damnedfurry
@damnedfurry@lemmy.world
- Comment on Anon doesn't tip 1 week ago:
They’re not employed by me. Wages are between them and their boss. Any extra from anywhere else is a favor and not to be expected.
Hope that helps.
- Comment on anon working as behaviour interventionist 2 weeks ago:
And which orifice did you pass this take from, exactly?
- Comment on Star Citizen Expose Paints a Fairly Bleak Picture: 'There's No Actual Focus on Getting the Game Done' 4 weeks ago:
That’s the majority of them, but ragebait articles aren’t written about them, so you have no idea who they are.
Don’t be so easily manipulated by media.
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
Short answer is: to incentivize investment/entrepreneurship etc., which is good for the economy as a whole.
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
I realize that, and mainly considered the bottom of the range as a result; $18 is still a far cry from $12, after all.
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
Okay, but the point is - more bro.
And my point is that without even being able to say how much more, not only do you know when you’ve reached the goal, but to opponents you come off as greedy and entitled with “I don’t know, just gimme more bro”.
That shit is just not going to work, ever.
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.
Assuming 1 childless worker, got a list of things here (would like to know more about how these numbers were arrived at, but I’ll take them at their word).
Food, medical, housing, transportation, civic (apparently this is recreation etc.) Internet/mobile, and “other” (saving?)
I looked up an area near me. They give annual values, but I, like most Americans I imagine, can relate more easily to monthly costs, so divided everything by 12. So here’s what MIT says a “living wage” should pay for, per month:
Food: $406. That seems like a LOT for a single adult. My roommate and I spend less than this for the both of us and we buy groceries together, so I know how much our combined cost is.
Medical: $276. Can’t really comment in either direction about this, fact is that medical costs vary SO much from person to person, and even for the same person at different stages of life, that I’ll just give the benefit of the doubt that that’s the correct cost on average.
Housing: $1615. My rent is less than this, even if you don’t consider that it’s half of what it would be if I lived alone. I could see this being more or less accurate for my area for someone just moving in someplace.
Transportation: $897. What the fuck? If you have shitty credit AND you financed an expensive car for a shitty rate, then maybe, but NOBODY should be paying anything close to this a month for a car, even if you get gas weekly.
Civic: $251. That’s significant, $60+ every week? Doing what?
Internet/mobile: $117. That sounds fine, assuming middle of the road Internet and standard mobile plan.
Other: $368. What can you really say about “other”?
So, other than a few of those categories being WAY out of proportion imo, the biggest issue I see here is that MIT is giving different, separate “living wages” for 3 categories of people (1 alone, 2 with 1 working, and 2 with both working (why isn’t this just the first category doubled?)), and for 0 to 3 children. So, some issues I’m seeing:
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It’s one thing to force a company to pay a worker more if they have a kid(s), and/or live with someone who doesn’t work, but you can’t force a company to hire these people. Considering that the value of the labor itself does not increase, this seems like it’d obviously create massive incentive against hiring anyone other than single childless individuals.
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Typically an employer is not even entitled to know such personal details about a worker/applicant in the first place. But if we put these into effect, they would have to, in order to know which category you fall into, which leads back into 1 above
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There is a LOT of work that does not generate nearly that amount of value (in the case above, around $27/hour assuming 40hr work week) for the business, but are things the business can’t function without. It’s easy to say “if you can’t afford to pay every single one of these positions this living wage, then you can’t afford to be in business”, but the fact is that this would place huge obstacles in the way of a small business getting up and running to any real degree. Megacorporations have pockets deep enough to eat the cost though, and so they’ll become even better at driving small business to extinction than they already are, and hasten us toward a society where they’re the only real game in town. And I shouldn’t have to list the reasons that an ‘employer monopoly’ is a REALLY bad state of affairs for the working population.
“Just increase the minimum wage to a living wage” is not the ‘duh, just do it’ solution many claim it to be.
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- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
The classic definition is the wage needed to cover the basic needs of the family including things like rent
Rent where? Rent costs vary wildly.
childcare
What sort of childcare, and how many children is it meant to support? Or do you get $X per child? And if so, is there a maximum number of children, where having more won’t get you more money?
transportation
Over what distance? And how, owned vehicle or public transportation? If owned vehicle, what kind of vehicle? Used/new? Price ranges for vehicles also vary wildly.
I would go one further and say that the family needs to not be living paycheque to paycheque.
That entails what amount of extra money? And what do you do about people who willfully choose to spend it instead of saving it? Are you aware that in the US, 1 in 4 of people earning $150k or more live paycheck to paycheck? Just because one has money to save doesn’t mean they’re going to do it.
go out once in a while
Again, far too vague. How often? And how much money does ‘going out’ cost? You’d have to figure both of those out, and multiply them by each other, to ensure this goal is met.
educate their children
Taxpayer-funded public school already covers this. Unless you feel everyone should be entitled to the cost of private schooling?
save and pay for university
University tuition is another massive variable, so you’d need to decide how much is given for tuition. Also, if someone does not go to college, do they not get that part of the money?
and advance themselves.
The vaguest criterion yet. It’s pretty much impossible to say if a given minimum wage satisfies ‘everyone can advance themselves’.
As anyone can see, this “classic” definition is still full of major holes, and not nearly complete enough to even conceptualize a goal such that progress toward it can even be measured. Just saying “living wage” over and over will never get anyone anywhere.
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
Student loan forgiveness is regressive by definition (those lucky enough to go to college are a minority that earns on average $0.5 to $1 million more over their lifetimes, than those who don’t), aren’t you against wealth transfers from poorer to richer?
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
There should be no profits, no bonuses, and no dividends until every worker (not employee, it doesn’t matter what your relationship with the company is if they benefit from your labour) is making at least a living wage with full benefits.
To get anywhere, you must define “living wage” concretely. You can use variables of course, but without at least a ‘formula’, “living wage” is just a meaningless, unachievable talking point. You at least have to know what you’re aiming at, to have any hope of achieving it–you’ll never get anywhere just saying “living wage”, because ‘enough to live on’ does not nearly have the same definition for everyone. So, what’s the baseline, in your view?
Example: ‘the living wage should be enough money to afford [list of things] with $X leftover for discretionary spending/saving.’
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
Uh, no, the primary reason inflation exists is so that there is an economy, lol.
If there was deflation, the ‘optimal’ thing to do with your extra cash would literally be to stuff it under a mattress.
Too much inflation is obviously bad, but deflation is also really bad. A tiny amount of inflation is optimal long-term.
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
Huh, according to Indeed, the range for Domino’s delivery drivers around me is $18-$25 an hour. How far over minimum wage is your $12?
- Comment on Just a reminder... 1 month ago:
The cost of living will just keep going up because inflation is necessary in our current, debt based monetary system.
You’re making this sound like it’s something that was arbitrarily decided by powers that be, but the fact is that if there was deflation instead, the economy would come to a screeching halt, because it becomes more ‘optimal’ to hold onto cash under a mattress (since in deflation, it grows in value over time) instead of spending it on goods and services.
A tiny amount of inflation is best long-term, for the whole.
- Comment on If Donald Trump was black, would he have made it this far in politics? 1 month ago:
The not-so-subtle misogyny of equating adult women with children, depriving them of all agency, strikes yet again.
- Comment on If Donald Trump was black, would he have made it this far in politics? 1 month ago:
It’s not victim blaming because he’s not referring to the same women you are. Like it or not, there are plenty of women (no one is saying it’s all or most women, by the way) who will pursue rich men with the desire for a purely transactional “I’ll fuck you so I can have your wealthy lifestyle and/or a part of your fame.” They’re perfectly content with that arrangement, as are said men.
Johnny Depp’s girlfriends for decades have basically all been women in this category, even now that he’s way past his prime aesthetically. The women accusing Trump of sexual impropriety are, obviously, NOT in this category.
Women are not a hivemind–different types of them can exist in the same society, you know.
- Comment on If Donald Trump was black, would he have made it this far in politics? 1 month ago:
He was tried and found guilty of raping a woman.
That’s not true. He’s never been convicted of a sex crime. “Found liable” in a civil court and “found guilty” in a criminal court are VASTLY different, and require VASTLY different standards of evidence.
It’s important to be accurate.
- Comment on Aldi announces wage increases up to $23 an hour; hiring thousands of employees 2 months ago:
Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morels are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a six cents when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn’t take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It’s clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the fax. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother’s mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it’s a peach of cake.
- Comment on Aldi announces wage increases up to $23 an hour; hiring thousands of employees 2 months ago:
Should have kept reading:
The national average starting wages for Aldi workers will be set at $18 an hour and $23 an hour for warehouse workers.
- Comment on Aldi announces wage increases up to $23 an hour; hiring thousands of employees 2 months ago:
That’s just being read wrong, it’s not written like a “save up to $10” kind of line. The “up” just describes the change (i.e. ‘the starting wage is going up; becoming $X’). Within the article, it’s completely unambiguous:
The national average starting wages for Aldi workers will be set at $18 an hour and $23 an hour for warehouse workers.
- Comment on Society 2 months ago:
no
- Comment on Why are people on the internet (and Lemmy) so quick to say someone "deserves to die" 2 months ago:
That’s because you’re a textbook example of the infantile minds infecting areas where actual discourse has a chance to happen.
- Comment on How do people in this day in age become nazis/neonazies sexist or even incels when there is so much knowledge against it? Do they get anything out of being that way? 2 months ago:
(emphasis added)
Men aren’t allowed to discuss their feelings because men have created a society that looks at them as losers for doing so.
The implication here, that societal norms are created and maintained by only men, and therefore any aspects of it that affect men negatively deserve to be blamed on them, is one of the most pervasive anti-male sentiments that people try to fly under the radar with. Women have at least as much (arguably more) influence on societal norms and conventions, as men do.
This entire comment is teeming with this undertone; that is, until the end, when they come out and just say ‘all the bad stuff is men’s fault’ at the end, lol.
- Comment on How do people in this day in age become nazis/neonazies sexist or even incels when there is so much knowledge against it? Do they get anything out of being that way? 2 months ago:
Everyone loves building strawmen. If you think only “they” do it, it’s because you’re unquestioningly accepting the ones that confirm your biases.
- Comment on The worst pick-up line I've ever gotten 3 months ago:
Literally just look at JK Rowling’s twitter feed
You’re projecting your terminal online-ness onto the general population. The vast, vast majority of Harry Potter, or any book series, fans, pay z-e-r-o attention to the personal Twitter account of the author.
Accusing that huge majority of being transphobic just for that is moronic, full stop.
- Comment on Get in the Hilux 4 months ago:
access their wealth tax-free.
…until they pay the loan back, you mean.
Hell, loans better be tax free, it’s not income if you have to pay it back.
P.S. Some food for thought: if workers’ labor is being ‘skimmed’ by employers, making workers into a source of profit as a result, then why would a company ever downsize as a measure against financial difficulty? Why would any business ever fire anyone who’s doing their job, if worker = profit for the business?
- Comment on Get in the Hilux 4 months ago:
Who do you think the profit of increasing the price tag goes to?
Whoever sells the appreciated asset to someone else, who was willing to buy it at the new, higher price.
And if they don’t sell, there is no profit, it’s still unrealized.
- Comment on The worst pick-up line I've ever gotten 4 months ago:
It just frustrates me how much trans people/activists fuck up their own messaging with confusing/ambiguous/self-contradicting rhetoric, you know?
Another major example imo, is using the single word “gender”, both to describe gender identity (something an individual person has), and gender roles (something a society has), sometimes in the same damn sentence.
The best way to ensure a discussion isn’t productive is to make sure that the ‘discussers’ are using the same terms, but are defining them differently, lol…
- Comment on Get in the Hilux 4 months ago:
It’s literally not a fact. Net worth is a price tag, not an amount of cash.
- Comment on Get in the Hilux 4 months ago:
No they aren’t. The number that’s increasing is a price tag, not cash. That’s why no one’s wallet or bank account gets bigger when that same number goes down.
- Comment on The worst pick-up line I've ever gotten 4 months ago:
I guess what they’re getting at is that if “non-binary” is considered a gender identity unto itself, then you could describe one being trans in the sense of “from man to non-binary”, for example.