And abundant evidence indicates that (most) corporations will do everything within their power to take advantage of this fact, unless very strongly regulated.
In fact, they even have a name for this strategy:
Self improvement is fine and necessary and honorable and all, but ultimately living together in society is necessarily political.
Note also that a lot of what is taught in undergrad/MBA economics 101 distracts from that, and (even while aspiring to be value neutral) implicitly promotes a trust in markets and corporations that is naive and misguided.
James Kwak's book "Economism" is a nice antidote to that:
https://www.amazon.com/Economism-Bad-Economics-Rise-Inequali...
I think the pressure from consumers can be even stronger force than regulation. It can act faster and it is not so susceptible to lobbying and loopholes.
Pikkety's seminal "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" is the famous, but somewhat dry exposition on that.
Branko Milanovic's "Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization" is a relatively slender volume that gives a great overview (on this question in chapter 2).
TL;DR: In "the West", 1950-1980
If there are enough geographers with graduate degrees applying for the gig even at minimum wage pay, you pay them minimum wage.
In the US (and let's be real, most of the world), capitalism trumps altruism (paying someone more than their market value because you're nice).
We exploit our own kind - it's always been that way, and there have always been a sufficient number of justifications (whether you agree with them or not) to keep up the practice.
I'm not against all of it. I just appreciate viewing things from as many perspectives as possible, uncomfortable or not.
To people who say "What's my passion in life and the rest of the world should subsidize it," not so much.
You're making some other point.
Either way there's nothing inherently wrong with a job that requires you to drive around all day. Work is work regardless of if you look down your nose at it as "menial".
i think they were simply remarking that someone had an advanced degree and it wasn't being put to use.
this point is really about the system/world/situation and not so much about individuals.
> there's nothing inherently wrong with a job that requires you to drive around all day
seems like a red herring.
Restated: If you spend 8+ years and tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn something, not putting it to use is a colossal waste of resources for everyone involved. It's not just you. It's the seat you took from another student who would have appreciated it more.
Knowledge itself doesn't contain any inherent value, it's free if you want to learn it all yourself without depriving anyone else of it. What you're paying for is the academic environment, resources and tutoring of a person. That's a business exchange like any other and everyone is free to spend their money on that, whether they do anything with the results or not.
I am not against the viewpoint you present for anything other than what I see as pragmatic reasons. If we lived in a post-scarcity economy, I would agree with you.
But we don't, and we aren't going to be there anytime soon, either. The system we have now loads crippling debt on to students, and one of the reasons it can do so is because of the constraints of supply and demand. Thus, in my opinion, to not do anything with an advanced degree is deeply selfish.
while i agree with your sentiment about not at all utilizing the potential of an advanced education, i'm not sure how google is "at fault" here...
assuming this resume requirement is real: is it google's fault there is a sufficient supply of master's holders willing to drive for minimum wage, such that they're content having the requirement?
Please note that I am not talking about learning in general. Lifelong learning is fundamental. But there are other paths to knowledge beyond a 4-year college.
Your bar for sympathy may be a bit high.
So what? I'm sure there's things you benefit from thanks to the Nazis.
Personally I prefer to not encourage bad behaviour and change the world in a positive way than worry about philosophical arguments.
I worked for outsourcers before as well doing support type jobs. Bad pay, ever increasing performance pressure, no benefits (no sick pay or health insurance), so if you got sick you were shit out of luck and healthcare was prohibitively expensive. Private insurance was available of course but these were all angle shooting companies in the affordable range that are barely better than having no insurance at all. The gap to the 3rd world is quickly closing in a lot of places these days unfortunately. (and not in a good way)
This was in western Europe.
Most western Europe has socialized medicine. Was health insurance as essential as in the USA?
The original poster says claims Ireland doesn't and whilst I'd assume they know more than I do, http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/Find_a_Service/eligibility.ht... makes it sound substantially free or heavily subsidised ("comprehensive, government funded public healthcare system").
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/medical_cards_an...
Sounds comprehensive to you?
The income threshold is so low that only unemployed people qualify.
What? No. In Germany you have public health insurance and private health insurance.
Private is only an option if you make over ~55,000€ or are self employed. Of course there are many private insurance companies happy to sell you insurance. They're in it to make money. Just be prepared for the premiums to increase as you get older.
Public health insurance [0] is available from several different providers, all which basically offer the same thing: you get sick and go the doctor, you are treated without charge.
> When things go bad, you bet the insurance company won't be on your side.
I have never been seriously ill, but for all the minor things (flu, infection) I just went to the doctor and gave them my health card.
I do know people who have been seriously I'll, requiring hospitalisation, and I haven't heard many complaints from them. They're still alive, and not financially ruined or suing the Krakenkasse.
So how exactly will they not be "on your side" ?
The public health system in Germany, and other European countries from what my friends say, is not the most luxurious or expedient, but you get the care you need and without paying extravagant amounts as one would in America.
I know people in America on ACA who pay thousands per year and still have a deductable of thousands. Sure, I pay ~4,000€ to the Krakenkasse through the mandatory salary deductions each year, but I have no deductable for care.
As a young and healthy person it doesn't cost the German government that much each year to keep me alive, but this money goes toward keeping other people healthy and alive. I consider that a worthwhile goal (though I do strongly want them to ban tobacco advertising).
[0] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetzliche_Krankenversicher...
A colleague of mine got diagnosed with a serious heart condition, was away for a month or so without sick pay, got fired as a result and went bankrupt from medical bills.
Maybe this is supposed to be an easy question, but as an American, I have no idea which western European country doesn't have socialized medicine, and Wikipedia is not helping me out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers...
Some medical card for the destitute exists but if you're working you don't qualify.
The whole medical system is a nightmare, but it's a very small country as well.
Ireland is a weird (and sometimes nightmarish) mix of European and American culture. For some reason we decided that some of the dumbest ideas of the US simply had to be implemented, at great cost to the average citizen.
There's always loopholes in socialized medicine usually only affecting the poor.
I pay for my own health insurance (because I own my own company) and while not cheap, it's affordable. I think I pay around $250 US/month. I get regular checkups included (most prescriptions cost me $10 or less) and I had a colonoscopy last year and it cost me less that $50.
If I had major surgery, I would be out a couple of grand. While it does have problems, it's nowhere near as bad as many would like you to think.
Keep in mind that many people would be bankrupted by a $5k expense.
Again, I will have to disagree. Do you have any actual experience with this or are you going to just give me more talking points....
My wife's sister went through stage 2 breast cancer over the past 2 years and she had her own insurance plan as well. After 4 major surgeries and 1 year of chemo, her total expenses are $10K.
You can negotiate with hospitals and they almost always have payment plans with 0 interest for a few years. She negotiate it down to $5K, which is pretty reasonable, considering the amount of time she spent in the hospital.
My Aunt lives in Canada and she had thyroid cancer a couple of years ago. Because it wasn't considered 'life threatening', she had to go before a health board to determine when she should actually receive surgery.
They determined that she could have surgery in 2 years. This was unacceptable, so she went over the border to the US and got it done in a month.
I would much rather have the option of actually getting the surgery done in a timely fashion than having to go before a board (IE: the 'death panels' that everyone talks about) to determine my fate.
The US healthcare system does need work, but many people use hyperbole and have never experienced it first-hand.
There are millions of Americans who can't afford $250/mo on top of food, rent, and transportation costs, working more than full-time hours spread across several jobs, all of which pay minimum wage in poor conditions that are bad for their bodies and with unpredictable scheduling.
In light of the reality of many, many people's experiences in the healthcare system that are contrary to your own, which are NOT hard to find, your comments comes across quite poorly.
Sure there is. There aren't that many private insurance companies in the US and they all work similarly.
"I take you haven't experienced the system as someone, say, making less than $25k/yr, in every single state, at various times of year (say 2 months before your deductible rolls over) with various kinds of conditions (acute, chronic, extremely rare, etc?), at various points in their careers (if they can even claim to use that word)? And you've experienced this in a range of personal contexts?"
I feel like this is the 'no true scotsman' logical fallacy creeping into the conversation. You could say the same thing about every single healthcare system (or any large system) in the world: it's not the same for everyone.
..and by the way, my wife's sister makes $35K/year. Money has little to do with it.
"There are millions of Americans who can't afford $250/mo on top of food, rent, and transportation costs, working more than full-time hours spread across several jobs, all of which pay minimum wage in poor conditions that are bad for their bodies and with unpredictable scheduling."
You say that, but many people I know won't pay for healthcare, but pay more in booze, weed, and expensive electronics and services.
When I was single, I got bare-bones care for $75/month. This is as cheap as a cellphone plan. My premiums were high, but I wouldn't go bankrupt if I had major surgery. Many people can easily afford healthcare in this country. They choose to spend their money elsewhere.
I've traveled the world and the US has the richest poor people I've ever seen. Try living on less than $2/day with starving children.
Hospitals can't refuse anyone by law. We also have lots of systems, paid for by the taxpayers, to help people on low incomes get the care they need.
"In light of the reality of many, many people's experiences in the healthcare system that are contrary to your own, which are NOT hard to find, your comments comes across quite poorly."
Your comments come off as rather naive. No system is perfect and I can point to many instances of people getting terrible care in every other healthcare system as well.
You want to paint a hyperbolic picture that the US healthcare system will make you go bankrupt and you need to be rich to get care.
My point is that this just isn't true. It needs work, but it's not nearly as bad as you make it out to be.
> "Money has little to do with it."
Again, you are severely out of touch with the existence of many Americans if you think money has nothing to do with it. I guess the poor ones aren't actually poor if they would just stop spending money on vices? You would do well for yourself if you stop looking at anecdotes of people you know, and start looking at the generalized case of the hundreds of millions Americans across socioeconomic classes.
The disappointing truth is that there are indeed many hard-working Americans (many of them immigrants...) who bust ass all year long, and they don't have money to pay for even a high deductible plan. They can barely make rent. And if they did, those plans still result in many tens of thousands of $s in the event of a severe hospital stay. These are the people where a single chain of events can push them into severe poverty with no easy way out.
If you read HN then you'll know this stuff is happening, and a lot of people are talking about just how hard it is to climb these days for the bottom %s of America. Just a few months ago, we're now at the point where potential to climb, social mobility is lower than our grandfather's generation?
I would like to invite you to read some of the work done by David Belk MD and see if that changes your seemingly cavalier attitude that it's "not that bad". Here's a former comment of mine with some links. The system is very inefficient, with a lot of corruption, and people like you are genuinely hurting people by fighting as if it's otherwise.
So no I cannot go bankrupt with health insurance in the US.
Also, many people aren't able to work when they are sick.
When I actually post my real experiences, I get down voted to -2.
....and we wonder why there are so many broken systems in the US.
[0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stam...
Most single millenial guys that aren't in tech or another high paying career are already living in shared housing indefinetely if they're in a big city.
An excess of people having no purpose in society will result in such conditions unless there is a revolution and a technologically disadvantaged north korea where everybody has stuff to do suddenly doesn't look that bad anymore.
Did you ever stop think about how weird that arrangement was? Do you know anyone who owns, operates, or lives in a boarding house?
And yet it's not really all that weird by historical standards. It's only in fairly recent times that cities decided to get all Moralistic about how Home, Family and Neighborhoods Should Be Structured and started imposing zoning restrictions with super emphasis on homes, waging war against boarding houses and residential hotels and flophouses and other haunts of the poor and lower classes in the name of Progress and Class Warfare. Can't quite afford a place that meets the minimum square footage requirements independently? Well, don't worry, we can find a place for you in the crime-ridden public housing projects or on the streets. Kiss your remaining independence goodbye and welcome to the Bureaucracy, because you're never going to be able to get on the bus to a new town with $100 in your pocket and find a place to crash for a few nights until you get a new job. Who would rent you a place like that anymore? There's the YMCA... and that's about it, _period_.
(Hell, a lot of the debates about AirBnB "abuse" end up rehashing these same problems.)
Shared housing isn't all that bad if done right
Humans are selfish by nature driven by financial rewards.
I'm not saying your job isn't though, but I find it silly to use it to dismiss the point of the article which is that US companies should be held responsible under US laws.
I'm also living in a first world country where costs of living are fairly expensive and where I don't have free housing (and food I presume), so I was living hand to mouth without health insurance.
Yes, 'it stinks' to have low wages because one might not have much of an education - but there's absolutely no reason on earth not to have 'basic worker protections'.
I generally don't like Unions, especially those that are entrenched - but we wouldn't need them if people were not so greedy.
Google does this a lot, and I find it despicable that they take the 'moral high ground' on so many issues, but then treat people as commodities.
Google is massively rich, there's no reason they can't offer 'decent pay' with 'regular paid holidays' and 'sick days' and to ensure that their contractors are doing the same.
High tech has this weird duplicity: they want to 'save the world' and 'end disease' - when they fail to realize that the world would be a pretty good place to begin with if all of the actors - people and companies - just behaved conscientiously - and that they have a role to play in this.
Steve Jobs for example - with one single sentence, in one single email, could have ensured basic worker protections for every worker in his entire supply chain.
And I'm not talking about 'gold plated retirement packages' and 'can't get fired no matter what' - I just mean '2 weeks vacay, basic healthcare, 40 hours a week max' and 'actual bathroom breaks'.
We talk about intellectual things like UBI, heyzeus, we could make big inroads with just some basic things.
Agreed. They fail to realize this and saving the world and ending disease is far more glamorous than actually treating your employees well. Its much the same with organizations that focus on helping people in other countries while ignoring the fact that there are starving, homeless people in their own backyard.
I worked as an independent Google contractor before for less than $11 an hour with very stringent rules, ever increasing performance requirements, no holidays, no sick pay, no nothing.
If you're poor and uneducated you're disposable dirt anywhere these days, even though people would like you to think otherwise and it's obviously even worse in 3rd world countries, where people looking for relatively unskilled jobs far outnumber available positions.