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CNET, Business Insider, techcrunch and many others report on Hillary's beef with "on-demand/gig economy". Specifically:
"Many Americans are making extra money renting out a small room, designing websites, selling products they design themselves at home, or even driving their own car," Clinton said during a speech at the New School in New York City. "This on-demand, or so-called 'gig economy,' is creating exciting opportunities and unleashing innovation. But it's also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future."
"Fair pay and fair scheduling, paid family leave and earned sick days, child care are essential to our competitiveness and growth," the former secretary of state said, referring to benefits not accorded to independent contractors such as drivers at Uber.
Meanwhile, others are quick to point that her "main super PAC decisively favored Uber over conventional cabs by a 25:1 margin" (doh, she didn't say Uber is bad, only that it is evil toward its empl... err... contractors) and Rand Paul tweets: "America shouldn't take advice on the sharing economy from someone who has been driven around in a limo for 30 years." (yeah, Dr Paul, zillions of male gynecologists were never pregnant, of course they know nothing about giving birth).
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday July 15 2015, @02:52AM
What's a workingman to do? One applies for employment and gets told there is none. One applies for relief and gets told he does not qualify..
So, now what? Take what you have and try to make the best of it? Lie down and quietly die? Steal from others?
I would say if we aren't prepared to either provide someone either a job or financial relief, get the hell out of his life and let him make a job for himself.
I do not like it, but the alternatives are worse.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday July 15 2015, @03:37AM
Emigrate into a social state and be happy to pay up around 80% of their earning in taxes*. You may look at wealth as a mean for human life, not a purpose.
What? It's outrageous to share your earning with other? Well, then be content with the hole in which individualism and competition brought you
---
* For example
Finland taxation [wikipedia.org]:
* 30% income tax (in the higher bracket)
* 26% VAT for most of the items (food is 14%)
* 23% pension and social security (yes, some of it is paid by employer, but that's a cost of employing someone)
* 2% - health insurance and others
--
81%
What you get in return? An excellent free public education [smithsonianmag.com] (from daily child care to tertiary level [wikipedia.org]), a publicly funded health care [wikipedia.org], a comprehensive welfare system [wikipedia.org].
With this safety net, you can concentrate on writing the first version of a monolithic kernel only because you think your professor BS-s you [wikipedia.org]. Or grow a successful comm-tech company [wikipedia.org]. You know... like... go on living and creating to the best you can, the society gave you the best chances to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Pino P on Wednesday July 15 2015, @03:55AM
Emigrate into a social state
Last time I checked, qualifying for a work visa there was easier said than done.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 15 2015, @04:34AM
FTFY
(I know, just another anecdote, but... more than 10 years ago, when everything was economically dandy and in full swing, took me 3 years to get my immigration papers in Australia. Why would one think it should be easier while still recovering after a global financial crisis?).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Wednesday July 15 2015, @05:52AM
You left out 6 weeks vacation every year.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:09AM
* 30% income tax (in the higher bracket)
* 26% VAT for most of the items (food is 14%)
* 23% pension and social security ...
* 2% - health insurance and others
--
81%
(1) Just adding the percentages that way won't give the right answer.
(2) How do tax brackets work?
(3) How much does it cost for a viable retirement plan in the US?
(4) How much is health insurance in the US?
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday July 15 2015, @08:10AM
* 30% income tax (in the higher bracket)
* 26% VAT for most of the items (food is 14%)
* 23% pension and social security (yes, some of it is paid by employer, but that's a cost of employing someone)
* 2% - health insurance and others
--
81%
Percentages do not work that way! Goodnight!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 15 2015, @10:55AM
As the other poster pointed out, percentages do not work that way. In particular, any VAT or sales tax is a proportion of what you spend, not what you earn. To takes a simplified example, assume that income tax and VAT are the only taxes and that you spend all that you earn. As you've calculated it, you'd be paying 56% in tax (30%+26%). In fact, you'd be paying 30% in income tax, then VAT on the remaining 70%, which works out at 18.2% of the original, so only 48.2%, not 56% (and that's assuming that you spend all of your income on taxable things - not sure about Finland, but rent and house purchases tend to be taxed differently and be a significant amount of most people's spending).
Oh, and that 30%, from your link is the rate for income over €68,200. If you're earning €100K, then you'll pay nothing on the first €15,600, then 6.5% on the next €7,600 (€494), then 17.5% on the next €14,600 (€2,555), then 21.5% on the next €30,400 (€5,320), then only 30% on the next €31,800 (€9,540), giving a total of €17,909 in taxes, or a tax rate of 17.9%. This isn't too far off US Federal Income Tax rates - it's quite a bit lower for people on the very lowest incomes.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 15 2015, @12:03PM
Fine. You can quibble over the percentages and what not, my points were:
Yeap, you may pay with some inefficiencies, but... why is this a problem?
The way I see, the law of diminishing returns guarantees that, if you attempt to maximize something close to the extreme, you'll be sacrificing a lot more for a lot less closeness to the optimum.
.
Now, going back to these percentages. No doubt all the computation you carried will lead to an amount of less than 80% taxes, isn't it?
Oh, wow! Look, they can have a better society for even less than 80% taxes!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @01:07PM
now there's an oxymoron if ever i saw one
you can try to sugarcoat is all you like, but what you're really advocating is theft
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @01:18PM
Ok, "theft done well" if you so like. Does it change the truth value of the rest?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 15 2015, @02:32PM
You presume that people actually have a "right to live". The "right to life" that people talk about, is simply the right not to be killed by government, or another person. There is no "right" to life's necessities, much less life's niceties. A person who is to stupid, or to lazy, or whatever to actually PRODUCE SOMETHING simply doesn't deserve to eat.
Theft done well.
Theft done well, or otherwised, earns you a bullet in the head, where I come from. If you need a pound of flour, and you know that I have ten pounds in my pantry, you don't have the right to waltz in and take it. But, I, on the other hand, DO HAVE THE RIGHT to blow you into eternity when I catch you in the pantry. You, and all your socialist friends who encouraged you to take what is mine.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 15 2015, @11:34PM
(I like your certitude of an attack on your pantry. Not if but when, eh?)
All I said is "others chose to share their wealth by redistribution through taxes and it works quite well for them".
If you don't like it, then all it follows is that you don't like it * [xkcd.com]; it's not like the reality changes because of that.
(now, wipe that foam on the corner of you mouth and sleep well: no Finnish people is going to attack your pantry tonight, nor will I)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 15 2015, @05:28PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2015, @10:21PM
inheritence has nothing to do with capitalism
wtf are you smoking dude?
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday July 17 2015, @08:52AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday July 15 2015, @01:46PM
Finland is also highly homogeneous (for every definition of that word) with almost no immigration. In fact, it is nigh impossible for you to do anything really different (like homeschooling your kid, or having your baby sleep in the same room as you so that you can keep an eye on him/her etc.) without social services banging on your door. It is not possible to live in Finland without learning Finnish. Sounds logical but this is a barrier for most educated people who already have learned C++ and Java. You end up with poor people who are emigrating to Finland for doing most of menial labor in the hope that their children seeing better future. Which is noble, but out of question for most people.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 15 2015, @05:46AM
The subprime mortgage economic meltdown.
Those mortgages were just about all done in the United States but even so the meltdown had global effect.
In 2009 there were 24,000 homeless people in Silicon Valley. At the Martin Luther King Jr. state library in San Jose, I used to see engineers with wheely suitcases sleeping in chairs with their heads on the tables.
During the summer of 2010 a lovely woman wearing a formal red evening gown, also toting a wheely suitcase approached me late at night in a bad part of Portland to ask for spare change. I gave her five dollars but would have bought her a meal in an all-night restaurant, but I was new in town so I didn't know where to find one.
Not one single banker has gone to prison.
The Federal judges are quite pissed off about this but it's up to the Federal prosecutors to do their damn jobs.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @10:00AM
Chris Thorne: Come on, death for running a stop sign?
J.P.: *And* for being a banker! That's the double death.
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102558/quotes?ref_=tt_ql_trv_4 [imdb.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @01:10PM
Why Have No Bankers Been Prosecuted Over 2008?
that's easy. it's the same reason no politician has been prosecuted over 2008... government corruption
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 15 2015, @06:54PM
But the government industrial complex wants it both ways. The government wants to protect certain players in exchange for back door dealings and they want those protected players to be the only ones able to decide who gets to work and who doesn't. The few that are chosen get paid and the many that are not chosen are desperate essentially giving the protected a wealth of desperate unemployed people to choose from whenever they need labor. People allowed to start their own business or work for themselves counteracts this attempt by the protected to enslave everyone. So the government must do everything they can to destroy small businesses and ensure that only those willing to pay for laws get to do business. That way those that aren't chosen (perhaps because they criticize this broken system) must both not be allowed to work for someone else and they must not be allowed to work for themselves and start their own business.