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This article is full of bias. The writer has an anti-business agenda and cherry picked a group of examples in order to make these kind of services wrong. If th

This article is full of bias. The writer has an anti-business agenda and cherry picked a group of examples in order to make these kind of services wrong. If they don't pay enough to get workers, then guess what? No one will work there!

EliRivers 13y ago
I can find someone so badly off, so desperate for any money at all, that I can pay them a pittance with zero security and benefits. Doesn't make it right. I appreciate that your ideology essentially defines the market as the definition of right and wrong. I disagree strongly.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  I don't know what to think, myself. On the one hand, people are not rational, and they will not act rationally when their life is on the line. See: Negotiating for health care, what EA does to everyone working for them, your example, ect ect. On the other hand, better that they make no money at all?
  - mempko 13y ago
    You fall into the market trap. That is, that only through the market the solution lies. The reality is your time may be better spent disrupting the system that requires money to survive. In the mean time, support charities that don't expect anything else in return..
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    Or better yet, strengthen unions again so we can do something about the fact that the discrepancy between median worker pay and executive pay is probably larger than it was in fucking feudal times.
    - GhotiFish 13y ago
      So, better that unions have a few people that make lots of money? Unions help ensure job security, you're covering your own hide here. People in poverty don't have their foot in the door, and increasing the expense of a hire decreases the desire of a company to take the risk. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of CEO pay, but it's not relevant. How does that thinking go? Take the money CEO's are making and give it to the impoverished? And what shall they do for that money? Pump gas? There arn't enough gas stations, there's not enough menial labor, and there's more than enough machines. As cruel as it sounds, are workers not a commodity? Is their rarity of skills not a prize with a price tag? What do you say to the companies looking for people in very high supply? You have to buy at high prices? response: "OK, Then never mind" I don't know what the solution is, but what is there to do that is worth the money right now?
      - EliRivers 13y ago
        One of the problems we seem to have is that there is still belief in the "trickle down" effect; the idea that if we give rich people shedloads of money, it'll eventually end up in the hands of much poorer people. Part of the problem with this is the perennial problem that rich people, compared with ordinary people, don't spend their money. Presumably that's part of how they became rich; by holding onto money. From personal experience, I've had months in which my own pile of money makes more money than my full-time job. I expect if you're rich enough that this can happen every month, the temptation to not spend it becomes immense. One of the benefits of unions is, as you suggest, getting a decent wage. This wage comes out of the company, and one way to do it is reducing the ridiculous CEO salary and other such big salaries at the top. So now we have a lot of ordinary people with money. What do ordinary people do with money? They spend it. This is exactly what we want to happen. They go out and they create demand for consumer goods and services. In effect, they create jobs. A thousand ordinary people spending all their money creates a lot more demand than one rich person dumping it into an offshore tax haven. Sometimes you hear the rich describing themselves as job creators; they're wealth sinks. Money comes to them, and stops (or at least radically slows down). What creates jobs is demand for goods and services, and the ability to pay for it; unions ensuring decent wages directly create this effect. As cruel as it sounds, are workers not a commodity? This, to me, is something of a moral issue; I accept that you can take a strict economic view of people just as one part of the economic machine, and the point of all creation is to create and run an economic machine. I take a different view; that this idea is repugnant and grotesque.
- true_religion 13y ago
  Question: is it better to not hire at all, than to hire for a pittance?
  - minikites 13y ago
    False dichotomy.
acuozzo 13y ago
> If they don't pay enough to get workers, then guess what? No one will work there! You clearly have no experience with people in abject poverty.
- theorique 13y ago
  Not true, my t-shirts are made in Bangladesh. Or Vietnam. Somewhere hella poor anyway.
minikites 13y ago
What a rosy Econ 101 view of the world. In reality, tons of people are desperate for money and put up with a lot of predatory business processes. Lots of people work without healthcare because they're purposely scheduled for just enough hours to make them less than full time. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/07/dangerous-meatpacking-jobs-eric-schlosser http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/07/dangerous-meatpa...
- marknutter 13y ago
  A lot of businesses are desperate for good workers and put up with a lot of predatory worker behaviors.
  - fnimick 13y ago
    Rubbish. This is an employer's economy, and they have all the power. I can be replaced a lot easier than I can find another job.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      It's always an employer's economy. We call it an "employees economy" when they exploit us a bit less than they have previously. But even now, what some are calling the best time in history to be a software dev, there was a startup right here on HN complaining about how hard it was to find the perfect employee and how they've been looking for over a year. Could you go without income for a year? I sure as hell couldn't.
  - minikites 13y ago
    Workers totally have all the power, like low unemployment, strong unions, and strong government services (e.g. healthcare, unemployment insurance, TANF/SNAP) so they have a safety net if they quit. Won't someone think of the poor abused business owners?!
- pc86 13y ago
flyinRyan 13y ago
Do you have any experience with the real world at all? If you need a job and have to get one, you'll take what you can get. You think the people who work at Walmart and get welfare think Walmart pays plenty? They have no options. There is a massive power imbalance between companies and employees because they need us to expand and we need them to eat. If it weren't for unions we'd still be shuffling into the mines from the time we wake until the time we have to sleep again, six days a week. Do you think miners thought they were getting paid enough?
mcguire 13y ago
"Let them eat cake."

EliRivers 13y ago

I can find someone so badly off, so desperate for any money at all, that I can pay them a pittance with zero security and benefits. Doesn't make it right. I appreciate that your ideology essentially defines the market as the definition of right and wrong. I disagree strongly.

GhotiFish 13y ago
I don't know what to think, myself. On the one hand, people are not rational, and they will not act rationally when their life is on the line. See: Negotiating for health care, what EA does to everyone working for them, your example, ect ect. On the other hand, better that they make no money at all?
- mempko 13y ago
  You fall into the market trap. That is, that only through the market the solution lies. The reality is your time may be better spent disrupting the system that requires money to survive. In the mean time, support charities that don't expect anything else in return..
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  Or better yet, strengthen unions again so we can do something about the fact that the discrepancy between median worker pay and executive pay is probably larger than it was in fucking feudal times.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    So, better that unions have a few people that make lots of money? Unions help ensure job security, you're covering your own hide here. People in poverty don't have their foot in the door, and increasing the expense of a hire decreases the desire of a company to take the risk. Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of CEO pay, but it's not relevant. How does that thinking go? Take the money CEO's are making and give it to the impoverished? And what shall they do for that money? Pump gas? There arn't enough gas stations, there's not enough menial labor, and there's more than enough machines. As cruel as it sounds, are workers not a commodity? Is their rarity of skills not a prize with a price tag? What do you say to the companies looking for people in very high supply? You have to buy at high prices? response: "OK, Then never mind" I don't know what the solution is, but what is there to do that is worth the money right now?
    - EliRivers 13y ago
      One of the problems we seem to have is that there is still belief in the "trickle down" effect; the idea that if we give rich people shedloads of money, it'll eventually end up in the hands of much poorer people. Part of the problem with this is the perennial problem that rich people, compared with ordinary people, don't spend their money. Presumably that's part of how they became rich; by holding onto money. From personal experience, I've had months in which my own pile of money makes more money than my full-time job. I expect if you're rich enough that this can happen every month, the temptation to not spend it becomes immense. One of the benefits of unions is, as you suggest, getting a decent wage. This wage comes out of the company, and one way to do it is reducing the ridiculous CEO salary and other such big salaries at the top. So now we have a lot of ordinary people with money. What do ordinary people do with money? They spend it. This is exactly what we want to happen. They go out and they create demand for consumer goods and services. In effect, they create jobs. A thousand ordinary people spending all their money creates a lot more demand than one rich person dumping it into an offshore tax haven. Sometimes you hear the rich describing themselves as job creators; they're wealth sinks. Money comes to them, and stops (or at least radically slows down). What creates jobs is demand for goods and services, and the ability to pay for it; unions ensuring decent wages directly create this effect. As cruel as it sounds, are workers not a commodity? This, to me, is something of a moral issue; I accept that you can take a strict economic view of people just as one part of the economic machine, and the point of all creation is to create and run an economic machine. I take a different view; that this idea is repugnant and grotesque.
true_religion 13y ago
Question: is it better to not hire at all, than to hire for a pittance?
- minikites 13y ago
  False dichotomy.

acuozzo 13y ago

> If they don't pay enough to get workers, then guess what? No one will work there! You clearly have no experience with people in abject poverty.

theorique 13y ago
Not true, my t-shirts are made in Bangladesh. Or Vietnam. Somewhere hella poor anyway.

minikites 13y ago

What a rosy Econ 101 view of the world. In reality, tons of people are desperate for money and put up with a lot of predatory business processes. Lots of people work without healthcare because they're purposely scheduled for just enough hours to make them less than full time. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-f... http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/07/dangerous-meatpacking-jobs-eric-schlosser http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2001/07/dangerous-meatpa...

marknutter 13y ago
A lot of businesses are desperate for good workers and put up with a lot of predatory worker behaviors.
- fnimick 13y ago
  Rubbish. This is an employer's economy, and they have all the power. I can be replaced a lot easier than I can find another job.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    It's always an employer's economy. We call it an "employees economy" when they exploit us a bit less than they have previously. But even now, what some are calling the best time in history to be a software dev, there was a startup right here on HN complaining about how hard it was to find the perfect employee and how they've been looking for over a year. Could you go without income for a year? I sure as hell couldn't.
- minikites 13y ago
  Workers totally have all the power, like low unemployment, strong unions, and strong government services (e.g. healthcare, unemployment insurance, TANF/SNAP) so they have a safety net if they quit. Won't someone think of the poor abused business owners?!
pc86 13y ago

flyinRyan 13y ago

Do you have any experience with the real world at all? If you need a job and have to get one, you'll take what you can get. You think the people who work at Walmart and get welfare think Walmart pays plenty? They have no options. There is a massive power imbalance between companies and employees because they need us to expand and we need them to eat. If it weren't for unions we'd still be shuffling into the mines from the time we wake until the time we have to sleep again, six days a week. Do you think miners thought they were getting paid enough?

mcguire 13y ago

"Let them eat cake."