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Is my advice too mercenary?

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Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#271

Post by actually_a_dog »

danaris wrote: post #166
lordnacho wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sunl…

> The problem is this isn't well defined. This is not entirely untrue, but it's not particularly supported by the rest of your post. Even if it's hard to completely define what "paid and treated fairly" mean, it's crystal clear that a very large percentage of employers today don't meet even the lowest possible bar—that being a living wage and not actively abusing the employees.

Yep, and it's not even hard to find examples of businesses that are not paying a living wage and/or are actively abusing people. Just walk into almost any restaurant or retail location. Pretty much anywhere below the highest end establishments of either kind will have both things going on.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#272

Post by LordDragonfang »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #169
nebula8804 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Out of curiosity, I went and looked up the plans in NJ for a 32 year old person(56k salary). This is someone in a lower risk pool. The bronze plans are in the upper ~280$/month and include a $6000 deductible. T…

What does box 12 code DD on your W-2 say? Your employer is probably just paying a lot for your coverage. When I got quotes for insuring my employees in NJ, they all matched up with the premiums on healthcare.gov, also seen here: https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra... ACA compliant health insurance pricing is pretty commodified since all the rating factors are codified in law (age, location, s…

> The plans simply reflect the cost of healthcare.

Anyone who works in healthcare and looks at billing can tell you this is not actually the case, prices are not based on any reasonable metric and are rarely actually paid by insurers anyway.

>The companies that sell the healthcare have profit margins in the sub 5% range.

Point of contention here, these companies aren't selling healthcare, they're reselling it. Which is a service which should ideally not have any profit margins, and would be best suited for a large, collective entity that everyone paid into according to their financial ability, as opposed to smaller social-class exclusive pools.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#273

Post by ravitation »

lovich wrote: post #268
roenxi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two main differences: 1) Nobody pretends that business skills are especially hereditary. It is common for people to enter and exit the 'class' of business owner. 2) Success as as a business owner requires steady economic activity where people get what they want. Success as a noble ruling a fiefdom requires kneecapping anyone who challenges your god-given right to rule. One big observations: This is what US govern…

> It isn't like people were relying on business then business owners got greedy. Do you actually believe that? That all these business owners were running their factories out of the goodness of their hearts and that they only stopped because the government took all the money they had to give out as charity? If that is the case why do we see ultra profitable businesses returning to this form instead of trying to carve…

There is this contemporary absurd narrative that businesses, business owners, and/or corporations only recently became greedy, and that this development (of greed), not the system itself, is the root of essentially all the problems with the modern economic system.

I think it is quite possible that you were more likely to find a benevolent feudal lord (partially because incentives were more directly, and forcibly, aligned) than find a corporation willing to put profits as anything other than first.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#274

Post by lovich »

ravitation wrote: post #273
lovich wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't like people were relying on business then business owners got greedy. Do you actually believe that? That all these business owners were running their factories out of the goodness of their hearts and that they only stopped because the government took all the money they had to give out as charity? If that is the case why do we see ultra profitable businesses returning to this form instead of trying to carve…

There is this contemporary absurd narrative that businesses, business owners, and/or corporations only recently became greedy, and that this development (of greed), not the system itself, is the root of essentially all the problems with the modern economic system. I think it is quite possible that you were more likely to find a benevolent feudal lord (partially because incentives were more directly, and forcibly, ali…

I’m frankly boggled that this thought is even entertained. We have literal centuries of evidence of corporations oppressing their workers and other peoples in the pursuit of profits, down to actual armies killing striking workers. I agree with you that you’d be more likely to find a benevolent feudal lord as they at least viewed their serfs as theirs and not some sort of cogs to be thrown away once they were worn out.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#275

Post by lotsofpulp »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #272
lotsofpulp wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does box 12 code DD on your W-2 say? Your employer is probably just paying a lot for your coverage. When I got quotes for insuring my employees in NJ, they all matched up with the premiums on healthcare.gov, also seen here: https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra... ACA compliant health insurance pricing is pretty commodified since all the rating factors are codified in law (age, location, s…

> The plans simply reflect the cost of healthcare. Anyone who works in healthcare and looks at billing can tell you this is not actually the case, prices are not based on any reasonable metric and are rarely actually paid by insurers anyway. >The companies that sell the healthcare have profit margins in the sub 5% range. Point of contention here, these companies aren't selling healthcare, they're reselling it. Which…

What you are talking about is taxpayer funded healthcare, with the large collective entity being the government.

Seeing as how that is not politically possibly, middlemen with sub 5% profit margins was the compromise. Obviously not the best situation, but still better than before.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#276

Post by kbenson »

alexashka wrote: post #232
kbenson wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Just because sometimes there were benevolent companies that decided to contribute to their communities doesn't mean relying on that is a stable or desired outcome. You are always going to rely on a few people, to do the right thing, which will become the wrong thing as life goes on, which will require a few more people, to do the right thing again, ad infinitum. That's just how this human thing works. Sometimes it'…

Who said there's a right answer forever? The whole point of what I said is to make sure you use your own power as a citizen to pass laws and elect those people you think will serve your interests best at the current time, and as soon as that's not the case, try to get rid of them. That's the point of democracy and a representative democracy, the power to keep interests aligned with the people.

Often that means putting in some safe lower bounds. Laws, as you noted. You put safeguards at the bottom preventing the worst behavior. That's the whole reason there are laws preventing child labor, because people decided that some things should not be tolerated.

Nothing prevents a company from still being a good employer and helping where they can, but that should not be required for our society to function. The goals of a company diverge from what is best for the people (both short term and long term) too often for that to be a good idea.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#277

Post by micromacrofoot »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #238
micromacrofoot wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 po…

>They were the kind of people that would have still been using child labor if it weren't outlawed. Allow me to remind you the manner in which child labor was outlawed: Industrialization progressed to a point where it was no longer economically viable except in a few tiny niches. It was then outlawed, to much back patting. Sure, some people would probably use it if it was viable, but don't pretend like it was some gre…

Yeah this isn't about the history of child labor, it's about the big industry in town being run by a bunch of sleezebags.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#278

Post by AussieWog93 »

mcguire wrote: post #246
AussieWog93 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of responses here discussing corporations vs. the government vs. the workers when it comes to social responsibility, but ignoring the fact that _everyone_ has become less socially responsible over the last 40 years. People in general just aren't community or socially minded in the way they used to be[1], and the bosses of companies or leaders of government are all people too. [1] To be specific, peopl…

True, to an extent, although I suspect in large part due to increased mobility---family members used to live in the same general area.

I think it's more cultural than geographical. Just anecdata, but most of the positive, restore-your-faith, "community" experiences in my personal life have come from non-Anglo migrants, as well as people from rural areas and also certain states (QLD, and to a lesser extent SA).

Long story short, I think it's simply a cultural shift more than an adaptation to any lifestyle changes.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#279

Post by johnday »

legitster wrote: post #203

Semi-related, I hate the term "late-stage capitalism". It was invented by a Nazi over 120 years ago and in the meantime has constantly been applied to whatever the new thing is. And the implication is awful - "things suck and it's not my responsibility to make things better besides waiting for the revolution". Please stop using this phrase unless you want to further alienate me from the position you are trying to mak…

> It was invented by a Nazi over 120 years ago

That'd be a good trick, given that there were no Nazis until 1920.

Re: Is my advice too mercenary?

#280

Post by ghaff »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #176
ghaff wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nothing will solve the affordable part other than massive wealth transfers (which ACA did, but obviously not massive enough), and increased supply of healthcare (more docs, hospitals, medication manufacturers - or medicines in public domain), and tort reform. But ACA did what it could with the political compromises that had to be made at the time. It provided out of pocket maximums, maximum age rating factor (age 64…

Yeah, even if you just arbitrarily chop 20-30% off of US healthcare costs--which aren't just from the pockets of fairly low margin insurance companies, the money still needs to come from somewhere. So maybe a random individual can get a decent insurance plan for $5K/year with a family plan something north of $10K without a company paying. I expect a lot of people would still not find that reasonable and would want someone else to pay for it.
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