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One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

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Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#271

Post by ghiculescu »

SleepilyLimping wrote: post #261
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could just have the government stop having laws that constrain competition, so that automation makes things cost less instead of siphoning the money into the coffers of megacorps, and then at lower prices people buy more products and services, increasing the demand for labor and decreasing the cost of living.

> so that automation makes things cost less instead of siphoning the money into the coffers of megacorps I cannot trust any company with any modicum of success not to immediately exit into the hands of megacorps. I cannot hope that companies have any type of morality/"want to make the world better" anymore.

But you trust governments to have that morality?

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#272

Post by vidarh »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #139
gruez wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to answer. If this is a "subsidy" to Amazon, what do you think would happen if they were pulled? Would amazon be forced to raise wages, or would the wages stay the same (b…

I wonder if social programs were pulled then people would push harder for changes, unions, benefits, etc. As it stands now the social programs keep people pacified.

It's notable that several countries with very strong unions have no minimum wage because there's no feeling of need. Norway, for example, has less regulation of the labour market in this respect than the US (but much more in other areas) in large part because the unions have been strong enough to push through higher salaries without it.

But changing that in the US would be an incredibly long slog.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#273

Post by adolph »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #129

Here's the thing. This is going to happen to everyone, as in, no person will be valuable enough via the contribution of their labor to survive without subsidies. At the level of automation we've reached in society, low-skilled labor is worth, per hour, a very small amount. As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility. The only way around this is to let those people starve…

> The only way around this is to let those people starve or implement UBI.

False dilemma. There are other methods to implement tax and redistribute. Additionally some countries like Canada and Switzerland are taking the lead in offering legal frameworks for life management solutions.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#274

Post by Aunche »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #136
gruez wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to answer. If this is a "subsidy" to Amazon, what do you think would happen if they were pulled? Would amazon be forced to raise wages, or would the wages stay the same (b…

This is a a false dilemma. Force corporations to raise wages, continue to provide social safety nets (so basic needs are met), and if there is a gap, raise taxes in a progressive fashion. There is enough wealth to not configure the system in this manner; to continue to do so is a choice. It's just a big spreadsheet, you're arguing over a cell or two, I'm arguing over the function result and working backwards from the…

> continue to provide social safety nets

Ok. So you admit that it's not a subsidy to businesses then and you're just using that word as an inflammatory talking point?

> It's just a big spreadsheet, you're arguing over a cell or two, I'm arguing over the function result and working backwards from there.

The problem is that if you're making wrong observations about these individual cells, you're going to write bad functions trying to wrangle them into the result you want. An example of this is the San Francisco blamed "greedy businesses" on their housing crisis, so they passed a ballot initiative that would raise hundreds of millions in taxes on businesses that they could spend housing. The problem is that housing problem was caused by NIMBYism all along, and despite spending billions of dollars on homelessness since then, their housing crisis only gotten worse and businesses are refusing return to SF even more than other cities.

> Force corporations to raise wages

Do you realize that this is exactly what Amazon wants? https://www.aboutamazon.com/impact/economy/15-minimum-wage

I think this goes to highlight why capital is winning over labor. Shareholders will do whatever it takes to make money without being blinded by ideology. Amazon investors realize that they would actually benefit from an America with higher labor costs because they are more automated their their competitors and are positioned to capture market share in such an environment. Meanwhile, most regular people are apathetic towards politics and those who care are too committed to their ideology to make good decisions.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#275

Post by Fauntleroy »

Fernicia wrote: post #181
Fauntleroy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you knew someone working at an Amazon Warehouse position who needed to use government benefits to get by, would you consider them "well" or even "fairly" paid?

What is your null hypothesis here? Would they be better off if Amazon moved their warehouse to another state or country?

The "hypothesis" is that you can, in fact, dislike it when people are criminally underpaid by corporations, even if it is supposedly a "good" wage.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#276

Post by vidarh »

no_wizard wrote: post #194
Nasrudith wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the math instead of just seeing red at large numbers. Jassy earns about 29.2 M$. Lets round it to 30M$ for the sake of convenience and assume all 17 of the board members get paid the same. Amazon has about ~1.5M employees. Which means that if the entirety of their earnings were redistributed they would get a whopping ~$340 per person. An insult for a yearly bonus and certainly not enough to get people off of food…

What if you instead capped executive compensation to a ratio, say 1:25 pegged against the lowest wage earner in the company? e.g., you can only be compensated (meaning stock options inclusive) 25 times what your lowest paid employee is paid. Would this naturally raise the floor at companies as executives want to increase their own compensation? I remember an idea like this being floated 15 years ago or so and on the…

The biggest challenge is to prevent companies from just far more aggressively outsourcing. E.g. you get your CEO on contract from YourBrandCEOs'r'us, where he is paid 1x the salary of the lowest paid employee.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#277

Post by Rinzler89 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #253
Rinzler89 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's definitely downsides to that since there's no free lunch, but maybe our society should focus on providing affordable essentials for most (education, housing, healthcare, etc), instead of gleiing at the though of getting a new games console for only $199 and that GDP went up by 2%, while food, rent and medical went up by 10%. Optimizing our society for excessive consumerism and the eternal "line must go…

The poor spend a higher percentage of their income on imports than the rich do.

Imports that are actually necessary or frivolities? Also, how were poor people surviving without cheap offshore imports before those became a thing?

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#278

Post by reaperman »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #206
michael9423 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's the opposite. At the level of automation we've reached, labor is worth, per hour, way more than 100 years ago. The problem is just that this value is siphoned off by shareholders who do not have to work to receive the monetary value that should go to the worker. So the issue is simply in how corporations are set up and how the stock market is designed. The entire system is designed to drain as much val…

No. You're forgetting that there is a finite amount of work needed and so orders-of-magnitude fewer people are required. Also, the average real purchasing power in America has been declining for a very long time and cannot afford goods and services except through taking on debt.

You guys are talking different things when you each say "worth". You're reasonable in saying the price of most labor may be lower due to the automation, and GP is also reasonable in saying that the productivity of labor may be much higher.

Whether either of these things are "correct", time will tell and likely will be nuance and vary by job role, but they're both reasonable.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#279

Post by vkou »

ghiculescu wrote: post #271
SleepilyLimping wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so that automation makes things cost less instead of siphoning the money into the coffers of megacorps I cannot trust any company with any modicum of success not to immediately exit into the hands of megacorps. I cannot hope that companies have any type of morality/"want to make the world better" anymore.

But you trust governments to have that morality?

You don't need to trust in their morality, you have a direct ability to influence representative democracies.

You have no way to influence the governance of corporations.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#280

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #241
saalweachter wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two basic solutions to this problem. 1. Everyone works less (the government mandates a 35, 30, 20... hour workweek), raising the relative value of labor. 2. We collectively do more than the bare minimum needed for survival and comfort (the government raises taxes, spending them on activities like building sports stadiums or moonbases), raising the demand for labor.

Or we could just have the government stop having laws that constrain competition, so that automation makes things cost less instead of siphoning the money into the coffers of megacorps, and then at lower prices people buy more products and services, increasing the demand for labor and decreasing the cost of living.

I think the US should seek both capitalistic and socialistic policies simultaneously, but this would require a revolution that may [not be possible / very difficult] to achieve from within the US political system because its "operating system" is tainted by lobbyists for the billionaires.

i. Restore corporate tax rates to historically high levels

ii. Increase capital gains tax significantly

iii. Tax speculation-derived activities, especially real estate and REITs

iv. Gradually curtail subsidies on field corn, currently occupying 5% of America's land (~100 million acres)

v. Shrink defense spending by half

vi. Enact single-payer healthcare for all eliminating co-insurance and better than Medicare up to UK NHS levels but without the government delivering healthcare directly; there shouldn't be good health insurance for just a few people with good jobs

vii. Greatly expand visas for engineers and entrepreneurs

viii. Also expand visas and professional certification "homologation" for teachers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, and researchers so they don't have to start over

ix. Invest in trade schools: plumbers, electricians, machinists

x. Invest in adult education, GED, and pre-college prep courseware

xi. Earmark funds and network applied STEM courses and internships for industry-practical training, especially for fabs, robotics, and high-tech manufacturing

xii. Invest in childcare and pre-K

xiii. Revisit tariff adjustments on a more frequent and selective basis

xiv. Entrepreneur incubators should get federal subsidies because they're generating wealth

xv. UBI - Everyone gets it without requirements excepted tapering down based on income

xvi. Small businesses should have even greater incentives in banking, real estate, state and federal bid contracts, and tax treatment

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