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Without parental leave I might be dead

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Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#521
post #334

I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I…

it's so depressing working a good job in the imperial core and having it be like this. The generations of exploitation and extraction we've waged against the natural world and the people outside of the imperial core would at least make some sense if we all got to have the good stuff stuff but we don't.

I've heard it stated as: you're always 3 terrible months away from being destitute, but you're never 3 great months from being a billionaire. Let this inform who you have class solidarity with.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#522
post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, due to a legal agreement I signed to get them to pay for medical benefits for a few additional months and have a small separation payment, I cannot do so. If I did, they could sue me for several times the amount of benefit I gained, and I'm not in a good position for that now.

That's pretty messed up that they were able to use your financial hardship - that they created - to protect their own reputation.

Messed up yet not at all surprising, right?

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your question: "Why should mothers take care of infants?" Admittedly, you can't read properly, because that's not a question I asked. > Admittedly, it is very difficult to have this conversation when some people hold axiomatically that men and women are biologically interchangeable. Speak for yourself if you want to introduce straw men in the discourse; no one else did. Here we adults are talking about participatio…

Let's recap: 1. The proposal is to offer mothers a 12 months leave, at the very least as a social expectation, even better paid by a state run insurance, see e.g. unemployment, to take care of their infant children. 2. Mothers rather than fathers because mammals feed their infants with milk, and milk is produced only by mothers. Human mothers need to feed their infants every 2-3 hours. As long as breastfeeding takes…

> don't see where the catastrophizing charge "excluding half of the human kind from the social sphere" comes from

You don't see it because you make chains of reasoning backwards leading you to absurd conclusions because you leave thousands of alternative explanations along the way, such as "as long as breastfeeding takes place, simultaneously working a career is pretty much out of the question" (then how is it possible that many women do exactly that, breastfeeding and working?) or "This arrangement will create gap years and have a measurable effect on mothers careers" (no shit Sherlock, that's why there are proposals being made to fix precisely that effect. Of course it won't be fixed if you do nothing and keep the current status quo.)

> Men and women are not fully interchangeable.

And that is the starting point of my reasoning. The only option you see from that point is "as a consequence, women have a lower salary", completely blind to the possibility of "let's put means so that this biological difference does not represent a burden, on the basis of sharing the upbringing of children" that you keep ignoring over and over again.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#524
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct except IRV is hardly better than FPTP. Please endorse any ranked voting system except IRV.

I'm using IRV as a shorthand for ANY of the instant runoff voting (ranked voting) systems. I happen to prefer (Path Vote) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method as a method of performing an election with instant runoffs for one round of ranked ballots. For the later proposal (where districts are replaced by a mixed bag of candidates and issues) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_STV might be a good way of de…

Glad to hear! I think RCV is the more general term, but the IRV people have worked to try to make it synonymous with IRV.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#525

From the US live in Norway now. In Norway there are a lot of political parties that can matter. All depends on the election. Some grow, some dont, new ones are added, old ones go away. That is a dynamic that is entirely missing in the US. We have parties in the European left and we have parties on the European right, parties in the middle, green party etc etc. I try to get people to understand that we do not have a s…

In terms of abortion rights, immigration, progressive taxation, and a host of other issues the US is to the left of Norway. I think people spend more time consuming the news than becoming familiar with the actual policies and laws of countries. In case you anyone misunderstands my claim, these are the facts: the US has more progressive taxation both on income tax and corporate tax, a minimum wage, and more liberal ab…

When it comes to abortion law it seems dependent upon state, An extreme example right now is TX. (I think that will be overturned soon but it is still there for now.)

For the rest of the states some are some are not.

States https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abo...

vs

Norway https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/1975-06-13-50

For immigration, the US has much higher figured if you add it all together. US also offers many more way to move there.

If you look at asylum however the US takes in 0.02% per population per year. Whereas Norway has taken over 0.7% per year.

The US population is made up of 14% vs Norway at 15% immigrants The immigrant population in Norway is far more diverse than it is to the US.

https://www.faktisk.no/artikler/z4nyj/norge-er-et-av-landene... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat... https://www.faktisk.no/artikler/z4nyj/norge-er-et-av-landene... https://www.imdi.no/tall-og-statistikk/

Minimum wage is true, in that the US has one and Norway does not. However the negotiated wages between the unions and the business sector have been "almengjøring" which means they dictate what wages need to be, even when the company you work for is not a direct part and even if you as an employee do not belong to a union. That is backed by Norwegian law

This is per sector. Most sectors now have it Some dont. Where it does exist, it is far higher than the US minimum wage. You cannot live on minimum wage in the US. So it is below what is reasonable and humane.

A big problem is in the construction business were the builders love to hire Eastern European migrants for a lot less than what the law dictators. This is illegal but very common

As far as taxation goes I dont have time right now to really dig into it. I know I pay about 42% taxes on my income. 25% VAT on most things, but there are exceptions, for healthy food and many other things.

I paid a lot less in the US :)

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#526
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about a month behind you, but the difference is that I'm in Canada. I'll be taking 8 weeks, and most people are asking "is that all?". My wife and I get to split 69 weeks, of which neither of us can take more than 61. She's going to take the max, plus her 15 weeks she gets post-birth (76 weeks total) and I'll take 8 right at the start. We get a small amount of government-paid employment insurance, and jobs will e…

The company (not your government) pays for 69 weeks of... nothingness? and then government also pays for the full education up to employment?

It's unpaid leave, with a small compensation paid by the government.

That's how it works in most countries, companies almost never have to pay for maternity/paternity or parental leave. They only have to allow it and take the employee back on a similar position afterwards.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear - you did the best under circumstances - you could not help her medically or otherwise but did the only thing in your control - make sure the insurance coverage was there.

This is not untrue. With complete respect, I feel I must add however: Society on the other hand did not do the best it could have done – sheltered and cared for the people in this situation. It isn’t even efficient at any scale or context to just let it ride like this. This breaks people. Grief and burnout burns people up. They shouldn’t have had to keep powering the treadmill, shouldn’t have to had to do anything to…

Noted and agree with you i.r.o our western first world society but he was dealt a shitty deck and did the best he could with the cards dealt.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the 40*3 term come from? I'm assuming the 5/(40*2) is 5 years of subsidy out of two 40-year careers. I can't figure where the 3 term is coming from unless it's 2 children from 3 total people or something else that I'm missing.

Yes it’s three careers. I say just before it if you have two kids close together. Two years is a normal gap. So seven years of subsidy out of three forty year careers. The mother and two children each have forty years of “productivity”.

(I think) That only works if neither child is eligible for this leave during their career.

If you imagine Adam and Betty have two kids Charlie and Debbie who have two kids Earl and Felicia who have Gary and Helen… each generation receives N years of leave income from (2M - N) years of work income. You can’t take Betty, Charlie, and Debbie’s work income (or total productivity) against just Betty’s leave income.

I think you take Adam and Betty’s combined leave against their combined M years and M years minus N years of leave, C&D’s N against their 2M-N, etc. (you can time-shift it however you like if you want to think of some generation paying for a different generation, but the long-run math doesn’t change for replacement rate births)

In your example, this seems like 7 years of 73 years (9.6%) is going to this program, not 7/120 (5.8%)

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#529

I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I…

It's times like this that I'm happy to pay my taxes for the NHS. Everyone gets ill, cares for someone who gets ill, or is someone who is just very unfortunate in life.

Our health is the most important thing we have, and we should look after that

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