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The argument against this is that it absolves corporations of the responsibility to provide a minimum standard of living to their employees. The same argument i

by bhupy 7y ago

The argument against this is that it absolves corporations of the responsibility to provide a minimum standard of living to their employees. The same argument in favor of having a minimum wage instead of a basic income or negative income tax to offset substandard wages: it subsidizes corporations that underpay their employees. Ditto with socializing healthcare instead of making sure corporations provide it. It’s not an argument that I agree with at all, to clarify.

ralusek 7y ago
Corporations shouldn't have the responsibility of providing a minimum standard of living to their employees, they should have the responsibility of paying their employees what their employees agreed to work for. If their employees have their back against the wall and are literally unable to do anything to change their situation, that is a more general societal problem. UBI is, in my opinion, a monumentally superior solution than trying to micromanage the nature of contracts that people are capable of negotiating between one another.
- bduerst 7y ago
  This is true in a vaccuum. Unfortunately when you look at the history of the U.S., it's the corporations that have taken the burden of providing for U.S. workers. Other developed nations have their government supporting it's citizens, not corporations.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    How is that an argument against replacing these rules with a UBI?
  - ralusek 7y ago
    The US spends over 2 trillion a year on social welfare services, and that's just federally.
robomartin 7y ago
Corporations have no such obligation. This is an imaginary and destructive construct. Destructive because mandating this, forcing it, does nothing less than destroy jobs and even entire industries. How much more evidence of this do people need before they realize we are destroying ourselves from the inside? The consequences of the $15 per hour minimum wage will be felt in due time. Anyone running a business in the context of a global economy knows this with absolute certainty. This isn’t about greed, it’s about a mathematical reality and a destructive positive feedback loop: We keep doing one dumb thing after another to push jobs, businesses and industries towards China. Our consumers lose jobs and income and, as a result, apply downward pricing pressure to the goods and services they consume. Sector by sector, over time, pricing structures become such that it is impossible for these businesses to exist in the US or Europe. The Chinese government knows this, they apply further pricing pressure and very soon they own one sector after another. And so continues our positive feedback loop, deepening economic wounds that assure bad long term outcomes. I really wish we actually taught kids from K-12 and into university a lot more about business and entrepreneurship. It is truly sad to watch young adults get behind some of the most destructive ideas this nation has had at the table in quite some time. Simple example: Medicare for All. Despite what people believe, this is already the largest private property grab by a government in, perhaps, world history. It certainly will be if we end up with Medicare for All. Why? Because Medicare is NOT insurance!!! After 55 years if age YOU OWE THE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERY PENNY OF MEDICAL CARE YOU RECEIVE. Don’t take my word for it, read this and do your own research: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-medicaid-recovers-the-cost-long-term-care-from-your-estate-after-you-die.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-medicaid-recover... So, if everyone was on Medicare/Medicaid the government would eventually have liens and the power of asset forfeiture on EVERY ESTATE IN THIS NATION. Now, stop and think about that for a moment before you support politicians using the general ignorance of facts by the public to generate votes. This is a travesty, and everyone supporting it is a participant in what would be the largest private property grab by a government in history. Think.
- NeuNeurosis 7y ago
  I'm not so sure this accurate or argued in good faith considering the article you linked clearly states.. "Some states are fairly conservative about what they will try to take -- they have the right to recover costs from real estate, personal property, and other assets only if they are included within the deceased person's "probate estate." A probate estate includes only assets that were owned solely by the individual at the time of death, where there is no beneficiary or joint owner designated. Joint accounts, payable on death accounts, and contracts that have designated a beneficiary are not included in the probate estate." This clearly sets aside assets that are dedicated to a beneficiary or if the assets are jointly owned. I'm not a lawyer, so if someone is please chime in, but this would exclude pretty much anyone has a will or is still married. I think this not a valid reason to exclude Medicare for all as an alternative to our disjointed and dysfunctional system of medicine. Also what about this precludes us from changing this feature if it was rolled out for everyone?
kelnos 7y ago
I don't agree that companies should have a responsibility to provide a minimum standard of living. Not because I don't think people should have a minimum standard of living, but because I don't think it makes sense to push that responsibility onto tens of thousands of entities that have different financial situations and structures. Far better would be for the government to take care of this (via single-payer health insurance, possibly even something like UBI), and tax companies an appropriately higher amount in order to fund it. This would of course require a major overhaul of the tax code in order to eliminate loopholes that allow companies to hide revenue/income and dodge paying their fair share. Given all the issues around this in the first place, it is clear that expecting companies to provide for their employees isn't working. AB5 is just a band-aid that treats the symptoms and not the cause, and comes with a ton of negative unintended consequences. As much as I don't like how Uber/Lyft run their businesses (and yet I still use them), they have completely revolutionized (in a good way) how I get around my city. Every driver who I've talked to about AB5 has reacted negatively to it. Either they believe it'll be the end of Uber/Lyft, or they just point out they won't want to drive for them anymore because their flexibility will be destroyed.
- hellisothers 7y ago
  But to some extent this was the deal business made with government during the construction of the “military-industrial-complex”: the private sector will employ people at wages and benefits that allow them to be supported during work and retirement in exchange for the govt providing tax breaks/incentives and business/work. Unfortunately the tax breaks and business is still around but industry has slowly wheedled its way out of its social responsibility which you can see in things like contractors everywhere and pushing health and retirement responsibilities back to the govt.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Having employers provide health and retirement instead of just paying higher wages was always one form of scam or another. It started off as a tax dodge (wages were taxed but not benefits), and then it became a way for corporate execs (and governments!) to commit accounting fraud by attracting workers with pensions without actually funding them. We should be rid of them and just have higher wages so people can choose what they want for themselves.

by bhupy 7y ago

ralusek 7y ago

Corporations shouldn't have the responsibility of providing a minimum standard of living to their employees, they should have the responsibility of paying their employees what their employees agreed to work for. If their employees have their back against the wall and are literally unable to do anything to change their situation, that is a more general societal problem. UBI is, in my opinion, a monumentally superior solution than trying to micromanage the nature of contracts that people are capable of negotiating between one another.

bduerst 7y ago
This is true in a vaccuum. Unfortunately when you look at the history of the U.S., it's the corporations that have taken the burden of providing for U.S. workers. Other developed nations have their government supporting it's citizens, not corporations.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  How is that an argument against replacing these rules with a UBI?
- ralusek 7y ago
  The US spends over 2 trillion a year on social welfare services, and that's just federally.

robomartin 7y ago

Corporations have no such obligation. This is an imaginary and destructive construct. Destructive because mandating this, forcing it, does nothing less than destroy jobs and even entire industries. How much more evidence of this do people need before they realize we are destroying ourselves from the inside? The consequences of the $15 per hour minimum wage will be felt in due time. Anyone running a business in the context of a global economy knows this with absolute certainty. This isn’t about greed, it’s about a mathematical reality and a destructive positive feedback loop: We keep doing one dumb thing after another to push jobs, businesses and industries towards China. Our consumers lose jobs and income and, as a result, apply downward pricing pressure to the goods and services they consume. Sector by sector, over time, pricing structures become such that it is impossible for these businesses to exist in the US or Europe. The Chinese government knows this, they apply further pricing pressure and very soon they own one sector after another. And so continues our positive feedback loop, deepening economic wounds that assure bad long term outcomes. I really wish we actually taught kids from K-12 and into university a lot more about business and entrepreneurship. It is truly sad to watch young adults get behind some of the most destructive ideas this nation has had at the table in quite some time. Simple example: Medicare for All. Despite what people believe, this is already the largest private property grab by a government in, perhaps, world history. It certainly will be if we end up with Medicare for All. Why? Because Medicare is NOT insurance!!! After 55 years if age YOU OWE THE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERY PENNY OF MEDICAL CARE YOU RECEIVE. Don’t take my word for it, read this and do your own research: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-medicaid-recovers-the-cost-long-term-care-from-your-estate-after-you-die.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-medicaid-recover... So, if everyone was on Medicare/Medicaid the government would eventually have liens and the power of asset forfeiture on EVERY ESTATE IN THIS NATION. Now, stop and think about that for a moment before you support politicians using the general ignorance of facts by the public to generate votes. This is a travesty, and everyone supporting it is a participant in what would be the largest private property grab by a government in history. Think.

NeuNeurosis 7y ago
I'm not so sure this accurate or argued in good faith considering the article you linked clearly states.. "Some states are fairly conservative about what they will try to take -- they have the right to recover costs from real estate, personal property, and other assets only if they are included within the deceased person's "probate estate." A probate estate includes only assets that were owned solely by the individual at the time of death, where there is no beneficiary or joint owner designated. Joint accounts, payable on death accounts, and contracts that have designated a beneficiary are not included in the probate estate." This clearly sets aside assets that are dedicated to a beneficiary or if the assets are jointly owned. I'm not a lawyer, so if someone is please chime in, but this would exclude pretty much anyone has a will or is still married. I think this not a valid reason to exclude Medicare for all as an alternative to our disjointed and dysfunctional system of medicine. Also what about this precludes us from changing this feature if it was rolled out for everyone?

kelnos 7y ago

I don't agree that companies should have a responsibility to provide a minimum standard of living. Not because I don't think people should have a minimum standard of living, but because I don't think it makes sense to push that responsibility onto tens of thousands of entities that have different financial situations and structures. Far better would be for the government to take care of this (via single-payer health insurance, possibly even something like UBI), and tax companies an appropriately higher amount in order to fund it. This would of course require a major overhaul of the tax code in order to eliminate loopholes that allow companies to hide revenue/income and dodge paying their fair share. Given all the issues around this in the first place, it is clear that expecting companies to provide for their employees isn't working. AB5 is just a band-aid that treats the symptoms and not the cause, and comes with a ton of negative unintended consequences. As much as I don't like how Uber/Lyft run their businesses (and yet I still use them), they have completely revolutionized (in a good way) how I get around my city. Every driver who I've talked to about AB5 has reacted negatively to it. Either they believe it'll be the end of Uber/Lyft, or they just point out they won't want to drive for them anymore because their flexibility will be destroyed.

hellisothers 7y ago
But to some extent this was the deal business made with government during the construction of the “military-industrial-complex”: the private sector will employ people at wages and benefits that allow them to be supported during work and retirement in exchange for the govt providing tax breaks/incentives and business/work. Unfortunately the tax breaks and business is still around but industry has slowly wheedled its way out of its social responsibility which you can see in things like contractors everywhere and pushing health and retirement responsibilities back to the govt.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Having employers provide health and retirement instead of just paying higher wages was always one form of scam or another. It started off as a tax dodge (wages were taxed but not benefits), and then it became a way for corporate execs (and governments!) to commit accounting fraud by attracting workers with pensions without actually funding them. We should be rid of them and just have higher wages so people can choose what they want for themselves.