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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: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @01:34AM (9 children)
I also believe in "fuck you, I got mine". I don't care what your excuse is. Car accident, work accident, family sickness, it doesn't matter. If you don't have money then you don't work hard enough and you don't love God. It's really all your fault. I'm okay and God bless America.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:06AM (7 children)
That's not what's being said. No one is arguing that the system shouldn't help those with legitimate reasons for their problems. If someone legitimately has a disability I don't mind them getting disability. If they get a work related injury workers comp is a good thing.
But at the same time I see it all the time. What excuse do the poor people have for having so many children they can't afford to have while the wealthy don't have so many children? Are you suggesting that they all have a legitimate excuse?
I see it all the time. Poor people that just want to go out and drink and party but they can't afford to fix their car. What's their excuse for getting drunk all the time? There is no excuse. If they stopped going out and partying all the time and drinking and gambling they can take that money they spend on all that stuff and put it to better use. What they spend their money on is their decision but at the end of the day if they choose to live such a lifestyle and it backfires I don't want them complaining that they want the system to bail them out.
I have a regular job with regular pay. I don't make that much money. Sometimes I work a lot of overtime too. But I have a decent amount of money invested and saved. I don't drink or smoke, I don't party, I have no children (I get punished for that because I get taxed more), etc... and my investments have grown quite a bit over the years. It was my decision to save and invest while I see so many people around me going out and partying and whatnot.
I'm college educated, besides English I speak two other languages pretty well, but I never really got a high paying job that requires an education for some reason. My job requires little education. But I grow my money. and yeah I do manage my trading accounts from time to time. I scale some of my funds out of SPY and QQQ when the market goes up a lot and when it crashes I scale back in (I don't really day trade though). but I see that many people don't invest. They go out and party. Consequently, in many situations, their circumstances are a consequence of their own decisions. Not my fault and if they make bad decisions they shouldn't expect the system to fix things for them. If they have a legitimate excuse for their situation then I have no problems with the system helping them at all.
Heck, many people that make a lot more money than me have a lot less money than me because they spend it all really quickly. They want a fancy life style. What happens when they lose their job and have to get an ordinary job and have no money because they never invested. My biggest regret is not investing my money younger.
What I'm saying is harsh. It gets marked as flaimbait, troll, etc... but it's 100% the truth. and most people don't want to accept it. and I know it doesn't really apply to most people here, because most people here are college educated. They have decent paying jobs. They may drink and party sometimes but they're not drunks. They understand math and know the value of compound interest. They probably invest. The people in your circles may be well off as well. So it's hard for you to understand that many people the problems many people have are a consequence of their own decisions since many people here may not really be around a lot of people that make poor decisions.
and there are many things wrong with the system. I would prefer a system that rehabilitates vs one that just tries to make it harder for criminals and ex drug users to recover and get jobs. I don't necessarily agree with the system I'm just saying that I play the system. As someone else pointed out don't player hate, player participate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @02:14AM (1 child)
errr .... I meant to say
So it's hard for you to understand the problems many people have are a consequence of their own decisions *
People that make good decisions project those good decisions onto others. They assume that most people make good decisions and that their problems are a consequence of circumstances. There are legitimate situations where that's true. In those situations I have zero problems with the system helping those people out. But the reality is that in many situations that's not true.
and yes, there are many problems with the system. The system is gamed. That does need to be fixed. That doesn't change the fact that many people are in their situation because of the decisions they make.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:28PM
Everyone makes bad decisions when they come into a new environment. Every single person.
That said, some learn faster than others...but guess what, different people learn at different speeds in different situations, and learning rapidly in one situation doesn't guarantee that you'll do the same in another. Which is why I tend to be extremely conservative in the original meaning of the term. And if you think in stereotypes, there are LOTS of situations in which you'll make extremely stupid decisions. The benefit is that you'll make them rapidly, which is good if you *must* make a decision rapidly, and stupid otherwise.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:39AM (2 children)
It's not the "fuck you, got mine" attitude that makes you an insufferable prick. It's the way you need to harp on your uninteresting life story to make you feel better about your situation. Your situation doesn't make me envious, is makes me sick. If you actually pulled yourself up to your position through effort and wits why did you stop there, why are you satified? You haven't even reached the point where you could stop working. Are you so bitter about people wasting money on alcohol just because despite your comfortable life you can't afford all the excess you'd want and therefore decide to abstain entirely from it?
Survivor bias notwistanding, I'd rather read the bio of a millionnaire rather than the one of some bitter schmuck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @03:39PM
For sure, your head is so far up the ass when someone is giving you good actionable advice, a millionaire is something you will never be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @09:06PM
I can afford a lot of things but I choose to invest my money instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2020, @03:17PM (1 child)
The magic of compound interest seems to me to depend entirely on an increasing population. As long as it keeps going up, there will be asset inflation. Fortunately for us it is projected to increase during our lifetimes. Also unfortuntely. Everything is busier and more expensive and... just more shit basically. High priced and more shit. For those who fail to get on the ladder, this equates to shit and more shit.
We're going to have to deal with that sooner or later - I gots mine won't win elections without massive voter suppression, fake news and reality show smoke+mirrors. Oh wait....
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:45PM
No, it's more complex than just "increasing population". But the system *is* rigged to provide maximal benefit to those who control it, and the minimum required to get them to participate to those with the least power.
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, @03:31PM
Good point. Now, fuck you, give me yours.