* Airline employees who aren't quite airline employees
* Cops who aren't quite cops
* Reserved seats that aren't quite reserved
Doesn't anyone honestly sell a real product that you can take at face value anymore?
At a time where small business software should have been making these middle men completely useless they were getting bigger than ever.
For instance, there's a pig related tea brand in the UK which is universally seen as funky and independent and all that shite. They're owned by tetley, who are in turn owned by tata. The ownership structure is sufficiently complex to make them look independent - but they aren't. It's just good marketing.
Either way, this is just one of many examples that spring to mind - oh, also, call centres - in the U.K. you can call pretty much any large business you like and you'll be talking to one of two huge call centre operators.
Then... where do you draw the line? Is private equity backing problematic when its obfuscated? Or just contract primacy?
> Then... where do you draw the line? Is private equity backing problematic when its obfuscated? Or just contract primacy?
Well, we're taught that the free market is efficient only when you have property rights, low barriers to entry, and low transaction costs. While monopoly issues get most of the antitrust press, I suspect that a lot of the other things people don't like about BigCorp world and the gig economy is the way that high transaction costs around hiring, firing, and most especially, contracts of all sorts. Any time these issues are complex and involve expensive lawyers, BigCorp tends to win. It's at the roots of a lot of problems these days.
One thing that I found consistently interesting was that more often than not, their employees thought they were working for a small, independent business - and the principles would often use "we're only little" in negotiations.
When you manufacture a reality for long enough it becomes real - at least, real enough in the minds of beholders that any opposing reality is dismissed as priggish or jealous.
Most of these start out as quality. Then what happens is that during some survey BigCorp finds out that SmallQualityCorp is nibbling away at their sales & profits and then the next thing you know SmallQualityCorp has been acquired by BigCorp.
"Sports nutrition" (the "what the hell do we do with all this cheese making byproduct industry") is rife with this - there are only two suppliers, and many, many brands and offshoots. It happens in retail, too - you see a single entity pushing multiple seemingly independent brands to target different market segments.
And whose employees aren't even near the UK. Call centers are some of the most easily outsourced jobs. And what with the UK having exported the ability to communicate fluently in English through its many years of empire building they've only themselves to blame for that one.
Oh, for added gags, one of the massive call centre operators (Serco) also operates prisons, which have quietly gone private over the last decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/aug/08/prisoners-ca...
> Oh, for added gags, one of the massive call centre operators (Serco) also operates prisons, which have quietly gone private over the last decades.
That's disgusting and ought to be illegal.
Someone with better sales ability would win the contract for cleaning office, and subcontract it to someone else. And even that 2nd person might subcontract it to someone else. Eventually, the person really doing the actual cleaning barely made above minimum wage.
What does MBA school call this? Reducing cost? Increasing efficiency? Reducing risk?
Basically it's called using money as a means to make money, and this was frowned upon in many civilisations. Even today, in much of the Muslim world they do not charge interest. They do have higher bank fees (no free accounts, no free checking or electronic transfers).
Keep in mind if we travelled back in time even 100 years ago, charging 29.9% interest would be far beyond the limit of usury.
Today in the western world, we accept the idea of being able simply move around money as a career that is beneficial to society, versus simply using money for trade and exchange. I really think this is one of the worst things we could have accepted as being morally acceptable. Board executives at JPMorgan Chase, PNC and the other banks that caused so much destruction in 2008 should have been thrown in jail next to rapists, paedophiles and murders. Instead they destroyed thousands of lives and made off with millions in bonuses.
What strange ideas of justice the world has!
In an ostensibly advanced country, America, one side of the political spectrum would be have us remain willfully oblivious to police abuses, corrupt prosecutors withholding or fabricating evidence, and the systematic dehumanization not simply of prisoners, but of any peripherally involved with the machinery criminal justice system, especially for the purpose of deporting undesirables.
(The prison guards who put an inmate in the shower and turned on the hot water until the skin was peeling off his corpse? Normal. The immigrant detained by ICE for months and months, given aspirin for his developing penis cancer despite agency doctors' recommendation to get him to a proper examination until it was far, far too late? Incredibly normal. Predates Trump.)
The other side of this political spectrum skims over meaningful questions of actual fraudulent or unethical business practices, issuing instead a blanket equation of the practice of making loans to people who assumed their house would apprecuate in value with crimes such as murder and child abuse.
And these aren't even extremes. Both positions are pretty mainstream, real crowd-pleasers.
What the hell is wrong with us? Can we not aspire to build a world where there is actual justice, and not mere retribution against our political foes and other un-persons?
Also finish the food on your plate, there are starving kids in Africa.
I think you're right that they deserve less punishment than murderers. But what they got is less punishment than some people get for standing on the wrong street corner.
For details, on both the bankers and the people on street corners, see The Divide by Matt Taibbi.
Regardless of how bad it is (and I do think there are arguments to be made both ways), being allowed to effectively escape punishment because the distributed nature of the crime makes it hard to comprehend its real impact is both wrong and damaging to society in the long run.
I was watching the history of York castle on Netflix. In England the Christian people wouldn't charge interest on loans but the small Jewish community did, I assume it meant a person could borrow more?
Anyway there was a huge riot by the Christian townsfolk they wanted to kill the Jewish men, women and children. Which also meant all debts held in Jewish books were wiped out.
All the Jewish people of York took refuge in the York castle keep but in the end were going to be killed by the people of York. The men slit the throats of their wives and children then the mend committed suicide.
http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/themes/norman/the-1190-massa...
It meant the lender was more willing to lend. The lender could make a business of lending if he charged interest, and not if he did not.
A middle-man can say "We will supply your cleaning in several cities no matter your office size."
So a company pays a higher cost - but only has to deal with one contract, which saves them effort elsewhere.
It's the same as taxi companies. It would be cheaper for you to call a small firm with lower overheads, but you're happy to pay a premium for convenience.
They have fewer contracts at any given time but also the contracts can last longer.
If I directly hire people to clean an office, when they don't want to do it anymore I need to find other people to do it. Selecting people, negotiating, getting payments set up with accounting etc. Its a distraction from more important stuff so I want to do this as rarely as possible.
If I hire a company/agency/middleman they can replace people without me having to even be aware its happening. At the point "keep the office clean" is essentially solved. Its possible I will never need to think about office cleaning ever again and I can get on with running my business.
When people plant themselves in the middle, they essentially sell themselves as being necessary. Are they necessary? It depends .. but usually not.
I suspect it was cost. The middle men would just under bid and then under deliver.
There are a lot of activities for which sub-contracting makes sense, particularly when there are possible economies of scale, but when the activity is merely (or largely) labour, there are only four possible overall outcomes:
1) the actual workers are paid less than what would be fair
2) the service is inferior to what was expected/agreed upon
3) the service costs more (the middlemen somehow have to take their part)
4) the contractor or sub-contractor has made wrong estimation of the costs and before or later they close or go bankrupt
The only one who can guarantee a free market (e.g. big players not monopolizing, abusing their position, underbidding and then killing small more efficient players, etc) is the government/law.
But the government is also often in the hands of big players, and passes laws to their favor.
And even when it isn't, they have the upper edge in other ways (purchasing and negotiating power, better lawyers, more money to burn, etc).
Heck, even the simple fact that "bigger player = more advertising money" can make free competition from a newcomer a non-starter. Even if the new company can make something for cheaper (despite the better economies of scale of the big players) people don't buy cheaper, they mostly buy what they know.
Hence, free market is a myth, perhaps even more so than communism.
Bingo.
Additionally, in many cases the person/team carrying out a procurement process may require (often by law or company policy) a ridiculous set of documents that some sleazy company is an expert in navigating, and exploiting any loopholes or poorly-written selection criteria. They deliver crap service that barely qualifies, but the procurement person/team can say, "well technically they fit the criteria" so their ass is covered. The procurement team is not rewarded for selecting the best candidate, so they minimise their own exposure.
Another reason to support small businesses, it helps keep markets honest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
It says that there is a less assuming version, but I'd always heard the information thing.
As an employee in software I've been working through intermediaries for a good part of my career, so obviously interested.
I suspect that, at least in my country, it's more a matter of bad regulation than of information assymetry. But the mere fact that we're not sure which are the causes is in itself information assymetry.
I think you might of hit on a possible explanation there, maybe it's wealth inequality? When there was more equality that CEO (or company owner, or just someone near the top) might have been going to the same bars or been part of the same local sports clubs as the cleaner, their kids might have gone to the same school. Now they probably live in other parts of the city.
Politics lately has been an example of this divide.
I don't think this ever the case, in any era. Rich people in many countries definitely send their kids to posh schools through their connections (e.g. slots available for those with a parent who attended), go to different bars and follow different sports (e.g. rugby union vs football/soccer, depending on the country obviously).
Yes, but company owners in many countries weren't that rich that the other people they provided services to. Consider a company with 10-20-100 people, serving a city.
Now, those jobs go to huge conglomerates and companies with 1000s upon 1000s of employees, and CEOs that are 100x as rich as the people buying their services.
Businesses don't compete for customers. They compete for investor and shareholder cash. For most businesses, the point of optimum return for investors is in a completely different part of the graph to the points that keep customers happy and employees secure and well-paid.
- property rights exist, and are enforced
- there are few barriers to entry
- transaction costs are low
My money's on transaction cost issues. BigCorp has teams of people dedicated to making customer acquisition more effective and efficient.
Don't forget that the state humanity started from was a totally free deregulated market, the consequences of which was the formation of tribes ruled by the strongest, most vicious guy and his spear-happy friends. When you don't have regulations, the person with the most power can impose their regulations.
it's called making money on someone else's dime!
But hey, supply and demand. They wouldn't be able to pay so little if pilots weren't applying, and that won't change anytime soon because flying at a regional for a few years is a way to build hours and move on up to the mainline airline.
So there's a fair amount of waiting around that's uncompensated. There is a per-diem, but I don't think it goes beyond average cost for meals, lodging, etc.
[1] https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/news-room/2016-08-16-st...
It could well be that they all work the minimum hours. I doubt it, this would be more expensive for the airline.
I see what you did there.
Are Internet services even obligated to notify you when they change their ToS, or do I really have to run a script every night that diffs the current ToS with last recorded one, for every service I use?
It's all about risk. Outsourcing means companies transfer risk to other parties. Governments love to do it too, that's why entities like the EU are given sovereign power or public transport is privatised. What's this? A train crashed because of a poorly maintained rail? Scheduled maintenance overran and commuters are angry? The power grid is experiencing brown outs because there's not enough power stations? Sorry, that third party is to blame... bad third party! I totally understand why it's annoying, but I have nothing to do with third party etc.
So in a way, United taking the blame for these things is refreshing. They are treating the outsourcing as their own responsibility.
sigh
> they have a vested interest in keeping Republic afloat through its bankruptcy (and therefore, discreetly accepting blame)
That said, I wouldn't call it a conspiracy theory. I'd call it shrewd business acumen. If the law permits you to reduce your costs using contracted third parties, you'll likely avail yourself of the opportunity when shareholders are demanding returns. It sounds sensational, but I think it's really quite mundane.
I don't fly within the US just because fuck the TSA (I'll take a train to Canada if I need to fly internationally), but I'm going to be more careful now about checking the subcontracted airline to make sure they're not in bankruptcy.
I might be completely wrong but thats what I always though, please correct me.
I was implying that if you see tickets and they're subcontracted to another airline, look up that airline and don't book if they're bankrupt.
Probably leaves United in a bad spot, considering Republic is bankrupt and United depends on them for services.
Unless of course the ticket contract with paying customers makes it a clause that United isn't responsible.
The whole thing really exposes the cracks and deliberate obfuscation in an industry I thought would be regulated like crazy.
There are more kinds.
United even created his own route from Newark to SC so he can fly home...
In January 2015, federal prosecutors subpoenaed records related to Samson's personal travel, and his relationship with Newark Liberty International Airport's largest carrier, United Airlines, as part of a probe into a flight route initiated by United while Samson was chairman of the transportation agency that operates the region's airports. The route provided non-stop service between Newark and Columbia Metropolitan Airport in South Carolina, located about 50 miles from a home where Samson often spent weekends. United halted the non-stop route on April 1, 2014, three days after Samson resigned from the position. Samson referred to the twice-a-week route — with a flight leaving Newark on Thursday evenings and another returning on Monday mornings — as “the chairman’s flight.”
This really shouldn't amaze me anymore, but it still does. The justice system is a very different place depending on the amount of money and power you have.
Have you seen the news and social media lately? United has been the butt of the blame "discreetly" the way James Bond making his way from point A to point B in a city while blowing up, crashing, and destroying everything in his path is "discreet".
Can you honestly name or a remember a PR disaster as bad as this one about any company in the past two years?
I would phrase it as "loudly and publicly accepting blame and a tremendous backlash".
There was one, funnily enough much of the bad PR was doled out by the airlines: samsung. Everyone that went though an airport got to hear "samsung galaxy devices are not allowed on this plane".
Volkswagen was probably just as bad at the time. Now of course most people have kind of forgotten or at least moved on and VW just posted strong Q1 results, handily beating estimates.
If I remember correctly the Bosch cheating software was there for testing purposes but VW asked Bosch to leave it.
> Everyone else also uses it
No. Some companies optimize their engine to have optimal emissions in the exact conditions of the emissions test, but no other company has been found to have an actual digital switch modifying the engine's behavior only during the emissions test.
Porsche is the owner of the VW group. They bought most of the controlling stock.
Since everybody uses Bosch ECU's and most of the companies knew about this cheating low temp. switch in the ECU parametrization, it is no surprise that most of them have been caught using it. It is not illegal in Europe though, because laws are different here.
The only surprise is that media is ignoring it, and blaming VW who would be the last to blame.
GP isn't suggesting there isn't any blame, but that United is low-key accepting the blame/'taking one for the team'. United has decided not to throw any of the involved parties under the bus, even though it is likely that most of them - possibly all of them - do not work directly for United.
Maybe because United badly wants Republic to not go into liquidation? As to how badly - the dollar value is the difference between how much United is paying to contract versus how much they would have to pay their own Union staff.
I can only pray someone from the Committee they meeting on soon read this or the article and can actually inquiry about this when they have a chance!
* The flight was technically a Republic Airlines flight subcontracting for United Airlines.
* Almost none of the staff involved worked directly for United Airlines; they are subcontractors required to wear United Airlines' branded uniforms.
* Republic Airlines is bankrupt, and none of the parties involved in the lawsuit has attempted to shift blame to them.
* United Airlines is capable of bypassing union wage requirements by subcontracting through partner airlines, so they have a vested interest in keeping Republic afloat through its bankruptcy (and therefore, discreetly accepting blame).
* The plaintiffs have a vested interest in suing United Airlines, not Republic, because Republic would likely be shielded from paying much if anything due to its current financial standing.