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Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

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Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#321

Post by yibg »

RHSeeger wrote: post #293
bernulli wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a simple word for people with that attitude: freeloader. It's pretty easy to understand: > I can not image the extra amount of work that get places on people that do not have children... What you're forgetting is the amount of work required to raise children. That's an externality that is only covered through a social contract, where everyone contributes to a next generation. Why should parents put in the ext…

I think there's a lot of people that want things to be fair at the individual level ("that person gets time off for a child, but that other, childless person works the whole time")... but don't see the greater "benefit to society overall" part of it. It's not necessarily that they're being greedy; it may not even be something that would benefit them directly. They just never consider that they're paying a cost for th…

In some cases it’s probably legitimately “unfair”. Me for example am probably at the more unfair end. I

- have high income so pay a large % into taxes

- not a citizen so don’t enjoy some of the benefits of military protection

- wasn’t raised here so didn’t use any of the earlier year services

- likely won’t retire here so won’t use those either

Most of my tax dollars goes to fund others in the country. But as a society there is no good way to account for all that. To try to do so the tax calculation will be crazy. So I’ll grumble about the taxes I pay, but end of the day I also don’t really have a better solution.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#322

Post by tpm »

phaer wrote: post #93
geek_at wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European in general. My wife works for a biotech company in Austria which was recently aquired by an american company and it's so funny to hear about their efforts to adapt to EU law and culture. Most of their training material is still unchanged from their US branch so there are things they list as benefits for all employees like - 3 Weeks paid vacation (we get 5 by law) - Health insurance (you know the drill) - 3 w…

All true, but it might be worth mentioning that most of those benefits are still Austrian law, not European law. So while they generally better than the US, other EU states might lack some of those law.

Well there are certainly differences. How about 3 years parental leave in Slovakia.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#323

Post by Firmwarrior »

phpisthebest wrote: post #275
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad regulations by a slow, bureaucratic government do that, yes. Meanwhile, the free market people always claim will solve everything? That same free market "solved" mobility by pushing car usage through the roof, resulting in extremely inefficient space usage now that population demands are changing. Neither bad regulations nor the free market are going to solve a lack of foresight. Worse, those regulations are larg…

The problem here is what you identify as problems the market (thus people) do not agree are problems For example you decry the " inefficient space usage " of modern housing, and suburbs, however many people clearly prefer to have single family structures on plots of land over living in densely populated area's I am one of those people, I would never choose to voluntary live in a dense city like NYC or even LA I can t…

What government is trying to force more density? Please let me know so I can move there.

The closest I can think of is Tokyo, where the zoning laws are basically set by the national government. In the USA, the local landed gentry can easily block any new development/increase in density, which is a big part of the reason we have so much sprawl*. In Japan, all you can do is shake your fist and write an angry letter to your congressman while developers throw up a 4 story apartment complex next door.

The result is that you can get a job as a janitor in the heart of downtown, and comfortably afford an apartment nearby. A tiny apartment within 10 minutes, or a larger and more spacious one 20-30 minutes away, or a house if you're willing to put up with a 90 minute commute.

* Yes, I know that a lot of the sprawl comes from people wanting houses, but a lot of people just want a place to live close to their job, where they can change out their sink or repaint their walls without asking some rich prick for permission

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#324

Post by Firmwarrior »

em-bee wrote: post #227
hallway_monitor wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, shouldn't we just make everything free for everyone? Housing costs are outrageous. It would be great if houses were free. And food too. And cars and clothing. I guess the only problem is then everyone's wage would have to be $0 as well.

i don't see why zero wages would be a problem in that case. it would be a money-less society like in star trek. whether that's realistic is another discussion. but how about universal basic income instead?

I've been thinking about this, and I don't know if a UBI like people envision will ever really be viable.

BUT as society gets more and more wealthy, I'll bet that living on the fringes of it will be more and more viable

We're already at a point where you can work minimum wage for an hour (take home ~$7) and buy a few days' worth of subsistence-quality food if you have access to a kitchen. You can pare down your other living expenses too, and suddenly you have a reasonably comfortable lifestyle that only costs a few hundred bucks a month.

Right now we stigmatize "van dwellers" and couch surfers, but maybe that'll change in the future

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#325

Post by em-bee »

phpisthebest wrote: post #275
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad regulations by a slow, bureaucratic government do that, yes. Meanwhile, the free market people always claim will solve everything? That same free market "solved" mobility by pushing car usage through the roof, resulting in extremely inefficient space usage now that population demands are changing. Neither bad regulations nor the free market are going to solve a lack of foresight. Worse, those regulations are larg…

The problem here is what you identify as problems the market (thus people) do not agree are problems For example you decry the " inefficient space usage " of modern housing, and suburbs, however many people clearly prefer to have single family structures on plots of land over living in densely populated area's I am one of those people, I would never choose to voluntary live in a dense city like NYC or even LA I can t…

I can think of nothing more nightmarish then living in a multistory apartment building

why is that? bad neighbors?

maybe the problem is our culture of selfishness and lack of tolerance and respect? (and by that i mean your neighbors that are causing you trouble, not asking you to tolerate that trouble)

i have lived in multi story buildings all my life in different countries. and never had issues with neighbors. i hardly ever see them. really, the only difference between an apartment and a single family house to me was access to a garden. and in a single family house i have to deal with neighbors too. so i really don't understand what your problem is there.

people have preferences. sure. my preference is to live close to shopping and culture, and my friends, and access to public transport without needing a car to go anywhere.

if i wanted to get away from neighbors i would move to the countryside where the next neighbor is a mile away. but that is no longer a city. suburban life to me is the worst of both worlds. (and i have lived that too, so i speak from experience on both)

the reason the free market does not solve problems is that the free market is not fair. in a free market the strong have an advantage at the expense of the weak.

slums are caused by a free market. to eliminate poverty, intervention is necessary. if an intervention fails then that's because maybe it is the wrong kind of intervention. and with that we are at the problem of figuring out how to make life better for everyone, which is a question of education, the will to make things better for others, and again respect and tolerance and giving everyone a voice, aka democracy.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#326

Post by unity1001 »

Test0129 wrote: post #312
unity1001 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Income Taxation is in no way voluntary exchange like that Take a weekend off and calculate how much 'fees' you would have to pay for 'private defense services', infrastructure, judiciary, police and all the other things if they were made private. > The fact is that the government, like a common thief, says to a person: Your money, or your life What religious delirium. > But the robbery is none the less a robbery on…

> The dastarty act of providing military, police, firefighting, law, justice, social services - all the things that make you live in a modern society instead of living in the former late feudal society where you wouldn't even have the social rank in order to be able to talk against your feudal lord in public like this. If I don't support these things, or wish to take away their funding due to my displeasure with the…

> If I don't support these things, or wish to take away their funding due to my displeasure with the service received I could do that if they were private

Yeah, you could just 'take away its funding' and just do away with the military in a private environment. Which brings us to...

> Like all socialists, you are the delirious one

...the delirium of thinking that you would be able to keep your freedom and agency at the moment which you lose that socially-funded, democratically controlled military after you take its funding away in a private market environment. Which will make you immediately a subject of the richest man who did not take away the funding of the military outfit he supports.

> All taxes are evil.

The people from the country that kills its people when they cant pay for healthcare is telling us that all taxes are evil, even as their very infrastructure collapses.

THAT is delirium. Nothing else.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#327

Post by malshe »

unity1001 wrote: post #305
malshe wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use some extreme examples then sure living in the US can be very expensive. But for most of us the things are not this bad. I am a professor and even with the academic pay I save about 30% of my salary even after paying all the expenses. The key is to live in a lower cost US state where the salaries are still quite high compared to most of the world.

> But for most of us the things are not this bad. I am a professor If you are a professor, you are not one of the 'most of us'. For most, things are really that bad. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret... There are millions of working families where both parents and even children work and yet they still suffer hunger.

My comment unintentionally sounded like I was talking about all the other Americans. I meant to say most of us in the middle class. I am acutely aware that poverty in the US is real. When I talk to my academic friends in Europe and we compare salaries (it's quite common to do that because in the US our salaries are public if we work in state universities), we usually come out with the conclusion that in the US we have a lot more liquidity after accounting for pension, medical, housing, and other expenses.

Re: Dutch employee fired by U.S. firm for shutting off webcam awarded €75K in court

#328

Post by nraynaud »

Ekaros wrote: post #201
isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, mutual agreements are a thing. If you pay someone with one month notice 3 months worth of pay to leave on the same day, they would be stupid not to take it.

3 months I feel bit questionable still. As depending on location there might be loss of unemployment benefits.

yeah, you have to go higher than what they would get in court.
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