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[Reelya]

Another thing: if you care about gender pay gaps, then you should only support paid parental leave if it's in the form of a government-controlled insurance scheme / payroll tax sort of thing. <snip>

While that is a valid perspective, and very well stated, I'm not sure I'm convinced. Having children is as ubiquitous as getting sick. We require employers to allow sick leave because getting sick is practically guaranteed for human beings. Likewise, having children is, in any healthy society, a near-certainty within any potential workplace. I don't see an unequivocal reason why this shouldn't be considered the responsibility of a business to plan for.

Additionally, to me, the point of that leave is for the caretakers of the child to recover/adjust to the point where they can safely work and care for said child. I think that leave should be equal for maternal/paternal leave. That way noone is incentivized away from hiring a specific gender. We've moved pretty firmly away from the female-takes-care-of-the-baby/male-works-a-job system, and it's time to update these things accordingly. (reference: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/mobile/employment-in-families-with-children-in-2016.htm)

That's a fine perspective, however it misses the main point. The money from the leave comes from somewhere and that somewhere is the company's bottom line. In the long-term, less bottom line means slower wage growth. And since few industries are 50:50 on gender, ultimately, if you leave it to companies to pay for it, that money is, effectively, coming out of the pockets of the same women who are "benefiting" from the money.

See Sweden, where, despite strong efforts to make parental leave gender-neutral - I think it's 87% of the leave is taken only by women. Any voluntary option to pay leave is going to fall like this, with the costs spread across whichever company is hiring the women in the couples. This is why it's different to general "sick pay" because, parental leave might as well be a PC euphemism for maternity leave, for all the difference that makes.

If you have company-based "Paid Leave" it's part of your remuneration package. That's why I mentioned the "free cars" analogy. If the company is giving you anything that costs money, it's not coming from a "magic money jar" it's coming out of the value that the worker's created, and it's in lieu of wages. This is a truism, because few companies are monopolies, they need to compete with other companies. The money for raises just won't be there if they're spending it on other stuff. If some companies offer attractive paid leave then women will tend to head there, which will mean those companies pay out more money for leave, and profits decline, lowering wage growth. Meanwhile, the husbands of those women will opt for companies which don't have good leave options, but have a higher base wage rate instead.

[Kagus]

Or, again, just have the same standards for paternity leave.

That way companies are indirectly incentivized to only employ nonsexed robots; just as nature intended.


On another note: I don't care, I believe Putin.

Which, if true, is pretty horrible. Also, do try and find Trump'a full rant on the matter, where he goes on about how the American people have finally elected a president they really like and who has done so much for jobs, the economy, and everything.

[thompson]

Uhm... No. No you dont.


My friend is a professional temp worker (as in, his full time employment comes from temp gigs he juggles using an agency), and his agency is his boss. They find gigs for him, and if he does not show up, he doesnt get any more gigs to do.

The whole "gig economy" is just a bunch of corporations going "Well... We've ALREADY slashed pensions, skimped on pay raises for 30 years compared to inflation, cut back on healthcare coverage, AND have people working many more hours than is healthy for them to boost our productivity...  HOW ELSE can we squeeze EVEN MOAR profits out of these human slaves of ours? -- What's that Office Drone # 514? We could hire part-time temp workers and H1B visa holders, and evade having to pay things like benefits all together!?  BRILLIANT!"

It has negative value to society, and is only beneficial to large corporations.  Fuck them. Fuck that.  Fuck them with 40 gay skeleton anarchists.

my camel case is a form of sarcasm, and in fact I agree with you.

SPEAKING of the above shit about wage and benefit shenanigans...

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-american-airlines-raises-20170427-story.html

"Employees get raises instead of giving investors more free money. AGAIN. BOO HOO HOOO HOO."  --Citi Group

Given that most "investors" are pension funds, and many public pension funds are grossly underfunded, I don't really feel any resentment towards companies working towards improving their bottom lines. It's not as if earnings yields are that great - most profits come from capital gains which will return from whence they came during the next downturn. The real problem are the parasites running the company who seem to think they need to siphon off as much of their shareholders money as they can before moving on to the next host to repeat the process.

When the next big downturn does happen employees will lose jobs, investors will lose their savings, Illinois will probably implode, but the executives of the US of A will be doubling their bonuses to compensate for the hard job of sacking all those ingrates.

[RadtheCad]

Or, again, just have the same standards for paternity leave.

That way companies are indirectly incentivized to only employ nonsexed robots; just as nature intended.

You can't force people to take the leave;  I'll bet you 10 energy credits biological females will always be taking more parental leave than biological males (they have to, as they give birth.)

[wierd]

Uhm... No. No you dont.


My friend is a professional temp worker (as in, his full time employment comes from temp gigs he juggles using an agency), and his agency is his boss. They find gigs for him, and if he does not show up, he doesnt get any more gigs to do.

The whole "gig economy" is just a bunch of corporations going "Well... We've ALREADY slashed pensions, skimped on pay raises for 30 years compared to inflation, cut back on healthcare coverage, AND have people working many more hours than is healthy for them to boost our productivity...  HOW ELSE can we squeeze EVEN MOAR profits out of these human slaves of ours? -- What's that Office Drone # 514? We could hire part-time temp workers and H1B visa holders, and evade having to pay things like benefits all together!?  BRILLIANT!"

It has negative value to society, and is only beneficial to large corporations.  Fuck them. Fuck that.  Fuck them with 40 gay skeleton anarchists.

my camel case is a form of sarcasm, and in fact I agree with you.

SPEAKING of the above shit about wage and benefit shenanigans...

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-american-airlines-raises-20170427-story.html

"Employees get raises instead of giving investors more free money. AGAIN. BOO HOO HOOO HOO."  --Citi Group

Given that most "investors" are pension funds, and many public pension funds are grossly underfunded, I don't really feel any resentment towards companies working towards improving their bottom lines. It's not as if earnings yields are that great - most profits come from capital gains which will return from whence they came during the next downturn. The real problem are the parasites running the company who seem to think they need to siphon off as much of their shareholders money as they can before moving on to the next host to repeat the process.

When the next big downturn does happen employees will lose jobs, investors will lose their savings, Illinois will probably implode, but the executives of the US of A will be doubling their bonuses to compensate for the hard job of sacking all those ingrates.

Not pension fund, more 401k--  And the fact that these investors were able to instigate a 5% drop in value, indicates that these are not long-haul investors we are talking about anyway. But Nice Try (tm).

The bright idea to use the stock market to pay for retirement does not obviate the need to pay people a living wage to keep the economy running. (Wages have not kept pace with inflation over the past 30+ years-- As such, total buying power per hour worked has dropped, but costs have not stayed comparatively low. Instead, things like the afore mentioned gig economy have cropped up, where people seek alternative outside employment to make ends meet.)  Complaining about having to pay the bare minimum of average wage-- which is exactly what Citi-group just did (The pilots, sterwardesses and other crew were getting paid **LESS** than industry standard, which is why they got the raise!) instead of getting a bigger return, just indicates a jaded disconnect from reality and nothing else.

[wierd]

So, who wants to feel the bern in 2020?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-enters-2020-presidential-race-complete-revolution-n972906

[Reelya]

Or, again, just have the same standards for paternity leave.

That way companies are indirectly incentivized to only employ nonsexed robots; just as nature intended.

Having the same standards doesn't change anything. For example, in Sweden a couple gets 390 paid childcare days. 60 days is reserved for the dad only. So 330 days can be used by either parent. Dad's average 3 months total leave, of which 2 months are the mandatory dad-only ones, so effectively, dads only use 10% of the optional amount of leave, with the mother using 90%. Nobody is forcing couples to use the leave in that manner: most of those 390 paid days are available to either parent. The standards, in Sweden, are already equal. This is just the decision that most Swedish couples make.

This is why the cost of leave needs to be spread across all workplaces if you don't want the cost of the leave exacerbating the gender wage gap. in this case, it's easy to see how if women are taking 90% of the government funded optional childcare leave in Sweden, then if Sweden left it up to the companies to pay for leave, then that would tend to increase the wage gap, which would tend to make the decision easier: since the women are working in industries with lower pay scales (caused in part by all the paid leave that the companies are providing) then it would be no-brainer that the woman takes the time off, not the man. You absolutely must spread the costs  among all industry sectors if you do not want the paying of childcare leave to economically reinforce the trend of women taking all the childcare leave.

Sure, we can even this out by expanding the dad-only leave to be half - but this would reduce the amount of time off mothers get. Made "equal" by fucking over mothers and forcing them to leave their children when they don't want to. And we'd slap ourselves on the back for a "job well done". Or, we could expand the leave so both mother and father get 1 year's paid leave each. Assuming this is affordable, the question would then arise about how unfair this was to single mothers, since they'd only get 1 year. So, we'd have to give 2 years paid leave to single mothers, for fairness. However, thinking another step forward: what effect would this have on couple's decision-making about whether to get married at all? Couples might find it more advantageous to declare both of them to be "single" and for the mother to get the two years full leave, while the dad works, just like they're deciding to do now. These are the decision real parents already make. If we try and force "equality" laws into people's personal relationships, they'll just find loopholes to get out of them.

[Doomblade187]

So, who wants to feel the bern in 2020?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/bernie-sanders-enters-2020-presidential-race-complete-revolution-n972906

Oh no. Nothing against Bermie, but last rime he hard split the democratic vote. Really don't want that happening again.

[wierd]

Too late, he's officially throwing his hat in.

Remember, the primaries are intended to weed this out.  The fallacy is thinking that young-generation democrats, and old-generation democrats, are the same voter base.  As seen in the 2016 election, Hillary had the latter, but not the former, even after she won the primary; The younger generation democrats just did not throw in with her, and many abstained from voting all together.

That same abstention is likely to happen again if they do not get a candidate that appeals to their interests. This means Warren and pals need to emulate Sanders' politics if they want to make him irrelevant in the next election, and pick up those votes.

[Reelya]

This could also be upstaged by GOP people who decide to challenge Trump.

It'd be funny if Trump goes 110% Orange Idiot against some primary challengers, wins the primaries, but then his antics actually lose him the general election.

[da_nang]

I think Bernie's a bit too old for it. He'll be 79 in November 2020.

[Telgin]

This could also be upstaged by GOP people who decide to challenge Trump.

It'd be funny if Trump goes 110% Orange Idiot against some primary challengers, wins the primaries, but then his antics actually lose him the general election.

Didn't hurt him in the last election, and I'm not confident things have changed much.

[smjjames]

I think Bernie's a bit too old for it. He'll be 79 in November 2020.

I don't think that's much older than Reagan was when he ran for second term.

This could also be upstaged by GOP people who decide to challenge Trump.

It'd be funny if Trump goes 110% Orange Idiot against some primary challengers, wins the primaries, but then his antics actually lose him the general election.

Didn't hurt him in the last election, and I'm not confident things have changed much.

It's probably different when he's the incumbent. It'd also reveal fractures that the Democrats can exploit.

[da_nang]

I think Bernie's a bit too old for it. He'll be 79 in November 2020.

I don't think that's much older than Reagan was when he ran for second term.

Reagan was 77 at the end of his second term.

[EnigmaticHat]

Reagan also spent at least 2 years of his presidency senile...