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Is my advice too mercenary?

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Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#131

Post by beachy »

tomerv wrote: post #120
noncoml wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experiences while at Cisco about 4-5 years ago: 1st experience: Told my boss I am leaving. My boss’s boss calls me in a room , tells me he has some great projects for me and that we will work together on them. I agree. Turns out it was his last day! 2nd experience: Similar situation, told my boss I am going to a startup. Boss’s boss calls me and gives me a lecture about how it is a bad idea to go to a startup. I l…

I can't imagine what would cause a person to act like that, and on his last day/week of work! Some kind of psycopathy?

Someone who doesn't want a bad reference themselves, for "encouraging people to follow them out the door".

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#132

Post by uoaei »

121789 wrote: post #83
uoaei wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to point out that the above analysis is completely ahistorical and does not track the path dependence and latent contexts of the development of the modern US healthcare system. The above is not an explanation, it is a post-hoc rationalization.

I find this comment to be too ambiguous to be helpful. Could you elaborate on your points?

Any argument that claims anything is "the way it is" because of the ways people act today is only talking about current incentive structures and has nothing whatsoever to do with the systems and tendencies that have created what we see today. Current incentive structures are a product of the system they are expressed from, not the other way around.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#133

Post by micromacrofoot »

rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

It's been happening for much longer than NAFTA has been around. My hometown was known for building tires earlier in the 20th century and all that left in the early 80s and it never recovered.

That said, before that happened the place was kind of a "company town" and the big manufacturers with all the money essentially ran the place. Only good news if you were in their favor. Lots of stories about being harassed by police if you were on their bad side. They were the kind of people that would have still been using child labor if it weren't outlawed.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#134

Post by ghaff »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #105
brimble wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACA ossified the existing system a bit, but employer-provided care was the norm before the ACA. That or just not having any insurance, especially for young people working for small companies.

ACA did not ossify it. If anything, ACA allowed non employers to purchase insurance. Previously, the options were to work for a deep pocketed employer or just not have insurance.

Plans that would cover pre-existing conditions was one very important change for a lot of people. What ACA didn't really solve was the "affordable" part for people who aren't fairly high income. Between the marketplaces in most states and COBRA for those in between jobs or near 65, insurance is available but it's expensive with no one else chipping in a big chunk of the premium.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#135

Post by kaesar14 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #82
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

It truly is shocking that health insurance is tied to employment status. I really think this is a large part of the trend towards overt ruthlessness in the USA, no one has their back so they have no ones back, as people age and experience medical bankruptcy (or narrowly avoid it at great cost) they are realizing this ruthlessness in our system.

Health insurance is not tied to employment status. Anyone can go to healthcare.gov and buy an equivalent BCBS or Kaiser or whatever gold/silver/bronze insurance. Unless you are in a particularly shitty state. What employers do have is the ability to sell you health insurance with pre tax dollars, which is also available to self employed individuals. But the people who are screwed are those who are employed by employe…

This just feels like a ‘well ackshually’ retort to health insurance being tied to employment. This is an extra added expense and often times the barebones insurance is garbage with high deductibles and out of pocket maximums.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#136

Post by chrisseaton »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #115
hobs wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely true and it happened all over, my dad worked for a place for 40 years and the last 10 the MBAs moved in, they were profitable, had profit sharing, and a great company. Today its a footnote in a merger, place is closing down.

NAFTA really destroyed the middle class and middle america.

The middle class are the ones who are doing fine or great. It's the working class who got screwed over.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#137

Post by AnimalMuppet »

evilotto wrote: post #67
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #3

This is going to depend on the health of the organization you're in. If you're in a healthy environment, giving mercenary advice is probably not the best move - literally, less likely to advance your career. If you're in a hypercompetitive and/or toxic environment, you'd better be very careful about what advice you give (and everything else you say).

If you're in a toxic environment, then the only way to survive is to be toxic yourself?

No. But if you're in a toxic environment, you need to be very careful not to give other people ammunition to use against you.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#138

Post by thegrimmest »

replygirl wrote: post #39
AYBABTME wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming this is by design to keep the US population "on their toes" and at work doing productive things. Otherwise why would it be tied to employment?

Because previously all social services, including police and fire safety, were privatized, and were only taken over by the state when it became clear there wasn't enough economic incentive to keep such services running without the operators doing stuff like roughing people up, burning down buildings, etc. But everyone decomposes as they age, and people fear illness and death enough that you can charge them however mu…

> all social services, including police and fire safety, were privatized

I think enforcing the law has been a government function from the times the first laws were laid down. Fire services were a private function, and this actually works fine in sparsely populated areas where fires are not likely to spread in temperate climates. The only reason fire services are public is because of the inherent risk to everyone that a fire poses in a dense, substantially flammable, city.

If a fire affects you and only you, then why not cover it under normal, optional, property insurance like every other disaster?

This is generally the model of government intervention I support - intervene when the actions of one group of people directly affect others. This covers regulation around rights of way, fire services, environmental protection, waste management, water supply, pandemic/disease control, police, and the military. It however does not cover supplying the personal necessities of life like food, shelter, clothing, medical care, entertainment, companionship, sex, fulfillment, etc.

These are fundamentally individual needs, and I therefore hold that meeting them should be an individual responsibility. Any cooperation to meet these needs should be strictly voluntary and consensual, not compulsory. I think this is where, to greatly simplify, "the left" and "the right" fundamentally disagree. For instance, in spite of the now well-studied and crushing effects of loneliness, it would be absolutely tyrannical for the government to mandate friendship. Similarly it is tyrannical for the government to mandate participation in public health care/insurance. Let people figure out how to meet their needs for themselves, and let them figure out how to cooperate voluntarily. Charity is exactly the virtue of helping those in need, but mandatory charity is indistinguishable from slavery.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#139

Post by lordnacho »

kbenson wrote: post #126
rmason wrote: post #91

There was a time in America a generation or two ago when you could give your all to a company. Here in Michigan there were a number of small towns where a single employer would dominate. If the town needed something, like a baseball park the owner would simply write a check. If a loyal employee had a health crisis that insurance didn't cover the company owner would write a check. When there were tough economic times…

How is that any different than some fiefdom ruled over by some noble? The whole point of democracy and elective government is that you can't rely on a system like that to be consistently good, whether it's the Duke's son squandering all the wealth and not listening to the people or a shift in management at the company. Just because sometimes there were benevolent companies that decided to contribute to their communit…

> Require employees be paid and treated fairly.

The problem is this isn't well defined. Somewhere maybe in the 1980s greed became good and the responsibilities of corporations shifted from being a fictional person that could benefit society to a thing that was in it for shareholders only. This is a cultural shift borne by MBAs and thinktanks, not something that can be pinned down to a specific incident.

As usual sunlight is the best disinfectant. It needs to be clear who owns what and who did what, and journalists need to go and look at cases where things are not in the interest of the community. There need to be records of whose interests are represented, who owns what, and who knows who.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#140

Post by willcipriano »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #115
hobs wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely true and it happened all over, my dad worked for a place for 40 years and the last 10 the MBAs moved in, they were profitable, had profit sharing, and a great company. Today its a footnote in a merger, place is closing down.

NAFTA really destroyed the middle class and middle america.

NAFTA was a symptom of globalism more generally. What we ended up with is selective globalism.

Want to import cheaper drugs from Canada, that's illegal! Yeah sure they might have been produced in the US in the first place but it might be dangerous!

Want to get a degree in a country where the price of education is lower? We won't honor it.

Want to hire the services of a Kenyan clinic doctor who has experience in everything from treating runny noses to gunshot wounds? Illegal he's unqualified according the the national doctors union (AMA).

Yeah you can get cheap crap from places that hire children to work in their factories, but the stuff that is really expensive we are 1700's Japan all of the sudden.

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