America's largest retailer will cover 100% of college tuition for its workers:
New York (CNN Business) Walmart will pay for full college tuition and book costs at some schools for its US workers, the latest effort by the largest private employer in the country to sweeten its benefits as it seeks to attract and retain talent in a tight job market.
The program includes 10 academic partners ranging from the University of Arizona to Southern New Hampshire University. Participants must remain part-time or full-time employees at Walmart to be eligible.
The company said Tuesday that it will drop a previous $1 a day fee paid by Walmart and Sam's Club workers who want to earn a degree and also begin covering the costs of their books. Around 28,000 workers participate in the program, which Walmart began in 2018. Walmart has around 1.5 million workers.
Well, blow me down, knock me over with a feather.
"We feel that eliminating the dollar a day investment removes the financial barriers to enrollment, and it will increase access," Lorraine Stomski, senior vice president of learning and leadership at Walmart (WMT), said on a call with reporters Tuesday.
Walmart also said it was adding four new academic partners, bringing the total to 10, and offering more degree and certificate options in areas like business administration, supply chain and cybersecurity.
Walmart has incentive to expand the program. Employees who have participated in the program are twice as likely to get promoted and are retained at a "significantly higher rate" than other workers, Stomski said.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @11:46AM (4 children)
told me about this days ago.
SoyLateyforlosers?
Editors....... some things are time dependent!
I think I will never give you $.....
I dare you to censor this.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Wednesday July 28 2021, @12:02PM (2 children)
What's supposed to be time dependent about this? It's not like the policy is going to end any day now and we've all missed the opportunity. And if your ex-wife is a better source of news than we are, maybe you ought to bother her instead of us?
Fortunately, SN doesn't need your $. Other people are willing to step up.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:31PM (1 child)
You have to love how a guy who is post limited by negative karma, who spams a bunch or AC spam and little freakout songs all over the place, is speaking on behalf of anyone. Tell these people here that you are claiming to represent, what other wonderful things you plan to speak on their behalf. You seem to also be representing the owners of the site too though.
You're a reject here, just like you're a reject in the physical world. The only difference when you're online is we can't smell the dry cum, the unwashed socks on the floor, and the BO. If anyone uses the site, which doesn't have ads, they should donate. Trolling ACs like myself and the OP included.
You don't speak on anyone's behalf except the mgtow society.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 29 2021, @03:40AM
I hope you don't speak like that in real life. Even while drunk.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:21PM
You could have submitted the story when you heard it, you silly shit. Wouldn't you be happier at the green site?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by turgid on Wednesday July 28 2021, @12:07PM (23 children)
In more enlightened times (post-WWII, pre-millennium) in the UK tertiary education used to be free for everyone who qualified. That meant university and technical college. I benefited from this, and did my parents. If it hadn't been for this, my family probably would never have lifted itself out of poverty. When my parents were students, not only was the education free, but you also got a maintenance grant towards food and accommodation.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 28 2021, @01:09PM
Still works like that in some parts of the planet.
You want to go to university? You can. Costs about 300 bucks a year to weed out those that just want to sign up because banks and other companies have "student benefits" like cheaper accounts and cheaper admission for something, but aside of that, you're in.
The net effect is that everyone and their dog wants to get a college/university education. The net effect of that is a dropout rate bordering on 90%. What gets out with a degree IS the best and brightest the country, and a couple countries around, has to offer.
Net effect for me: My degree is in pretty high regard with employers. If you can get a degree here, you ARE good.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:13PM (14 children)
Universities used to have admissions standards, now they're part ponzi scheme and part lunatic asylum awarding useless certificates in fictional subjects such as "gender studies" to mentally ill unemployables.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:57PM
Don't worry about them, they're not unemployable. We'll just create a bunch of jobs for them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:03PM (2 children)
Shock of my life was when I was a Teaching Assistant for a senior level course, you know: people about to leave with a degree in engineering... so, I'd give them assignments and if they showed any understanding of the material at all I would give them points for the question, generous points, like just showing some understanding gets you at least a C+, even an inkling a C-. So, my advisor who didn't speak English too well had a message for me from the Dean: I am failing too many students. I showed him the papers that earned Fs and he agreed, zero understanding demonstrated - a Freshman art history major could do as well, but after great angst he finally just blurted out "These are paying customers, if they show up they get at least a C." Oh, is that how it is? Yes, that is how it is.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @03:29AM (1 child)
The thing is, I'd almost be okay with this if everyone (employers, grad schools, etc.) is aware of school policies on this issue.
In this regard, colleges and universities are following in the tradition that rich college students benefitted from for generations. If you went to Harvard in the 1950s and just showed up, you got what was known as the "Gentleman's C." Pretty much everyone knew what that meant. But as Harvard was just a vehicle for getting laid at Wellesley and Radcliffe and then joining Daddy's NY business as an executive with a "degree," why not? Education wasn't really the point for those students -- who were a minority, but have always existed even at elite institutions.
Nowadays, to get a C at Harvard, you'd have to miss half the classes and half the exams or something. And maybe just "lightly" fail the rest. To get a D, you'd have to not attend a single class and maybe show up for the final. (True story: I had a friend who was a teaching fellow at Harvard -- too pretentious to call them TA's -- and they tried to fail a student who did this, i.e., didn't attend entire semester showed up the last couple weeks and wanted to get a grade in the class. So the prof and the TF failed him... and spent the next 18 months in litigation as the student sued both of them and Harvard.) To get an E (yeah, Harvard doesn't have F's), I'm pretty sure you have to commit an actual crime in a class.
So, the issue isn't exactly the "C" for effort, which has become common and now allows students to compete with the same thing the rich kids got. The issue is that now at elite schools minimum effort is more like the "Gentleman's B+". Seriously... look at the average grade a Ivy League classes sometime... it's generally like an A-minus. That's the "average."
I taught as a teaching assistant at one of these schools for a while too, and I often had to argue with the prof to give any student lower than a B+. No prof wants to be branded in the student guide as a harsh grader...
Yeah, that is how it is.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:23AM
On the flip side, the profs are Chinese garbage.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:22PM (9 children)
As for: unemployable, society might want to take a breath and reconsider the nature of competitive employment.
Consider the case of J, J tests out with an IQ of about 60, but he has good dexterity and can be delicate and careful when doing things like disassembling small engines. He can even clean the parts and sort them into bins as well as any other employee, but he lacks the capacity to reassemble engines and probably will never learn how.
As a society: do we employ J at a small engine repair business doing what he is good at: disassembly and cleaning? Even though he still needs other people to help him with customer interfacing, accounting, marketing, human resources, the general overhead of running the shop, engine re-assembly, and possibly transporting himself to and from work, his work doing disassembly saves an engine builder time and lets the engine builder build more engines than they could without his help. In this way J is contributing value, just as a receptionist, accountant, janitor, etc. contribute value to a small engine repair business even though they also cannot build engines. Or, do we put J on disability benefits, employing advocates for J to ensure he is getting the benefits he deserves from a byzantine system that people with an IQ of 160 still cannot make sense of? Not to mention J's quality of life is substantially better when he has useful work to do, and J is less likely to become a burden on society in other ways: depression, drug addiction, etc. Do we fire J at the first opportunity to hire a replacement who can also reassemble the engines?
If WalMart University degrees teach their employees how to voluntarily submit to the academic process (rather than being chased into school by truant officers) and reap quality of life increases as a benefit of such voluntary compliance, I don't give a damn what else they learn while earning their degree. Much like honorable discharge from the military: at least you know they have some capacity to follow orders and not screw up too badly, too frequently.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @08:33PM (8 children)
The IQ thing is silly.
I found this guy's youtube video interesting (though I've been saying the whole thing is silly from the beginning)
Mensa told me to Delete my IQ Video... - My IQ is Not 145 - Reasons + Legal Consequences?
Flammable Maths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-pVUvi7a4&t [youtube.com]
Basically Mensa asked him a bunch of questions before he started the test. One of the questions was something like his educational background. He had an extensive educational background but he could only select one option as an answer. So he asked and they told him to select the first one.
So he does a Youtube video and Mensa gets back to him and says that his IQ is not so high because his first educational background choice is not what he should have selected.
IOW, different people are held to different standards on the test. If you're educated in mathematics you will get a lower IQ if you perform the same as someone who has no education.
It could be that you got your degree in math partly because you are 'smart' or maybe partly because you work hard. Maybe one, maybe the other, maybe a combination of the two. Either way it kinda discredits the whole innate aptitude idea that IQ pretends to measure (To spell out why ... if you got it because you work hard then you didn't get it because of innate aptitude. If you got it because you are smart then what's the point of asking you your educational background before taking the test and holding you to a different standard based on your response).
The brain learns and adapts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @08:37PM (5 children)
(same poster)
The whole IQ thing is just an attempt by MENSA to find an excuse to collect fees from stupid people willing to pay those fees. If you are willing to pay their fees to prove how smart you are (and make them rich) then you are not very smart because you are basically wasting your money (but they're pretty smart for figuring out how to take your money).
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday July 28 2021, @10:33PM (4 children)
I bought a "Mensa quiz-a-day" book years ago as a fun collection of brain teasers. The back of the book includes each day's answer as well as the percentage of Mensa members that got the question right.
My analysis of those figures tells me that Mensa members tend to be very good at language-dependent puzzles and terrible at math. I strongly suspect that people join Mensa to prove to others they're smart when the modern "smart" measures (which are usually math-based) don't work for them. Compensation mechanism?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @11:10PM (3 children)
I think the problem with terms like 'smart' is that they're nebulous. Everyone has different aptitudes.
My dad used to be an Italian to Arabic translator. He had an IQ of 140 or something like that. He came to the U.S. at age 12. By the time he was in high school he won various spelling contests against native English speakers that only speak English despite English being like his third language. He's very literate and articulate with respect to how he formulates his sentences and he's great with things like history, has great navigational skills, mechanical skills (he used to build military airplanes for Northrop, he's good with tools and things), etc...
My dad can't do math for nothing (I've taken several semesters of calculus). Yet his English (and Arabic) capabilities are easily far superior to mine. He does those online word puzzles much faster than I do and easily ranks in the top three among thousands. That's hard.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. That's one of the issues with these IQ tests that I tend to have. Just like different processors are good at different things (CPU vs GPU vs ASIC, etc...) different people are good at different things. Some people may be great with musical instruments while others that are good at math suck at musical instruments. I don't think you can really say one is superior to another. I think the point is that humans are social creatures by nature, language is an advanced social construct and our language is far superior than those of other animals I would say (ie: our ability to write things down and record them and store and retrieve information). We work together to compensate for each other's weaknesses as a herd with everyone focusing on their strengths and allowing someone else to worry about what they are weak at. That's why corporations have different departments. A legal department with each department focusing on what it's good at while allowing the other departments to focus on what one department is bad at. No one skill is 'better' than another.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday July 29 2021, @12:30AM (1 child)
I agree. I just thought it interesting that a club that one joins just for the purpose of saying "I'm smart!" tends to be skewed to one particular type of smart and not another.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @02:04AM
You're basically paying a fee to join a group of self proclaimed geniuses. Count me out, I'm too smart to waste my money on such nonsense ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:30AM
> No one skill is 'better' than another.
My skill is trolling the internets. Where's my corporate department?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:13PM (1 child)
IQ sucks big stinking hairy balls, and does it poorly.
And, guess what is a primary threshold test for mental disability in the U.S.? An I.Q. below 70.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:53PM
Does it poorly? I think you mean that it does a good job at sucking ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @06:37PM
The part you gloss over is "qualify for." In America, there is a college willing to accept anybody that can pay. Parts of the country have extensive networks of open access colleges that can't turn anybody down.
If we didn't let anybody that wanted to go to college it would be far easier to get politicians to spend money on paying for elites to go to college.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @06:56PM (5 children)
The most populous state, in the US, California used to have free university education. Until, Ronald Reagan, as governor of California ended the program, after receiving the following advise, "An educated proletariat is dynamite. We have to be selective on who we allow to go through higher education..."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @07:23PM
Good Lord! Thanks for that text snippet.
Here is the DDG query so the rest of you don't have to type it in...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=An+educated+proletariat+is+dynamite.+We+have+to+be+selective+on+who+we+allow+to+go+through+higher+education [duckduckgo.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:16PM (2 children)
The people behind Ronnie were pure evil. I am eternally grateful that I live in the timeline where they got the USSR to blink, instead of obliterating the world. I believe I would be much happier living in the timeline where their cabal meeting was successfully targeted by assassins, I don't care who sent the assassins so long as they succeeded in taking out the puppet masters who brought us trickle down and the New World Order.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 29 2021, @08:21PM (1 child)
I've been saying Reagan was the mortal blow to the US for years, probably over a decade now, and getting told I was nuts. Looks like people are finally figuring it out. It just sucks because that senile fucking clownshoe was elected almost a decade before I was even born. My entire generation and the one that comes after don't have the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 29 2021, @08:31PM
That senile fucking clownshoe was an actor, a frontman, willing and all too able to push his masters' agendas even when they contradicted his own personal values. Disappointing, but all too common in our world.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:17PM
That doesn't surprise me at all.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @12:54PM (23 children)
Back in my day, my parents were assholes. My grades were good, but my parents kept buying bigger houses and more cars, while giving me zero spending money, and zero money for college. Because of their income, I didn't qualify for discounts or grants.
So my first 2 years of college (17-19, I graduated hs a bit early), I took out some loans. like 30k in loans I think, and 10k/year I had saving for, from working part time since I was 15 (and selling weed at school of course). So that was 40k in 2 years, and then I was in debt. But I knew how to code, I knew HP-UX and Solaris pretty well, so I applied to like 500 jobs, and went to like 50 interviews, and when I hit 20 I had a full time gig, making 55k in 1999. Pretty much every single company, including mine, and including the ones my older brother interviewed with, had tuition reimbursement up to 10k/year. Which is plenty to attend half time.
My younger brother now trades oil futures for a large brokerage, and needed to get a masters in math to move up the ladder. His company is paying for it. The catch is you have to stay I think 2 years after your degree, or you have to pay the company back. The incredibly shitty hospital I recently worked at pays for people's college as well. This makes me think it's still a common thing.
So, this wallymart announcement - I don't get it. They're announcing that.. Their program is limited to 10 schools, unlike everyone else's? So the announcement is that their program is shittier than other companies?
>and are retained at a "significantly higher rate" than other workers
yeah, no shit wal-sherlock. because if you don't stay after getting your degree, you have to pay them back tens of thousands in a lump sum. That's mostly why companies do tuition reimbursement.
On a similar note, I saw a commercial for Delta, maybe a decade ago, when I had several flights per week for work. Their ad was saying how they're the best out of the carriers, because you can check in online and don't need to wait in line. It saved you time you see, by printing your boarding pass at home. And the thing is, just like w/ this walmart announcement, some MBA actually sat there w/ a PR rep, and thought this was a good idea.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:18PM (17 children)
After reading your comments here, it's clear your parents did the right thing.
(Score: 0, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:28PM (15 children)
Yes, but have you also considered the right thing is pre-birth genetic testing, and abortion if autism is detected in an embryo? Otherwise, the child might brow up to be a middle-aged incel who creeps people out and spends all his days growing his porn collection and washing the asian rubber dolls he sexes. No mother wants to give birth to a meme, m'lady.
Of course, the other half of the day is spent refreshing open AC tabs to reply to people, and juggling VPN connections just to post a comment. This brings us back to the topic of the article. Not this article, the one about VPN. See you there stumpy.
But yes, parents instilling a nature vs nurture approach quite often does work, resulting in an adult that actually accomplishes something in life, as opposed to just watching porn and washing the rubber doll all day.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:29PM (6 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:35PM (5 children)
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Tork on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:19PM (4 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: -1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @08:03PM (3 children)
The fanclub is you and one more guy, with 10 accounts and 20 daily ac posts each. It's very clear one of you two is into anime, porn, and rubber dolls. If it's not you, I guess it's your other buddy.
>you have a fan club
The club name is Autistic Incels. You're the captain (top), and your buddy is the power bottom. When you can't get to each other in time, you both use the rubber doll. The Asian rubber doll, from your or your friend's previous comment.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Tork on Wednesday July 28 2021, @08:31PM (2 children)
Heh. I'm not your guy and you do have a rep.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Thursday July 29 2021, @12:08AM (1 child)
>I'm not your guy
Right, that's why I said you're a power bottom.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday July 29 2021, @12:11AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @12:47AM (3 children)
Here's the dickhead in erection. Again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @01:02AM (2 children)
Oh my fucking God. Dear Lord who talks like that. You are living proof that porn damages the brain. Half the comments you make are awkward and about sex, clearly from someone who has never had any. What's on the plate for today - chicks with dicks or cartoons? A rubber doll perhaps?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:42AM (1 child)
Yo momma. Too easy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @11:15PM
it takes a bottom of the barrel incel to brag about sex with a grandmother. which is a step up from his usual fucking dolls.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 29 2021, @01:48AM (3 children)
Sounds like your parents didn't have any trouble with that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @02:49AM (2 children)
Correct. My parents didn't have the trouble with giving birth to a meme. Glad you agree and can at least sometimes read English.
I'm getting spammed with notifications from these long shit on the dork threads, so enjoy the convenient "post as ac" box from now on. It does mean I won't see your replies after the first one, but at least I won't get spammed with notifications. So kinda a one-way shit. Like the love you have with your rubber doll. She don't love you back dork. Sorry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @01:43PM (1 child)
Oh, but how will we know it was you that posted that, dickhead? You suddenly aren't proud of what you're saying anymore?
Doesn't get you enough satisfaction? Maybe it's a good time for you to try anal sex, see how you like it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 29 2021, @08:23PM
I get the impression that, for this guy, there's no anatomical distinction between anal and oral sex. Like some kind of freaky echinoderm, except if you cut him to pieces he probably wouldn't regenerate.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @06:39PM
It wouldn't be an issue if funding didn't assume that parents would kick in a certain amount without them being legally required to. If your parents refuse, then you have to personally fund the money as the feds assume they'll be willing and able to contribute.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:31PM (1 child)
>> Back in my day, my parents were assholes.
After reading your comments here, it's clear that Gregor Mendel was right.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:46PM
After reading your two comments here, it's clear you are alone. So so alone. Forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:34PM (2 children)
Wow! That's wild... So you really have absolutely no idea of what life was like before Reagan, aside what you read in history class.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:53PM (1 child)
It's wild and amazing to you that most people alive on earth today don't have memories of the 1970s? Are you amazed when you see a driver's licence? How about chicken - when you see someone eating it, does it bedazzle you that chicken is something they eat?
You seem to be using a phone or a computer since you're posting online. Wow! That's sowild man...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @05:15PM
Yeah, it's prolly why dey (and you) so ig'nant!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:39PM (41 children)
America was betrayed by every asshole who pushed us into this "service economy". And Walmart was well positioned to take advantage of that betrayal.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @02:50PM (39 children)
America was also betrayed when businesses realized they could exploit the lowest class of workers who were powerless to fight back.
In times past, almost any real job you could get would pay you enough to survive.
Now these exploitation businesses all have signs hanging out which say "NOW HIRING!". Then they complain that nobody wants to work. Bzzzzt. Wrong. Nobody wants to be exploited. After 2020 people realized that they could starve and be poor at home without working just as well as starving and being poor while working.
Boo hoo! They will have to pay people a living wage. Just like businesses once did. Because it's good for society not to have homeless people doing their business on the sidewalk.
On topic: It's nice to see business either pretending or perhaps actually taking an interest in having educated workers. Even if the workers don't stay long term, it is an investment in society. It raises everyone's boats. These people will become
K-martWalmart shoppers. They need to be able to afford Walmart's low, low prices, have a couch, a tv, and beer.The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:17PM (9 children)
Maybe the government should stop paying people sitting at home.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:52PM (5 children)
I would rather have people sitting at home paid by the government, than out on the streets begging, defecating, burglarizing and worse.
I would rather have businesses paying even more than the government, which would get most of those people back to work. Working with pride at being able to actually support themselves along with a goldfish they can later dump into a lake.
Very large McCorporations have gotten used to exploiting the lowest class of workers on a large scale. Now they're crying that the workers aren't having it any more.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @05:36PM (3 children)
Some of what happened in the pandemic modifications of welfare was that the "must be seeking work" requirements were dropped. So, now instead of being forced to be under-employed to receive taxpayer paid benefits, they can get similar benefits without showing up to a shitty job, with a shitty boss who knows that they have to be there or they'll be spanked by the welfare office.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @06:00PM (2 children)
What would it be like if you could work for a company and the company would treat you well if you did a good job.
If you weren't treated like a robot with a value less than the office furniture.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday July 28 2021, @06:23PM
Robots are generally expensive pieces of valuable machinery. These companies are used to treating people like toilet paper.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @08:41PM
I'm in a Fortune 200 corp with 100,000 employees, they actually treat us fairly well - people who leave mostly leave due to lack of challenges. My previous boss here got labeled "a bad cultural fit" so they slashed his report count from 16 to 4 and gave him basically no responsibilities. He spent the next three years looking around for the best opportunity for himself before resigning. Nobody told him he had to leave - the writing was sort of on the wall, but 3 years receiving full pay and benefits in exchange for just not making waves? Pretty good deal. They do tend to be a little cautious hiring in at the bottom, making most people do internships and/or contractor positions for a year or two before taking them on full time - I mean, the full time positions are open and interviewed on the market, but if there's a contractor or intern around who fits the position they've got a pretty good chance of getting it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30 2021, @05:19AM
Leave San Francisco out of this!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:21PM (2 children)
I swear some people in this country won't be happy until they're actually mugged in a grocery store parking lot over food. Not money, FOOD.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @05:40PM (1 child)
Insightful, I wish I had mod points.
That's what some people seem to want.
Here's an even worse prediction: being mugged for water. A drop of water to drink at premium prices.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:53AM
Water? They sit in their tents drinking alcohol. A luxury product. They should be shining shoes for pennies, maybe work their way up to street sweeper in a few decades.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:13PM (6 children)
Mostly agree there, but -
People like Mitt Romney who built a fortune on moving American tech and industry from the US to China are a thing. Corporations have always exploited whoever and whatever they could get away with. Romney and others were supposed to represent their constituent's interests, not whore themselves to the corporations.
An amusing angle on this is, 'Zumi accuses me of voting against my own best interests. The thing is, I've spent the last 40 years watching America vote against it's best interests. Globalism isn't all bad, but it is most certainly not working to the average American citizen's benefit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @05:45PM (5 children)
Capitalism run amok.
I think (maybe) capitalists had a conscience, cared about people other than themselves. Maybe even their employees, to some extent. And cared about their country. Now it's all about me. How much can I profit. Don't care if the country goes down the tubes, if I can profit from it doing so.
But people still scream deregulation.
I wouldn't blame Globalism. I would blame the people who would sell out their own country's interests, exploit their employees, everyone, so they could make even more money than they'll ever be able to spend.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @06:49PM (2 children)
People scream deregulation because of the flagrant and predatory abuse of the regulatory system by established political interests. Don't get me wrong, having a functional society requires well thought out and strictly enforced regulation, but malicious regulation can be worse than no regulation at all.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday July 29 2021, @01:59AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:57AM
We have lobbyists writing the laws. What now?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:02PM (1 child)
Is that a challenge? Cause it sounds like a challenge. A challenge a WuTang album could help with...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:13PM
What kinds of rich genius uberlord could afford such a treasure?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:20PM (1 child)
It's not just the pay. I should also like not to be treated as an inferior human, with contempt. Not be gaslighted, bullied, and reduced to a totally dependent, helpless slave, pushed to rig my life with so much debt that it all comes crashing down the moment I lose the income from the job. Nor be harassed, sexually or otherwise. Nor blackmailed, nor asked to falsify records and test results and break the law, and then, take the fall while the lying scumbag upper managers walk away free muttering about rogue employees and that they never actually told anyone to break any rules, which is technically true, but they did put underlings in the horrible position of having to cheat to meet the goals and not lose their jobs, and made it clear in a very deniable unwritten way, that they expected the employees to use any means necessary, including, yeah, lying and cheating.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:59AM
Ah, you mean the kind of guy favored by 43% of the population?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:30PM (19 children)
See, right there, that's where we went soft and the whole shithouse went up in flames. Days gone by, if you didn't have a job you feared homelessness, being out on the street, at the mercy of murderers and thieves if not wild animals in the woods. Bring back that threat of homelessness and get the lazy slobs off their ass and running again, idle hands are the Devil's workshop. If they're that poor, they're probably troublemakers at their core so make sure they need to work 70+ hours a week (to avoid the murderers, thieves and wild animals) so they don't have the time or energy to cause too much trouble. Also, keep a ready supply of expensive addictive drugs available to them so any spare change they might save gets sunk there - keeps 'em hungry you know. And if they resort to crime to feed those habits, well that's why the police carry firearms - plus spares to plant to prove self defense don'cha know?
/s
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @05:47PM (16 children)
Maybe people want a living wage. Something the lowest class of employees once had.
If you are unwilling to pay someone enough to even survive, then why should they work?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @08:34PM (15 children)
/s for end of sarcastic rant.
I believe the U.S. could (and should) easily afford a "not quite livable" UBI on the order of $500-600 per person per month. At that rate, nobody starves, nobody sleeps outside unless they choose to, and most anybody can make a decent living if they work a bit.
I'd even go so far as to lower or abolish the minimum wage once reliable UBI is in place for all citizens. If people want to volunteer, that's their choice. I think the current situation shows: if employment isn't sufficiently attractive, employers are going to need to up their game. If employers can find all the volunteers they need without paying people, great - though the employer will be on the hook for liability to employees for workplace safety etc. Going to need to fix healthcare insurance to make this work, but with the basic costs of living covered, people can work because they want to, not because they fear starvation, exposure, or worse: the SSA office.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:21PM (14 children)
I think if you had UBI without a minimum wage, the employers would exploit the workers by not paying them a living wage. They would basically make the minimum wage close to zero.
There should be some bump up in lifestyle from bare essentials of UBI to being employed in the lowest class of jobs. UBI is not supposed to be so employers can make wages even lower. Therefore existing minimum wage would still be necessary.
I would also point out that the more money people have in their pockets, the better businesses do in general.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:45PM (3 children)
I think it would be a very interesting social experiment. Who's going to show up for a job that pays almost nothing? What kind of workers will management have to deal with, always late or forgetting their shifts altogether, telling their management to piss off at any little disagreement - seems like it would be in the employers' best interest to make the job appealing, whether that's a paycheck or other benefits that people wouldn't want to lose. If you are at the animal shelter that benefit can be playing with the puppies, but if it's serious "need people to stock the shelves" type work, I think they're going to have to come up with something that will be benefiting the workers outside of work or they're going to find that people prefer busking on the corner, or staying home to help the kids with their homework, or any one of a thousand things that people actually value more than work but they do the work because they have to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday July 28 2021, @11:08PM (2 children)
Interns.
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Those whose parole conditions require them to have employment
Anyone who has drunk the kool-aid of "The Land of Opportunity!"
There are and will be plenty of people willing to work for zero or next to zero. If you allow them to, corporations will screw these people over as hard as possible, and it will be your tax dollars that are keeping them fed, clothed and housed.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 29 2021, @02:05AM
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires know better than to work for nothing, if they don't they are permanently embarrassed millionaires.
I suppose that Uber Lyft and independent truck drivers have demonstrated that people will work for little or no margin with no prospects for advancement, and we might need to guard against people paying with their UBI to their so called employer for the privilege of saying "do you want fries with that?" for them. Still, I think counseling for people with that problem would probably be sufficient to protect most of the population from volunteering for employer abuse, but maybe not for more complicated schemes like using their own vehicle for hire at net loss rates.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 29 2021, @01:51PM
Shirley, those who are embarrassingly rich, and who embarrass themselves by exploiting others to an extent that makes them famous, have the means to sooth their embarrassment.
Forget about developing that BE-4 rocket engine that ULA is depending on. Decide instead to be the captain of every future 90 second suborbital space joyride for the super rich on your New Shepard rocket.
This post should not be inferred to mean that I am referring to any specific particular individual embarrassing billionaire.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @10:26PM (9 children)
In general, yes. The problem with something as fundamentally different as a UBI is that it represents change, a lot of change - even if it's a change for the better for most people, including most business owners, is it a clear change for the better for the people who currently have power (in other words: lots of money)? If they don't see it as a clear change for the better _for them_ they will use their power to enforce the status quo. That's sort of the root of conservatism: the people who like things the way they are generally include the people with the most power to choose to change things or enforce the status quo, so guess how those people with the power lean? Then there's the sad aspect of human nature, even if all boats rise together, are the bottom boats getting closer to the top boats? The top boats hate it when that happens and have worked very successfully for the last 50 years to ensure that they are ever more separated from the bottom boats, regardless of whether all boats are rising or falling.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 29 2021, @02:25AM (8 children)
I think better evidence for the sad aspect of human nature is the envy that people who are doing quite well, but not billions of dollars well, bring to threads like this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 29 2021, @02:50AM (7 children)
It's not envy, it's fact. I had opportunity to swim in that pool, too much syphilitic piss in it for my taste. I'm quite happy with my life, but see how the widening of the wealth gap is bad for everyone - even the people on top in the long term.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:04AM (6 children)
I tend to think they overlap in this thread.
Who cares about the hypothetical top boats who are concerned that bottom boats might be getting too close? You do. That's a fact. What's particularly ridiculous about that narrative is the fact that the bottom boats just aren't trying to catch up to the top boats (in fact - we have studies that show a majority of such people not even trying to save enough money to cover [cnbc.com] $1000 emergency expenditures), nor in your narrative does the bottom actually catch up with the top. So we have the lower neither trying nor succeeding at catching up to the top boats. So how is that supposed to appear as something that would concern top boats concerned about keeping ahead?
The narrative just doesn't make sense unless of course, you're just more concerned about the imaginary top boats holding everyone down than helping the bottom boats. I think that emotional attitude is best labeled as envy.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 29 2021, @04:35AM (1 child)
Forget where I saw it, but recently a social worker added up how much one of their homeless clients spent on drugs every year, and it totaled up at a street value of around $180,000. (Mostly paid for by daily thefts.)
Some of the boats at the bottom are self-scuttling.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:20PM
Not just self-scuttling. They scuttle $180,000 of other peoples' boats each, every year. Maybe we should fix the problem.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 29 2021, @12:34PM (3 children)
The top boats aren't hypothetical, they exist and that is the net effect of their behavior - fact.
By the way: the top boats to be concerned about aren't the Bezos, Branson, Buffet, Gates, Musk, et. al. - those are the shiny poster boys. The top boats that are sinking the world are the ones who push the U.S. to invade Iraq for advantage in the oil industry, the ones who push fake news for decades to perpetuate fossil fuel use, the ones who encourage class, culture and racial tensions manipulating things like Brexit to happen. There are a tremendous number of these "boats" that care nothing but advancing themselves up the pyramid, and they're willing to do whatever - including towing you up a little distance - as long as they get the bulk of the profits.
Just one area of example: investment in smaller companies. Small companies struggle, but if they are positioned correctly for a pump and dump to work there's an endless supply of "money men" who will pump a few million into the company as long as the deal is structured such that they can pull out once they've made a net profit, usually upwards of 50% of their investment. Every such deal that was proposed to our small company was structured such that the investors took less risk than the company, and the company was guaranteed to take away significantly less cash than the investors' profit. But, when you're a struggling little company, what are your options when someone comes along and offers you net $1-2M in exchange for them taking away 3-5x as much profit and all you have to do is screw your existing shareholders through massive (and surprisingly, sometimes not so massive) dilution? After all, the shareholders are looking at a blowout loss if you don't raise capital somehow... In the micro picture: the investors "helped out a struggling company" but in the macro picture, all the new (naive, unsuspecting) open market investors have funneled 75+% of their new stock purchase money to the sharks who walk away to try to repeat their win in yet more pump and dumps, or whatever similar schemes are working this decade. This is pure funneling of more power into the hands of those who already have an unusually high amount of it, and the things that people on this "ladder up" will do to allow themselves to keep climbing benefit noone but themselves.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Thursday July 29 2021, @06:08PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:24PM (1 child)
Dude what are you talking about? He's trying to talk to you about boats.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 30 2021, @03:00AM
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 29 2021, @01:04AM (1 child)
Which is a good thing, given that the shithouse was taking the place for a decent house being build.
A good thing too it went down without flames, shit on fire is toxic.
BTW, your /s seems to have gotten unobservered. Maybe next time start a rant with <sarcasm level="max"> when you feel like ranting for longer than what the goldfish memory of modders can fit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:27PM
<sarcasm>
Is this thing on? Ahh, feel the snark... yep, works like a charm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28 2021, @09:51PM
Walmart did originate in Arkansas, much like the Clintons. Nothing good ever comes out of Arkansas!
(Score: 1, Troll) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:18PM (4 children)
Advanced cash register jockey?
Front door greeting attendant?
Floor mopping specialist?
Toilet cleaning engineer?
So they found a cheaper college than U of Phoenix or something? Cuz you can be sure as hell they ain't doing it for the employers' benefit alone.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 28 2021, @03:53PM (1 child)
Doctor of advanced gender studies.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:29PM
*Except men.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 28 2021, @04:33PM (1 child)
The theory goes that the rare few who make it through night school all the way to getting a degree have demonstrated sufficient BS tolerance to consider for management positions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 29 2021, @10:34PM
American college (at least from what I've seen at grad level in the sciences) is basically military school without the physical component. Yes Professor, No Professor, Right Away Professor. I wonder if liberal arts is any different? Or is it the influx of indentured foreigners under the kosh of a visa that allow Profs to get away with their shit?