Marginally related: At least one US senator works as an Uber driver.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/13/ben-sasse-ub...
An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
61–70 of 101 posts
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>High schoolers who get rotated out every six month won't exactly be the best at negotiating or even think of unionization efforts. Artificially raising pay above market rates leads to higher consumer prices, and massive deadweight loss from greater unrealized production/earnings. Between 1870 and 1900, when there was no minimum wage, or labor regulations to empower unions, US wages doubled in inflation-adjusted ter…
> This was very much unlike the post-war period, where US industry was running on borrowed time, making increasingly burdensome concessions to unions that led to huge bankruptcies and retrenchment in the 1970s in many industries. You mean the adjustment from the post-war period of 1945-1975? Just like the one you referenced from 1870-1900? The post-war boom in wages here, that you can see many times in history, occur…
>>You mean the adjustment from the post-war period of 1945-1975? Just like the one you referenced from 1870-1900?
I just explained that the 1945-1975 period was not the same as the 1870-1900 period. The latter was associated with massive gains in the market position of US industry. The former was associated with the degradation of the market position of major US industrial firms, making those wage gains unsustainable.
>>The post-war boom in wages here, that you can see many times in history, occurs due to demographics.
Why would demographics cause the post-war boom? I see you reference death ("they're in fact dead"), which I take to mean you are implying that WW2 caused a large enough decline in the working age population so as to explain the large post-war wage gains, but 420,000 military deaths out of a total US population of 139 million in 1945, cannot explain the magnitude of wage growth in the post-war period.
>>And what does this deadweight loss thing mean exactly... coming from someone who studied economics?
This is the Wikipedia page defining the term if you're unfamiliar with it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss
It's a basic economics term, and has nothing to do with "casual libertarian groupthink".
Maybe you should assume good faith and debate on the merits of the arguments, instead of caricaturing me as a member of some group of libertarians "who got rich and conveniently stop believing in society". These kinds of comments are NOT grounded.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> > It's a result of the government MANDATING, on their behalf, that the employer collectively bargain with them, i.e. prohibiting the employer from negotiating with any party other than the union. You can have unions without the government mandating anything. This is a total straw man. Here's an example: I know I'm worth considerably more to my employer than they're paying me, but were I to ask for appropriate compe…
>>You can have unions without the government mandating anything. Unions have no power in a free market, which is why unionization rates were so low until the unions successfully hoodwinked society into believing their victim narrative, and had the government pass laws in their favor. >>Here's an example: I know I'm worth considerably more to my employer than they're paying me, but were I to ask for appropriate compen…
> Unions have no power in a free market, which is why unionization rates were so low until the unions successfully hoodwinked society into believing their victim narrative, and had the government pass laws in their favor.
Unions have been outlawed (or taken over by the state) at several points in German history. Nowadays guilds and unions don't enjoy many special protections except for such things as the basic right of people to form associations: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_9.html
There's also no such thing as laws forcing employers to negotiate with unions. Employees who aren't part of the union in question are not subject to agreements negotiated between employer and unions: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/tvg/__3.html
Also about "Unions have no power in a free market"... do you really stand by that statement? Because I've got a history book full of examples that say otherwise - of unions/guilds mattering even when facing opposition from the government.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#64I order food just about every second day, with a lot of it being delivered by 'lieferando' people. This used to be mostly young people: think students and high schoolers. But lately I've been greeting mostly people looking to be 40-50 at the door. I've been getting used to it but the first few times I was surprised. I think this is the motivation behind the article: People aren't expecting anyone older than say 25 to…
> People aren't expecting anyone older than say 25 to do this job, much less the former minister of a country
You are assuming a students or high schooler isn't more qualified to do the job of a "minister" of, what appeared to be, an artificial "government" that tried to syphon as much money in it's own pockets as possible.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> were doing low paid jobs in the west This fails to mention that US plumbers were getting higher salaries than Russian engineers, or higher on average than most of people in the West. In my small hometown in Russia, everybody can't get more amused that the best wage for immigrants there is paid by agricultural college diplomas. The biggest mansions in the town are of: 1. local gang boss, 2. agronomists who went to U…
You also fail to mention that not everybody is driven by money. Russian engineer and scientist knew pretty well that they could get better life conditions in the US for example, yet they decided to live their life in Russia. These are personal choice beyond what me or you think about, need to be respected. So said, many researcher today are paid very little and they could get a better pay in private sector yet they d…
> yet they decided to live their life in Russia.
Convenient decision when the KGB has the location of all your extended family in it's database!
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
You literally just confirmed my comment. You understand that they're not saying Germans are xenophobic because they prefer a language, but that it was just a single example. That they are two separate concepts and one is just a small part of the other. If I didn't know better I'd think you forced more of a connection than there was to build a strawman argument.
It‘s perfectly normal to use words like „and“ and still make an argument. This is done all the time in articles, it‘s not math but language. There was an assertion, then another assertion and then an example related (but not equal) to the first assertion. Sandwiching things like that can at best be called misleading, but I stand by my understanding which is that a connection between language and xenophobia was made.…
"This is language not math" is exactly my point, you're trying to paint this as me looking at a technicality or something, it's literally misconstruing someone's very simple words
They made a connection and it's not the connection you implied...
> It would never cross my mind to think of a country as xenophobic because they speak their own language.
This person never said Germany is xenophobic just because they speak their own language, it's insulting people's intelligence to pretend they did.
This isn't HN-style "haha got you on the mathematical sum of words" this is having the basic decency to reply to what was said, not what you're pretending was said. Maybe not everyone is capable of that.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was (and still is) lot easier if you're a scientist or a skilled worker. > whether a Russian engineer would be allowed to leave Russia Why not? I live in a country that is not US nor Russia and I know few very good Russian engineers. They worked in US too, some of them returned to Russia eventually. So I don't understand where you get your basis. People are allowed to leave Russia they're not trapped (not to menti…
Russia and the Soviet Union were different.
Sure. It was still not that hard as long as you didn't work in a classified field and worked enough to "pay off" your studies.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simplest example: my first time in Munich I was struggling with the subway instructions, they were all in German and this was before Internet on smartphones and Google translate, so at the entrance of the station I asked several people in English if they speak English and can tell me what ticket to purchase (the different ticket by area concept was completely foreign to me). A couple said yes, I asked the question "w…
Well, considering the fare system in Munich your outsourced a shitty job to them :) Aside of that: it is rude and I polite but not xenophobic. They can rightfully expect that you speak the language of the country you are in.
Describe tourism with the expectation to know local languages.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Language is probably the biggest roadblock in getting a job in Germany and most people ignore it. German is not easy (my grandmother was a German teacher, some of my family members are of German descent and none of us is speaking any decent German) and Germans are more xenophobic than they will ever admit. Even in my American company meetings with German people sometimes we have very awkward moments when the Germans…
I would separate the topic of language and xenophobia. The language is hard and acceptance to speak English - while generally there - is not universal. However, the bubble of non English speakers, the bubble of xenophobic people and bubble of racists in Germany have not the biggest overlaps. Native languages in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japanese or China have a very long history and the countries are very confid…
Tourists don't have to learn the language if they are there. I was a tourist most of my travels in Germany.
Re: An Afghan minister who became a bicycle courier in Germany
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, considering the fare system in Munich your outsourced a shitty job to them :) Aside of that: it is rude and I polite but not xenophobic. They can rightfully expect that you speak the language of the country you are in.
Describe tourism with the expectation to know local languages.
How it was in the past. How it is for many people in the presence (eg same language different country, acquired language country, inner country tourism, zero acquired language tourism).
There is a maybe top 10% (made up number) of the world population with a big enough budget and target country language capability to be in that situation. The rest does tourism most likely differently.