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Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

lyft.com

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Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#351

Post by joshuamorton »

malandrew wrote: post #298
compycom wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's reasonable for a government to crack down on businesses where the entire operational structure is designed to subvert that government's tax code and regulations.

SCOTUS came to a different conclusion in Gregory v Helvering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_v._Helvering Government doesn't exist to collect taxes. They are there to provide governance. Taxes are a necessary evil that should be kept to a minimum to provide the service of governance. If someone can come up with a legal operational structure that gets around taxes then that the government didn't do its job. It'…

Wait, the SC ruled in favor of the government in that case, overruling the district court.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#352

Post by emteycz »

gizmo686 wrote: post #233
majormajor wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when Uber and Lyft shut down they get neither healthcare nor this income. Unless they find another job. Which they were free to do anyway. But that's not always so simple... So what problem did we just solve?

The taxi market shifts back to companies that are willing to pay for benefits.

Huh, I've never heard of one. Nearly all of taxi drivers are contractors, often owning the (company-branded) car they drive.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#354

Post by shekispeaks »

Lyft is being petty here. I understand that they cannot make all drivers employees, but they could have some drivers on the road and not pulled the rug on users.

This goes to say that you cannot trust private companies like Lyft for critical services. The government actually has been transparent about this change and Lyft is acting like a spoilt child, not even willing to try the employee route.

Lyft pulling the rug overnight is in bad faith.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#356

Post by dang »

milofeynman wrote: post #32

I don't know if you're genuine or not but the way you wrote this post sounds so utterly inauthentic[0]. You're whimsically sad you can't get more fun money to invest in stock, while the reason that ride sharing is being shut down is because it takes advantage of the lower class it depends on. [0]edit: unauthentic->inauthentic

You can't attack another user like this on HN, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are. It does nothing to help the "lower class" or anyone else, and it destroys the commons here, which doesn't make anything better.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. You've unfortunately broken them more than once lately.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24225001.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#357

Post by dmoy »

sneak wrote: post #202
subdane wrote: post #31

Am I nuts, or is the heart of this issue really the fact that our healthcare system is built on tying benefits to full time jobs?

I think you can employ W-2-style employees without providing them healthcare. It’s a perk, but not legally required to have a W-2 employee. I think the heart of the issue is the entirely artificial split between the concept of employee and contractor. (Much like the arbitrary split between taxi and car service in nyc.) Making everyone a contractor for every job, with the terms of the job specified in the contract, se…

> I think you can employ W-2-style employees without providing them healthcare. It’s a perk, but not legally required to have a W-2 employee.

If you have fewer than 50 full time employees, yes (depending on the state).

If you have 50 or more employees, you have to offer healthcare (or pay penalties).

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#358

Post by wrkrinsec99 »

subdane wrote: post #31

Am I nuts, or is the heart of this issue really the fact that our healthcare system is built on tying benefits to full time jobs?

Both parties have supported Fed leadership that relied on worker insecurity to keep people in their jobs:

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/27/business/job-insecurity-o...

America does not have a stories history of being labor friendly. It’s pretty much old European pissing competitions imported anew after WW2. Identity which the country had begun to schlep off between the Gilded Age and WW1. Refugees brought it back over.

The best part of all this is Adam Smith only ever mentions markets in the context of a free labor market, buoyed by government support of equality of condition.

But Smith and Aristotle, who wrote Democracy is likely the most moral government, are cast aside for James Madison who wrote the Senate ought to protect the rich from Democracy or the people will take all the aristocrats stuff.

This is all 2,000+ years old rhetoric. Human biology hasn’t evolved so fast in that time that such concerns of the past are rendered obsolete.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#359

Post by asah »

gpanders wrote: post #339
whoisjuan wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep paying my health insurance premium at my home country just because the health insurance in the US is completely broken. I feel that if you get seriously sick in the US you're in an almost sure path to financial insolvency. My employer pays probably a shit ton of money for my health insurance and what I get is the most subpar, confusing, broken and sometimes blatantly extortive service ever. I live in Austin an…

> I live in Austin and sometimes I think if I really need a major procedure it would be just simpler to drive to Mexico and get it done there. This even has a name: Medical Tourism.

Friend does this - she raves about the results.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#360

Post by opportune »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #257
ciarannolan wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "liberal states bad" trope has popped up on conservative media in the last year or so, so you'll see a lot more of it on places like HN.

Yeah, pretty much all of the best state economies are extremely liberal (1). I think the anti-tax sentiment on HN is from people who make a lot of money and then realize they have to pay taxes. They attribute their success entirely to themselves and then whine about giving anything back to the environment that enabled them. California certainly has giant problems but don't let it distract you from the big picture. (1…

I am by no means conservative but the taxes on regular people in California are so high because the taxes on longtime landowners are low. And I also don’t think the taxes are being spent well enough to justify them. It’s also quite a stretch to call anything about obstructionist NIMBYism “liberal”

Also many of the people paying the highest taxes in CA are not even from there (executives, tech workers, entertainment workers), which kind of breaks down the argument of giving back to the environment that produced you.

I would be perfectly happy with paying income and sales taxes as high as they are in California if they were assessed more fairly (no low taxes because your grandparents lived here) and if I felt like I got enough out of public services.

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