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On Tuesday, August 4th, Neflix announced on their blog that they would begin offering new parents a progressive parental leave policy:
...Today we're introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child's birth or adoption.
The Boston Globe picked up the story earlier today and compared Netflix's new policy to Google's, which offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave and 12 weeks of "baby bonding" time. The Boston Globe also notes:
The US and Papua New Guinea are the only countries among 185 nations and territories that hadn't imposed government-mandated laws requiring employers to pay mothers while on leave with their babies, according to a study released last year by the United Nations' International Labor Organization.
This new policy "covers all of the roughly 2,000 people working at [Netflix's] Internet video and DVD-by-mail services, according to the Los Gatos, California, company."
However, not all media voices are pleased with this change. Suzanne Venker, author of the recent book The Two-Income Trap: Why Parents Are Choosing To Stay Home, writes for Time :
Offering new parents full pay for up to one year is akin to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The needs of children are huge, and they do not end at one year. On the contrary, they just begin. Taking a year off of work to meet those needs merely scratches the surface.
What does Soylent think? Should companies offer new parents lengthy paid leave after they bring a new bundle of joy into the world, or do generous policies do more harm than good?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday August 06 2015, @06:02PM
growing up (60's and 70's) it was taught to us that you should EXPECT to own a house. if you have a reasonable job/income, you should be able to buy a house.
one thing I hate about being a renter: there is no security in it! each year, I have to worry if the landlord is going to raise the rent or even renew me. and if they don't renew me, I have 30 or maybe 60 days to find a new place, which means 'stop everything!' and make that your #1 prio. its a lot of stress and if you are picky about what kind of place you live in (quiet, safe, no shared walls, etc) then you have quite a job ahead of you to find a new place.
even worse, if you happen to be out of work (like I am right now) and if your lease is not being renewed, you are ROYALLY SCREWED! at least in the bay area. not a single landlord will rent to you, even if you have a good amount of savings, if you are not employed RIGHT NOW. does not matter if you've held stable jobs or if your occupation has times where you are between jobs. landlords will not bother with you and there were 30 people competing for the place I'm in now (!) and with that competition, they don't want to deal with people out of work (right now). you can be homeless if the timing is wrong.
the US is fucked. we really truly are. if it has not happened to you, you have been lucky or have not lived long enough to have it happen to you. yet.
renting sucks. and having to live with strange rules by strange landlords is no fun, either.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2015, @06:23PM
Renting is a matter of tradeoffs.
How long do you plan to stay? Do you mind giving equity to someone else for that period.
I currently own. I also paid it off ASAP (8 years). I now have well over 200k in equity and no payment. I live basically for 'free' in my house. The day I paid it off was like giving myself a 1500 dollar per month raise. I doubled my net income with that one move. At the time I bought I was paying 900 a month (a figure that was set to go up 50). That was 15 years ago. That means I would have given someone 160k in equity and still have to find a place to live. For basically 100k I bought a place to live AND have 200k in equity. At the 1200 the place is asking for today that would be about 90 months from today that I paid extra. I pay a dude 50 bucks a month to mow my yard it looks like a putting green. I only pay for it because he is a master at it. I can do it myself but looks 'crummy'.
My ROI was years ago.
For anything longer than 2-3 years you are almost always better off buying. If that option is not available because of the price of land there then you should not live there. You can not afford it. You never will unless you come into lottery money (and that is stupid rare).
I am looking at the high end of 800k in total assets right now. When I started I had 4k in cash to my name and 2k in student debt. I *always* buy if I can. Then use the hell out of it (my car is 14 years old and I bought it new). At worst I have to resell it. Buy used, then resell, you usually ROI very quickly on everything.
People who advocate renting always make simple chores look like infomercial level drama problems. They are not that bad. Just consider it a ROI problem.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 06 2015, @06:48PM
That doesn't really work out so well. There are no rent controls in most markets and developers aim for the top income earners leaving everybody else to fend for themselves over a dwindling number of units. The only places where that isn't happening tend to be places that are dieing. No jobs or poor quality jobs and people not wanting to move there. Think places like Detroit where there's few people moving in and people who have a chance elsewhere are taking it.
Around here, moving out of the city limits introduces a gap. I can get a bus pass for about $100 a month for most of my transportation or I can be paying $400 or more for the cost of owning a car. If I move out of the city limits, I would have to own a car, which means that the savings that I'd have by moving would largely evaporate. And as more and more people are priced out of the local market they have to move somewhere, and you wind up having to move further and further away in order to make it affordable.
What really needs to happen is that there needs to be some rent control enacted. There's a vicious cycle where landlords raise their rents and then find people willing to pay, so they raise invest in things that will further increase the amount they can ask the few people remaining to pay. Without some form of rent control, you see that go and go until only the well off can afford to pay and everybody else has to live far away. Around here, we've had decades of people from California moving in and paying too much money for real estate driving the prices up. Many of the apartments that existed when I was a child are now condos and there's more interest in building condos than in building apartments.
It just makes for a shit situation. And this is becoming the norm in places that actually have a growing economy and jobs.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Alfred on Thursday August 06 2015, @07:00PM
I am a sucker for the marketing of my youth and haven't grown past it.(do you still want to paint your car like the Dukes of Hazard too?)
It is the failure of the "system" that I don't have a house.
I make more than my dad but don't realize that means nothing, because inflation.
I am out of work but refuse to change my lifestyle and reduce expenditures by moving somewhere else.
If I am forced to move, because I am unemployed, it will get in the way of something I am doing all day, which isn't a job.
The US is screwed because it doesn't cater to my expectations.
I don't like the renting paradigm but refuse to make the effort to change.
The system is broken. (Well yes but not why you think it is.)
60 and 70 year olds with bad planning are proof of something unrelated.
Dude! You are unemployed and single, you don't need a house, go live in a van with a membership to a health club and a PO Box. Pinch your pennies. Optimize for your situation and be flexible. If you are stubborn your funds will disappear faster and life is stressful. Stop drinking expensive coffee. Be responsible for yourself.
Now, maybe, you have done some or all of that but quit your entitled whining and do something. Maybe I have misjudged you (I know your internet comments are not a comprehensive biography) but I am trying to make a point. Humans have thousands of years of civilized living and complaining about whatever they could. The happy ones are not the whiners.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Friday August 07 2015, @02:22AM
we don't have the time or space to go into the details, but you really don't know much about me and your 'ideas' are borderline offensive.
I do blame the country. we are supposed to increase our standard of life as generations progress. it WAS the american dream and for decades, it was a reality.
the ceo's and governments all got together, decided to burn the country down (slowly) and that was the start of the end.
you ask me to live like a dog. I'm highly offended by that. I paid my dues, I paid my taxes, I worked all my life, got good grades, did my time in companies and yet I have nothing to really show for it. you really think its my fault that the country has screwed the middle class?
damn. you're harsh.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linuxrocks123 on Friday August 07 2015, @07:46AM
I disagree with you that the Illuminati got together and decided to form a cartel to destroy America. But that's not important. What's important is that blaming the country is not going to fix the situation you're unhappy about, because you can't fix the country. Vote for whoever, sure, but realize that you really can't fix things on your own unless you want to go into politics. And even then, you'll have limited power.
What you can do is try to get a job quickly and to adjust your expenses as much as possible in the meantime. No one is asking you to "live like a dog" - except maybe the OP, or maybe he was exaggerating; it's hard to tell. But yeah, cutting Starbucks while you're out of the job is not a bad idea.
If you have nothing to really show for decades of work, you are doing something wrong. Real wages haven't grown for the bottom 80% of the population, but they haven't really gone down either, nonsense about 2-income families being mandatory aside. Maybe you should look into accepting a longer commute or working in an area with a lower cost of living.
I'm not "blaming" you for your situation -- I don't know your situation and I don't know you. I am only saying that you have more power to change your own life than to change the economic system of the US. It's probably more productive for you to spend your time fixing your life rather than railing against all the people you think are messing it up.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Friday August 07 2015, @01:43PM
yes and yes. To quote myself:
Some people don't see options. I have used these examples with others so I am not picking on you by design. Someone in a big house may not realize they can downsize so I say "live in a van" as an extreme hoping they get the idea they could do with a smaller house or even an apartment. For your specific case in the bay area you are probably already paying for an overpriced tiny apartment.
All the statements are given to be like a slap to the brain to think a little different and realize there are possibilities not considered before. Maybe I should have toned down the hyperbole to be less offensive. But I don't know you, maybe the hyperbole was needed. When I feel cornered in my options I need an outside view to expand my view sometimes.
Yes it is nonsense. It is perfectly possible to live comfortably on a single income in a normal family. This is a case where the way to beat the system is to not play its game and its rules are 2 incomes to keep more money moving so they can make more money off of you. No one says you have spend money but they are experts at suckering you into it. To do a single income with a family you just have to adjust your expectations accordingly. If you try to run your Honda with the dragsters you will always come out behind.
Financial planning has not been taught or sought much in this country. This gives an advantage to those who do know finances. The only wholesale outlet of good financial advice I know of is Dave Ramsey. I could only listen to his show for a week before I got it but everyone should do that.