Post: #76

(06-14-2013 08:47 PM)Samseau Wrote:  I'm waiting for you guys to pass laws that force companies to hire college students. Because that's the only way they'll get a job. No one is going to pay for the "privilege" to teach skills to students that never learned shit in school.

Then fix the schools.

Your logic makes no sense. Because schools don't teach shit we should turn college graduates into slave labor sources?

Quote:You guys are brainwashed. This isn't about politics, it's about economics. WHO IS GOING TO PAY unskilled workers 10 bucks an hour to file papers?

The same people who are gaming the system to exploit a free labor scam? No business owner wants to sit there and file paperwork in addition to all his other shit so instead of trolling interns for free labor I guess they have to pay the same interns, whoop de doo.

Quote:I am willing to bet $100 to anyone that unemployment will rise as a result of this. Who else is willing to put their money where their mouth this?

If you make $0 per hour are you really employed?

Furthermore, if you can force an intern to slave away for 50 hours a week like in the article I guess you can avoid hiring actual workers.

Post: #77

The fundamental error all generational critics make is that they think they are significantly different, both from previous generations and the other members of their own. There are some changes, for my generation widespread TV watching was a big change leading to more alienation, now everyone thinks Facebook is realer than their life, = more alienation.

The sun expands in about 1/2 billion years and makes the Earth unviable due to increased temperatures I believe. We're no more important than any other species.

But to zoom in on the great human race's future, what the masses don't know about are the real, huge changes behind the scenes made by the productive elite, now the researchers at Harvard and the like, who will probably, say, eliminate all genetic disease by 2150. All of that depended on what happened in the 1600's, when the elite starting thinking in terms of the scientific method and abandoning the belief in Divine Rights of royalty and events being determined by "God's Will" .

Normative thinking was basically fatalism and superstition, which many people still really believe. (Scientific thinking was I'm sure viewed as extreme and doom-portending "liberalism" at the time, I can't avoid some trolling hehehe)

All the time there's always noisy political types ranting about "decline", "Frankfurt School" or, earlier, "how many angels could fit on the head of a pin" or some other abstract BS while the true elite figure out how the physical world works and makes future generations' lives better.

All politics is irrelevant until they start ( I hope not again) gassing people, or burning them at the stake, or nuking whole cities. Behind the scenes the few people who are important, researchers and productive geniuses, change everything, doing shit average people can't possibly understand.

Just like you can't imagine how much worse things were before the elite invented vaccines 1900-2000, people in the 2200's won't realize the elite eliminated genetic disease-caused-misery in 2000-2100. They'll be bitching about the "multisexuals" who demand to have both types of sex organs or some weird shit. Meanwhile, cancer will be a forgotten "old news" item, and that will be in no way due to the rantings of political people. You'll be vigorous and fucking like a rabbit until you're 60, 80, who knows? Ten years in a isolation tank re-dreaming your liveliest years until you take off in a dream of teen queens orgasming. Death will be the end of a long dream.

Politics and culture arguments are meaningless, until it deteriorates to murder. What matters is reducing unnecessary agony, which involves avoiding things likes wars, maniac dictators, and plagues.

And scapegoating. Which is why in many ways I'm an anarchist, anyone who wants power and has a violent solution in mind, well, they're always the problem, not the solution. Whether you're Islamic, American, Frankfurt School, Christian, Ayn Rand freaks-- this idea was developed in the 1600s I believe-- the "social contract"?Considered Satanically liberal at the time. Anyone who claims transcendental knowledge is potentially nuts.

It's "leaders", political types that turn people against each other. All the bakers, taxi drivers, haridressers in the world generally have no great desire to kill the bakers, et al, in the other country.

Post: #78

(06-15-2013 11:13 AM)lurker Wrote:  Blame themselves? Work harder? Jesus.

We work harder now in America than we have in generations, especially in the so-called "learned professions," than we have in generations, and are getting less for it daily.

A teacher in high school spouted that BS and I called her out on it. Typical "all these robots and everything we're supposed to make life easier, instead the opposite happened, now we work harder than ever!"

Well how hard you work is ultimately up to you, and second, people tend to ignore the quality of life has skyrocketed. Do you want to live like people lived in 1900? I would also be highly suspect of the claim they worked less. No car, no TV, no adequate medical care, maybe a radio the size of a fridge, no fridge (or electric ice box as they were called in those days...), 1 set of clothes for the week, 1 set for church, living in a one bedroom house with 7 kids on the prairie, slaving away in the fields for most of the week growing your own food? If you want to live like that (and can find 7 other people to split expenses with), you can probably do that on $100 a month. Hell I think that's how a lot of Mexican immigrants live, but 'we're the hardest working people ever, and we get the least for it' is BS. There's never been a better time and place to be alive than in the modern western world.

Post: #79

I agree kids out of school are useless, but at the same time there needs to be a structured path for them to become producing members of society.

In the company I work for, we work a lot. The first 5-10 months with the company, you are largely useless, produce nothing, and suck up about $100k of company training. You are expected to work almost without days off for this period, often up for 24-48 hours straight, for a salary no better than any other engineering grads. I did the calculation once, on a per hour basis (assuming 1.5x for overtime) my salary got diluted down to like $8 an hour, half what McDs was paying at the time. Internationally where I am now, they take exploiting people to the next level. *HOWEVER* Once you get your shit together(especially if you're coming from a third world place), you are set money wise anyways. You still work your ass off and are always away from home, but you get paid. You have lots of opportunity. After a few years with this sort of company, you can basically go anywhere since it's one of the biggest names in the Oil Industry. Think like Big 4 Audit firms. And they're the same. They exploit the fuck out of new grads, all with the promise of once they get their CA, they'll be set. And there is some truth to it.

Even cooking or blacksmiths or whatever, I feel you should at least provide enough for food and housing (and min wage I would argue is just that), and then also provide some structure to becoming a full blown whatever.

What the case is now, is that someone with a commerce degree is being asked to work for free, not really doing commercy type things, and then at the end of it are no better off than they were before. This is wrong. If you want a clerk, hire a clerk. If you want someone who will be your next Investment banker or project manager thereby making your company profitable in the long run, but who has to learn the ropes first of which it includes paper filing, well that's a completely different situation.

Post: #80

We work harder at work and less outside of work. Specialization.

For example 100 years ago, to cook you had to light a fire then tend it. The heat of the fire would vary depending on the wood so each meal was different and to have decent food you had to work hard.

Today you work harder at work to get more money. You can take that money to a restaurant where engineers designed an oven, factory workers built it, utility workers deliver gas to the oven and a chef operates it. A waiter serves you your food. Easier than 100 years ago but you have to work harder to pay for it.

Post: #81

Why can't you pay cooks the minimum wage for three days until you are ready to hire them? I can understand if you are watching them cook and throwing the food away. But if you are simply working them to serve customers, then you should pay them.

I read a Wall Street Journal story about internships. The Wall Street Journal student interns worked on stories with real journalists and editors. But the "cool" MTV internship involved getting lunch for a video shoot, picking up trash afterwards, and loading leaky trash bags into their cars to dump illegally in other peoples' dumpsters. The problem is employers like MTV will deprive students of a real educational experience.

Post: #82

This is why guys gotta get out of the mindset of "looking for a job."

It has to be a mindset of creating your own company by providing value to others.

Post: #83

I like how people who have never worked in a kitchen are aruging with a man whose life is spent in one.

That's another funny thing about the U.S. Guys who never worked in a kitchen have no problem creating laws telling someone who lives in one how to hire.

I waited tables and being working in a restaurant is something you can only tell...when the guy is a cook or waiter.

I've seen waiters melt down on the job. In many ways waiting tables is more stressful than lawyering. The stakes of waiting tables are small but there a 100 minor annoyances that bring everyone to his breaking point. (I even got so pissed off once that I quit my job. Then at the end of my shit I un-quit, and my manager just laughed as he understood how it is.)

If you hire a waiter, how do you know who is going to do side work? Who is going to pre-bus? Who is going to run out hot food and do all of those other "tragedy of the commons" type situations that do not contribute directly to bigger tips?

When someone sings happy birthday to you, all of the waiters have to stop what they are doing to go over to sing. That means time away from their own tables, which might mean missing someone's drink order and getting a smaller tip.

How do you tell who is going to be a team player and who is going to sham?

Work 12 hours in front of a hot ass stove with entitled cute girls screwing up orders requiring you to do a re-make...It's trial by fire. I always felt a lot of empathy for the cooks.

By why listen to someone who is an expert explain all this?

We all know better!

Not singling out any guys. That's just how we do things in the U.S., especially in liberal states like California. We know better than the people on the front lines. Fuck what they have to say. We are going to regulate how they hire and fire people.

Post: #84

(06-15-2013 07:14 PM)Seadog Wrote:  I agree kids out of school are useless, but at the same time there needs to be a structured path for them to become producing members of society.

Kids are useless by choice.

I always heard people who sat on the couch drinking beer and smoking weed talk about being a "broke college student."

I was in the Army Reserves, worked during school and during the summer, and never had trouble finding a job.

Kids don't need to learn "skills" per se. They need to learn some fucking worth ethic.

How many guys who bitch about being broke will go online to start a web based business? That'd require study and thought and planning. Fuck that noise!

It's the "tl;dr" generation. People only hire young people for scut work or when absolutely necessary to fill a position.

Who can blame them?

What do young people bring to the table other than a sense of entitlement and lack of work ethic?

Post: #85

My parents had a business.

They hired young people to work.

Sometimes they cursed out customers, including kids. Parents complained. My parents told them they would keep the foul mouthed workers that didn't steal. They were honest with the customers and said that they didn't want to see them cursed at but that the business couldn't survive the constant theft.

Some of them were so dumb they'd steal $100 from the till at the end of their shift when they were the only one left there.

Post: #86

(06-15-2013 08:05 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  Kids are useless by choice.

I always heard people who sat on the couch drinking beer and smoking weed talk about being a "broke college student."

My point was that out of uni, in the capacity of almost any degree of what you studied for, you are largely useless. You've proved you can handle the theoretical side, but that I would argue is not even half the package. I think there needs to be a realistic way to bridge that gap. Either through apprenticeship programs, or structured management training schemes etc.

Other than that I agree 100%. The entitlement in the west gets to me.

I'm doing good now, but still making huge sacrifices. This is what bothers me when people complain about rich people. 98% of rich people worked their ass off. Hell I belive most people could be well off if they didn't buy so much useless crap.

Interesting article in the paper the other day, apparently 50% of millionaires in Canada are immigrants or first generation. Funny how when you've seen the alternatives, it motivates you a lot.

Post: #87

Just going to correct some factual errors/play devil's advocate.

(06-16-2013 01:00 AM)Seadog Wrote:  I'm doing good now, but still making huge sacrifices. This is what bothers me when people complain about rich people. 98% of rich people worked their ass off. Hell I belive most people could be well off if they didn't buy so much useless crap.

Could you define "rich" in absolute numerical terms or percentile terms?

I'm also not sure if we live in the same reality if you are seriously claiming that only 2% of millionaires/billionaires inherit their wealth. Where did you hear this figure? I am curious.

Quote:Interesting article in the paper the other day, apparently 50% of millionaires in Canada are immigrants or first generation. Funny how when you've seen the alternatives, it motivates you a lot.

Immigrants aren't necessarily poor. A lot of the political and economic elite of third world countries often immigrate over to the West. Did the article state the incomes of said immigrants upon arriving in Canada?

Post: #88

(06-15-2013 07:34 PM)JimNortonFan Wrote:  We work harder at work and less outside of work. Specialization.

For example 100 years ago, to cook you had to light a fire then tend it. The heat of the fire would vary depending on the wood so each meal was different and to have decent food you had to work hard.

Today you work harder at work to get more money. You can take that money to a restaurant where engineers designed an oven, factory workers built it, utility workers deliver gas to the oven and a chef operates it. A waiter serves you your food. Easier than 100 years ago but you have to work harder to pay for it.

What you're saying goes against the entire basis of what our economy is based on. You seem to be saying that for joe average, it would take less time/hassle (ie be easier) to go out and get all those things (food, gas, means of cooking etc), then to spend the same time/hassle doing book keeping or whatever and making money?

Comparing apples to apples (ie for the same meal) the whole reason why this works is that if he spends the same time it would take to make that meal on his own bookkeeping instead of gathering food, and then gives some of that money to the restaurant, he has the same meal, plus money left over from the same input of time, and the restaurant profits. Both parties win.

If he could make the same meal 'easier' then why wouldn't he? He should spend the two hours it takes to pay for the meal, spend one hour making the meal, then work one hour. Now he has the meal and an hours pay.

Post: #89

(06-15-2013 08:01 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  I like how people who have never worked in a kitchen are aruging with a man whose life is spent in one.

Not singling out any guys. That's just how we do things in the U.S., especially in liberal states like California.

To me the "entitlement" everyone criticizes is much more exemplified by a guy who has enough money ( tens of thousands I presume) to open a restaurant, then wants people to work for free. Sort of like the royalty in the old days who demanded the first fuck out of your wife.

Also, your presumption, at least as far as me, is false-- I worked every shitty job in a restaurant, including making absolute minumum wage--exactly-- when I was over 30 YO pumping yogurt while I was in grad school becoming the insufferable liberal snob I am today. My big fave was washing dishes, and washing pots, because people would leave you alone.

Post: #90

(06-14-2013 08:47 PM)Samseau Wrote:  I'm waiting for you guys to pass laws that force companies to hire college students. Because that's the only way they'll get a job. No one is going to pay for the "privilege" to teach skills to students that never learned shit in school.

You guys are brainwashed. This isn't about politics, it's about economics. WHO IS GOING TO PAY unskilled workers 10 bucks an hour to file papers?

I am willing to bet $100 to anyone that unemployment will rise as a result of this. Who else is willing to put their money where their mouth this?

I suspect it would be more or less impossible to prove one way or the other with any degree of objective certainty whether making people pay interns raises unemployment. There are too many variables, and one could never do a random-assignment prospective study.

Asserting that only if companies are being forced to hire them will college graduates get hired seems like an factually incorrect assertion due to the presumed fact that new college graduates are being hired every day.

Post: #91

http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2013/06...-and-women

67% self made, 48% immigrant or first generation.

Fine, 98% is an exaggeration off the top of my head, but just because someone inherited wealth doesn't make them lazy. Regardless I think the point stands that most rich people work hard. I was more taking issue with the people (typically without money) who are going on and on about how the rich are lazy/lucky and wall st is a bunch of crooks working 20 hour weeks golfing everyday. If only they taxed the rich more and gave it to them. They're in the similar boat as the 22 yo who can't get a job for reasons of his own doing, when it instead went to the foreigner who didn't go out every weekend chasing american tail.

Post: #92

(06-15-2013 08:05 PM)MikeCF Wrote:  What do young people bring to the table other than a sense of entitlement and lack of work ethic?

That's cool, but anyone from an older generation who thinks this, should be planning to pay for his retirement and old age health care from his own pocket.

Post: #93

(06-16-2013 01:35 AM)Seadog Wrote:  If he could make the same meal 'easier' then why wouldn't he? He should spend the two hours it takes to pay for the meal, spend one hour making the meal, then work one hour. Now he has the meal and an hours pay.

I gotta jump on this one here...one of the byproducts of a capitalist society is a lack of self-sufficiency. I could be wrong here, but I would argue that modern men have become less self-sufficient. 100 years ago, there was no internet, no cable TV, no televised sports, no cell phones. According to Michael Pollan, a great writer on the subject of food, people used to spend HALF of their income on food (today it's less than 10%). A great deal of everyone's daily existence was spent on how they were going to eat that day. It made sense because for the average human, what else are they going to spend their resources on? Shelter, clothing, heating, food...there wasn't that much else to spend disposable income on.

Restaurants are, in a historical context, a relatively new thing. To sit down and pay someone else to cook and clean for you, on their property, is new, even though everyone takes it for granted as if it's been around forever. So much so that it's become what I would consider an entitlement. Sure, it's easy enough to cook at home. Hell, you could give me an old 1800s cast iron stove and a cord of wood and I'd be good to go, but really, how many other people could say the same? I can only say that because I've got extensive experience in cooking, and specifically cooking with wood. I'd say most urban dwelling guys would be lucky if they can light their own pilot light. For breadwinners out there, it SEEMS like it's more cost effective to simply pay someone else to handle basics like cooking, especially if their pay-per-hour is high, but this has just become a crutch for laziness and against self-sufficiency. It's the same as changing your own brake pads or changing your oil. We pay someone twice, sometimes more, what it costs to do something that's really not that hard at all.

For a mechanic, car maintenance is ridiculously easy. For a chef, cooking your own meals is ridiculously easy. For the rest of humanity though, apparently it's a pretty big inconvenience otherwise there wouldn't be restaurants and mechanic shops on every block in a major city. I'd say JimNortonFan's example was right in line with how our economy currently works. We've become out of touch with basic survival and living skills in order to pay someone else to do them. Economically it doesn't make much sense but looking at economics sometimes overlooks the very basic human factor of laziness.

Post: #94

(06-16-2013 01:38 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  To me the "entitlement" everyone criticizes is much more exemplified by a guy who has enough money ( tens of thousands I presume) to open a restaurant, then wants people to work for free. Sort of like the royalty in the old days who demanded the first fuck out of your wife.

That's a bit of an extreme comparison.

Look, business owners, as a whole, are not saints. Let's all be on the same page there. Let me give you the example of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, who both own over 20 restaurants together. These guys employ more than 1000 employees in their restaurant group, and I used to be one of them. They were caught in a huge lawsuit scandal where they had to cough up more than $5 mil for skimming tips based on wine sales. These are wine sales, not food sales. Are they crooks? Maybe. After hanging out with Mario on a couple occasions, I'd say he's got a strong deviant side just like you or me. He's a huge fucking party animal. These people are human. They also own businesses that employ a lot of people and provide livelihood for them and their families. It's too complicated to say, "Well, they under pay. They skim. They require unpaid externship." At the end of the day, they're the ones taking risks, taking out loans on their own assets, making investments, putting their neck out there to open new businesses and offer jobs to people. If you owned your own business or business group that was bringing in $30 million annually, you're telling me you wouldn't try to find ways to get some of that cash into your pocket, even if it wasn't 100% legit? You're all telling me that you'd make the moral decision every time? Looking out for the underdog?

I don't buy it. Put a stack of $30 million in front of you and then we'll talk. Having worked for those two guys and their company, I was underpaid and overworked, but what I learned was invaluable and I would never begrudge them for anything I went through or saw others go through. I'd say what they contribute to society as a whole is something that everyone should be thankful for, and anyone criticizing them for not following the rules 100% of the time: start your own restaurant empire and see how easy it is to play by the rules.

Post: #95

Division of labor makes more sense for those who are great at one thing and awful at all others.

Being good or mediocre at a lot of things doesn't work as well today.

For those who aren't good at any one thing there is a problem. Like some SWPL raised college kid who got a worthless degree. Do they "deserve" a good wage or should they have to learn the ropes? No good answer there because they'll never be great at anything and being good would require more work than most Millennials will put it.

Post: #96

(06-16-2013 01:51 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(06-14-2013 08:47 PM)Samseau Wrote:  I'm waiting for you guys to pass laws that force companies to hire college students. Because that's the only way they'll get a job. No one is going to pay for the "privilege" to teach skills to students that never learned shit in school.

You guys are brainwashed. This isn't about politics, it's about economics. WHO IS GOING TO PAY unskilled workers 10 bucks an hour to file papers?

I am willing to bet $100 to anyone that unemployment will rise as a result of this. Who else is willing to put their money where their mouth this?

I suspect it would be more or less impossible to prove one way or the other with any degree of objective certainty whether making people pay interns raises unemployment. There are too many variables, and one could never do a random-assignment prospective study.

Asserting that only if companies are being forced to hire them will college graduates get hired seems like an factually incorrect assertion due to the presumed fact that new college graduates are being hired every day.

Actually we do know:

Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data:
• The level of entrepreneurship has declined in recent years. That is, the number of self-employed in the U.S. has dropped notably. Incorporated self-employed fell from 5.78 million in 2008 to 5.12 million in 2011.
• Meanwhile, the number of unincorporated self-employed declined from 10.59 million in 2006 to 9.45 million in 2011.
• While incorporated data only go back to 2000, unincorporated self-employed numbers date back decades. The 2011 number actually was the lowest in a quarter century.
- See more at: http://www.sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts...cx34x.dpuf

Unemployment reaching lows not seen since the 1970's:



So small business are dying, unemployment is highest it's been in decades...Quick guys!!! Make things more expensive that's gonna fix everything!

#math

Post: #97

(06-16-2013 04:20 AM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(06-16-2013 01:38 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  To me the "entitlement" everyone criticizes is much more exemplified by a guy who has enough money ( tens of thousands I presume) to open a restaurant, then wants people to work for free. Sort of like the royalty in the old days who demanded the first fuck out of your wife.

That's a bit of an extreme comparison.

Look, business owners, as a whole, are not saints. Let's all be on the same page there. Let me give you the example of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, who both own over 20 restaurants together. These guys employ more than 1000 employees in their restaurant group, and I used to be one of them. They were caught in a huge lawsuit scandal where they had to cough up more than $5 mil for skimming tips based on wine sales. These are wine sales, not food sales. Are they crooks? Maybe. After hanging out with Mario on a couple occasions, I'd say he's got a strong deviant side just like you or me. He's a huge fucking party animal. These people are human. They also own businesses that employ a lot of people and provide livelihood for them and their families. It's too complicated to say, "Well, they under pay. They skim. They require unpaid externship." At the end of the day, they're the ones taking risks, taking out loans on their own assets, making investments, putting their neck out there to open new businesses and offer jobs to people. If you owned your own business or business group that was bringing in $30 million annually, you're telling me you wouldn't try to find ways to get some of that cash into your pocket, even if it wasn't 100% legit? You're all telling me that you'd make the moral decision every time? Looking out for the underdog?

I don't buy it. Put a stack of $30 million in front of you and then we'll talk. Having worked for those two guys and their company, I was underpaid and overworked, but what I learned was invaluable and I would never begrudge them for anything I went through or saw others go through. I'd say what they contribute to society as a whole is something that everyone should be thankful for, and anyone criticizing them for not following the rules 100% of the time: start your own restaurant empire and see how easy it is to play by the rules.

I understand your overall point, but at the same time, you're taking money from employees that rely heavily on those tips. It's one thing to pay low salaries, but on top of it, you're going to take dip into a pot that your employees need to supplement? Yes, the owners are taking the risks. The restaurant business is a particularly tough one. But isn't part of the success attributed to having low-level staff that actually wants to work for you? For someone that's in it to grow in the business, I would say that they're more in it for the experience/education. But for a great deal of wait staff, they're in it for the money they can make and to move on.

Post: #98

(06-16-2013 01:44 PM)Timoteo Wrote:  For someone that's in it to grow in the business, I would say that they're more in it for the experience/education. But for a great deal of wait staff, they're in it for the money they can make and to move on.

Nope, business owners are in it for the same reason the workers are. To make money.

Post: #99

I'll reiterate my original point: I don't see the point in getting into a debate about something that is already in effect.

As for whether this will have a big effect on employment prospects, the ruling will first affect New York since it was ruled there, and then slowly spread in reach if Fox Searchlight loses its appeal in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals since other large corporations in the USA will then start being sued in federal court under this ruling for having unpaid internships that don't meet the standard of the ruling. So, if you want to see if this has a significant impact on youth employment, New York (and NYC in particular) would be the place to keep an eye on.

As for increasing regulations/taxes on business, I think we are going to have to get used to that. The climate and direction of the political process is more regulation/taxes, not less. In fact, years from now we may look back on these days as the "good ol' days" of relatively low regulation/taxes since we are heading toward more regulated and taxed future.

Post: #100

(06-16-2013 01:48 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(06-16-2013 01:44 PM)Timoteo Wrote:  For someone that's in it to grow in the business, I would say that they're more in it for the experience/education. But for a great deal of wait staff, they're in it for the money they can make and to move on.

Nope, business owners are in it for the same reason the workers are. To make money.

I was referring to guys like thedude, who worked in the business, and though underpaid, he valued the experience because he's looking to move up in the business and eventually make money down the line. An owner isn't looking to move up in the business - he IS the business, and obviously as an owner of a business he's looking to make money. Most wait staff are in it just for the money, and it's largely temporary. Anthony Bourdain wrote about how he pursued the highest paying gigs, but showed admiration for chefs/owners that took shit jobs for low pay in order to learn, so they could eventually make money.