Post: #101

(06-16-2013 02:01 PM)Timoteo Wrote:  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.

I did that quite a few times when I was interested in a particular business. I worked for very little just to get the experience and to see if I really wanted to pursue a business in that field.

Hell, one time, when I was just a kid, I offered to work for free.

I will never understand why people think people or businesses owe them something. They put in the time/money and took the risk to build a successful business. You are paid depending on how easily replaceable you are. Some people can't seem to grasp that concept.

Post: #102

(06-16-2013 01:57 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  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.

Absolutely, this is one of the main reasons I think America will become very poor in the next 30 years.

Post: #103

(06-16-2013 01:44 PM)Timoteo Wrote:  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.

We could get on quite a derail here, but to address this: I don't advocate stealing from employees, but the point that I would make is that you can't rely on the government to regulate these things. There seems to be this stigma of "Oh, those poor, hardworker waiters and busboys, slaving away for pennies while saving up for a better life."

At a place like any of Batali's restaurants, busboys and servers make BANK. This is not the same as bussing tables at a sleepy little diner. This is the big leagues. They come in and work a 6 hour shift and can take home $300 or more. I've known servers that take home $500 per shift. That comes out to $50-$80 per hour. It's insane. Meanwhile you got cooks in back making $11-$14 per hour.

So as a business owner, you see all this, and you start taking matters into your own hands. You say, "Fuck, these servers are making a fortune and all they do is bitch and complain. I'm putting in 80 hours a week developing the wine menu and importing this shit myself, doing all the legwork, but THEY get the tips because a customer bought a $300 Barolo from them? Fuck that." That's what happened in the Batali/Bastianich case. They were skimming based on wine sales since they felt entitled to a portion of the tips, as they were doing all the legwork involved with selling the actual wine. It's not legal. It's kind of fucked up. But that's business.

Management taking tips has always been an issue in restaurants, and to a certain degree, I side with management. Sometimes a server gets swamped and overwhelmed, so a floor manager has to step in and help them run food, take orders, etc. Does that floor manager get a cut of the tips? No. That's illegal. Whatever work they do benefits the server in increased tips without any extra work on their part. This is the end result of the government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. In California, most restaurants would never DREAM of skimming employee tips, after the insane lawsuits that have gone down here. It sinks entire restaurants. Yes, there are corrupt assholes that steal from employees, but there's another side to the story that most people simply don't understand because they've never gotten in the trenches.

Post: #104

I like how the renowned New York restaurant Sushi Yashuda has eliminated tips altogether, they've just raised prices overall and distribute the profits more equally,

Post: #105

(06-16-2013 01:32 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(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

You can't just make a few statements about what is contributing to an outcome without knowing how strong the effect is and say, "alright my point is proven". The economy, and in this case entrepreneurship, is part of many many factors reinforcing and negatively reinforcing an outcome. By this method of argument, I can make a good case that the raise of unpaid internships are systematic of what is causing entrepreneurship to fade if I choose the right factors. Econometric models with 100's of variables are not that great at predicting the economy, I doubt choosing just 1 or 2 can do a better job. I believe the lack of entrepreneurship is a generational problem with many facets, some more important contributors than others. And we can debate all day about that point.

But, I can tell you costs to start a business should not be one of them. Costs to start a business have never been cheaper than ever before (well except before this law). An Economist article recently wrote about the gains from all this globalization plus automation have mainly gone to 3 winners: consumers, investors and entrepreneurs. The losers are workers, particularly unskilled ones.

Today, you can automate and outsource pretty much every function of your business and only pay for what you use at the time of sale, meaning no underutilized fixed costs. Cloud computing for your server/transaction processing, drop-shipments for manufacturing and shipping, cost per a click for advertising, commission based sales-force, outsourced per a call support lines. And for times you actually need a hire someone, you can hire him based in a country that can do the job for like 1/10 the costs of a developed country worker, an illegal immigrant, or some kid from a prestigious school for beans. It is quite possible to be a one man enterprise today, and this could not have been done before the exposition of technology and globalization the last 5-10 years.

Unpaid interns are symptomatic of a problem that most business can be fine without them, hence they are paid what they are worth. The only people that can provide value above what can be automation, outsourcing and unskilled labor will be hired. And as time goes on, there's less and less people that reach that bar. This is an issue that America and most developed countries are facing.

Making recent grads work for free, and over time free longer, means fewer people will reach that point where they can provide value above globalization,automation, or unskilled labor. Forcing businesses to pay min wage is a government intervention in the market. But college grads with the potential to learn a field, who are forced to take jobs not in their field to pay rent/food, are a net loss to the economy more than forcing businesses to pay a 7.25 an hour to test them out. And because you are forcing all businesses to do it at once, you're preventing the businesses who don't do unpaid internships from losing to the other ones who do since those firms have better cost structures and lower prices. Also companies have been too cheap on training for awhile, partly because they fear other companies will take a worker right after he completes training. But if everyone is forced to do training, its a net benefit for the companies since that breaks a different prisoner's dilemmas issue about training investments. (Really, nearly all annoying issues social issues are PD or chicken games and their variants, e.g. stag hunt, tragedy of the commons).

But again, I think there is a greater issue of learning the right skills that are resistant to automation, unskilled labor, and outsourcing since having to work for free means you don't have them. Of course, it is questionable if all people can learn those skills.

Post: #106

(06-16-2013 04:45 PM)cibo Wrote:  But college grads with the potential to learn a field, who are forced to take jobs not in their field to pay rent/food, are a net loss to the economy more than forcing businesses to pay a 7.25 an hour to test them out. And because you are forcing all businesses to do it at once, you're preventing the businesses who don't do unpaid internships from losing to the other ones who do since those firms have better cost structures and lower prices.

Why would they hire anyone when they can just go abroad? Forcing companies to pay interns no matter what = reduced hiring of interns.

We've already seen this pattern with outsourcing, how anyone can deny this is pretty amazing IMO.

Post: #107

(06-16-2013 06:47 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(06-16-2013 04:45 PM)cibo Wrote:  But college grads with the potential to learn a field, who are forced to take jobs not in their field to pay rent/food, are a net loss to the economy more than forcing businesses to pay a 7.25 an hour to test them out. And because you are forcing all businesses to do it at once, you're preventing the businesses who don't do unpaid internships from losing to the other ones who do since those firms have better cost structures and lower prices.

Why would they hire anyone when they can just go abroad? Forcing companies to pay interns no matter what = reduced hiring of interns.

We've already seen this pattern with outsourcing, how anyone can deny this is pretty amazing IMO.

First off, can you really outsource the guy getting coffee? He has to be there for it to matter. Most intern work requires them to be present since they need someone to watch them.

And you're assuming that the person's productivity will stay below minimum wage for the whole duration of the internship. I bet you in a month, he's worth min wage or more. And when that happens, you just delay the adjustment to the market rate. If you paid him from the beginning, he's not going to be so antsy to leave so you'll get your money back.

And lets be clear here, unpaid internships that provide learning opportunities will still be exempt. It's stuff like this case with Fox that had a person do bitchwork for months on end with no upside other than padding a resume. They will be forced to pay a godly expensive 7.25 on hour which is less than starbucks coffee servers.

Post: #108

(06-16-2013 07:53 PM)cibo Wrote:  And lets be clear here, unpaid internships that provide learning opportunities will still be exempt. It's stuff like this case with Fox that had a person do bitchwork for months on end with no upside other than padding a resume. They will be forced to pay a godly expensive 7.25 on hour which is less than starbucks coffee servers.

They will not be forced to pay anything. They just won't hire interns going forward unless they absolutely need them.

+unemployment

Post: #109

(06-14-2013 03:37 PM)thedude3737 Wrote:  In my life I've come to expect two things from employers: Knowledge, and money. If I'm not getting either one of those, then I bounce to another job where I can find either, hopefully both.

This is probably one of the best things I've ever read on RVF and sums up what I'm all about and what I'm going through right now at work, which is why I may drag up soon, something I'm not keen on doing but it may have to be done.

Post: #110

(06-16-2013 08:17 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(06-16-2013 07:53 PM)cibo Wrote:  And lets be clear here, unpaid internships that provide learning opportunities will still be exempt. It's stuff like this case with Fox that had a person do bitchwork for months on end with no upside other than padding a resume. They will be forced to pay a godly expensive 7.25 on hour which is less than starbucks coffee servers.

They will not be forced to pay anything. They just won't hire interns going forward unless they absolutely need them.

+unemployment

I dont disagree with that point. But I think we have different views of the effect. I feel its negligible, i guess you consider it much stronger. We can agree to disagree here. I feel the net gains of having people learn their craft because they don't have to take coffee shop jobs since the employes wont pay anything is worth it on balance.

Secondly, businesses should only hire what they need. That's how it should be for every resource. There is a concept in economics of oversupply of resources. When you have too much of something, you get stupid with using it. As an example, my friend was offered an unpaid internship to walk a celebrity's dog. If she had to pay him, would she have offered? Is this internship good for my friend's job prospects? If we forced her to pay and she did not offer a dog walking job would that be a lost to the economy?

If she really really valued the dog walking, she could pay. It's possible the contacts might have been worth it and its possible she could have shared insights into how the movie business is run. But, come on, she could pay like 7.25 for an hour once a week to walk the dog without any sweat off her back. She only wanted an intern because he was free. Time would have been better spent by my friend finding another internship, which he did, that made better use of his skills and have her pay for a dog walker which is her trade.

This would increase unemployment since he took longer to find an internship he liked. Unemployment is about the percentage of the workforce looking for work but cant find it. It's a function of time to get hired and whos staying employed. 0% Unemployment has actually never been a goal of any government economic policy for this reason since people should be looking for jobs and do their due diligence. We're above our natural rate of course (something like 4%-6%) but lets not get so focused on unemployment that we miss other issues (austerity for instance will increase unemployment).

Post: #111

(06-16-2013 04:03 AM)thedude3737 Wrote:  I gotta jump on this one here...one of the byproducts of a capitalist society is a lack of self-sufficiency.

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.

Again I agree with you 100%, people are entitled and lack self-sufficiency. like I said in a previous post, because they no longer *have to*, people can get by with a degree in something that isn't useful make min wage, and still pay someone else to make their food. And they're still more comfortable than 80% of the world.

The reasons however are irreverent, fact remains, for those who choose to eat out, it's easier to work, and use some of that money to pay someone else to make your food. Whether it's because you make a million dollars a year, or because you could spend a year in a kitchen and not figure out how to turn the stove on, or because you have no hands is immaterial.

Post: #112

Samseau, I think the opposite will hold true. Of those jobs that interns are doing, some don't need to be done, some do. Those that do will be filled by real employees. Since I don't consider people interning as 'employed', employment will go up. Even if some of these internship jobs do lead to real jobs, those jobs will still need to be done, and those companies will still hire someone.

Right now we're looking at middle of the road, maybe useless but maybe not people. Extreme end examples can prove the point so lets look at doctors.

Say there was no was for doctors to bridge the gap between med school and real practice. So because hospitals didn't want to pay 100k a year for 4 years getting doctors up to snuff, they end up taking free internships at hospitals getting coffees and shit, because they're told contacts in the medical industry will help them be a doctor. 4 years of getting coffees later, they still don't know any more about real world medicine, so still, no hospital wants to hire them. So they go be a clerk instead because they need to eat. Here was have someone who had the capacity to be a doctor, but because there was no way for them to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical, society is out one doctor. Society is worse off because there are less doctors(marginally raising prices and lowering capacity), the doctor is worse off, the hospital who would have made profit on his/her back is worse off.

Luckily these are a smart bunch, they realize that, so they have medical residency programs. Resident docs work their ass off, don't get paid a whole lot, but it's paving the way for greener pastures.

Right now with these people there is no way to get form point A to point B. Perhaps out of desperation, they see working for free as their only shot, but because they aren't getting what they're meant to get out of it, everyone loses. (Except that one specific company getting free labour, and even then, only in the short run)

It's a very focused example of the same problem abroad in Africa/Asia. How many people born with super smart or able genes do you think are out there? The next Einstein maybe. But without basic education even, access to universities, the world is the poorer for it. I'm worse off for it. Because superstitious people in some places think burning soiled diapers will harm babies bums, I'm up to my knees in shit. Your lack of education hurts me. You can make this argument for free university, that an educated population is better for everyone. The problem is certain degrees are much more useful to society than others. Not saying artists are useless, but if I have cancer or the heat goes out, you can figure your priorities pretty quick.

Post: #113

This is akin to forcing slutty women willing to have sex with men for free into becoming prostitutes. You have a choice, albeit not always much of an easy one anymore, depending on your skill set, degree field, and prev experience. Taking away unpaid internships will reduce internships overall I suspect, thus making the glorified "experience" all these companies require you to have to work for them an increasingly difficult bridge to gap. Corporate America, as well as our bankruptcy laws have delivered a 1-2 KO punch to my life and boy have I learned my lessons. They will screw you comin in, and screw you goin out, and is now commonplace. Screw them first and use these Cos or get used.

I've met quite a few people whose skilled parents worked at XYZ Co. for 20-40 years, only to have their healthcare plans heavily reduced, and pensions frozen, or even taken away on some trumped up b.s. their superiors made up about their performance in their last year of employment... often not the same superiors that hired them.

The clincher is what other employment choice - to take the somewhat safer route do you have - than to start your own business in a climate where that isn't exactly the easiest thing to do based on lending restrictions and market volatility? Well I guess one choice - possibly an overzealous one - is to reroute your education toward one of the big 3-4 somewhat stable fields until they become flooded: Healthcare, Computer Science Anything, Bio/Chem Science, and Finance. I've always felt the best racket to be into is business-to-consumer sales of your own product (such as Roosh did w/Bang Books). No middlemen, no B2B relationships where an engineer with no business background, or businessman with no engineering background can foible the whole process. < a common corporate occurrence in my experience. No 50 points of contact between 8 departments to get 1 fuckin project done half-assed.

If companies don't want to honor their interns with employment after they pay their initial dues, then they're essentially providing free experience that the intern can use hopefully to propel their early career in that field. If they have to pay, they'll be more likely to hire them one would think, providing performance wasn't an issue, but I doubt that will hold true either.

My attitude is NOT to trust corporate America as they act in concert with their peers. As long-term employment is a much shakier prospect nowadays, it is those that play rank-ordered politics on down the chain the best, in a highly political climate, that can remain and prosper at larger companies for years on end nowadays. Think biggest business = US Gov't (most political) which affects >, Giant Public and Private businesses (mostly political) which affects>, Medium Sized Private (somewhat political), and so on down the line.

The last two jobs I had, one of which I was released from during the heart of the recession due to company down-sizing and my lack of seniority, and the most recent of which I was released purely due to political bullshit, taught me a harsh lesson. Its a whole new ball game from internship to retirement age. And its only going to get worse IMO.

Post: #114

I'm sorry but seriously, You have to pay people for the work they do. The "its going to mean more unemployment/outsourcing/etc" excuse is not a good one You pay people for what they are worth if they are working for you. If you can't do that then you're saying "you're not worth anything"

And who wants to be associated with a company that views their employees as "not worth anything?"

eventually that attitude will ruin companies, large and small.

In that case, don't have interns, just hire people. Or at least pay them minimum wage for the internship.

if a company can't even do that (minimum wage for an internship) then that company probably isn't doing to well in the first place.

"oh nooo outsourching blah blah blah" Yeah, enough companies do that and eventually they are going to have to move the whole company overseas, and eventually NO ONE will be able to afford to buy the product that they are paying pennies to have made. No one is asking employers to give people the world, hell, most people would be fine with a livable wage (small apartment + food + transportation money + a little money to save) but paying someone Z E R O? I'm sorry but no.

Employers should be making it a goal to have enough money to pay their employees. . .

I do find it disturbing that so many people on this site (seen in this and other threads) have so much disdain for their employees/ people working for a wage/salary in general. Eventually that attitude, that lack of respect, is going to bite a lot of people in the ass.

Post: #115

(06-16-2013 03:37 PM)Vicious Wrote:  I like how the renowned New York restaurant Sushi Yashuda has eliminated tips altogether, they've just raised prices overall and distribute the profits more equally,

I always hated the tipping idea, it seems to put the employee on the spot too much. And then I felt uncomfortable too knowing they might be making under minimum wage unless I dump some money on them. They actually bother me too much-- "Is everything all right" to the point where I tell them "We'll let you know if we need anything."

Post: #116

(06-15-2013 07:48 PM)Divorco Wrote:  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.

Wait, I like this idea of not paying for things. How do I know a restaurant is any good? I want to eat there free for three days and see that I don't get sick!!

That's fair, right, if they don't want to pay their employees for three days.

Post: #117

(06-16-2013 06:47 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Why would they hire anyone when they can just go abroad? Forcing companies to pay interns no matter what = reduced hiring of interns.
We've already seen this pattern with outsourcing, how anyone can deny this is pretty amazing IMO.

The labor's gotta be done. You can't outsource most of this shit. It's like trying to outsource your plumber.

American companies just cry like little bitches whenever anything disrupts them. Think about the type of business regulation in places like China and Russia. It's much more heavily regulated.

Post: #118

I'm sure it's all been covered in the 5 pages so far, but just to add my 2 cents. Despite being a Libertarian I don't think unpaid internships should be legal. In most cases the potential upside just isn't good enough to justify working for nothing. Sure, if an intern has a legitimate shot at working in a Michelin starred restaurant, or other high profile company working for a short time for no money will probably be worth the risk. But there are two problems:

1) It's not only worthy organisations who are employing unpaid interns. Any Tom, Dick and Harry company now think they can get people to work for them for free. In another time this was called slavery (Yes, I know current interns are not "forced" to be there).
2) Even more importantly the practice will only increase the already massive class and income divide. Working for nothing is a luxury only the rich and upper middle class can afford since these kids can be bankrolled by their parents. Not everyone is in this position. The poverty spiral becomes even more viscous.

It's not often that I agree with thee sort of regulations, but given the state of affairs the state is correct in trying to destroy these unpaid internships. I mean, how much is minimum wage in the US... I see in NYC it's $9. Is it really going to kill all these companies who think they are too cool to pay new employees anything to pay someone $9/hour? f they really are hard up, maybe have them for half a day. They should be prepared to do and accept it as a cost of finding out whether someone will be a suitable employee or not. If you make it free for them they'll tend to over"hire", where they already know that 90% of their unpaid interns have no hope of a position. There must be a cost associated so they act responsibly. And there's nothing free in life. If they were recruiting someone through an agency do you think the agency would find someone for free? No way.

Post: #119

(06-17-2013 02:55 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(06-15-2013 07:48 PM)Divorco Wrote:  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.

Wait, I like this idea of not paying for things. How do I know a restaurant is any good? I want to eat there free for three days and see that I don't get sick!!

That's fair, right, if they don't want to pay their employees for three days.

See my post referring hiring new kitchen employees to drafting baseball players. Just take my word that it's a very similar situation.

I think I've got a pretty good anecdote here that will help you guys understand better. When you were in elementary or middle school remember that fat, slow kid that noone picked at dodgeball? Everyone was super bummed to get stuck with that lop? Let's say, hypothetically, that during recess, kids got PAID to play dodgeball. But there was only enough payroll for 10 kids. So of course the first 10 kids that get picked by the captains are obviously the best at dodgeball. They're the athletic, skilled ones. They get $5 to blow on comic books and candy after school. The REST of the kids, the loppy, slow, fat ones, get picked successively based on their lack of skill until there's the slowest, loppiest of them all. Well, these kids now have a choice: They know that the 10 best players are getting paid, so they can throw their hands up and say "Fuckit, this isn't fair!" and walk away and watch the money-making kids play dodgeball, OR, they can stay in the game and IMPROVE. They can hustle twice as hard, lose some weight, get faster, throw harder and more accurately, so that after a couple weeks, when one of the "paid" kids gets complacent, some hotshot that's been gunning for his position gets drafted in one of the top 10, and now HE'S paid.

That's how it works in my world, at least traditionally. I know what you guys might be thinking, "Instead of 10 players getting paid $5, why not just pay all the kids $1". And that, my friends, is not the kind of world I want to live in. Say goodbye to good restaurants where people bust their ass.

Post: #120

I can smell the economists creeping around this thread...

This is going to have a negative effect on unemployment. If these firms were hedging for better quality labour, that was more efficient, they would of paid for it along time ago. Marginal jobs will stay on-line, the rest will be nuked.

Post: #121

(06-14-2013 03:16 PM)Samseau Wrote:  If anything, kids should skip school and go straight for unpaid internships.

I learned more in 3 months of interning than I did in 4 years of school.

Post: #122

(06-17-2013 11:53 AM)thedude3737 Wrote:  

(06-17-2013 02:55 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(06-15-2013 07:48 PM)Divorco Wrote:  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.

Wait, I like this idea of not paying for things. How do I know a restaurant is any good? I want to eat there free for three days and see that I don't get sick!!

That's fair, right, if they don't want to pay their employees for three days.

See my post referring hiring new kitchen employees to drafting baseball players. Just take my word that it's a very similar situation.

I think I've got a pretty good anecdote here that will help you guys understand better. When you were in elementary or middle school remember that fat, slow kid that noone picked at dodgeball? Everyone was super bummed to get stuck with that lop? Let's say, hypothetically, that during recess, kids got PAID to play dodgeball. But there was only enough payroll for 10 kids. So of course the first 10 kids that get picked by the captains are obviously the best at dodgeball. They're the athletic, skilled ones. They get $5 to blow on comic books and candy after school. The REST of the kids, the loppy, slow, fat ones, get picked successively based on their lack of skill until there's the slowest, loppiest of them all. Well, these kids now have a choice: They know that the 10 best players are getting paid, so they can throw their hands up and say "Fuckit, this isn't fair!" and walk away and watch the money-making kids play dodgeball, OR, they can stay in the game and IMPROVE. They can hustle twice as hard, lose some weight, get faster, throw harder and more accurately, so that after a couple weeks, when one of the "paid" kids gets complacent, some hotshot that's been gunning for his position gets drafted in one of the top 10, and now HE'S paid.

That's how it works in my world, at least traditionally. I know what you guys might be thinking, "Instead of 10 players getting paid $5, why not just pay all the kids $1". And that, my friends, is not the kind of world I want to live in. Say goodbye to good restaurants where people bust their ass.

Your analogy would still be covered even after the changes of the internship law. Using your analogy, the current situation would be like if you took the fat kid, made him work as the waterboy with the promise that maybe he could make the team. He busts his ass doing UNRELATED shitwork for months. In the end, he doesn't make the team.

The thing is, while he was working as waterboy, some of the other fat kids got together and played on the weekends to improve their game. Others, managed to get onto shittier teams since they kept looking outside their school which had a pretty decent team. The kids who couldnt get anything, worked out and practiced by themselves. The fat kid who worked as a water boy is now worse off than before against his less fat friends since his work never gave him the time to exercise or practice.

The only thing he can claim is that he knows the coach and the coach's friends along with telling people he was part of the team and saw how a team should be run.

Post: #123

Simple as this:

Experience > Money

I am 22 and own two very successful business. I wouldn't be able to be where I am today if I didn't start working my butt off since I was 15.

No amount of money can account for the knowledge learned over the years.

Heck if I had the chance I would be a intern at Google, Apple, The white house, Coca-cola etc.

The more you know now, the easier life is tomorrow.

Post: #124

(06-16-2013 02:31 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(06-16-2013 01:57 PM)The Texas Prophet Wrote:  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.

Absolutely, this is one of the main reasons I think America will become very poor in the next 30 years.

Effective entity tax rates in the United States are at a modern historical low, and have been more or less on a steady decrease since the early 1970s. While it is true that the regulatory burden has increased on small businesses, the overall proportion of business revenues "taken" in some way by government is lower than in the American boom years.

However, what is likely to be crippling to small businesses - and is more likely to occur from increased regulatory costs than from higher taxes - is an extreme value hit that the business can't cover through cashflow, like a hefty EPA fine. A business paying a 40% effective corporate tax rate on $1 million in annual revenues - the effective corporate tax rate circa 1971 - over five years has paid, ignoring the time value of money, $2 million in taxes. A business paying a 20% effective corporate tax rate on $1 million in annual revenues - the effective corporate tax rate now - over five years plus $1 million in regulatory and litigation costs has also paid out $2 million, but also has to deal with the risk of ruin of encountering costs equal to their total revenues in a year they may not be able to survive a cashflow constriction. Smart businesses have good legal departments and set aside money for this risk. Small businesses many times don't want to or can't afford to.

Post: #125

Bumping this thread. Does an unpaid Fedearal, State, or City Government internship make an unpaid internship better or just as bad as a private company?