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Author Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread  (Read 1286203 times)

Angle

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9975 on: April 23, 2015, 10:28:35 pm »

If it wasn't for the fact that no one cares about the opinions of someone who can't vote, I'd be shooting emails to this guy left and right.

You know you don't have to tell them that, right? Just send them an email saying "I think that <Whatever>".
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SalmonGod

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9976 on: April 23, 2015, 11:12:19 pm »

Sometimes monopolies make sense.  Sometimes it isn't practical for a whole bunch of smaller groups to compete at providing a solution to a problem.  Like I don't understand why Google needs competitors.  I think it's great that they have such a large amount of resources at their disposal to put towards solving really complex problems with infrastructure that a smaller company wouldn't be able to assemble, and that they are able to provide such a wide variety of services and products that integrate in powerful ways.  They wouldn't be able to do these things if they were a smaller company competing against a lot of other smaller companies.  Nobody would.  I also don't see why we need a bunch of cable/phone/internet providers competing against each other, each providing a lesser service than what would be possible if they could all combine their infrastructures   The problem isn't always monopolies.  Sometimes it's just the way capitalism encourages monopolies to behave.
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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9977 on: April 24, 2015, 12:40:29 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/popeyes-backtracks-firing-pregnant-manager-robbed-gunpoint-231236175.html

Damn straight.

Unconfirmed reports (difficulty authenticating documents is to be expected) stating sales have plummeted amid boycotts have come in. We are upset and tired of our lives being valued so little as $400. We are sick and tired of actual people having to work themselves to death for absolutely no company loyalty or appreciation to the point where they expect you to die in an armed robbery to protect every penny for the company and be damned grateful about it.

Moreover, this had to have been motivated by stupid completely irrational things, because money could not or at least should not have been a part of it. Why? Simple, the bad press from this alone has to have cost them far more than a mere $400, never mind the boycotts. They could have known that, but chose not to. This was an absolutely bone headed move on the part of the company contrary to the idea that they would act in their own self interest. Frankly, this is yet another end result to the "why should we pay for _____?" insanity that is all too prevalent today. Honestly, it's true on many levels. First, the $400 itself should've been written off. Second, a policy manager or lawyer or somebody should have looked over this train wreck of a company policy and realized it was insane and that person should have been supported. Instead, the "we're in charge and invincible" attitude clearly took hold. Third, the company could have bought insurance for this, but didn't seem to have done so. Fourth, I've seen people get fired for trying to stop a robbery at the story they were working for, but this lady doesn't do that and still gets fired? It's just a problem all around.

People are sick of the idea that there is literally NO limit on what you can be told to do. Sadly, they still won't do jack about it most of the time, but at least here something happened about it.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2015, 12:46:02 am by Truean »
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Frumple

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9978 on: April 24, 2015, 12:56:11 am »

... I like how they're apparently offering just back pay as a peace offering. Not, y'know, any sort of monetary recompense for the stress or treatment or whatev'. Just money they would have paid th'person anyway, had they not fired 'em. You can't pay for absurdity like that. That's quite possibly the least effort above absolute nil I've ever seen put towards soothing feathers.
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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9979 on: April 24, 2015, 01:00:59 am »

...Wait, isn't that illegal? Firing somebody and not paying them for time that they worked?
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Frumple

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9980 on: April 24, 2015, 01:05:36 am »

Presumably it's how much they would have paid the person if they had been working, during the period between when the business fired 'em and now. Not actually money the company had previously owed. Hopefully.
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alway

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9981 on: April 24, 2015, 01:47:31 am »

Even tossing out any human decency and thousands of years of philosophy, that doesn't even make sense from a soulless, manipulative corporation hell-bent on nothing above profits. All else aside, this sort of behavior would almost certainly put their liability insurance costs through the roof. Not content with just heinously immoral, it's downright stupid to boot.
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UXLZ

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9982 on: April 24, 2015, 02:03:02 am »

That's one of the things that often pisses me off about companies like this the most. Not only do they do terrible things focusing on profit above all else, they do it WRONG!
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Angle

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9983 on: April 24, 2015, 02:09:33 am »

That's one of the things that often pisses me off about companies like this the most. Not only do they do terrible things focusing on profit above all else, they do it WRONG!

QFT
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Helgoland

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9984 on: April 24, 2015, 04:35:22 am »

The problem isn't always monopolies.  Sometimes it's just the way capitalism encourages monopolies to behave.
A thousand times this. Look up the erm 'natural monopoly', SG - it's the concept you describe.
Occasionally monopolies are indeed more efficient than competitive markets. We need to recognize the fields in which that is so and allow monopolies to form there - but only under fairly strict supervision of the monopoly hat forms. I'd like to see Google and Facebook as become semi-public institutions - private enough to facilitate their productive work, but public enough to keep them from abusing their power.
Ah, yes, I agree too. So does anyone have any alternative ideas? For myself, I'd like some kind of distributed system, with lots of little organizations that compete and cooperate, and where no organization is allowed to gain too much power. You would need a fairly strict set of rules, and you would need people to put in the time & effort to enforce them but I think it could work quite well.
What about capital-intensive fields, such as the automotive industry, power generation (come on, decentralized power generation is a pipe dream) and transfer, or shipbuilding? We used to not have big enterprises at all - look into the history of the industrial revolution to see why they were formed.
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UXLZ

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9985 on: April 24, 2015, 04:50:12 am »

In theory a single organization having absolute authority and power is the most ideal and efficient way of running things.

Emphasis on the in theory. Humans are too easily corruptible, and machines break.
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Helgoland

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9986 on: April 24, 2015, 06:03:15 am »

In theory a single organization having absolute authority and power is the most ideal and efficient way of running things.

Emphasis on the in theory. Humans are too easily corruptible, and machines break.
Not even in theory - the overhead for the necessary information collection apparatus* would be too big.

*Which usually is replaced by the forces of the (free, more or less) market, which are less accurate but much cheaper.
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Arguably he's already a progressive, just one in the style of an enlightened Kaiser.
I'm going to do the smart thing here and disengage. This isn't a hill I paticularly care to die on.

hops

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9987 on: April 24, 2015, 06:07:31 am »

The only reason capitalism could sustainably work imo is if the system is occasionally fought. Of course, a system that requires itself to be damaged in order to function isn't a very good system.
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Helgoland

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9988 on: April 24, 2015, 06:17:24 am »

Our immune system is a bad system?
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Reelya

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Re: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread
« Reply #9989 on: April 24, 2015, 07:30:24 am »

A thousand times this. Look up the erm 'natural monopoly', SG - it's the concept you describe.


Generally natural monopolies can be identified pretty objectively. They tend to have high fixed costs vs marginal costs, and to have high set-up costs compared to operational costs. Also, they tend to have high set-up and fixed costs compared to the size of the market. In these cases, adding a rival company increases the total costs to serve all customers higher than it was before.

For example, building a nuclear reactor in a region likely falls as a natural monopoly, since most of the costs are in the set-up, and operational / marginal costs are relatively low. Whereas operating an airline isn't a natural monopoly, since the costs are pretty linear per-plane rather than per-company, and operational costs make up a lot of the cost.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2015, 08:07:26 am by Reelya »
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