61–70 of 94 posts
Compare to how much you pay for a lawyer per hour. And lawyer do not have to train on the this years tech over and over. And they don't have to think hard for full day.
Its funny for me because on the start-up side of things it feels like Apple, Google, and Facebook are pushing up wages by offering up huge salaries to entice everyone to go there.
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yeah it's hard to find examples of high wage workers who aren't in some sense unionized. Not really sure what your point is though. After all, if their wages are in part due to being part of a cartel, then tech workers who earn that wage without a cartel are even more deserving of it.
Ok, first you write that "wages come from the value a person produces." Then you write "it's hard to find examples of high wage workers who aren't in some sense unionized." And then you again add something completely contradictory. But I do agree with you. I would say that tech workers are underpaid. Google has revenue per employee of $931,565. Most of that is profit. Is the average compensation per Googler anywhere…
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There are many, many problems here. > Collusion is also not bad unless it's illegal Did it ever occur to you that laws might be passed despite those same laws not being beneficial? In your model of the world, where legal actions are all, by definition, good, how would legislators decide whether or not to enact a prospective law? If we repealed all our antitrust legislation, can I assume you would agree that employer…
laws are ostensibly enacted to the benefit of the majority (tho of late, i m not sure if that's true anymore). Therefore, anything "illegal" is bad under the above assumption. Also, you made the implicit assumption that a corporation is like a human. It isn't, and you should not be using values of a human but apply it to a corporation. A corp should be treated with more strict rules, to prevent it from becoming too p…
More precisely, he's asking what moral/political philosophy principle he can use to distinguish between corporations selling labor and corporations buying labor. Zedshaw suggested "the law says X" as the underlying principle which is a bit unsatisfying.
(It's unsatisfying because it implies that, e.g., Rosa Parks and similar individuals were in the wrong when they broke the law.)
Not that I'm disagreeing with this outcome at all... But if agreeing not to poach is collusion and conspiracy... Then how is it that it's legal for workers to form unions and strike? Isn't that just as much "collusion and conspiracy" from the other side? I mean heck, consumers organizing to boycott a product is a kind of "collusion" and "conspiracy" as well that is just as arguably "anti-market". Is there anyone who…
I think it's kind of funny all the responses you your legitimate question are essentially people presenting their political opinions. There is a factual answer to your question though. In the early 1900's people tried to argue exactly that that unions were an illegal conspiracy under the Sherman Antitrust Act. This interpretation was against popular opinion at the time and in 1914 under the Clayton Antitrust Act the…
It's totally fair that they also (i) discuss why the law may have to come to be and (ii) how they think/feel about it.
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So... what do you think about the salaries of teachers in public schools? Also, I bet bank & oil execs believe they make the world-go-round and add a lot of value too. After all, banks & oil touches pretty much all our lives as much as computers do, right?
> So... what do you think about the salaries of teachers in public schools? Well, it varies by region. There are some areas where teachers get $1,000/day compensation packages. But they don't really earn that money, they just use state violence to take it from people who earned it.
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Yes, if you believe that you can reduce any use of a word down to its most abstract concept giving you the ability to equate anything to anything else. By those standards collusion is also a tomato, a pair of shoes, and my left ear. Very Zen. But, given nobody else thinks this way, then no, unions are not a conspiracy. A conspiracy is pretty much defined as such when everyone involved constantly tells each other "don…
You have misunderstood the analogy. The issue is not whether the collusion is public or private, and it is also not whether it benefits the rich or the poor. The issue is that in general it is illegal to reduce competition by forming a cartel. People to it privately because it is illegal. The one exception for this is forming a cartel of sellers of labor, i.e. a union. Note that, if it were not a labor union, a carte…
Once a union forms, you are legally forbidden from taking your business elsewhere.
That's a far stronger form of market power than what is alleged in this case - Apple and Google colluding certainly did not prevent Oracle or Salesforce from poaching their employees.
And the anti-collusion agreement only applied to employees working on collaborative projects anyway - i.e., Apple can't poach the Google guy working with Apple on iPhone/Gmail compatibility after they decide they like him. It never prevented Apple from grabbing someone working on Android internals.
They didn't say they wouldn't hire each other's employees, just they wouldn't actively recruit top talent from each other. I don't see what's wrong with that. Top employees can still apply on their own.
You've just described collusion. They colluded to prevent the wages of their top talent from being boosted by the normal process of competition in the labor market. Sure it's not like they stole money directly out of their star employees' pockets, but in the end the effect was the same.
Not that I'm disagreeing with this outcome at all... But if agreeing not to poach is collusion and conspiracy... Then how is it that it's legal for workers to form unions and strike? Isn't that just as much "collusion and conspiracy" from the other side? I mean heck, consumers organizing to boycott a product is a kind of "collusion" and "conspiracy" as well that is just as arguably "anti-market". Is there anyone who…
In theory, at least, the reconciliation is to side with the little guy. When there's a massive imbalance of power, there's an idea that you will be more restrictive of the powerful side. The theory is that this is in the public's best interests. So, in theory, if you have two giant companies that control 95% of the distribution of widgets, you might decide that they cannot merge into one entity. But if widgets are ma…
Is there some arbitrary pre-specified list/heirarchy of little guys that must be taken as a first principle, or is there an underlying principle determining who is the little guy?