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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Until the 1980s, big companies in America tended to take a paternalistic attitude toward their workforce. Many corporate CEOs took pride in taking care of everyone who worked at their corporate campuses. Business leaders loved to tell stories about someone working their way up from the mailroom to a C-suite office.
But this began to change in the 1980s. Wall Street investors demanded that companies focus more on maximizing returns for shareholders. An emerging corporate orthodoxy held that a company should focus on its "core competence"—the one or two functions that truly sets it apart from other companies—while contracting out other functions to third parties.
Often, companies found they could save money this way. Big companies often pay above the market rate for routine services like cleaning offices, answering phones, staffing a cafeteria, or working on an assembly line. Putting these services out for competitive bid helped the companies get these functions completed at rock-bottom rates, while avoiding the hassle of managing employees. It also saved them from having to pay the same generous benefits they offered to higher-skilled employees.
Of course, the very things that made the new arrangement attractive for big companies made it lousy for the affected workers. Not only were companies trying to spend less money on these services, but now there were companies in the middle taking a cut. Once a job got contracted out, it was much less likely to become a first step up the corporate ladder. It's hard to work your way up from the mailroom if the mailroom is run by a separate contracting firm.
[...] The existence of such a two-tier workplace is especially ironic in Silicon Valley, a region that takes pride in its egalitarian ethos. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave a remarkably candid assessment of the situation in 2012, in a statement quoted by author Chrystia Freeland.
"Many tech companies solved this problem by having the lowest-paid workers not actually be employees. They’re contracted out," Schmidt said. "We can treat them differently, because we don’t really hire them. The person who’s cleaning the bathroom is not exactly the same sort of person. Which I find sort of offensive, but it is the way it’s done."
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @12:32AM (22 children)
At the time I write this, parent post is marked Troll, but a more accurate tag would be "Butthurt Mods".
What he is saying is 100% truth. You can complain about the system, or you can learn to work the system. It really is up to you.
I really second the advice to invest what you can in the equivalent of an S&P 500 index fund (or SPYDR). It averages about 10% return historically. This means that every 10 years, you DOUBLE your money. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Don't player hate; player participate.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @01:11AM (6 children)
Which works out great of you've got extra cash to invest. Until recently you had to have thousands of dollars in order to invest in that fashion, which most of these workers wouldn't. Between account minimums and the minimums on various mutual funds, poor people couldn't get into the markets at all. Which is just as well as they didn't have funds they could afford to lose.
Even now though, if there's a recession at the wrong time, you can have done the right things and still be eating dog food as you work until you die.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:33AM (5 children)
IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that if you don't have any money left over at the end of the month you can't save or invest any. I don't think you're educating anyone with that "insight." I and the original poster offered a better place to put any savings you have than where they usually go: sitting in a fucking checking account yielding nothing point nothing. Downmarkets are not a problem at all if you use stocks for what they are for: long term savings.
There are a lot of whiners on this board that seem to have a stunted financial literacy. Let me reiterate again though: step ZERO is making enough money and or keeping your expenses low enough so that you HAVE money to save or invest. It may not be possible to do this all the time, but for example, buying a new car, top of the line trim, can prevent you from ever having that extra money. I saw the office cleaning lady step out to a brand new top trim SUV. Brand new! Like they say on the local Spanish FM station, no credit, bad credit, no tax ID, no problem! It's not a coincidence that the ad that ran just before that one was for a voodoo shaman to fix your problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @06:27AM (4 children)
You gotta have money to make money. How is that advise helping anyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @03:31PM (3 children)
Because you don't have to be fucking royalty. The equivalent of 8 months doing without cable tv is enough to get you on the right track for saving for your future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @04:16PM (2 children)
That assumes that you've got TV or that it's not just bundled into the rent. Some people do have fat that they could trim from their budget to save and invest, but an increasing number of people don't as the rents go up and wages remain stagnant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:08PM (1 child)
I'd love to hear that bootstrappers logic when the savers are wiped out by vehicle maintenance, medical debt, or any other unplanned major expense. They're trying to prop up the pyramid scheme of modern capitalism by blaming the poor people for being paid shit. Just ridiculous and shows the lack of basic math skills these idiots have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:44PM
Indeed, the billions of wealth that some people have had to come from somewhere. That somewhere is the money that workers aren't being paid. Saving anything and investing it will help, but not over the course of even a few generations. And only if a market correction doesn't wipe it out.
Not using credit cards helps a lot, but only if you've got the money to be able to avoid them in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:32AM (10 children)
SP500 index shares are great for diversification, but IMO they are dangerously overweight on tech and the asset bubble there. Though if you are in it for the long term (>10 years), it's probably negligible.
I would recommend target year funds, they will automatically keep an appropriate balance between stock and bonds depending on the time window until you would like to use the money.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:41AM (9 children)
i'm going to disagree with your recommendation on target funds. You'll make more money if you leave it 100% in S&P stocks and only start switching towards "safer "investments like bonds or money markets when you get to within several years of your retirement date. The only reason for target funds to exist is to make money management completely automatic for the investor who knows nothing at all. Target funds pretty much guarantee lower yields than the strategy I mentioned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:46AM (1 child)
You are entitled to your opinion, but none of the strategies guarantee higher or lower yields.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @11:30AM
Long term analysis of historical performance for different asset classes has given figures for returns that have been fairly consistent over a century. I invest using that information.
It you are overly conservative, the only thing you are GUARANTEEING is low returns. I did that for a while and eventually saw it was a mistake. After wars, the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Great Recession of 2008, stocks recovered and delivered handsomely.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @03:06PM (6 children)
Works great unless there's a 10-20 year period of no stock returns. You're just showing your youth with that advice. Spread it around all the asset classes - stocks, bonds, house - and you will do better than most... However, if "most" becomes "all except very few" then watch out!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 03 2020, @07:45PM (3 children)
Also, how cute, he thinks the stock market ISN'T gambling!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:12PM (2 children)
Even cuter: you, who thinks anything in life can be certain.
Setting foot outside your door, seeking and keeping employment, it's ALL a gamble. Study the odds and bet based on that. That's the most certainty you will ever have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:33PM (1 child)
?
On one hand actual gambling, on the other simple uncertainties of living. Mental gymnastics from free market morons, we need a new olympic category.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:39PM
Stay poor then dumbass.
Keep complaining about it.
People offer advice, but it's wasted on you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:17PM (1 child)
I'm hardly young. The past 70 years have been fine, though, for stocks.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:47PM
The past two days, not so much!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:29AM (3 children)
It's marked troll because it's just a modern toned down version of "Let them eat cake".
On a related note, it's funny how the same people that think nothing of not knowing how to repair their car's engine, fix their furnace, rewire the house, etc don't hesitate to call the mechanic, electrician, HVAC tech, etc idiots because they don't understand investing and finance.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:21PM (2 children)
Nobody knows how to repair their cars engine anymore. I don't think even the manufacturers know. Some problems can easily be fixed if you know how. Some problems can easily be fixed if you have the right (proprietary) tools. But there seem to be lots of problems that nobody knows how to fix.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:48PM
This is why people offering financial advice for profit or selling financial products should be fiduciaries. They should be legally required to give advice and seek products that they believe are going to be in the best interest of the customer. They may still screw up, leaving the customer losing money, but at least it would be the exception rather than a byproduct of trying to make the most money possible off suckers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:23AM
The problem is: in order to do so you have to illegally modify or replace computer systems responsible for engine emissions, vehicle traction control/anti-lock/brakes, drive by wire systems, etc. All of these things should be using off the shelf hardware, but instead each is a slightly different proprietary blob that can't be replaced, updated, or otherwise debugged to make it safer.
As a result cars have followed computers and cell phones into the disposable device territory, even though with changes in regulations they could be kept running indefinitely by adequately qualified personnel or do it at home types. Very little of it is rocket science but thanks to complications in the name of 'government required minimum safety' the home mechanic can no longer do almost anything without violating state laws on operating their vehicle, the independent mechanic can only replace parts, not adjust or fix underlying problems. And the dealers, well they will gouge you for repairs while telling you why next year's model is better, even when it isn't.