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Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

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Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#211

Post by seibelj »

huevosabio wrote: post #181
mikepurvis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting piece in this week's Atlantic on the motivation for having states declare bankruptcy: "Under the Constitution, bankruptcy is a power entirely reserved to the federal government. An American bankruptcy is overseen in federal court, by a federal judge, according to federal law. That’s why federal law can allow U.S. cities to go bankrupt, as many have done over the years. That’s why the financia…

This is a pretty grim path to follow. If States are to go bankrupt and subject to federal imposition of what debts must be paid, then it may push States to seek further sovereignity. An example being pressure to mint their currency. This is currently banned in the constitution, but if things get dire... they could simply ignore?

I would prefer that states have more power and we further decentralize authority away from the federal government. This will limit the see-saw that occurs whenever the president switches parties.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#212

Post by wonderwonder »

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #188
nightsd01 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state of California is actually in a pretty decent financial position. In fact, the blue states are net contributors to the federal budget while red states are net negative (they take more resources than they provide back in federal taxes) If there weren’t any blue states around to sign the red state welfare checks, they’d be in a pretty poor position.

According to Mercatus Center fiscal rankings, 4 out of 5 of the bottom 5 fiscal performers are run by democrats: illinois, new jersey, conneticut and massachusets. Kansas, a red state, is the outlier. https://www.mercatus.org/publications/urban-economics/state-...

Its easier to be in better financial shape if you are taking in more federal funding than you are contributing via federal taxes. 8 of the top 10 states that take more funds than they contribute are red. Exceptions are Hawaii and New Mexico.

Good read on the matter:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-s...

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#213

Post by reaperducer »

madeofpalk wrote: post #67
reaperducer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft Or maybe Apple. Apple has been pouring millions into improving its street views in Apple Maps. It should buy Lyft. Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars. The drivers win because they get a bump in income in an industry that's already hurting. Apple wins because it gets up-to-date informat…

Apple seem to have already done the job without Lyft’s help.

Initial data acquisition and keeping the data updated are vastly different tasks.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#214

Post by wikibob »

chrisseaton wrote: post #192
ForHackernews wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, pension benefits were one of the main benefits unions fought for (and won) so that their members could have an income in their old age and retire. Today, very few workers still have pensions, but the few that do tend to be those represented by a union. In many states, this includes government employees: teachers, firefighters, police, etc.

> Today, very few workers still have pensions I've never seen a professional job that didn't include a pension - certainly not in the tech industry.

Are you in the USA?

Pensions are defined benefit. That is, it is specified exactly how much money you will receive in retirement.

A 401K retirement plan is not a pension. You save your own money and possibly an employer contribution, and you make your own investment decisions. The value goes up and down in accordance with what you invested in.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#215

Post by coredog64 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #189
cpursley wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overtly willing to attack opposite-party state governments It might be straight-up politics. But there is a real situation where state governments have been financially mismanaged. Should the "working class" person in Alabama without any retirement prospects be forced to bail out (via the Federal Gov't) the state of California's very generous pensions that were not fiscally sustainable in the first place?

Alabama gets ~$3.50 form the federal government for every $1 it contributes in federal taxes. California gets ~$0.97 for every dollar it gives. So the real question is should Californians be bailing out Alabama all the time. Should states like South Carolina, Alabama and North Dakota just be left to die? I mean they are takers in even the best economic situation. The answer is of course not, they are states populated…

I always find those numbers interesting. IIRC, they come from the Taxpayer foundation and generally stop at “zip code where the Feds send the check”.

Hypothetical example: The DoE wants to build a supercomputer from XBox 360s (ASCI RRoD). They select UNM as the lead contractor and write a check for $101M. UNM buys $50M in XBoxes from MSFT in Seattle, and another $50M for compilers and professional services from IBM in Armonk, NY. Did NM get $101M for their taxes, or $1M?

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#216

Post by adamsea »

tenpies wrote: post #193
Loughla wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real questions. I'm not a history buff. Has there ever been a time in US history that the federal government has been so openly antagonistic and overtly willing to attack opposite-party state governments? If so, what were the outcomes? If not, is there anything even close? Current question - what is the endgame for those who what blue states to go bankrupt? What do they get if that happens, outside of talking points?…

> Has there ever been a time in US history that the federal government has been so openly antagonistic and overtly willing to attack opposite-party state governments? If so, what were the outcomes? If not, is there anything even close? To be honest the most interesting thing to me is the US media. I don't think it has ever been so openly hostile towards one party and so hungry to cause a civil war. They're not even h…

If you were a member of the media and the President of the United States - of any party - suggested people try injecting bleach as a cure (for anything), what would you do?

What would you say about other politicians who implicitly supported such irresponsible behavior.

This isn't even a political question - I mean it's basic science. Bleach.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#217

Post by reaperducer »

paulcole wrote: post #141
reaperducer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft Or maybe Apple. Apple has been pouring millions into improving its street views in Apple Maps. It should buy Lyft. Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars. The drivers win because they get a bump in income in an industry that's already hurting. Apple wins because it gets up-to-date informat…

> Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars. Why bother paying them? If they own the company, just make it a condition of the contractor agreement.

Because it's Apple, not Google.

And because the drivers own their cars, and will want to be compensated for any alteration to the car. Just like they get compensated for hanging ads of their headrests.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#218

Post by chrisseaton »

wikibob wrote: post #214
chrisseaton wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, very few workers still have pensions I've never seen a professional job that didn't include a pension - certainly not in the tech industry.

Are you in the USA? Pensions are defined benefit. That is, it is specified exactly how much money you will receive in retirement. A 401K retirement plan is not a pension. You save your own money and possibly an employer contribution, and you make your own investment decisions. The value goes up and down in accordance with what you invested in.

> A 401K retirement plan is not a pension.

Are we both talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)?

"In the United States, a 401(k) plan is the tax-qualified, defined-contribution pension"

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#219

Post by londons_explore »

huevosabio wrote: post #181
mikepurvis wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an interesting piece in this week's Atlantic on the motivation for having states declare bankruptcy: "Under the Constitution, bankruptcy is a power entirely reserved to the federal government. An American bankruptcy is overseen in federal court, by a federal judge, according to federal law. That’s why federal law can allow U.S. cities to go bankrupt, as many have done over the years. That’s why the financia…

This is a pretty grim path to follow. If States are to go bankrupt and subject to federal imposition of what debts must be paid, then it may push States to seek further sovereignity. An example being pressure to mint their currency. This is currently banned in the constitution, but if things get dire... they could simply ignore?

Surely before being bankrupt, a state would be forced to raise sales/income taxes?

At some point, those taxes would be so high, people would start leaving the state, and at the point of bankruptcy, the state would be a ghosttown.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#220

Post by cco »

netcan wrote: post #103
stephencoyner wrote: post #19

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft ...What would they do with it? The business model (also uber) as-is makes a loss. Uber/Lyft's initial proposition was that once ride sharing incumbents were established, they'd have a software-ish monopoly and margins. This did not work out. Now the proposition is "When driverless cars get invented..." If google had a car that can drive itself, they can figure out an app.…

I could see value for self-driving/ride-sharing data collection for Google. Google wants to make a ride-sharing program, well has one now I guess, having all that data seems like a boon if Lyft is a cheap buy. They could also collect a lot of data for use with their self-driving research as well.
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