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No apologists. Just common sense. A company tells you up front that the terms of hire are you are paid $20/hr and you have to use your own car & gas. You don't like that, then say no.
If people want to earn more, there are jobs out there that pay more. Take one of those jobs.
The same applies if a job paid $50k and you wanted $75k.
How is this NOT common sense?
Because large companies can operate on ultra thin margins for a long enough period of time to put other small to medium size companies under. Once these companies are gone they become one of the few gigs in town (notice they never quite reach monopoly but rather ologopoly status). Then the only gig in town is them (or maybe 2-3 companies that pseudo collude but not to the point of running afoul of our incredibly weakly enforced anti trust laws)
Regardless I still would not run miles up on my own car unless I owned an old jelopy that I could use but I know uber has rules against this, not sure about amazon. I will laugh my a off when people start stealing cars to do an amazon delivery so they can buy a sandwich, thats when we know we have made it as a society lol.
The key issue is the pseudo monopoly status these companies carve out of the market for themselves and there is no political remedy for average citizens. Finding a high wage job is not easy, it is incredibly difficult, so does someone just get on public assistance while they spend years looking for these elusive high paying jobs?
Your posts are completely devoid of reality, the reality of the situation we are in. I even agree with you in alot of cases, I dont want people taking my stuff in the form of excessive taxes and people should work hard, etc. But what happens when genuine opprotunities get further and further far and few between, do you think people will just go out in the woods and die? Our political system is going to have to address this as things keep getting worse.
Corporate apologists are everywhere now, and im tired of it. Bezis can afford the billion dollar paycut to pay the workers a decent wage.
Its because they think they are immune and maybe they are. I am guessing some of the appoligists already got theres (they have 500k - 1mil) in the bank earning passive interest in a low risk investment or they think that they are special super workers and immune from a mass lay off and they could just line up a new job in a weeks time (maybe they can). If these people experience a series of unfortunate events it usually wrecks them.
Thats what happened to me, my ENTIRE network was forced retired, reorgainzed out, demoted, etc. I was working hard to try to build up my network over those 3 years but pretty much everyone was in the same boat, some got lucky and picked up federal govt jobs, others won the "apply for a random job on the internet lottery" and moved to another state with a relocation package. It was a brutal nightmare because everyone was getting axed, even new people to my network who narrowly escaped the guillotine were in no position to to get me back in the game.
NO ONE likes to admit that they are where they are because they got lucky. The hard and smart work goes without saying, but without a lucky opportunity your screwed.
Contingent on how the data was calculated...
I could say that My gas and insurance...and car maint means that I'm only making 7 dollars an hour. And that's with a company that pays in for unemployment and in staff insurance. . (Workman's comp). So was I conned? Nope. It's my responsibility to find proper transportation. .and my responsibility to wear the proper attire . It's my responsibility to be educated.
You can spin data in ways that the common man would say....that's a given.
And tbh...my car is getting to hit 200k in milage...it's no where near "disposable' simply because the myth is that at 100k miles...it's time to replace it!
Its not time to trash the car but the mx starts getting alot more expensive, no longer can you just change the oil and go. Now you are changing transmission fluids, replacing parts, etc. It can start costing well over a grand when you have to go in and get this stuff done.
I drive a toyota to avoid these things as much as possible but even then if you dont do the manufacturers recommended mx your taking a major risk. I am only at 55k and once I hit 60k its a $700 mx just for routine fluid changes and inspection (becuase its ALL the fluids), if parts had to be replaced it could get super spendy.
People are going to have to learn this the hard way, the problem is this creates significant social issues.
Your gross revenue is still what you earned. What you described are expenses related to a job. An independent contractor calculates those expenses on their own. That's actually a pretty important part of being classified as a contractor and not an employee.
A contractor is doing work in exchange for a paycheck. That's a job. You and I both know it. Come on.
So are the contractors going to bid on contracts? OR is amazon just setting the rate and hoping to exploit idiots? The issue is idiots can keep doing idiot things for quite a while, while you have to sit on the side lines until they are insolvent and it seems there is no shortage of idiots willing to underbid you and loose money.
This creates very serious social issue when the bulk of the population is moronic. This is part of the reason why my wife and I fight because I hate this country because its basicly made up of moronic idiots and the wolves and vultures that exploit them. If your not an idiot and you dont want to poisen your soul by becoming and exploiter then you are pretty much screwed, you almost cant even participate in the market but she is not willing to move to some place like Germany.
There are fewer and fewer exceptions left in the USA, perhaps the DOE labs which seem to be shrinking, NASA and a VERY tiny hand ful of companies. I suppose I could become a vulture so that im not actually comiting graft, usury, theft, etc.
I do agree there. That is not just Amazon though, the wave towards that began long before. Uber, Takl, Thumbtack, all of them are taking us toward a new economy where benefits and full time work are a thing of the past and you just piece together what you can. Somehow in the last 20 years, people not only stopped caring about unions, they cheered their demise (great brain-washing by the corporate powers that be). When Hostess closed and laid off union employees and then re-opened under new owners and hired them at half the salary, people on these boards were ecstatic about it, something I have never understood.
In another 5 years all those warehouse jobs will be done by robots though anyway, another 10 and the trucks will be self-driving and drones will deliver the packages.
If the trucking jobs alone became automated, it would lay off tens of millions of US workers. It would be catastrophic. I'd rather see self driving trucks banned for the protection of the US worker/economy, than kill the working class.
I laugh whenever I read these articles because the costs are so over stated it's crazy. Take this article which lists insurance, cell phone, maintenance and depreciate that brings the total so low. Well who does not have a cell phone? To claim this is an additional out of pocket expense is nonsense. Regarding insurance again we all have it anyway you just need to add the supplement. I checked as I'm a part time Uber driver and to add ride sharing was no charge. I'm not kidding, I checked 3 times. Others have said they pay no more than $15-$20/month additional. So again that expense is grossly overstated.
We all understand car depreciation and the additional maintenance involved however most smart drivers are not using a 1 year old BMW or a broken down Fiesta. I am driving a 6 year old Civic with 150,000 miles on it and have had basically no repair costs other than scheduled maintenance and tires. I fully expect to get another 100,000 miles although there will obviously be repair bills in my future. Flex drivers have no car requirement, they often drive 18 year old Toyotas or the like which are still reliable but have very little in the way of depreciation.
So yeah the depreciating is over stated big time. The .54/ the government rate for your total costs is not reality if you drive the right car. The woman in the article drives an SUV getting 13 MPG and drives a long distance to the warehouse. Gee wonder why she is only netting $5 an hour? That's on her not the job, what a stupid example to try to make some point. .
Many of these article include meals out as an additional expense. We don't factor that in when calculating an office workers pay so why do it with Flex/Ride Share people? As all miles, including driving around looking for riders, are deductible if you are smart you pay virtually no taxes. So that $20/hour figure is really more like $30/hour when taxes, FICA etc are factored. The figure looks even better when you do not have to figure in commuting expenses realized by the office worker.
I talked to a Flex driver who also drives for Uber, he is grossing around $1,600 a week and there is little chance his expenses are reducing that figure a whole lot as he has an older Scion. Every Flex driver I have spoken with feels the pay is pretty good for the work involved ( read no skills required). Many use it to fill in during the slow ride share times which are the middle of the day.
Last edited by DaveinMtAiry; 11-25-2018 at 07:27 AM..
They are doing this apparently with the support of the business community and the government:
Precisely. Crony capitalism. Not real capitalism.
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So is Amazon just evil, or are they just taking advantage of laws that benefit business owners vs employees?
Crony capitalism is evil.
The law that was written was written by politicians bought by cronies, to benefit cronies at our expense. The blame falls squarely on the politicians.
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I have always believed big business gets whatever it wants at the expense of employees.
I believe that crony businesses get whatever they want at the expense of their employees. They are not textbook corporations, they are really just parasites.
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but to me Amazon is no more evil than any other company,
I'll definitely say it is the top 10% evil of companies. I've worked for companies that did not do evil and actually treated their people well. Those employers still exist.
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Otherwise it makes NO sense to complain Amazon is not paying enough, when $15 an hour is much higher than min wage here and much higher than most unskilled jobs pay.
Adjusting for the long security screenings (which is a required task to do their jobs) - they are not making $15/hour, closer to $12 an hour.
I talked to a Flex driver who also drives for Uber, he is grossing around $1,600 a week and there is little chance his expenses are reducing that figure a whole lot as he has an older Scion.
That gross figure does sound very impressive, but that's revenue, not profit.
Subtract double social security tax, and double medicare tax, gas, insurance, and I'm sure since the car is older, it has repair issues, so that counts as expenses.
Divide that profit by the number of hours he is driving and he's not making minimum wage.
Remember, he's not going to tell you that he could make more in a McJob. He's just going to tell you he's making $1600 gross to make himself look good.
I wonder how he makes out on tax time, I'm suspecting he's not doing quarterly estimated payments correctly so tax time is going to be extra painful for him. I did a gig doing taxes for ridesharing income and very few did their quarterly payments correctly. They came to me expecting their usual $2-$3k refund they had at a W-2 job, but oops, they're in the hole $2K-$5K plus penalties. All due April 15. And many of them came to me the first days of April. Oops.
Needless to say, the next year those same people were working W-2 jobs, no longer doing rideshare.
We trade with anyone we want. We should adjust their cost solely for currency manipulation, not wage differentials. We should be able to make up for it, assuming we are as productive as we think we are.
How on earth do you expect first world people, with first world expenses that they can't negotiate away, to compete against people making 10 cents an hour slave labor?
Do you think magically the third world employers will raise their pay rates to catch up to us? Nope, not happening. Wages will make a race for the bottom. When the wages are not low enough, time for the third world countries to turn totalitarian and enslave their populations at lower wages.
So basically, you're advocating for a return to slavery.
Globalism is the belief that first world people deserve third world wages and first world living expenses. Bankruptcy attorneys love you.
I think Robert Kiyosaki had it right. A job is a short term solution to one's problems. If those low-end warehouse and delivery grunts aren't gaining any meaningful skills or unless they're educating themselves in the meantime then they need to continuously be seeking better jobs/gigs or figuring out how to start their own companies.
Except for Mcjobs and sales, there are no jobs that require no experience.
Let's say those low end Mcjob holders are going back to school, learn new things and then apply for those higher paying jobs. Employers will never accept the mcjob experience toward any experience requirements.
"Why is this warehouse worker applying for this job as an entry level cybersecurity analyst? He has no experience!" the employer says ignoring the new education, well written cover letter, and cybersecurity certification.
Whenever we hear employers whining that most people applying for their jobs are not remotely qualified for the jobs, it is because these candidates are the people trying to do a career change. The employers don't count the Mcjob experience, and they ignore people's attempts at making themselves better.
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