invest in employers translates to higher wages for laborers — why wouldn't employers keep wages stagnant and pocket the money themselves?

Employers have to compete with each other for employees. Why else do you think wages would ever increase? I really recommend you study standard economic theories on wage growth, or the economic history of any major country, to better understand the interplay between per capita production and wages. Look at China over the last 20 years, where wages have tripled. There is no force that increases wages as much as economic growth, which hinges almost entirely on investment capital.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#69

Post by Latteland »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #57
Latteland wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurt their economic interests by taxing them via tariffs and hurt their manufacturing companies by making raw materials and steel etc more expensive. That why Harley moved production OUT of the us to where it wouldn't be affected by retaliatory tariffs against Trump's tariffs.

Ok, so all rhetoric then. Got it.

Loss of heavy manufacturing jobs because of higher steel prices because of tarrifs leading to higher prices to end users, thus manufacturing companies move production overseas to produce them without tariff priced steel and keeping prices lower is just what has happened. The secondary cause was retailatory tariffs on us exports causing prices to go higher on exports twice (once to tariff imported steel before manufacturing, second tariff when importing into xhina). So how is this political rhetoric? Remove tariffs on both ends and we are better off.

Re: Slate's Newly Unionized Writers and Editors Give OK to Strike

#70

Post by dang »

sascha_sl wrote: post #39
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #16

Interested to see how this plays out. I'm a Slate Plus member, mainly for the extra segment on the Slate Political Gabfest. Ironically, none of the three hosts of that show have worked at Slate in years, which is probably a large part of what makes it enjoyable. For reasons I'd be hard-pressed to explain, I listen to a number of other Slate podcasts, even though I often find them irritating. Most (but not all) Slate…

Workers rights are "clowns destroying their own jobs". Spotted the neoliberal.

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. The GP shouldn't have included that bait, but taking it and upping the ante is just the wrong response for a good discussion here.

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

Edit: it looks like you've been doing it a lot. We ban accounts that do that, so please adjust.

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