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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

#241

Post by bcrosby95 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #204
jagged-chisel wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those with pensions tend to be union members; the pension being a benefit insisted upon in negotiations between unions and their (government) employers. If a state declares bankruptcy, lists pensions as a debt, and the federal discharges the pension debt, the GOP can thumb their noses at unions in a very big way.

> Those with pensions tend to be union members I still don't understand. Surely almost every professional has a pension, but few people are in unions.

When talking about pensions in the USA, people are usually referring to retirement plans where the employer says something roughly like "when you retire, we will pay 80% of your salary". or "when you retire, we will pay you X/month". The responsibility is on the employer to ensure that money is around when you retire.

Companies used to have things like this - when my dad retired he had several pensions from multiple companies that worked like this. Nowadays government usually uses them to put off paying the full cost of employees.

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

#242

Post by bilbo0s »

coredog64 wrote: post #215
wonderwonder wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

That might be meaningful if you could show that most of the federal money going to New Mexico was used for R&D as opposed to, say, social support programs. And then you could try to show that the money going to all of the other "taker" states was similarly being used on developmental projects as opposed to social support.

I'd bet on it not being used on R&D. In fact, I'm betting most of that money never even leaves the state of New Mexico. Those contractors building roads aren't being paid with monopoly money.

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

That's one of the reasons I'm such a big proponent of lower taxes. The tax resource allocation scheme is fundamentally unfair as currently structured. There are other reasons I support lower taxes, but you don't want to get me started.

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

#243

Post by beachwood23 »

bhupy wrote: post #195
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?…

I can try to give you the most "good faith" argument in favor of allowing Blue States to go bankrupt. There's a caveat here that the Federal laws will need to change a bit to allow States to go into packaged restructuring. And to ensure that we are bailing out specific individuals to ensure that they are not too negatively affected. One of the strongest arguments against "bailouts" of large corporations is that it ne…

I don't have anything to add, just thank you for the detail on the other side of this coin.

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

#244

Post by beefalo »

corporateslave5 wrote: post #77
ar_lan wrote: post #42

I recall Lyft being the highest paying company with respect to rank, according to levels.fyi. I guess I'm glad I don't work there right now.

Tech companies pay a lot in stock when their business is at risk.

Lyft was paying higher in base salary than everyone else at the time as well

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

#245

Post by fpo »

bdcravens wrote: post #9

As a company, is there reason to believe that Uber can better weather the storm? Does Lyft do anything other than rides?

Uber is in a much better position to capitalize on Eats as well as non US recovery (given that it seems the US is on one of the worst paths of most developed economies). Hell if anything I can see some Western European countries finally unbanning Uber just to stimulate some more economic activity. Italy/Spain/Germany can't afford to be as protectionist moving forward.

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

#246

Post by orky56 »

bhupy wrote: post #195
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?…

I can try to give you the most "good faith" argument in favor of allowing Blue States to go bankrupt. There's a caveat here that the Federal laws will need to change a bit to allow States to go into packaged restructuring. And to ensure that we are bailing out specific individuals to ensure that they are not too negatively affected. One of the strongest arguments against "bailouts" of large corporations is that it ne…

The artificial safety net provided to states as opposed to corporations is for the fact that it is important for all states, even the most underperforming to have a standard level of infrastructure and overall competitiveness. The whole concept of republic like the US is partly based on bringing up the rear. This is why poorer states have less leverage and must offer more incentives to businesses to induce economic activity. Richer states already have advantages of being the incumbent including various resources to draw and keep businesses. These same states (often blue) have higher taxes to fund their barriers to entry with surpluses that give them the capital to weather aberrant situations like these. In addition, it is difficult to argue that constituents will vote for their economic best interests if social issues are more top of mind in redder states. This will only exacerbate the problems without a federal solution in place.

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

#247

Post by danso »

chrisseaton wrote: post #226
Loughla wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people in the United States have pensions. Mainly pensions are available for state employees, or union members. And for that matter, state employees tend to be part of a union. Unions are responsible for pensions, and the only people who have held onto them as the 401k has taken over. Edit: Because I apparently can't reply to chriseaton below - 401k is defined contribution, you contribute $x which is a set a…

I think a 401(k) is a pension? Almost all companies offer a 401(k) for full-time employees.

A 401(K) is not a pension. The latter is funded entirely by the employer.

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

#248

Post by whylie »

TrackerFF wrote: post #210
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?…

End game is: GOP knows they're gonna lose the election. They want to hand the dems the worst economy possible. Then, 4 years down the road, they can start campaigning against "do-nothing-dems" and point to the horrible economy they had to start fixing.

Dems are going to lose the election and are actively attempting to sabotage the current presidency as much as possible. I don't believe you actually think what you're typing. Who's paying you lol?

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

#249

Post by Acrobatic_Road »

wonderwonder wrote: post #212
Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This spending constitutes things like social security checks and the upkeep of military bases and other facilities. It is not relevant to state budgets. And even if all the money went to a state general fund, the worst performers would not be significantly different.

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

#250

Post by [deleted] »

beefalo wrote: post #224
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.

Here have you seen a pension in the tech industry? 401ks are ubiquitous but no modern companies offer pensions

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