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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
United States41470 Posts
On June 13 2017 01:11 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:08 KwarK wrote:On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that. How about we give everyone a rainbow while we are at it? Like yeah that's a nice solution in theory, instead a company will still pay the same $10/hr and force people either to cram into apartments with roommates or make long commutes because their alternative isn't a better job elsewhere, it's unemployment.
What are you talking about? If a service cannot be provided below a certain price point then the value assigned to that service will increase until it can be obtained or it loses preference to an alternative use for that money. We've seen this over and over, supply and demand is the fundamental mechanism of our economy. It's not giving everyone a rainbow, it's how we get food on the shelves and paychecks for our labour.
It's simple enough. The free market determines the best use of the available space through a bidding war between the interested parties, deciding which of them is willing to sacrifice the most value to obtain it and therefore which of them believes they could obtain the most value from having it. If none of them are garbage collectors then living space for garbage collectors clearly represent a low value use of that space. If a month later the garbage is piling up then they offer more money for garbage collectors and see an aspiring garbage collector is willing to outbid someone who provides less value than he does. If not, repeat until either the garbage collector's value is sufficient to displace someone else from their home or society decides it doesn't mind garbage so much.
Obviously the labour market isn't entirely composed of rational fluid actors acting optimally but the theory is still sufficiently sound to use it. If you don't want to pay someone enough to do the job then you don't want the job done. If you do want the job done for the price it'd cost them to do it then pay them that.
For every garbage collector you keep in rent controlled space there is another individual for whom the value created by having that space would be considerably greater that you deny it to. It's just bad economics. If the value created by the garbage creator really is low then let him leave. If it is not then let the market pay more to keep him.
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Wonder what he wants the world to hear...
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United States41117 Posts
President Trump’s private lawyer Marc Kasowitz has advised White House staffers—who are not his clients—not to retain their own lawyers, according to the New York Times. Kasowitz has also reportedly broken the long-standing protocol that presidents’ private attorneys operate through the White House Counsel’s office and don’t engage directly with other government employees whom they do not represent. These guidelines exist to make sure the staffers understand their rights and do not feel pressured to cooperate with their bosses’ private counsel. Kasowitz’s spokesperson told the Times these claims are “inaccurate” but refused to comment further.
As former White House attorneys have explained to TPM, Kasowitz is tasked with defending Trump personally, a job that inevitably conflicts with what is best for the White House as an institution.
But if Kasowitz did indeed tell White House staff not to retain their own lawyers, that presents additional problems. Those staffers may be interviewed in the coming months by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion with the Trump campaign, and any administration attempts to quash the federal inquiries.
Former White House counsel Robert Bauer warned that Kasowitz’s conversations “could be interpreted as an act of obstruction, a means of dissuading the witnesses from cooperating in the investigation.”
Telling the staffers not to retain their own counsel is also to Kasowitz’s advantage, making it easier for him to interview them as he builds his defense for Trump without having to go through a pack of lawyers each time.
Source
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On June 13 2017 01:20 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:11 Logo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:08 KwarK wrote:On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that. How about we give everyone a rainbow while we are at it? Like yeah that's a nice solution in theory, instead a company will still pay the same $10/hr and force people either to cram into apartments with roommates or make long commutes because their alternative isn't a better job elsewhere, it's unemployment. What are you talking about? If a service cannot be provided below a certain price point then the value assigned to that service will increase until it can be obtained or it loses preference to an alternative use for that money. We've seen this over and over, supply and demand is the fundamental mechanism of our economy. It's not giving everyone a rainbow, it's how we get food on the shelves and paychecks for our labour. It's simple enough. The free market determines the best use of the available space through a bidding war between the interested parties, deciding which of them is willing to sacrifice the most value to obtain it and therefore which of them believes they could obtain the most value from having it. If none of them are garbage collectors then living space for garbage collectors clearly represent a low value use of that space. If a month later the garbage is piling up then they offer more money for garbage collectors and see an aspiring garbage collector is willing to outbid someone who provides less value than he does. If not, repeat until either the garbage collector's value is sufficient to displace someone else from their home or society decides it doesn't mind garbage so much. Obviously the labour market isn't entirely composed of rational fluid actors acting optimally but the theory is still sufficiently sound to use it. If you don't want to pay someone enough to do the job then you don't want the job done. If you do want the job done for the price it'd cost them to do it then pay them that. For every garbage collector you keep in rent controlled space there is another individual for whom the value created by having that space would be considerably greater that you deny it to. It's just bad economics. If the value created by the garbage creator really is low then let him leave. If it is not then let the market pay more to keep him.
I'm not disagreeing with that premise, I'm disagreeing with the idea that the price paid for those services will rise as people move away. Capitalism guarantees that the wages paid for that job will rise enough for them to be filled, but it makes no guarantee on providing anything remotely reasonable to the people filling that job. Which we've also seen time and time again? People will suffer through hell for $10/hr because the first $10/hr you make is worth *a lot* compared to $0/hr. You're not going to end up with $30/hr garbage men, you're going to end up with a garbage man that lives with 6 other people in a tiny apartment, works 2 jobs, and/or commutes by bus for several hours every day.
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On June 13 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +President Trump’s private lawyer Marc Kasowitz has advised White House staffers—who are not his clients—not to retain their own lawyers, according to the New York Times. Kasowitz has also reportedly broken the long-standing protocol that presidents’ private attorneys operate through the White House Counsel’s office and don’t engage directly with other government employees whom they do not represent. These guidelines exist to make sure the staffers understand their rights and do not feel pressured to cooperate with their bosses’ private counsel. Kasowitz’s spokesperson told the Times these claims are “inaccurate” but refused to comment further.
As former White House attorneys have explained to TPM, Kasowitz is tasked with defending Trump personally, a job that inevitably conflicts with what is best for the White House as an institution.
But if Kasowitz did indeed tell White House staff not to retain their own lawyers, that presents additional problems. Those staffers may be interviewed in the coming months by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion with the Trump campaign, and any administration attempts to quash the federal inquiries.
Former White House counsel Robert Bauer warned that Kasowitz’s conversations “could be interpreted as an act of obstruction, a means of dissuading the witnesses from cooperating in the investigation.”
Telling the staffers not to retain their own counsel is also to Kasowitz’s advantage, making it easier for him to interview them as he builds his defense for Trump without having to go through a pack of lawyers each time. Source
I work at a low power law firm that does a lot of meat and potatoes legal work. Nothing crazy. My first day I was told to never ever tell anyone they do not need or should not get their own lawyer. What is that man doing in the White House? Why is he talking to staffers?
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United States41470 Posts
On June 13 2017 01:28 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:20 KwarK wrote:On June 13 2017 01:11 Logo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:08 KwarK wrote:On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that. How about we give everyone a rainbow while we are at it? Like yeah that's a nice solution in theory, instead a company will still pay the same $10/hr and force people either to cram into apartments with roommates or make long commutes because their alternative isn't a better job elsewhere, it's unemployment. What are you talking about? If a service cannot be provided below a certain price point then the value assigned to that service will increase until it can be obtained or it loses preference to an alternative use for that money. We've seen this over and over, supply and demand is the fundamental mechanism of our economy. It's not giving everyone a rainbow, it's how we get food on the shelves and paychecks for our labour. It's simple enough. The free market determines the best use of the available space through a bidding war between the interested parties, deciding which of them is willing to sacrifice the most value to obtain it and therefore which of them believes they could obtain the most value from having it. If none of them are garbage collectors then living space for garbage collectors clearly represent a low value use of that space. If a month later the garbage is piling up then they offer more money for garbage collectors and see an aspiring garbage collector is willing to outbid someone who provides less value than he does. If not, repeat until either the garbage collector's value is sufficient to displace someone else from their home or society decides it doesn't mind garbage so much. Obviously the labour market isn't entirely composed of rational fluid actors acting optimally but the theory is still sufficiently sound to use it. If you don't want to pay someone enough to do the job then you don't want the job done. If you do want the job done for the price it'd cost them to do it then pay them that. For every garbage collector you keep in rent controlled space there is another individual for whom the value created by having that space would be considerably greater that you deny it to. It's just bad economics. If the value created by the garbage creator really is low then let him leave. If it is not then let the market pay more to keep him. I'm not disagreeing with that premise, I'm disagreeing with the idea that the price paid for those services will rise as people move away. Capitalism guarantees that the wages paid for that job will rise enough for them to be filled, but it makes no guarantee on providing anything remotely reasonable to the people filling that job. Which we've also seen time and time again? People will suffer through hell for $10/hr because the first $10/hr you make is worth *a lot* compared to $0/hr.
If someone is making $3k a month and their rent is $5k a month they're not going to hang around. While I'll concede that $10/hr is a lot more than $0/hr (and $10/hr still feels like a lot to me because my brain still seems to think I'm a poor student when it comes to money) if someone is losing money each month they're not going to stay. If people are willing to endure long commutes or split the cost with housemates or whatever then that's on them. Some situations are always going to be bad, that's how supply is reduced. If the idea of long commutes or crowded living quarters didn't exist then we couldn't choose against them, thereby reducing supply and increasing the compensation offered by those that demand it.
It's not necessary that nobody be willing to live with five other people in the same room for $10/hr for the job to offer more than $10/hr, only that fewer people are willing to do it than are required to do it. The marginal wage will increase until it is filled.
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On June 12 2017 23:28 Adreme wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2017 23:08 Danglars wrote:On June 12 2017 20:46 Howie_Dewitt wrote:On June 12 2017 20:07 Gahlo wrote:On June 12 2017 11:06 Plansix wrote:
Can puerto-rico even sustaine an economy that can support a US standard of living on its own? Tourism only goes so far. Tax breaks seems like the only way it could create a non tourism economy. Does the US even support it's own standard of living? Of course not. That's why there are a bunch of angry people. The minimum wage is enough to barely get by on if you work your ass off and take every bit of overtime and get as many part-time jobs as possible, but it's not nearly enough to live on. Those people are stuck in those jobs, and are forced to put their children into situations that lead to the same life that they had; upward mobility is impossible because the children of those workers are funneled into garbage public school systems and are essentially trained to accept what their parents got as an okay standard of living. You mean a minority of minimum wage earners get trapped in those jobs and don't just use them as their first job. It should be clear from the proportion of very young people in those jobs that take them and how few are making minimum wage a year later. Talk about corporate welfare and the minority that feel stuck, but don't be absurd about "those people are stuck" and "upward mobility is impossible" unless you're personally a politician running for office. We know from Trump that liars are tolerated. This would make more sense if it were not provable that the average minimum wage worker is somewhere between 28 and 31 years old (it fluctuates so its hard to pin down but it is between those numbers). Now there are a large segment of young people who work for minimum wage, but even that amount can not push down the average enough to make your argument make sense. Unless you want to argue that someones first job is at 28 it is clear that there is a sizable segment of the population trapped in minimum wage work and in many cases when this is all you have you end up being trapped by the safety net rather then elevated by it.
Minimum wage earners are ~3.3% of the population. Workers under 25 only make up about one fifth of the total working population, but they're nearly half (45%) of minimum wage workers. About two thirds are off minimum wage in a year. You're forgetting or intentionally misleading about the changing makeup of the percentages longitudinally, these are not the same people. So talk about bad income mobility but don't lie about how actually bad it is.
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On June 13 2017 01:17 jcarlsoniv wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Hey now, Western Mass isn't so bad  I know the housing issue isn't quite as bad out here, but we can definitely feel the effect. I just recently moved and every place I looked was quite a bit more expensive for not much improvement. I got really lucky finding the place I did before it got listed. I'm (not so secretly) hoping the Springfield casino spurs some economic activity in the area. For a while I've been thinking it could be an interesting incentive for some better public transport along I-91 and the Pike. There are a whole host of issues with that idea, but we pretty desperately need it. Looking at the Boston commute maps in the morning makes me really happy I live on this side of the state.
Western Mass. An hour and a half into Boston is just outside 495. Western Mass is like 3 hours if you don't live next to the 91. Newton and Brighton are not for poor or middle class people any more.
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On June 13 2017 01:33 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:President Trump’s private lawyer Marc Kasowitz has advised White House staffers—who are not his clients—not to retain their own lawyers, according to the New York Times. Kasowitz has also reportedly broken the long-standing protocol that presidents’ private attorneys operate through the White House Counsel’s office and don’t engage directly with other government employees whom they do not represent. These guidelines exist to make sure the staffers understand their rights and do not feel pressured to cooperate with their bosses’ private counsel. Kasowitz’s spokesperson told the Times these claims are “inaccurate” but refused to comment further.
As former White House attorneys have explained to TPM, Kasowitz is tasked with defending Trump personally, a job that inevitably conflicts with what is best for the White House as an institution.
But if Kasowitz did indeed tell White House staff not to retain their own lawyers, that presents additional problems. Those staffers may be interviewed in the coming months by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion with the Trump campaign, and any administration attempts to quash the federal inquiries.
Former White House counsel Robert Bauer warned that Kasowitz’s conversations “could be interpreted as an act of obstruction, a means of dissuading the witnesses from cooperating in the investigation.”
Telling the staffers not to retain their own counsel is also to Kasowitz’s advantage, making it easier for him to interview them as he builds his defense for Trump without having to go through a pack of lawyers each time. Source I work at a low power law firm that does a lot of meat and potatoes legal work. Nothing crazy. My first day I was told to never ever tell anyone they do not need or should not get their own lawyer. What is that man doing in the White House? Why is he talking to staffers?
Maybe Trump is simply trying to protect himself no matter if it throws all those around him under the bus. Sounds similar to his business life.
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On June 13 2017 01:33 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:President Trump’s private lawyer Marc Kasowitz has advised White House staffers—who are not his clients—not to retain their own lawyers, according to the New York Times. Kasowitz has also reportedly broken the long-standing protocol that presidents’ private attorneys operate through the White House Counsel’s office and don’t engage directly with other government employees whom they do not represent. These guidelines exist to make sure the staffers understand their rights and do not feel pressured to cooperate with their bosses’ private counsel. Kasowitz’s spokesperson told the Times these claims are “inaccurate” but refused to comment further.
As former White House attorneys have explained to TPM, Kasowitz is tasked with defending Trump personally, a job that inevitably conflicts with what is best for the White House as an institution.
But if Kasowitz did indeed tell White House staff not to retain their own lawyers, that presents additional problems. Those staffers may be interviewed in the coming months by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion with the Trump campaign, and any administration attempts to quash the federal inquiries.
Former White House counsel Robert Bauer warned that Kasowitz’s conversations “could be interpreted as an act of obstruction, a means of dissuading the witnesses from cooperating in the investigation.”
Telling the staffers not to retain their own counsel is also to Kasowitz’s advantage, making it easier for him to interview them as he builds his defense for Trump without having to go through a pack of lawyers each time. Source I work at a low power law firm that does a lot of meat and potatoes legal work. Nothing crazy. My first day I was told to never ever tell anyone they do not need or should not get their own lawyer. What is that man doing in the White House? Why is he talking to staffers?
I highly doubt that whatever Kasowitz said is being reported accurately by the NYT.
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On June 13 2017 01:36 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:17 jcarlsoniv wrote:On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Hey now, Western Mass isn't so bad I know the housing issue isn't quite as bad out here, but we can definitely feel the effect. I just recently moved and every place I looked was quite a bit more expensive for not much improvement. I got really lucky finding the place I did before it got listed. I'm (not so secretly) hoping the Springfield casino spurs some economic activity in the area. For a while I've been thinking it could be an interesting incentive for some better public transport along I-91 and the Pike. There are a whole host of issues with that idea, but we pretty desperately need it. Looking at the Boston commute maps in the morning makes me really happy I live on this side of the state. Western Mass. An hour and a half into Boston is just outside 495. Western Mass is like 3 hours if you don't live next to the 91. Newton and Brighton are not for poor or middle class people any more.
Fair enough, I'm right around the intersection of 90 and 91, so I'm in just about the most ideal place I could be for mobility.
And if we're talking about commuting to work, that illustrates the point even more. I've looked at working in/around Boston and having any sort of reasonable commute requires living very close to where I'd need to be. As someone who has done a 1-1.5 hour commute before, the mental toll it takes left me never wanting to commute much more than 25 minutes if I can help it.
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On June 13 2017 01:40 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:33 Plansix wrote:On June 13 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:President Trump’s private lawyer Marc Kasowitz has advised White House staffers—who are not his clients—not to retain their own lawyers, according to the New York Times. Kasowitz has also reportedly broken the long-standing protocol that presidents’ private attorneys operate through the White House Counsel’s office and don’t engage directly with other government employees whom they do not represent. These guidelines exist to make sure the staffers understand their rights and do not feel pressured to cooperate with their bosses’ private counsel. Kasowitz’s spokesperson told the Times these claims are “inaccurate” but refused to comment further.
As former White House attorneys have explained to TPM, Kasowitz is tasked with defending Trump personally, a job that inevitably conflicts with what is best for the White House as an institution.
But if Kasowitz did indeed tell White House staff not to retain their own lawyers, that presents additional problems. Those staffers may be interviewed in the coming months by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion with the Trump campaign, and any administration attempts to quash the federal inquiries.
Former White House counsel Robert Bauer warned that Kasowitz’s conversations “could be interpreted as an act of obstruction, a means of dissuading the witnesses from cooperating in the investigation.”
Telling the staffers not to retain their own counsel is also to Kasowitz’s advantage, making it easier for him to interview them as he builds his defense for Trump without having to go through a pack of lawyers each time. Source I work at a low power law firm that does a lot of meat and potatoes legal work. Nothing crazy. My first day I was told to never ever tell anyone they do not need or should not get their own lawyer. What is that man doing in the White House? Why is he talking to staffers? I highly doubt that whatever Kasowitz said is being reported accurately by the NYT.
Considering his inexperience in this area of law, I wouldn't be surprised. Several outsets are also reporting he wants to set up an office within the White House. If he did that, he would be interacting with potential witnesses on a daily basis. And if any of the staff hired an attorney, he and his staff wouldn't be allowed to speak with them at all. The man is out of his league.
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Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830
We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well.
There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages.
About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage.
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On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage.
Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves.
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On June 13 2017 01:34 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:28 Logo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:20 KwarK wrote:On June 13 2017 01:11 Logo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:08 KwarK wrote:On June 13 2017 01:02 Plansix wrote:
Mohdoo: The political realities of your area differ from the urban areas like NYC and Boston. In these cities, the cost of housing is rising so fast that the people who make it function(public and private) cannot afford to live there. There is a housing shortage. Cities need things like garbage removal and street cleaning to function. To give you an idea, to find cheaper housing outside of Boston one would to move so far it was an hour and a half to get into the city. Public transportation does not support moving that far away, so the person is screwed unless they can find a new job outside of Boston. Surely if the people who make it function cannot afford to live there then they either don't make it function after all or they are massively undercompensated. Simply anchor their pay to the cost of living and if garbage removal is really worth $200k/year then pay them that. How about we give everyone a rainbow while we are at it? Like yeah that's a nice solution in theory, instead a company will still pay the same $10/hr and force people either to cram into apartments with roommates or make long commutes because their alternative isn't a better job elsewhere, it's unemployment. What are you talking about? If a service cannot be provided below a certain price point then the value assigned to that service will increase until it can be obtained or it loses preference to an alternative use for that money. We've seen this over and over, supply and demand is the fundamental mechanism of our economy. It's not giving everyone a rainbow, it's how we get food on the shelves and paychecks for our labour. It's simple enough. The free market determines the best use of the available space through a bidding war between the interested parties, deciding which of them is willing to sacrifice the most value to obtain it and therefore which of them believes they could obtain the most value from having it. If none of them are garbage collectors then living space for garbage collectors clearly represent a low value use of that space. If a month later the garbage is piling up then they offer more money for garbage collectors and see an aspiring garbage collector is willing to outbid someone who provides less value than he does. If not, repeat until either the garbage collector's value is sufficient to displace someone else from their home or society decides it doesn't mind garbage so much. Obviously the labour market isn't entirely composed of rational fluid actors acting optimally but the theory is still sufficiently sound to use it. If you don't want to pay someone enough to do the job then you don't want the job done. If you do want the job done for the price it'd cost them to do it then pay them that. For every garbage collector you keep in rent controlled space there is another individual for whom the value created by having that space would be considerably greater that you deny it to. It's just bad economics. If the value created by the garbage creator really is low then let him leave. If it is not then let the market pay more to keep him. I'm not disagreeing with that premise, I'm disagreeing with the idea that the price paid for those services will rise as people move away. Capitalism guarantees that the wages paid for that job will rise enough for them to be filled, but it makes no guarantee on providing anything remotely reasonable to the people filling that job. Which we've also seen time and time again? People will suffer through hell for $10/hr because the first $10/hr you make is worth *a lot* compared to $0/hr. If someone is making $3k a month and their rent is $5k a month they're not going to hang around. While I'll concede that $10/hr is a lot more than $0/hr (and $10/hr still feels like a lot to me because my brain still seems to think I'm a poor student when it comes to money) if someone is losing money each month they're not going to stay. If people are willing to endure long commutes or split the cost with housemates or whatever then that's on them. Some situations are always going to be bad, that's how supply is reduced. If the idea of long commutes or crowded living quarters didn't exist then we couldn't choose against them, thereby reducing supply and increasing the compensation offered by those that demand it. It's not necessary that nobody be willing to live with five other people in the same room for $10/hr for the job to offer more than $10/hr, only that fewer people are willing to do it than are required to do it. The marginal wage will increase until it is filled.
This is why worker unions is a such important part of functional capitalism. A single worker does not have much influence, but as a group, they can shut the entire society down.
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On June 13 2017 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage. Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves.
What happened to the quite dignity of going to work every day and just making your way through the world? Apparently Portland lives up to most of the expectations the TV show set for it. They call themselves far left leaning, but then demonize working people. Sigh.
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On June 13 2017 02:02 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:56 Mohdoo wrote:On June 13 2017 01:54 Lmui wrote:Up here in Vancouver which is currently an incredibly expensive place to live thanks to the influx of foreign money, this is what the city is doing to ensure affordability: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/vancouver-approves-20-64-living-wage-for-all-staff-1.3083830We're pretty closely aligned culturally to Portland, so this is something which Portland could do as well. There's a lot of employers which pay between minimum wage and living wages. About 5 years back, when I was a student, I worked as a cashier at Home Depot. It paid pretty well when I started ($8 min wage, $10 hourly) but by the time I left, I was making $10.50 I think when the min. wage got raised up to $10. Tracking the amount of people who're making anything from min-wage to min-wage +$2 would be good in order to get a reference for how many people are "stuck" at a below-poverty line wage. Portland is really against living wage because people like to demonize "burger flippers". We are really bad about needing to look down on other people in order to feel good about ourselves. What happened to the quite dignity of going to work every day and just making your way through the world? Apparently Portland lives up to most of the expectations the TV show set for it. They call themselves far left leaning, but then demonize working people. Sigh.
I wouldn't say it is any worse than anywhere else. All over the country, people making $15-$20/hour feel threatened by the idea that someone working in fast food would make as much as them.
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On June 13 2017 01:54 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2017 01:40 xDaunt wrote:On June 13 2017 01:33 Plansix wrote:On June 13 2017 01:26 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:President Trump’s private lawyer Marc Kasowitz has advised White House staffers—who are not his clients—not to retain their own lawyers, according to the New York Times. Kasowitz has also reportedly broken the long-standing protocol that presidents’ private attorneys operate through the White House Counsel’s office and don’t engage directly with other government employees whom they do not represent. These guidelines exist to make sure the staffers understand their rights and do not feel pressured to cooperate with their bosses’ private counsel. Kasowitz’s spokesperson told the Times these claims are “inaccurate” but refused to comment further.
As former White House attorneys have explained to TPM, Kasowitz is tasked with defending Trump personally, a job that inevitably conflicts with what is best for the White House as an institution.
But if Kasowitz did indeed tell White House staff not to retain their own lawyers, that presents additional problems. Those staffers may be interviewed in the coming months by special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, possible collusion with the Trump campaign, and any administration attempts to quash the federal inquiries.
Former White House counsel Robert Bauer warned that Kasowitz’s conversations “could be interpreted as an act of obstruction, a means of dissuading the witnesses from cooperating in the investigation.”
Telling the staffers not to retain their own counsel is also to Kasowitz’s advantage, making it easier for him to interview them as he builds his defense for Trump without having to go through a pack of lawyers each time. Source I work at a low power law firm that does a lot of meat and potatoes legal work. Nothing crazy. My first day I was told to never ever tell anyone they do not need or should not get their own lawyer. What is that man doing in the White House? Why is he talking to staffers? I highly doubt that whatever Kasowitz said is being reported accurately by the NYT. Considering his inexperience in this area of law, I wouldn't be surprised. Several outsets are also reporting he wants to set up an office within the White House. If he did that, he would be interacting with potential witnesses on a daily basis. And if any of the staff hired an attorney, he and his staff wouldn't be allowed to speak with them at all. The man is out of his league.
How is he inexperienced in this area of law and out of his league? He's a high-powered litigator. He knows all of this stuff. Given the above and the less than pristine record of media outlets reporting this stuff, I think that the simplest explanation is that the reporting is wrong.
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EPT
