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For the past four decades, the majority of American workers have been shortchanged by economic policymaking that has suppressed the growth of hourly wages and prevented greater improvements in living standards. Achieving a secure, middle-class lifestyle has become increasingly difficult as hourly pay for most workers has either stagnated or declined. For millions of the country's lowest-paid workers, financial security is even more fleeting because of unscrupulous employers stealing a portion of their paychecks.
Wage theft, the practice of employers failing to pay workers the full wages to which they are legally entitled, is a widespread and deep-rooted problem that directly harms millions of U.S. workers each year. Employers refusing to pay promised wages, paying less than legally mandated minimums, failing to pay for all hours worked, or not paying overtime premiums deprives working people of billions of dollars annually. It also leaves hundreds of thousands of affected workers and their families in poverty. Wage theft does not just harm the workers and families who directly suffer exploitation; it also weakens the bargaining power of workers more broadly by putting downward pressure on hourly wages in affected industries and occupations. For many low-income families who suffer wage theft, the resulting loss of income forces them to rely more heavily on public assistance programs, unduly straining safety net programs and hamstringing efforts to reduce poverty.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @06:37PM (11 children)
Anybody who thinks the US infrastructure is "crumbling" needs to get out and travel a little to those "backwards third world countries" you know, like France, Australia, Brazil. Look around for freeways, bridges, roads, etc. and then reflect on what you see in the US.
Unpaved roads are really rare in the US, bridges are all over the place, as are multi-level overpasses, massive capacity airports, seaports, and even cargo train terminals (yes, our passenger rail sucks, but I think that was done to divert focus to the other modes of transportation).
The reason we have "crumbling infrastructure" like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge [wikipedia.org] http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/traffic/I-4-makeover/orl-i4-sinkhole-20170323-photo.html [orlandosentinel.com] is, in part, because we have so much infrastructure in the first place.
If we want to talk about infrastructure upgrade, let's talk about competitive internet service delivery to the home. Fiber, Cable, or DSL doesn't really matter, what matters is allowing multiple vendors to compete for the opportunity to serve people on an individual basis, not bribe city commissioners for decades long monopoly access to large block markets. Doesn't that seem like a good old-school free market rhetoric thing for the business savvy leader to bring to the country? Sure does to me, but I'm not holding my breath.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @07:03PM (6 children)
You have made a life choice: You have chosen to live in the middle of nowhere, far away from the infrastructure that carries the Internet's bits.
If you want to tap into that infrastructure, then you find a way to do that; either pay for last 100 miles out to your shack, or move into the nearest city like everybody else.
It makes no sense for society to squander its resources bringing YouPorn to the sticks. Fuck You, you entitled forest-dwelling cunt.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday May 22 2017, @07:57PM (4 children)
I live in the middle of one of the top three largest US cities. I am unable to get fiber to the premise. I can get contract-hobbled DOCSIS/cable internet with incredibly abusive terms-of-service and horrible maintenance and customer service.
If I can't get decent internet service without paying upwards of $500/month, then there's much to be said for GP's point.
And so for me and GP, fuck you, you self-righteous, ignorant, piece of shit!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @08:00PM (3 children)
If not even the city has been able to build Internet infrastructure robustly, then why in the world would anyone be willing to let governments squander resources in the sticks?
We can agree on one thing: Governments fuck everything up.
(Score: 4, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:01AM (2 children)
Ftfy.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:24AM (1 child)
However, you cannot stop paying a government for its rotten services.
Indeed, if you try to stop paying a government, you'll probably be beaten up by thugs and then thrown into a cage.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:26AM
Substitute "protected privately owned monopoly, such as water supply" for "government" and your argument is equally valid.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:50PM
I live in the city limits, 1 mile from the loop interstate offramp, 3 miles from the thru-interstate offramp, 1/2 mile from shopping centers, in a major metro area (800K pop.)
I have Comcast and AT&T to choose from, and they both suck. AT&T charges nearly as much for dysfunctional DSL as Comcast charges for slightly more often functional cable internet. We've been in this home for 3 years and Comcast has raised our monthly bill to 2x what we started at, a little bit every 6 months, while trimming services along the way. For the cheapest slowest internet service they offer, we're at $56 per month, up from $48 per month for "BLAST SPEED" last year, up from $36 per month for the cable bundle the year before that, up from the $28 per month "please please please don't use our competition dear new resident" introductory period.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @08:01PM (3 children)
I drove over that bridge the day before it collapsed.
Was a bit freaked out by that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @08:52PM (2 children)
We decided to not move to the Lakeland area in 2012, after one of those sinkholes opened on I-4 while we were visiting, plus a dozen more that summer in neighborhoods swallowing houses and also closing smaller roads.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Monday May 22 2017, @08:58PM (1 child)
Man, where I am, when a sinkhole opens up under a house, sometimes the whole house explodes. Iron gas pipes from the early 20th century. One time an entire block exploded. Allegedly they are "mostly" replaced now but the gas company doesn't publish where the unreplaced ones are because of terrorism concerns... and sometimes they find out about ones they didn't have on their maps...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 22 2017, @09:21PM
It's kind of a sad story in Lakeland. Sinkholes (there and most places) form when the water table gets low. Well, when it doesn't rain as much as normal, the strawberry crop in Plant City struggles, so - on top of the low rain input, the strawberry farmers pump extra water on their crops - seriously dropping the water tables to un-natural levels. Then, mysteriously (not) an unnatural number of sink holes appears over the following months. So, in a dry year, a $200M strawberry crop ends up scattering several million dollars in damage around the area, probably propping up a "sinkhole insurance" industry to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year in premiums.
🌻🌻 [google.com]