No offence taken, and I don't mind the pushback. I would note that my opinions have formed over the last twenty years or so between experience and a lot of reading. My thoughts on a UBI are a bit sarcastic, I'll admit, but I continue to be annoyed by what I see as a lot of unnecessary income disparity, and sorry, a lot of it WAS juiced b…
No offence taken, and I don't mind the pushback. I would note that my opinions have formed over the last twenty years or so between experience and a lot of reading. My thoughts on a UBI are a bit sarcastic, I'll admit, but I continue to be annoyed by what I see as a lot of unnecessary income disparity, and sorry, a lot of it WAS juiced by Bush II's tax cuts.
Amazon's lousy working conditions have been well-documented, although I don't doubt there are some happy workers and perhaps decent warehouses there somewhere. But I've had a more jaundiced opinion of them since reading about CamperForce, which looks an awful lot like Amazon taking advantage of folks who lost everything in the Great Financial Meltdown, created by those at the top and who didn't suffer or go to jail for it.
Since then, other investigative pieces have demonstrated the lousy working conditions there, and while I'm sure Jeff Bezos worked hard initially, I'm quite sure he's not working nearly as hard as his factory workers, and much of that is wheeling and dealing and board meetings. He's not in the warehouses getting actual shit moved from one place to another, having to pee in a bottle because he's not allowed proper bathroom breaks. I've often wished there was a way to disguise him so he could work in his own warehouse for a couple of weeks under Amazon conditions, but there's no way you could disguise those offset eyes, everyone would know him immediately.
Wal-Mart has done better in recent years, and I didn't know that about backing the single payer system; how are they doing on providing healthcare for their workers, most of whom, a few years ago, couldn't afford it? Let's remember, Walmart 'helped' them navigate various parts of the welfare system they'd need to survive since, back then, Walmart was paying shit after driving out the better-paying businesses out of business. I also remember reading an article several years ago - back in the '00s - about how lousily they treated their vendors who were essentially breaking even on doing business with Walmart, but they didn't dare *not* do business with them because if they didn't, their competitors will. I'm not quite sure how that would benefit their competitors - how much business can you afford to do with a #1 customer and only be breaking even? Maybe no one thought to break their competitors by refusing to do business with Walmart unless the latter agreed to a more equitable deal.
However, in recent years I acknowledge they've raised their wages (which meant everyone else could do the same) and also, lesser-known, Walmart underwent a large sustainability makeover several years ago, implemented efficient recycling and and waste treatment, better practices at the stores, and saved about $400M which benefits the environment. I've never forgotten that about them.
The fact is, wages have remained stagnant for decades for the lower and middle classes, and the middle one is disappearing. In the wake of the Great Financial Meltdown the class formerly known as middle slipped into poverty, with a rise in all the pathologies associated with the lower classes - a rise in domestic violence, divorces, criminal activity, and substance abuse. The very rich on Wall Street benefited mightily from the meltdown, and no one went to prison for it. Speaking of not going to prison, that reminds me of Trump. It's interesting he never released his financial records as president, so no, we *don't* know what he's paying or not, but I'd guess not much since he supposedly wasn't paying anything for years after one of his many bankruptcies. Although I doubt that's the reason why he won't release them - too many far more embarrassing, and likely illegal revelations there. If there's one thing many of us have learned about the rich, it's that the more they earn, the less likely they are to want to pay for anything, and Trump was famous for that during his real estate years in NYC.
Ever read the book "Bullshit Jobs" based on the viral essay of a few years ago? Very eye-opening and not specifically an indictment of the rich - more so just an overall poorly-structured economic system in which the most vital, necessary jobs pay the least. What if no one wanted to make a janitor's low wages? What if there needed to be a revolving schedule of various employees' turn to clean the restrooms? Why are teachers paid shit to educate future generations and so much more paid to entertainers like sports athletes and rock musicians? Not to diss those careers, but if we can afford to pay Michael Jordan millions we can afford to pay a teacher liveable wages AND maybe even support them with school budgets for something other than armed guards and defensive shooting training for teachers. I laughed as the BJ book dinged the financial services industry for being largely a bullshit industry, which has been my opinion since my last office job where our target market was big financial institutions. For a year and a half I scrutinized all the big players in North America and realized just how much of a scam so much of it is - nothing productive, just shifting money around for people high enough in the system, and there you don't have to even be a middle manager for that to happen. I think about 20% of what FIs do is truly vital - we do need a place to keep our money, buy insurance, get loans, support for entrepreneurship, pay America's labour force - but the rest of it is sheer horse shit and everyone knows it. The games bankers played with CDSs and ARMs led to the financial collapse and even *they* didn't understand the financial 'products' they were selling to clueless investors, with various 'tranches' of crap investments bundled in and buried so deep the sellers themselves didn't know what was there and didn't want to know. Just sell sell sell to the next chump.
As far as progressive taxation goes, I'd be in favour of one that scales back maybe a little less the more you make. You don't want to be taking like 50% of someone's pay or net worth - that's counterproductive. But for sure if you an afford a rocket ship, you can afford to pay more in taxes. America is very good to many of its citizens regardless of the carping that goes on about inequality - some of it coming from folks who just aren't trying hard enough (and I'm not thinking about any 'group' specifically - self-inflicted underachieving is a universal human sport). But I also don't think there should be a max on taxation - the more you make, the more you pay, but your taxes don't go up as much as they did several hundred million or a few billion ago.
BTW "Bullshit Jobs" has a great description of what a fucking waste of productivity much of the California entertainment industry is - how people are making huge sums of money literally doing little more than lunching with each other, (and expensing it), discussing a few putative business issues, and then going home to swim in the pool. It's amazing how little time is actually spent by so many of these people on creating better content, although obviously someone somewhere is doing it, as Netflix has produced many high-quality TV and movies in the last fifteen years that get a lot of kudos (I don't subscribe to even basic cable, so apart from one summer with Netflix several years ago, I don't read and hear about them).
I'm curious as to what you've read that you think might change my mind. I'm open to that. I'd especially like to read what you've got on how the wealthy work longer and more stressful hours than the hoi polloi. I'd like to know more about them.
Also, open to better/differing opinions on the UBI idea. Conservatives are skeptical of it, some of their skepticism is questionable but some of it isn't (particularly the idea that some people will coast. I disagree with them on why but I've seen it myself so I support 'strings attached' to make sure people are working to become or become again productive members of society).
Sources: Preferably middle of the road, neither super right-wing nor super left-wing.
Hmm. There's a lot of material there, some of which I agree with and some of which I question. Let's take on some pieces; addressing everything would be a huge essay and many hours of work.
---
I read the Wired story at your link, and did not find it as terrible as you perceive. The writer says she spent months interviewing Amazon workers (and mentions working for a week at a warehouse, tho perhaps she also worked other times?). From that, she chose a handful of people for the article. Are they representative, or selected for some other reason?
I'm mildly skeptical of the framing "taking advantage of folks who lost everything in the Great Financial Meltdown". The lead couple lost 100% of their investments ($250K and $200K) according to the article. I and my friends all lived through that too, but nobody lost anything close to 100% on invested money. How does that happen, unless one is investing in a very high risk/high gain option? It says that he believed that a $250,000 investment would yield $4000/mo (or $48K/yr, about 20% per year). Sound like a good, safe investment to you? Anyway, it's sad if he was given to think that was guaranteed and safe, and I would be happy to have any fraud investigated in that regard.
So they hit the road, broke. They had trouble finding work, until they encountered Amazon's seasonal work, which sounds like it proved a godsend in terms of better employment than they found elsewhere, although it was hard work with long hours. Some picker jobs involved a lot of walking, but according to the article that is changing as robotics handle more of the long distance stuff. Eventually, Amazon will likely automate more and more of the work, reducing their human labor needs, so that folks like the Stouts will have to do without Amazon seasonal jobs - will that be a boon to them?
Is that really such a horror story? Have you ever worked construction or in a factory? Or is your norm for comparison set by white collar work? It sounds like pretty much all of the jobs I had until I worked my way into computers, and which I'd still have been working had I not. It's unfortunate that they are doing that at a more advanced age, but is that Amazon's fault?
Before you answer, remember that the article involves selectivity. Go to indeed.com and look for what Amazon warehouse workers are paid today, and compare that to the local wages for equivalently skilled workers in those locations. I was seeing wages in the $16-25/hr range around the country (where minimum wage varies from $7.25 to $16ish).
What I'm driving at is: we can select stories of people who have suffered personal losses, and then contrast that with companies which paid above market wages yet it was still not enough. Does that justify singling out the company as a particular evil doer, in the mind of the reader juxtaposing selected people who suffered losses not (fully) their own fault, and a company (not responsible for previous losses) which is not making things right for them by paying them sufficiently above prevailing wages. It sets up the reader to think badly about the company, but I think unfairly so.
Criticizing the entire system of market based labor rates might be more appropriately targeted (tho such criticisms also need to be examined of course).
I am NOT any sort of Amazon apologist, I'm just trying to understand things in context. I tend to resist being stampeded nowadays, after finding that I have been taken in so many times. Most folks (including me) have a tendency to easily believe a good story that fits what they want to believe, without checking. We can partially compensate for that by also checking the stories we most want to believe, which have the appropriate white hats and black hats.
---
> "But I also don't think there should be a max on taxation - the more you make, the more you pay, but your taxes don't go up as much as they did several hundred million or a few billion ago."
I don't know what you mean there. There is no maximum tax - the more income you have, the more you pay; the more retail you by, the more sales tax; the more expensive your real property, the more you pay. In the case of income taxes, you not only pay more total, higher income gets taxed at a higher rate. (I would add some more tiers at the top, but not too extreme). The one exception might be social security taxes. In general, the more you pay in, the more you can take out in benefits later. That at the bottom of the scale get back more than they paid in, those at the top get back less than they paid in (so it does already move wealth downward), but at all levels paying higher SS taxes bring more SS benefits than paying less. But the maximum taxed income for social security is $147K this year - which also limits their benefits. (There are proposals to remove the limit for taxes but revise the formulas so there are no increase benefits associated with the higher taxes).
Is that what you mean by max taxation? Or something else?
------
About the fact that the wealth on average work very hard. I recall Daniel Markovits, who is a critic of the meritocracy and the wealthy, but nevertheless admits that the wealthy on average work longer hours, a reversal of historical trends; he speaks of the disappearance of the leisure class. See Sam Harris podcast 205 for an interesting interview (which is not to say that I endorse everything that either person says), or you can just google is name and find other articles.
CEO's in this study worked an average of 62.5 hours a week (including working on 79% of weekend days, and 70% of weekdays).
When I say "work hard" I don't mean that the high income folks tend to sweat and use their muscles a lot; but many jobs are intellectually and emotionally challenging nevertheless.
And let's be clear - I'm questioning the idea that high income folks in general don't work as hard or as many hours as most others do today - I am NOT asserting that means their pay is always appropriate! I think we need a pay differential to motivate people (rather than everybody getting the same pay regardless of contribution), but currently the curve is way too steep, with way too much reward at the top. Even if higher income people on average work pretty hard, there are limits to how much extra that should earn.
No offence taken, and I don't mind the pushback. I would note that my opinions have formed over the last twenty years or so between experience and a lot of reading. My thoughts on a UBI are a bit sarcastic, I'll admit, but I continue to be annoyed by what I see as a lot of unnecessary income disparity, and sorry, a lot of it WAS juiced by Bush II's tax cuts.
Amazon's lousy working conditions have been well-documented, although I don't doubt there are some happy workers and perhaps decent warehouses there somewhere. But I've had a more jaundiced opinion of them since reading about CamperForce, which looks an awful lot like Amazon taking advantage of folks who lost everything in the Great Financial Meltdown, created by those at the top and who didn't suffer or go to jail for it.
https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-retiree-army/
Since then, other investigative pieces have demonstrated the lousy working conditions there, and while I'm sure Jeff Bezos worked hard initially, I'm quite sure he's not working nearly as hard as his factory workers, and much of that is wheeling and dealing and board meetings. He's not in the warehouses getting actual shit moved from one place to another, having to pee in a bottle because he's not allowed proper bathroom breaks. I've often wished there was a way to disguise him so he could work in his own warehouse for a couple of weeks under Amazon conditions, but there's no way you could disguise those offset eyes, everyone would know him immediately.
Wal-Mart has done better in recent years, and I didn't know that about backing the single payer system; how are they doing on providing healthcare for their workers, most of whom, a few years ago, couldn't afford it? Let's remember, Walmart 'helped' them navigate various parts of the welfare system they'd need to survive since, back then, Walmart was paying shit after driving out the better-paying businesses out of business. I also remember reading an article several years ago - back in the '00s - about how lousily they treated their vendors who were essentially breaking even on doing business with Walmart, but they didn't dare *not* do business with them because if they didn't, their competitors will. I'm not quite sure how that would benefit their competitors - how much business can you afford to do with a #1 customer and only be breaking even? Maybe no one thought to break their competitors by refusing to do business with Walmart unless the latter agreed to a more equitable deal.
However, in recent years I acknowledge they've raised their wages (which meant everyone else could do the same) and also, lesser-known, Walmart underwent a large sustainability makeover several years ago, implemented efficient recycling and and waste treatment, better practices at the stores, and saved about $400M which benefits the environment. I've never forgotten that about them.
The fact is, wages have remained stagnant for decades for the lower and middle classes, and the middle one is disappearing. In the wake of the Great Financial Meltdown the class formerly known as middle slipped into poverty, with a rise in all the pathologies associated with the lower classes - a rise in domestic violence, divorces, criminal activity, and substance abuse. The very rich on Wall Street benefited mightily from the meltdown, and no one went to prison for it. Speaking of not going to prison, that reminds me of Trump. It's interesting he never released his financial records as president, so no, we *don't* know what he's paying or not, but I'd guess not much since he supposedly wasn't paying anything for years after one of his many bankruptcies. Although I doubt that's the reason why he won't release them - too many far more embarrassing, and likely illegal revelations there. If there's one thing many of us have learned about the rich, it's that the more they earn, the less likely they are to want to pay for anything, and Trump was famous for that during his real estate years in NYC.
Ever read the book "Bullshit Jobs" based on the viral essay of a few years ago? Very eye-opening and not specifically an indictment of the rich - more so just an overall poorly-structured economic system in which the most vital, necessary jobs pay the least. What if no one wanted to make a janitor's low wages? What if there needed to be a revolving schedule of various employees' turn to clean the restrooms? Why are teachers paid shit to educate future generations and so much more paid to entertainers like sports athletes and rock musicians? Not to diss those careers, but if we can afford to pay Michael Jordan millions we can afford to pay a teacher liveable wages AND maybe even support them with school budgets for something other than armed guards and defensive shooting training for teachers. I laughed as the BJ book dinged the financial services industry for being largely a bullshit industry, which has been my opinion since my last office job where our target market was big financial institutions. For a year and a half I scrutinized all the big players in North America and realized just how much of a scam so much of it is - nothing productive, just shifting money around for people high enough in the system, and there you don't have to even be a middle manager for that to happen. I think about 20% of what FIs do is truly vital - we do need a place to keep our money, buy insurance, get loans, support for entrepreneurship, pay America's labour force - but the rest of it is sheer horse shit and everyone knows it. The games bankers played with CDSs and ARMs led to the financial collapse and even *they* didn't understand the financial 'products' they were selling to clueless investors, with various 'tranches' of crap investments bundled in and buried so deep the sellers themselves didn't know what was there and didn't want to know. Just sell sell sell to the next chump.
As far as progressive taxation goes, I'd be in favour of one that scales back maybe a little less the more you make. You don't want to be taking like 50% of someone's pay or net worth - that's counterproductive. But for sure if you an afford a rocket ship, you can afford to pay more in taxes. America is very good to many of its citizens regardless of the carping that goes on about inequality - some of it coming from folks who just aren't trying hard enough (and I'm not thinking about any 'group' specifically - self-inflicted underachieving is a universal human sport). But I also don't think there should be a max on taxation - the more you make, the more you pay, but your taxes don't go up as much as they did several hundred million or a few billion ago.
BTW "Bullshit Jobs" has a great description of what a fucking waste of productivity much of the California entertainment industry is - how people are making huge sums of money literally doing little more than lunching with each other, (and expensing it), discussing a few putative business issues, and then going home to swim in the pool. It's amazing how little time is actually spent by so many of these people on creating better content, although obviously someone somewhere is doing it, as Netflix has produced many high-quality TV and movies in the last fifteen years that get a lot of kudos (I don't subscribe to even basic cable, so apart from one summer with Netflix several years ago, I don't read and hear about them).
I'm curious as to what you've read that you think might change my mind. I'm open to that. I'd especially like to read what you've got on how the wealthy work longer and more stressful hours than the hoi polloi. I'd like to know more about them.
Also, open to better/differing opinions on the UBI idea. Conservatives are skeptical of it, some of their skepticism is questionable but some of it isn't (particularly the idea that some people will coast. I disagree with them on why but I've seen it myself so I support 'strings attached' to make sure people are working to become or become again productive members of society).
Sources: Preferably middle of the road, neither super right-wing nor super left-wing.
Hmm. There's a lot of material there, some of which I agree with and some of which I question. Let's take on some pieces; addressing everything would be a huge essay and many hours of work.
---
I read the Wired story at your link, and did not find it as terrible as you perceive. The writer says she spent months interviewing Amazon workers (and mentions working for a week at a warehouse, tho perhaps she also worked other times?). From that, she chose a handful of people for the article. Are they representative, or selected for some other reason?
I'm mildly skeptical of the framing "taking advantage of folks who lost everything in the Great Financial Meltdown". The lead couple lost 100% of their investments ($250K and $200K) according to the article. I and my friends all lived through that too, but nobody lost anything close to 100% on invested money. How does that happen, unless one is investing in a very high risk/high gain option? It says that he believed that a $250,000 investment would yield $4000/mo (or $48K/yr, about 20% per year). Sound like a good, safe investment to you? Anyway, it's sad if he was given to think that was guaranteed and safe, and I would be happy to have any fraud investigated in that regard.
So they hit the road, broke. They had trouble finding work, until they encountered Amazon's seasonal work, which sounds like it proved a godsend in terms of better employment than they found elsewhere, although it was hard work with long hours. Some picker jobs involved a lot of walking, but according to the article that is changing as robotics handle more of the long distance stuff. Eventually, Amazon will likely automate more and more of the work, reducing their human labor needs, so that folks like the Stouts will have to do without Amazon seasonal jobs - will that be a boon to them?
Is that really such a horror story? Have you ever worked construction or in a factory? Or is your norm for comparison set by white collar work? It sounds like pretty much all of the jobs I had until I worked my way into computers, and which I'd still have been working had I not. It's unfortunate that they are doing that at a more advanced age, but is that Amazon's fault?
Before you answer, remember that the article involves selectivity. Go to indeed.com and look for what Amazon warehouse workers are paid today, and compare that to the local wages for equivalently skilled workers in those locations. I was seeing wages in the $16-25/hr range around the country (where minimum wage varies from $7.25 to $16ish).
What I'm driving at is: we can select stories of people who have suffered personal losses, and then contrast that with companies which paid above market wages yet it was still not enough. Does that justify singling out the company as a particular evil doer, in the mind of the reader juxtaposing selected people who suffered losses not (fully) their own fault, and a company (not responsible for previous losses) which is not making things right for them by paying them sufficiently above prevailing wages. It sets up the reader to think badly about the company, but I think unfairly so.
Criticizing the entire system of market based labor rates might be more appropriately targeted (tho such criticisms also need to be examined of course).
I am NOT any sort of Amazon apologist, I'm just trying to understand things in context. I tend to resist being stampeded nowadays, after finding that I have been taken in so many times. Most folks (including me) have a tendency to easily believe a good story that fits what they want to believe, without checking. We can partially compensate for that by also checking the stories we most want to believe, which have the appropriate white hats and black hats.
---
> "But I also don't think there should be a max on taxation - the more you make, the more you pay, but your taxes don't go up as much as they did several hundred million or a few billion ago."
I don't know what you mean there. There is no maximum tax - the more income you have, the more you pay; the more retail you by, the more sales tax; the more expensive your real property, the more you pay. In the case of income taxes, you not only pay more total, higher income gets taxed at a higher rate. (I would add some more tiers at the top, but not too extreme). The one exception might be social security taxes. In general, the more you pay in, the more you can take out in benefits later. That at the bottom of the scale get back more than they paid in, those at the top get back less than they paid in (so it does already move wealth downward), but at all levels paying higher SS taxes bring more SS benefits than paying less. But the maximum taxed income for social security is $147K this year - which also limits their benefits. (There are proposals to remove the limit for taxes but revise the formulas so there are no increase benefits associated with the higher taxes).
Is that what you mean by max taxation? Or something else?
------
About the fact that the wealth on average work very hard. I recall Daniel Markovits, who is a critic of the meritocracy and the wealthy, but nevertheless admits that the wealthy on average work longer hours, a reversal of historical trends; he speaks of the disappearance of the leisure class. See Sam Harris podcast 205 for an interesting interview (which is not to say that I endorse everything that either person says), or you can just google is name and find other articles.
CEO's in this study worked an average of 62.5 hours a week (including working on 79% of weekend days, and 70% of weekdays).
https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ceos-manage-time
I've seen other indicators, but these are quick.
When I say "work hard" I don't mean that the high income folks tend to sweat and use their muscles a lot; but many jobs are intellectually and emotionally challenging nevertheless.
And let's be clear - I'm questioning the idea that high income folks in general don't work as hard or as many hours as most others do today - I am NOT asserting that means their pay is always appropriate! I think we need a pay differential to motivate people (rather than everybody getting the same pay regardless of contribution), but currently the curve is way too steep, with way too much reward at the top. Even if higher income people on average work pretty hard, there are limits to how much extra that should earn.