It is perhaps worth pointing out that failing to pay most 'interns' is, in fact, illegal. The minimum wage laws do not stop applying just because you call the position as 'internship'.
Internships are not apprenticeships, as the entire population of the US seems to assume they are. They are not unpaid employees. Interns are supposed to be _learning_, not working.
The sort of internship described here, where you actually have what appears to be a job, is more than likely illegal. Especially as they have listed this under 'Employment' and don't mention a single skill you will be learning. In fact, they specifically say you will be 'assisting' someone, aka, help them, not learning something...they expect you to _already_ have the skills of 'research and writing'.
This is clearly 'hired research assistant' position, not any sort of internship. It's just they've decided to pay you no money for it.
Of course, in _this_ country we don't bother to actually enforce labor laws.
I think that's the reason that the right falls prey to hucksters more than the left. The fringe right tends to be driven by anger more than the fringe left.
Actually, maybe not. Maybe the problem is the fringe left's concerned are usually justified, whereas the fringe right tends to have complete nonsense as concerns. So hucksterism is required _to start with_ on the right, to _create_ populism.
Or, maybe that's not exactly it either. Populism is an organic entity create by disaffected people, eventually angry people. Left alone, it would be directed at the people who have actually caused problems in those people lives, which is, very rarely, the government(1). It's usually their bank, and their job, and all sorts of entity, and, if left alone, would create leftism populism.
So it takes some sort of hucksterism to direct the anger from leftwards purposes to rightward. Usually by making up completely nonsensical things to be angry about. (Everyone remembers the Tea Party stood for 'taxed enough already', right? And everyone remembers that _taxes had not gone up_, right?)
1) This is not to say that _no_ populism can naturally be directed in the other direction, in an anti-government sense. The government can, indeed, screw up. I'm just saying, statistically speaking, the government is rarely the cause, and in the cases it is, it's not for the nonsensical things that right populism has been created around. Poor unemployed people don't care about the taxes they aren't paying, or the government regulations that don't affect them. They care about things like random searches on the street and laying off teachers.
@roger For a company to be owned by the employees they have to either buy it, steal it , or get it in lieu of other wages and benefits.
Uh, yeah, they'd be getting it in lieu of other wages. In lieu of _increased_ wages.
However, I've finally figured out the confusion here: You think increases in wages would be coming from operating expenses.
Most people here are assuming they will come from the massive salaries that CEOs make, or out of company profits. The company would keep operating with the money it has, the unions would just demand that more outgoing money go it instead of management or owners.
This actually seems so utterly obvious no one bothers to actually _say_ it.
The other defect here is to assume the employees have any useful feedback as owners that they can give only as owners and not as employees.
Speaking of things coming out of operating expenses, it is _corporate profits_ that, all too often, come out of operating expenses, to 'bump up' shares. As part of the general trend, whereupon a company cannibalized itself for a small stock bump, selling facilities and laying off workers.
Employee-owned corporations, presumably would be less likely to do that, so they probably _would_ manage themselves better, or at least equally as well.
Of course, there is the hypothetical new mismanagement problem in that the _workers_ could cannibalize the company with too-high wages, or stock dividends. OTOH, I'd rather companies dismantle themselves into the hands of their employees than dismantle themselves into the hands of the superrich. (Cue accusations of class warfare in 3...2...1...)
Finally, note that getting a share of profits means getting a share of the losses and owning the risk of bankruptcy. Most prudent employees if paid primarily in stock would logically sell it.
You're assuming payments in some sort of standard stock, which could be resold. But there are a _lot_ of ways to structure stock.
Hell, you could even have the union itself own the stock. Or it not even be 'stock'...perhaps each employee is simply give the equivalent of one shareholder's vote for every 100 hours work the previous year.
Trying to figure out what it would eventually look like is a bit silly.
I won’t restate the definitions of rent seeking. The initial post did so well
And as I pointed out, assuming that unions being 'rent seeking' is not at all obvious.
Rent-seeking, in the original post, appears to be meaning 'If people would do it for less, anything about that is rent. This is a fairly stupid definition of rent seeking, but, even under that...if corporations will pay what unions ask for (And they pretty much will pay by definition, because if they won't pay lower, they _don't_ pay lower. So the union instead either aims lower or ceases to exist.) than that means that unions aren't rent seeking.
Of course, the obvious problem in that assumption is that i turned it around backwards from how you had it (If people will work for less, than anything about that is rent), which points to the rather obvious stupidity of that definition. Namely, prices are a _range_, and the solution in an ideal world is not to pin them to one end and call anything else 'rent'. (As that is literally impossible, simply because, from the other direction, it's _not_ the lowest...it's the highest.)
Rent-seeking, in the _actual_ universe, is when entities attempt to get get something for nothing or almost nothing. It's when a piece of paper, a monopoly, a regulation, entitles them to something they would not otherwise have, or, in a free market, would have made a lot less.
It's not when they _freely_ negotiate prices slightly higher than one entity would have accepted...because 'negotiating prices slightly higher than one entity would have accepted' is literally _every single transaction that exist_.
In any free market exchange, each person thought they came off better than before (duh), and hence they almost certainly would have accept some slightly lower amount. That 'excess' is not 'rent' as both you and James Hanley seem to be defining it. (Or alternately, as you are defining it and he's poorly explained something else as.)
As Patrick pointed out, though, almost all contracting disputes are _due_ to contractual problems, and hence it appears that no one is actually _using_ those sample contracts. (Or they are really crappy.)
It would be simple enough for the state to require, for example, all licensed contractors to use a written contract for all work, with specified scope of work, completion time and any penalties for going over, and an acknowledgement of who has to get the building permit.
This wouldn't solve _every_ problem, of course, and wouldn't help with people who do not use licensed contractors (Unless it was an actual law instead of just a licensing condition.), but it really seems like some sort of basic start.
There's a reason the law requires signed contracts for certain things. There's really no reason not to expand that.
@roger Any company which pays 25% higher wages has that much less to reinvest in new products, new factories, new markets and new ideas. Either that or they have correspondingly higher prices or lower quality. Thus they will lose market share to any company which does not pay 25% above clearing price.
Erm, no.
The premise here isn't that companies just magically pay employees more.
The premise is that companies are owned by the employees, and hence get a cut of the _profits_.
Corporate profits are already things the company does not have available to spend on things. They are always going on the door. It's just, in this case, instead of going to unrelated owners, they would be going to employee-owners. (Whether they go as 'wages' or 'dividends' is a bit moot.)
And I would wager there also would be some rejiggering and reduction of executive salaries, as that is almost entirely due to the incestuous CEO/board system we've built in this country that an employee-operate board is unlikely to put up with. But, that money is already going out the door too.
This is exactly the dynamic that unions face today. To the success they exploit rents, they destroy market share. I can link you to studies which track the trend. Unions extinguish themselves to the extent they extract rents.
I have no idea how you're using the term 'rents'. Supply labor in return for money is quite literally the opposite of 'rents' in my book. As is paying someone to negotiate on your behalf to get a better price for your labor. It's not even forcing people into exclusivity contracts with you because you have something they desperately need, like union shop contracts are.
'Rent' is when you control something that requires _no or very little effort on your part_, and you require other people to pay to use it. Especially if that 'control' is just some sort of legal artifact and they'd be perfectly happy to not have you involved at all. 'Rent' is not a word that means 'profit I don't like' or even 'profit that is unethical'.
I wonder if employees will prefer to work for employee-run companies? It seems intuitive that they would, but I have my doubts. I would welcome them having the choice. Interestingly if working for an employee owned company was perceived as superior, wages would gravitate LOWER for those companies. Ironic huh?
Average wages and benefits will still be set by supply and demand. To the extent they get more stock (many companies offer stock today) they will get less wages. Employee run companies can’t overcome the power of markets. They could get a higher perceived value though.
Erm, no, they'd get _actual_ higher value. As in more actual money. Which is why working for those companies would be perceived as superior.
You sorta just made the equivalent inverse argument to 'Supply and demand says that if X is cheaper than Y, then X will become more popular Y so the cost of X could rise higher than Y!'
People will wish to work as employee-owned businesses because the amount of money they would end up with would be higher. (I would call that 'wages', but some of it would be stock dividends and profit sharing and whatnot.)
Yes, thanks to supply and demand, that would drive the amount of money they make lower, but clearly it can't get lower than it currently is. If it did, people would _stop_ working for those companies, and demand for employees would go back up.
Now, there might be some _other_ benefits of working for employee-owned companies, like they would rarely attempt to fire half the work-force or gut pensions to temporarily boast the stock price, and it is possible, all things being equal, employees would be willing to work for slightly less.
But, of course, there's no actual reason such companies _should_ pay less. If the majority of the owners _are_ the employees, than I'm baffled as to why they would decide to reduce their own wages in order to...what...have more of their money in profits? What exactly is the theory here? Supply and demand doesn't work when _both sides are the same people_.
“Uh, wow. We, fairly shortly, get the predicted revolution of Marx.”
Not sure I have heard anybody that thought that was a good thing for a decade of more now.
Hey, _I_ didn't propose this amendment. I was just pointing out what would happen.
While I would like to see labor unchained, I think instantly unchaining it in this manner would be, uh, really really really disruptive.
OTOH, I'm not entirely sure that we can get any reasonable changes in labor restrictions, and I'm pretty well convinced that if we keep going the direction we're currently going that we will, in fact, have some sort of labor revolution. So, I dunno, maybe unchaining labor would be a reasonable thing to try...it's better than looting and seizing of property.
What I’m saying is that disputes between general contractors and customers are typically not of the sort that are covered by licensing issues.
Well, yes. I was saying that I was sorta assuming that _all_ contractors were unlicensed. I am aware there actually are licenses, but they don't cover what anyone would have disputes over. Licensing stops things like decks falling off houses, not the fact the contractor didn't move the rosebushes from what is now underneath the deck.
(1) Neither the customer nor the contractor filed for a building permit, and the work is not to code.
Although there perhaps the licensing needs to be stronger. At the minimum the customer should have to sign something stating they understand they need a permit. But, as you pointed out, people who don't bother with building permits don't bother with licensed contractors either.
(2) The contractor failed to conform to the customer’s understanding of the scope of work. (3) Failure to complete in a timely fashion.
What would actually help _here_ is the state supplying some sort of sample contract and recommended process to follow: Write stuff down here, take pictures of this and that, provide a sketch of the intended result, state where the contractors is allowed to go and drive(1), etc.
Like I said, the real problem in a lot of this is that the legal system is out of reach. Here, it's _lawyers_ that are out of reach, so you end up with a really crappy verbal agreement that is impossible to figure out in court, instead of an actual contract.
Now, licensed contractors could do that, but if you're going to have them suggesting a contract, it really should just be a state-created one.
1) You'd be amazed, or possibly not, how often I've heard people hiring contractors complain they 'ruined something' like a garden or a rug or something, and I'm like 'Did you actually tell them not to drive through the garden? How would they know not to do that? And as for your rug...you did know they would be in your house, right? They didn't just break in?'
As I’ve pointed out before, it’s a wash, mathematically. A lesser threat to each member of a larger group of people vs. a greater threat to each member of a smaller group of people. The real issue is how many additional crimes he can be expected to commit, not how they’ll be distributed.
It's not always a wash. If someone assaults people who sleep with his wife, than he's only, statistically speaking, a threat at all if he a) has a wife, and b) someone besides him is having sex with her, and c) he knows this. (Or (b2), if he thinks someone is who is not.)
It's entirely possibly there is literally _no_ threatened amount of people there. (If, say, his wife divorced him for assaulting her lover.) It doesn't matter how likely the risk of assault is if it's multiplied by zero possible targets.
Now, granted, this is not literally how it works. People who assault specific people generally(1) have anger management issues, and the next assault could be their boss who fired them or whatever.
But, see, that generally applies to hate crimes, also.
I would argue what is actually happening with most hate crimes is either a) terrorism, pure and simple, aimed at a community of people, b) the criminal is actually a trained psychopath who does not see 'that type' of person as an actual person, or c) 'that type' of person somehow created anger within the person.
(a), of course, is a worse crime than simple assault. Now, it can be argued this actually should be a _separate_ crime, and that's a fine position to take. But is clearly is something with worse consequences than simple assault, and needs to be treated as such.
(b), of course, is a rather dangerous person to have around, and I think we can all agree they're rather more dangerous than a person who got very angry and attacked someone. So hate crime laws work here also.
(c) just means added anger, which only results in assault _on top_ of some sort of issue. The person's race might push them over the edge, but they would have been just as likely to attack if the person had, I dunno, flipped them off or something.
This seems to be where the system breaks down, a little. Those people seem more dangerous than other people with anger management problems, given they're unlikely to be able to avoid those types of people. But are they more dangerous than people with angry management problems that get angered by people wearing suits, or people drinking Mtn Dew?
No, those people would be just as dangerous. So, in a sense, hate crimes laws are a bit 'biased'.
Except that _there are no such people_. When people have some sort of inherent 'trigger button', it's almost always on the stuff hate crime laws protect. People have very consistent angers, because they have actually been _taught_ to be angry.
If we had people who randomly got extremely strong dislikes of random attributes of people in their head, strong enough to actually cause, or even significantly increase the chances of, those people attacking people with those attributes, it would be well and good to say hate crime legislation is a bit silly. If we had significant people who wandered around attacking people who drove certain cars, or wore white after labor day, hate crime laws would be insane.
But that's not really the world we live in. We instead live in a world where there are some very predictable things that a small subset of people get violently angry about. _Repeatedly_ violently angry, eventually leading to assault.
1) Let's ignore here people who assault for profit. That's not really relevant to hate crime discussion, and those people probably should be treated different than assaults out of anger anyway.
"The GOP is not racist, but does have a lot of views on a lot of topics. And now I shall talk about 'conventional people' that have specific racist views, without in any way saying those views are racist. And despite those two sentences logically leading into each other, and the second being a more specific example of the first, I in no way implied that those racist views were not racist. Despite those 'conventional people' clearly being a reference to the GOP, and my having literally just said in the sentence before that the GOP is not racist."
I actually find it kinda funny he's coming under fire from the left. Granted, I don't read rightish blogs, but they do grasp he just _called them racist_, right? Or at least, he ascribed racist behavior to them, despite explicitly calling it 'not racist'. Are they upset?
...holy crap. He just invented the third-person version of 'I'm not a racist, but...'! 'He's not a racist, but he does hold this incredibly racist view...'
It happened with Rowling, too. Not weird politics or anything like that, thank God, but there's a reason that the four and fifth Harry Potter books are a doorstopper, despite not really containing much more plot than the third. No editor was willing to stand up and say 'Could you cut this entire section here?'.
If the court system is systemically broken, having it play a part seems contraindicated.
Except that this is their job. It is _literally_ their job to resolve contract disputes and fraud. I was being rather facetious when I suggested that the court system 'should' play a role in this...they already have a role, the staring role, they're just _not doing it_. They are inaccessible, deliberately so, for the vast majority of people.
If the fire department is broken and they only show up to put out a fire if you bribe them or you're good friends with the mayor, the solution is not suggest that someone besides the fire department start putting out fires.
I’m going to guess that generally, general contractors’ crappiness has nothing to do with licensing and everything to do with laypersons interacting with contract law.
I wasn't really trying to suggest otherwise. I was assuming they were not licensed at all.
The problem isn't really 'laypersons interacting with contract law', it's usually 'laypersons being ripped off when dealing with contract law, and have absolutely no recourse they can afford to be made whole'.
We _could_ invent some sort of new government agency to do this, some sort of 'Better Business Bureau', but actually part of the government, with enforcement powers and the ability to sue wrong doers and bar them from operating a business if caused enough problems.
Except, of course, for this to be workable, we'd have to run them through the court system anyway.
As MRS pointed out, this should be small claims court. However, small claims courts are often completely unusable.
Basically, labor wins everything. I wouldn't be surprised to labor negotiating some sort of profit-sharing scheme, perhaps it even becoming standard for labor to have a seat on the board of directors and being granted stock. In time, I expect to see many corporations being forced, at 'union-point', to convert to basically employee-owned businesses.
I _also_ wouldn't be surprised for the thing that anti-labor people thinks happen all the time, but does not really happen, actually start happening sometimes. That is, for labor to accidentally destroy the company it's working for because labor over-estimated their demands and the company had to give in. OTOH, this is really no different than any of the other ways that companies miscalculate and kill themselves, so I'm not actually worried about it...labor, at least, has no incentive to do that on purpose.
Of course, I would also expect to see many internal struggles within unions and unions amassing power for their leaders and not the union members...but with no forced negotiation, either the union will work for the workers, or the workers will just start another union.
The only thing, throughout history, that has managed to keep labor repressed is action by the people in power. Illegal action, legal action, whatever. Remove that, make laws doing that unconstitutional, and introduce modern technology for coordination, where workers can organize _in secret_ and the first sign the company has there's a union is when no one shows up for work, and where entire _other industries_ can sympathetic strike, resulting massive pressure to agree to the demands? In a world of 'just in time' shipping, where a week of striking blows up an entire distribution system?
Uh, wow. We, fairly shortly, get the predicted revolution of Marx.
Yes, he clearly knows those things are racist, which we can tell by his previous sentence, 'Today’s GOP is not racist'.
Yeah, it's us who have problems reading.
Look, if he had stopped his _previous_ paragraphs, about the racism of the Tea Party, with that line, it would make sense. He would be saying the Tea Party is racist, and that the GOP of old was racist, but the current GOP isn't racist, per se. This would, in fact, be a reasonable argument, and is in fact what I think he was saying.
But, right after calling the GOP not racist, he, in _literally in the next sentence_ ascribes racist views to them. (1) Either he's a very strange sort of liar, or he simply doesn't understand those views are racist.
1) Or, in an alternate reading, ascribes racist views to all 'conventional' people, not just the GOP....again without noticing that those views are racist. This hardly makes the situation better.
Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.
These two sentences together are especially odd. The logical way to read that paragraph is that he means:
GOP=(a subset of) people with conventional views
deeply troubled=must repress a gag reflex (is one of the many way being 'deeply troubled' can express itself)
Right? He's giving general examples, and then a more specific one. It's exactly the same construction if I was to say 'I had a lot of problems today - with my car, with my work, with my house. I woke up this morning and my power was out...' Everyone sees how that is supposed to work, right? It's a pretty common paragraph construction.
The problem is, the general examples are 'the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde'. So it's rather hard to figure out, exactly, which one of those he thinks interracial marriage is.
Does he think interracial marriage was an expansion of government? That...really doesn't logically make sense. Allowing interracial marriage removed anti-miscegenation laws, it didn't add any. And I can presume that Cohen is smart enough to understand that most black people are not 'immigrants'.
So we're left with two options: Does Cohen have some sort of _religious_ objection to interracial marriage? Or does he think that interracial marriage is 'avant-grande', that they are entering that marriage, and having kids, as some sort of _performance piece_. (Does he even know what avant-grande means? It is pushing societal norms _via art_, not just, uh, doing things.)
But that is sorta the same problem as the 'conventional' thing, when you get down to it, except he manages not to use the word.
He is standing there describing completely racist things...and appears to not understand they are racist. He thinks it's 'conventional' for some people to want to vomit at the sight of interracial couples, and he mentions Zimmerman's attempted 'quest' without bothering to mention that it was, you know, sorta wrongheaded.
Now, the 'heroism'-Zimmerman wording, unlike the 'conventional' thing, is vague enough that it would be possible to read that part with the understanding he disagrees with that point of view. It would be entirely possible to say that sentence even if you were not racist.
Except that the 'understandably' word in the next sentence and the entire rest of his post make that a rather hard interpetation. I think everyone who is reading that as saying Zimmerman had _actually_ heroism, from a certain point of view(1), are reading it as it was intended.
1) I doubt he means that Zimmerman was _actually_ heroic, just that his actions can seem that way. But, look, it's acceptable to romanticize Ponce de Leon as a Don Quixota, as someone on a pointless quest. It is not, however, acceptable to romanticize someone whose quest was to defend everyone from teh blacks and thus shot and killed an innocent one!
Crappy general contractors are a good example of what we get without licenses, in fact.
It's nearly impossible to actually sue them, and while 'word of mouth' may work in some neighborhood, all that actually means is they have to wander around plying their work in multiple places.
Sure, they might _eventually_ run out of places, but that's a rather belated 'fix'.
But general contractors also demonstrate it probably would be nearly impossible _to_ license everyone. What we need is some sort of general solution.
I have to suggest that the civil court system should be playing a part in this, that it should actually be possible for someone to take a receipt or a bill or something, along with some pictures showing the deficiency of work, walk into a courthouse, and, without paying anything but a trivial fees and without having to hire a lawyer, actually get a judgement. (And if that happens enough, the person who keeps getting sued should be barred from that profession.)
There are, admittedly, practical issues with this. But we could solve the problems. For example, certain people like to make nuisance of themselves over everything, and would end up costing the courts a lot of time. We could solve that by giving everyone only two 'free' suits a year, and require filing fees for any more.
Of course, at this point, our supposedly 'blind' court system is complete nonsense, not just for civil suits, but for criminal cases also, where people actually _are_ supposed to not have to pay if they can't afford it. It's so broken it's almost unfixable.
Are you not equally worried though that companies would only hire those contractually promising not to unionize?
I am uncertain why that would be relevant. Surely they'd just do it _in secret_.
That companies would threaten to close any office which unionized? In other words, it seems that the hell released would be point and counterpoint.
Are you not worried the Teamsters would stop work?
I am sure some companies would be infiltrated by very successful and powerful unions, but this would just create a huge competitive advantage for any company or off shore factory which was successful at avoiding any unionization
And are you not worried that the dockworkers would stop unloading their goods at port? Or just _breaking_ their stuff? (And now unions can't be punished for that sort of deliberate illegal action. At least, not without other corporations being punished for that sort of thing.)
When I said all sorts of hell, I meant it.
And in an out and out war between labor and capital, in _this_ day and age, with modern communication technology and police forces that won't illegally round up workers and courts that are forbidden by constitutional amendment from demanding striking workers stop....
Labor wins. Holy shit does labor win if you take the gloves off.
The only way labor was stopped last time was via _illegal means_, and then their tactics were _strictly_ restricted, while granting them some concessions to keep _legal_ unions in play. The laws, as is, _cripple_ unions, but are designed to stop just short of crippling them so much labor will illegally cause problems. (And even then, it doesn't work...witness all the unions restricted from striking that still illegally 'strike' in various ways.)
I know for some reason the right seems to delusionally think otherwise, that laws 'give unions power', but the right is completely, utterly, near-pathologically incorrect about this. You remove restrictions on unions, and the entire damn labor market has a meltdown.
As to public service unions, these are a privileged monopoly by definition. They work for a firm which consumers have to buy from
That does not make _them_ privileged, that make the people buying their services (Aka, their employers) privileged. That is the _opposite_ of a monopoly. If an EPA regulator, for example, wants to find another job, his choices are limited because the people he is selling to is a monopoly, as there is only one EPA.
and have to use a specific entity with no allowable competition.
And why would there be no allowable competition? What are you talking about? You do remember we're talking about a universe with no union regulation, right? And hence there certainly could be other unions.
Of course, just like _any other government contract_, the government might choose one supplier of labor or another, presumably via some sort of bidding.
This is two levels of privilege. If firms could compete with them, and customers (citizens) were not required by law to buy the service, then I would agree they should be free to unionize and strike.
You've just successfully argued that _governments_ are privileged, which is a nice fun argument, but completely moot. We were talking about unions that supplied things to governments, not governments.
You seem to think wages or prices in a competitive market are a struggle of wills rather than set by supply and demand.
Erm, the supply of labor is almost entirely due to 'will'.
The real problem here is rather indirect, and it's because the legal system has been totally subverted in favor of the rich. Well, not 'subverted', that implies that it used to work and now it doesn't.
But the problem is, for example, if a hairstylist is negligent and totally destroys someone's hair, it is not actually possible, in any manner, for a normal human to recover damages from that. Not that the damages should be harsh, but that really is a hundred dollars or so in injury.
Hell, the only reason that malpractice suits actually exist is that there is so much money in them so lawyers can work off commission. But good luck even with that if the problem wasn't obvious wrongdoing, but just a busy doctor who missed something and the damages in the mere thousands.
Not only is it impossible for normal people to recover small damages done to them by people they hired, but there is an entire political movement out there that appears to think lawsuits are _too easy_ to do, and wants to make them _harder_.
Certain professional, right now, have to behave in specific manners or they will lose their license and lively-hood. Without licenses...well, they almost certainly won't get sued, and, hell, if they do rarely get sued, the worse that often happens is that they lose their _business_ and have to start over.
I honestly have no suggestions in how to fix this problem, but it appears to be the _actual_ problem that licenses are a stopgap measure to fix.
Does that type of right-to-work law actually provide special privilege to the business by making it harder for unions to recruit dues-paying members?
Right to work laws _deny_ unions privileges that all other corporations have as a matter of course: To enter into exclusivity contracts as they so choose.
I.e, it is legal for Coca-Cola to present a contract to McDonalds saying McDonalds will only sell Coke products in their restaurants as one of the clauses of the contract. (Probably for lower prices from Coke, but it can be for whatever consideration the contract may offer.)
In my state, a 'right to work' state, it is _not_ legal for a union to present a contact saying that McDonalds will only hire union works. Hell, it's not even legal for a union to present a contract saying McDonalds will _pay_ the union anything. (The union, instead, collects union dues from people who have bothered to join the union.)
So it's less a special 'privilege given to corporations', and more a denial, to unions, of the basic right to enter into any contract they feel like. I.e, it would be a violation of laws that 'serves to create a barrier to entry to any industry or occupation'
As an example, one purported reason to privilege unions to be able to require employees to join is that it offsets an unfair power or advantage that employers have. Again, I totally reject the argument, but I am pretty sure they disagree with me.
You reject the argument that it offsets it, or you reject the argument employers have such an advantage?
But, hey, I actually think this it would make unions stronger. Why? Because it makes 'right to work' laws illegal.
A 'right to work' law is a law forbidding a union from entering an exclusivity contract with a corporation. You know, _exactly_ the sort of exclusivity contract corporations enter all the time.
In my state, Georgia, it is perfectly legal for my hypothetical restaurant to sign a contract with your soft drink company to only sell your soft drinks in my restaurant. (Assuming this in some way doesn't create a monopoly or trust.) It is, however, _illegal_ for my restaurant to sign a contract with a union to only employ its workers. This is called a 'right to work' law. Why is it illegal for my restaurant to do that? To keep unions from forming.
If I understand what this amendment is trying to do, that would now be unconstitutional, assuming that 'unions' are now an 'industry' under the meaning of it. (Which seems to be the assumption here, otherwise unions wouldn't be affected at all.) So if organizations can form exclusivity agreements, unions can too.
Likewise, sympathetic strikes? Oh, look. They're now legal too!
Union members refusing to provide services to non-union companies? Also legal! (Hell, it probably will end up _in their contract_.)
And public workers can now strike also. That seems somewhat debatable, but I don't see how the law can treat public sector unions differently.
A lot of people don't understand that the law treats unions different in _many_ ways, and like to whine about how the law is 'nice' to unions. Which is, in fact, totall bullcrap, and unions are literally the most restricted 'industry' in the US, outside of nuclear power and a biological labs and a few rare example.
People don't quite understand what sort of hell exactly would break loose if you set unions free and removed all restriction on them.
(Of course, right now unions are excluded from anti-trust regulations, and presumably that would go away also...but the simple fact is that most unions are not anywhere near a 'monopoly' in the first place and so that exception is complete nonsense anyway.)
Wait, Andie McDowell is a human being? I thought she was a very well-built android.
I actually thought that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was an amusing romp until the revelation at the end.
Which is why I didn't think anything was wrong with the entire movie. If you find yourself caring about the actual McGuffin nonsense and what it's all about in Indiana Jones, you're probably watching the wrong movie. All those movies had magical thingies with goofy nonsensical ending premises, it's just the others based theirs on incorrect religious myths instead of sci-fi myth.
I’m tired of the overall angst that is ruining action movies. Some heroes are meant to be jaunty and generally upbeat like Robin Hood and Superman. Superman should always be done with Christopher Reeve charm.
The problem with the latest movie wasn't that Superman had angst. Superman can have angst...about the fact he can't save everyone, about the fact he has to keep his life secret, about all sorts of things. He's Superman, not fricking Captain Marvel, he can be a little angsty and unhappy, as long as he still does his job.
What he can't be is a lazy shiftless bum. What he can't be is someone who will let people die to keep his secret. What he can't be is someone who never even tries to help people.
People who thought the end of that movie damaged his character were wrong. Superman can, indeed, do that if he _must_. The problem is that he never had a character _to start with_.
I mean, compare it to Smallville, which often was very stupid, but at least understood _Clark Kent_. And Jonathon Kent.
And, of course, I think I've already mentioned here the other problem with that movie, that General Zod was completely correct to attempt a coup of a government that had _blithely caused, and then completely ignored the destruction of their planet_. He only became the bad guy because they made him want to kryptoform earth, instead of literally any other planet in the galaxy.
So, to get back on topic...I want a Man of Steel where General Zod is not handed the idiot ball and says 'Hey, we're a super advanced society and we'll share with you, if you find Kal-El and _give us Mars_.' Of course, this is would not actually work as a movie, but, seriously, it's just so stupid it's hard to get past.
I am convinced that Nicholas Cage is under some sort of magic curse. He built his house over the an ancient Hollywood-producer burial ground or something.
I mean, he's not the greatest actor in the world, but he can indeed act to some extent. And usually the reason the movie is bad has very little to do with him. In the movies he himself is bad in, it usually looks like bad _direction_ to me instead of bad acting, or sometimes just stupid casting.
Why can't he find some sort of moderately good movie to be in?
@kim
Successful rapists (about, say, 5% of the American population) do not get caught. and hell, even with a god-damn policewoman there, you still probably couldn’t prosecute.
Oh, you sure as hell could prosecute. You arrest the guy, throw him in jail, present the evidence in court.
Might not be able to _convict_, but you sure as hell can prosecute.
(if NOTHING else, rapists tend to go for the naive and innocent. And you can’t tell me you’ll have fifteen year old policewomen).
Erm, police officers go undercover as minors all the time.
Sure, you could catch the careless. But, far better than what you’re suggesting, would be to simply seize the photographic evidence of rape (if you don’t believe me, I suggest you watch Jesus Camp. Lotta candid photos out there).
Why would I not believe you?
As I said, rapists are literally the most careless felons in the world. If burglars or muggers behaved like most rapists, we'd have no unsolved crimes of that sort.
I'm not entirely sure what you think we would do with the photographic evidence, though.
@j-r
You are suggesting sending policewoman out with the specific intention of pretending to be drunk, or otherwise vulnerable, and engage in heavy petting with random men, with no particular concern for how this sort of thing would play out in court and you think that everyone else is a moron…
I like how you've invented 'heavy petting' in there. I'm pretty certain I didn't say anything about the police officer initiating any physical activity at all.
And I especially love the idea that the important thing 'how this would play out in court', somehow. How, you can't quite explain. But I know _exactly_ why you can't explain...because you're a rape apologist and explaining would require you to admit one truth or another you don't want to admit.
Here are the two options:
1) The person who _assaulted a police officer_ would not be convicted, which would rather demonstrate how _horrifically_ biased our system of justice is in favor of rapists. (Especially considering how normally biased it is in favor of police officers.)
2) The person _would_ be convicted, which would, uh, mean that 'how it played out in court' is _exactly right_ and we just got a rapist off the street.
(And there's option 3, wherein the man don't do anything, but that is not going to end up in court and hence isn't what you're talking about. And option 4, where the undercover officer is actually injured or killed...which presumably would _play out in the courts_ perfectly fine...the problem there isn't the _court_.)
Please note that other people are objecting to this because of hypothetical _danger_, or that regardless of the actual danger, the public would think it was too much danger. It has nothing to do with the court at all. (Will Truman mentioned it, but he thought I was talking about something else, and we've cleared that up.)
You're the only person here is worried about 'the courts', which is a very telling mention. There are only two possibilities 'how it plays out in court'...it _either_ demonstrates systematic bias in the legal system in favor in rapists, _or_ a rapist is off the streets.
@blaisep Rape stings, at best, can only catch the careless outlier in the population of rapists.
My theory is that rapists don't actually understand what they are doing is illegal.
And hence they are _extremely likely_ to be careless while doing it.
In fact, they _are_ careless. Rapists are often trivially identified, in fact, they are often known to their victim. They make absolutely _no_ effort in covering up their crime. They leave evidence everywhere.
Rapists are basically the most careless felons in the world. The only reason they _don't_ get convicted more is systematic bias in the system.
Rapists know their victims. They commit their crimes the victim’s residence. Law enforcement runs prostitution stings where the business is happening. I just don’t see how we can prevent a crime which is happening inside the victim’s home with a sting operation.
Police stings do not exist to prevent some other crime.
Police stings exist to arrest criminals by having a criminal commit a crime in front of the police.
You cannot prevent a rapist from taking an acquaintance home and forcing himself on her. But what you can do is hand a rapist a pre-packaged victim, vulnerable in all the right ways. He'll go for it.
(And when this tactic becomes public, hey, win! Now rapists won't assault vulnerable women they think might be cops!)
@glyph So to nab the suspect on the rape charge, we have to accept that he might get some licks in first. That’s a bad position to put the cop in, and different from prostitution or drugs where all they have to do is negotiate the deal to prove the crime.
While I am not a woman, I'm fairly certain we could find women to do this, especially for _this_ purpose.
And the first time the door doesn’t get busted down in time, and/or she gets overpowered/disarmed (every sting goes sideways sooner or later), there could be a real outcry over using women as bait, dangled in front of people we strongly suspect to be rapists.
Yes, people are morons.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “At Least Walmart Pays Minimum Wage”
It is perhaps worth pointing out that failing to pay most 'interns' is, in fact, illegal. The minimum wage laws do not stop applying just because you call the position as 'internship'.
Internships are not apprenticeships, as the entire population of the US seems to assume they are. They are not unpaid employees. Interns are supposed to be _learning_, not working.
The sort of internship described here, where you actually have what appears to be a job, is more than likely illegal. Especially as they have listed this under 'Employment' and don't mention a single skill you will be learning. In fact, they specifically say you will be 'assisting' someone, aka, help them, not learning something...they expect you to _already_ have the skills of 'research and writing'.
This is clearly 'hired research assistant' position, not any sort of internship. It's just they've decided to pay you no money for it.
Of course, in _this_ country we don't bother to actually enforce labor laws.
On “Populism In a Nutshell, Again”
I think that's the reason that the right falls prey to hucksters more than the left. The fringe right tends to be driven by anger more than the fringe left.
Actually, maybe not. Maybe the problem is the fringe left's concerned are usually justified, whereas the fringe right tends to have complete nonsense as concerns. So hucksterism is required _to start with_ on the right, to _create_ populism.
Or, maybe that's not exactly it either. Populism is an organic entity create by disaffected people, eventually angry people. Left alone, it would be directed at the people who have actually caused problems in those people lives, which is, very rarely, the government(1). It's usually their bank, and their job, and all sorts of entity, and, if left alone, would create leftism populism.
So it takes some sort of hucksterism to direct the anger from leftwards purposes to rightward. Usually by making up completely nonsensical things to be angry about. (Everyone remembers the Tea Party stood for 'taxed enough already', right? And everyone remembers that _taxes had not gone up_, right?)
1) This is not to say that _no_ populism can naturally be directed in the other direction, in an anti-government sense. The government can, indeed, screw up. I'm just saying, statistically speaking, the government is rarely the cause, and in the cases it is, it's not for the nonsensical things that right populism has been created around. Poor unemployed people don't care about the taxes they aren't paying, or the government regulations that don't affect them. They care about things like random searches on the street and laying off teachers.
On “The Anti Rent-Seeking Amendment, Part II: The Amendment”
@roger
For a company to be owned by the employees they have to either buy it, steal it , or get it in lieu of other wages and benefits.
Uh, yeah, they'd be getting it in lieu of other wages. In lieu of _increased_ wages.
However, I've finally figured out the confusion here: You think increases in wages would be coming from operating expenses.
Most people here are assuming they will come from the massive salaries that CEOs make, or out of company profits. The company would keep operating with the money it has, the unions would just demand that more outgoing money go it instead of management or owners.
This actually seems so utterly obvious no one bothers to actually _say_ it.
The other defect here is to assume the employees have any useful feedback as owners that they can give only as owners and not as employees.
Speaking of things coming out of operating expenses, it is _corporate profits_ that, all too often, come out of operating expenses, to 'bump up' shares. As part of the general trend, whereupon a company cannibalized itself for a small stock bump, selling facilities and laying off workers.
Employee-owned corporations, presumably would be less likely to do that, so they probably _would_ manage themselves better, or at least equally as well.
Of course, there is the hypothetical new mismanagement problem in that the _workers_ could cannibalize the company with too-high wages, or stock dividends. OTOH, I'd rather companies dismantle themselves into the hands of their employees than dismantle themselves into the hands of the superrich. (Cue accusations of class warfare in 3...2...1...)
Finally, note that getting a share of profits means getting a share of the losses and owning the risk of bankruptcy. Most prudent employees if paid primarily in stock would logically sell it.
You're assuming payments in some sort of standard stock, which could be resold. But there are a _lot_ of ways to structure stock.
Hell, you could even have the union itself own the stock. Or it not even be 'stock'...perhaps each employee is simply give the equivalent of one shareholder's vote for every 100 hours work the previous year.
Trying to figure out what it would eventually look like is a bit silly.
I won’t restate the definitions of rent seeking. The initial post did so well
And as I pointed out, assuming that unions being 'rent seeking' is not at all obvious.
Rent-seeking, in the original post, appears to be meaning 'If people would do it for less, anything about that is rent. This is a fairly stupid definition of rent seeking, but, even under that...if corporations will pay what unions ask for (And they pretty much will pay by definition, because if they won't pay lower, they _don't_ pay lower. So the union instead either aims lower or ceases to exist.) than that means that unions aren't rent seeking.
Of course, the obvious problem in that assumption is that i turned it around backwards from how you had it (If people will work for less, than anything about that is rent), which points to the rather obvious stupidity of that definition. Namely, prices are a _range_, and the solution in an ideal world is not to pin them to one end and call anything else 'rent'. (As that is literally impossible, simply because, from the other direction, it's _not_ the lowest...it's the highest.)
Rent-seeking, in the _actual_ universe, is when entities attempt to get get something for nothing or almost nothing. It's when a piece of paper, a monopoly, a regulation, entitles them to something they would not otherwise have, or, in a free market, would have made a lot less.
It's not when they _freely_ negotiate prices slightly higher than one entity would have accepted...because 'negotiating prices slightly higher than one entity would have accepted' is literally _every single transaction that exist_.
In any free market exchange, each person thought they came off better than before (duh), and hence they almost certainly would have accept some slightly lower amount. That 'excess' is not 'rent' as both you and James Hanley seem to be defining it. (Or alternately, as you are defining it and he's poorly explained something else as.)
On “A Side Note About Licensing”
@mad-rocket-scientist
I'm aware there are sample contracts.
As Patrick pointed out, though, almost all contracting disputes are _due_ to contractual problems, and hence it appears that no one is actually _using_ those sample contracts. (Or they are really crappy.)
It would be simple enough for the state to require, for example, all licensed contractors to use a written contract for all work, with specified scope of work, completion time and any penalties for going over, and an acknowledgement of who has to get the building permit.
This wouldn't solve _every_ problem, of course, and wouldn't help with people who do not use licensed contractors (Unless it was an actual law instead of just a licensing condition.), but it really seems like some sort of basic start.
There's a reason the law requires signed contracts for certain things. There's really no reason not to expand that.
On “The Anti Rent-Seeking Amendment, Part II: The Amendment”
@roger
Any company which pays 25% higher wages has that much less to reinvest in new products, new factories, new markets and new ideas. Either that or they have correspondingly higher prices or lower quality. Thus they will lose market share to any company which does not pay 25% above clearing price.
Erm, no.
The premise here isn't that companies just magically pay employees more.
The premise is that companies are owned by the employees, and hence get a cut of the _profits_.
Corporate profits are already things the company does not have available to spend on things. They are always going on the door. It's just, in this case, instead of going to unrelated owners, they would be going to employee-owners. (Whether they go as 'wages' or 'dividends' is a bit moot.)
And I would wager there also would be some rejiggering and reduction of executive salaries, as that is almost entirely due to the incestuous CEO/board system we've built in this country that an employee-operate board is unlikely to put up with. But, that money is already going out the door too.
This is exactly the dynamic that unions face today. To the success they exploit rents, they destroy market share. I can link you to studies which track the trend. Unions extinguish themselves to the extent they extract rents.
I have no idea how you're using the term 'rents'. Supply labor in return for money is quite literally the opposite of 'rents' in my book. As is paying someone to negotiate on your behalf to get a better price for your labor. It's not even forcing people into exclusivity contracts with you because you have something they desperately need, like union shop contracts are.
'Rent' is when you control something that requires _no or very little effort on your part_, and you require other people to pay to use it. Especially if that 'control' is just some sort of legal artifact and they'd be perfectly happy to not have you involved at all. 'Rent' is not a word that means 'profit I don't like' or even 'profit that is unethical'.
"
I wonder if employees will prefer to work for employee-run companies? It seems intuitive that they would, but I have my doubts. I would welcome them having the choice. Interestingly if working for an employee owned company was perceived as superior, wages would gravitate LOWER for those companies. Ironic huh?
Average wages and benefits will still be set by supply and demand. To the extent they get more stock (many companies offer stock today) they will get less wages. Employee run companies can’t overcome the power of markets. They could get a higher perceived value though.
Erm, no, they'd get _actual_ higher value. As in more actual money. Which is why working for those companies would be perceived as superior.
You sorta just made the equivalent inverse argument to 'Supply and demand says that if X is cheaper than Y, then X will become more popular Y so the cost of X could rise higher than Y!'
People will wish to work as employee-owned businesses because the amount of money they would end up with would be higher. (I would call that 'wages', but some of it would be stock dividends and profit sharing and whatnot.)
Yes, thanks to supply and demand, that would drive the amount of money they make lower, but clearly it can't get lower than it currently is. If it did, people would _stop_ working for those companies, and demand for employees would go back up.
Now, there might be some _other_ benefits of working for employee-owned companies, like they would rarely attempt to fire half the work-force or gut pensions to temporarily boast the stock price, and it is possible, all things being equal, employees would be willing to work for slightly less.
But, of course, there's no actual reason such companies _should_ pay less. If the majority of the owners _are_ the employees, than I'm baffled as to why they would decide to reduce their own wages in order to...what...have more of their money in profits? What exactly is the theory here? Supply and demand doesn't work when _both sides are the same people_.
“Uh, wow. We, fairly shortly, get the predicted revolution of Marx.”
Not sure I have heard anybody that thought that was a good thing for a decade of more now.
Hey, _I_ didn't propose this amendment. I was just pointing out what would happen.
While I would like to see labor unchained, I think instantly unchaining it in this manner would be, uh, really really really disruptive.
OTOH, I'm not entirely sure that we can get any reasonable changes in labor restrictions, and I'm pretty well convinced that if we keep going the direction we're currently going that we will, in fact, have some sort of labor revolution. So, I dunno, maybe unchaining labor would be a reasonable thing to try...it's better than looting and seizing of property.
On “A Side Note About Licensing”
What I’m saying is that disputes between general contractors and customers are typically not of the sort that are covered by licensing issues.
Well, yes. I was saying that I was sorta assuming that _all_ contractors were unlicensed. I am aware there actually are licenses, but they don't cover what anyone would have disputes over. Licensing stops things like decks falling off houses, not the fact the contractor didn't move the rosebushes from what is now underneath the deck.
(1) Neither the customer nor the contractor filed for a building permit, and the work is not to code.
Although there perhaps the licensing needs to be stronger. At the minimum the customer should have to sign something stating they understand they need a permit. But, as you pointed out, people who don't bother with building permits don't bother with licensed contractors either.
(2) The contractor failed to conform to the customer’s understanding of the scope of work.
(3) Failure to complete in a timely fashion.
What would actually help _here_ is the state supplying some sort of sample contract and recommended process to follow: Write stuff down here, take pictures of this and that, provide a sketch of the intended result, state where the contractors is allowed to go and drive(1), etc.
Like I said, the real problem in a lot of this is that the legal system is out of reach. Here, it's _lawyers_ that are out of reach, so you end up with a really crappy verbal agreement that is impossible to figure out in court, instead of an actual contract.
Now, licensed contractors could do that, but if you're going to have them suggesting a contract, it really should just be a state-created one.
1) You'd be amazed, or possibly not, how often I've heard people hiring contractors complain they 'ruined something' like a garden or a rug or something, and I'm like 'Did you actually tell them not to drive through the garden? How would they know not to do that? And as for your rug...you did know they would be in your house, right? They didn't just break in?'
On “Defending Richard Cohen”
As I’ve pointed out before, it’s a wash, mathematically. A lesser threat to each member of a larger group of people vs. a greater threat to each member of a smaller group of people. The real issue is how many additional crimes he can be expected to commit, not how they’ll be distributed.
It's not always a wash. If someone assaults people who sleep with his wife, than he's only, statistically speaking, a threat at all if he a) has a wife, and b) someone besides him is having sex with her, and c) he knows this. (Or (b2), if he thinks someone is who is not.)
It's entirely possibly there is literally _no_ threatened amount of people there. (If, say, his wife divorced him for assaulting her lover.) It doesn't matter how likely the risk of assault is if it's multiplied by zero possible targets.
Now, granted, this is not literally how it works. People who assault specific people generally(1) have anger management issues, and the next assault could be their boss who fired them or whatever.
But, see, that generally applies to hate crimes, also.
I would argue what is actually happening with most hate crimes is either a) terrorism, pure and simple, aimed at a community of people, b) the criminal is actually a trained psychopath who does not see 'that type' of person as an actual person, or c) 'that type' of person somehow created anger within the person.
(a), of course, is a worse crime than simple assault. Now, it can be argued this actually should be a _separate_ crime, and that's a fine position to take. But is clearly is something with worse consequences than simple assault, and needs to be treated as such.
(b), of course, is a rather dangerous person to have around, and I think we can all agree they're rather more dangerous than a person who got very angry and attacked someone. So hate crime laws work here also.
(c) just means added anger, which only results in assault _on top_ of some sort of issue. The person's race might push them over the edge, but they would have been just as likely to attack if the person had, I dunno, flipped them off or something.
This seems to be where the system breaks down, a little. Those people seem more dangerous than other people with anger management problems, given they're unlikely to be able to avoid those types of people. But are they more dangerous than people with angry management problems that get angered by people wearing suits, or people drinking Mtn Dew?
No, those people would be just as dangerous. So, in a sense, hate crimes laws are a bit 'biased'.
Except that _there are no such people_. When people have some sort of inherent 'trigger button', it's almost always on the stuff hate crime laws protect. People have very consistent angers, because they have actually been _taught_ to be angry.
If we had people who randomly got extremely strong dislikes of random attributes of people in their head, strong enough to actually cause, or even significantly increase the chances of, those people attacking people with those attributes, it would be well and good to say hate crime legislation is a bit silly. If we had significant people who wandered around attacking people who drove certain cars, or wore white after labor day, hate crime laws would be insane.
But that's not really the world we live in. We instead live in a world where there are some very predictable things that a small subset of people get violently angry about. _Repeatedly_ violently angry, eventually leading to assault.
1) Let's ignore here people who assault for profit. That's not really relevant to hate crime discussion, and those people probably should be treated different than assaults out of anger anyway.
"
One sentence before, Mike. One sentence.
"The GOP is not racist, but does have a lot of views on a lot of topics. And now I shall talk about 'conventional people' that have specific racist views, without in any way saying those views are racist. And despite those two sentences logically leading into each other, and the second being a more specific example of the first, I in no way implied that those racist views were not racist. Despite those 'conventional people' clearly being a reference to the GOP, and my having literally just said in the sentence before that the GOP is not racist."
I actually find it kinda funny he's coming under fire from the left. Granted, I don't read rightish blogs, but they do grasp he just _called them racist_, right? Or at least, he ascribed racist behavior to them, despite explicitly calling it 'not racist'. Are they upset?
...holy crap. He just invented the third-person version of 'I'm not a racist, but...'! 'He's not a racist, but he does hold this incredibly racist view...'
"
It happened with Rowling, too. Not weird politics or anything like that, thank God, but there's a reason that the four and fifth Harry Potter books are a doorstopper, despite not really containing much more plot than the third. No editor was willing to stand up and say 'Could you cut this entire section here?'.
On “A Side Note About Licensing”
If the court system is systemically broken, having it play a part seems contraindicated.
Except that this is their job. It is _literally_ their job to resolve contract disputes and fraud. I was being rather facetious when I suggested that the court system 'should' play a role in this...they already have a role, the staring role, they're just _not doing it_. They are inaccessible, deliberately so, for the vast majority of people.
If the fire department is broken and they only show up to put out a fire if you bribe them or you're good friends with the mayor, the solution is not suggest that someone besides the fire department start putting out fires.
I’m going to guess that generally, general contractors’ crappiness has nothing to do with licensing and everything to do with laypersons interacting with contract law.
I wasn't really trying to suggest otherwise. I was assuming they were not licensed at all.
The problem isn't really 'laypersons interacting with contract law', it's usually 'laypersons being ripped off when dealing with contract law, and have absolutely no recourse they can afford to be made whole'.
We _could_ invent some sort of new government agency to do this, some sort of 'Better Business Bureau', but actually part of the government, with enforcement powers and the ability to sue wrong doers and bar them from operating a business if caused enough problems.
Except, of course, for this to be workable, we'd have to run them through the court system anyway.
As MRS pointed out, this should be small claims court. However, small claims courts are often completely unusable.
On “The Anti Rent-Seeking Amendment, Part II: The Amendment”
Labor wins what?
Basically, labor wins everything. I wouldn't be surprised to labor negotiating some sort of profit-sharing scheme, perhaps it even becoming standard for labor to have a seat on the board of directors and being granted stock. In time, I expect to see many corporations being forced, at 'union-point', to convert to basically employee-owned businesses.
I _also_ wouldn't be surprised for the thing that anti-labor people thinks happen all the time, but does not really happen, actually start happening sometimes. That is, for labor to accidentally destroy the company it's working for because labor over-estimated their demands and the company had to give in. OTOH, this is really no different than any of the other ways that companies miscalculate and kill themselves, so I'm not actually worried about it...labor, at least, has no incentive to do that on purpose.
Of course, I would also expect to see many internal struggles within unions and unions amassing power for their leaders and not the union members...but with no forced negotiation, either the union will work for the workers, or the workers will just start another union.
The only thing, throughout history, that has managed to keep labor repressed is action by the people in power. Illegal action, legal action, whatever. Remove that, make laws doing that unconstitutional, and introduce modern technology for coordination, where workers can organize _in secret_ and the first sign the company has there's a union is when no one shows up for work, and where entire _other industries_ can sympathetic strike, resulting massive pressure to agree to the demands? In a world of 'just in time' shipping, where a week of striking blows up an entire distribution system?
Uh, wow. We, fairly shortly, get the predicted revolution of Marx.
On “Defending Richard Cohen”
He knows that they’re racist things.
Yes, he clearly knows those things are racist, which we can tell by his previous sentence, 'Today’s GOP is not racist'.
Yeah, it's us who have problems reading.
Look, if he had stopped his _previous_ paragraphs, about the racism of the Tea Party, with that line, it would make sense. He would be saying the Tea Party is racist, and that the GOP of old was racist, but the current GOP isn't racist, per se. This would, in fact, be a reasonable argument, and is in fact what I think he was saying.
But, right after calling the GOP not racist, he, in _literally in the next sentence_ ascribes racist views to them. (1) Either he's a very strange sort of liar, or he simply doesn't understand those views are racist.
1) Or, in an alternate reading, ascribes racist views to all 'conventional' people, not just the GOP....again without noticing that those views are racist. This hardly makes the situation better.
"
Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.
These two sentences together are especially odd. The logical way to read that paragraph is that he means:
GOP=(a subset of) people with conventional views
deeply troubled=must repress a gag reflex (is one of the many way being 'deeply troubled' can express itself)
Right? He's giving general examples, and then a more specific one. It's exactly the same construction if I was to say 'I had a lot of problems today - with my car, with my work, with my house. I woke up this morning and my power was out...' Everyone sees how that is supposed to work, right? It's a pretty common paragraph construction.
The problem is, the general examples are 'the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde'. So it's rather hard to figure out, exactly, which one of those he thinks interracial marriage is.
Does he think interracial marriage was an expansion of government? That...really doesn't logically make sense. Allowing interracial marriage removed anti-miscegenation laws, it didn't add any. And I can presume that Cohen is smart enough to understand that most black people are not 'immigrants'.
So we're left with two options: Does Cohen have some sort of _religious_ objection to interracial marriage? Or does he think that interracial marriage is 'avant-grande', that they are entering that marriage, and having kids, as some sort of _performance piece_. (Does he even know what avant-grande means? It is pushing societal norms _via art_, not just, uh, doing things.)
"
But that is sorta the same problem as the 'conventional' thing, when you get down to it, except he manages not to use the word.
He is standing there describing completely racist things...and appears to not understand they are racist. He thinks it's 'conventional' for some people to want to vomit at the sight of interracial couples, and he mentions Zimmerman's attempted 'quest' without bothering to mention that it was, you know, sorta wrongheaded.
Now, the 'heroism'-Zimmerman wording, unlike the 'conventional' thing, is vague enough that it would be possible to read that part with the understanding he disagrees with that point of view. It would be entirely possible to say that sentence even if you were not racist.
Except that the 'understandably' word in the next sentence and the entire rest of his post make that a rather hard interpetation. I think everyone who is reading that as saying Zimmerman had _actually_ heroism, from a certain point of view(1), are reading it as it was intended.
1) I doubt he means that Zimmerman was _actually_ heroic, just that his actions can seem that way. But, look, it's acceptable to romanticize Ponce de Leon as a Don Quixota, as someone on a pointless quest. It is not, however, acceptable to romanticize someone whose quest was to defend everyone from teh blacks and thus shot and killed an innocent one!
On “A Side Note About Licensing”
Crappy general contractors are a good example of what we get without licenses, in fact.
It's nearly impossible to actually sue them, and while 'word of mouth' may work in some neighborhood, all that actually means is they have to wander around plying their work in multiple places.
Sure, they might _eventually_ run out of places, but that's a rather belated 'fix'.
But general contractors also demonstrate it probably would be nearly impossible _to_ license everyone. What we need is some sort of general solution.
I have to suggest that the civil court system should be playing a part in this, that it should actually be possible for someone to take a receipt or a bill or something, along with some pictures showing the deficiency of work, walk into a courthouse, and, without paying anything but a trivial fees and without having to hire a lawyer, actually get a judgement. (And if that happens enough, the person who keeps getting sued should be barred from that profession.)
There are, admittedly, practical issues with this. But we could solve the problems. For example, certain people like to make nuisance of themselves over everything, and would end up costing the courts a lot of time. We could solve that by giving everyone only two 'free' suits a year, and require filing fees for any more.
Of course, at this point, our supposedly 'blind' court system is complete nonsense, not just for civil suits, but for criminal cases also, where people actually _are_ supposed to not have to pay if they can't afford it. It's so broken it's almost unfixable.
On “The Anti Rent-Seeking Amendment, Part II: The Amendment”
Are you not equally worried though that companies would only hire those contractually promising not to unionize?
I am uncertain why that would be relevant. Surely they'd just do it _in secret_.
That companies would threaten to close any office which unionized? In other words, it seems that the hell released would be point and counterpoint.
Are you not worried the Teamsters would stop work?
I am sure some companies would be infiltrated by very successful and powerful unions, but this would just create a huge competitive advantage for any company or off shore factory which was successful at avoiding any unionization
And are you not worried that the dockworkers would stop unloading their goods at port? Or just _breaking_ their stuff? (And now unions can't be punished for that sort of deliberate illegal action. At least, not without other corporations being punished for that sort of thing.)
When I said all sorts of hell, I meant it.
And in an out and out war between labor and capital, in _this_ day and age, with modern communication technology and police forces that won't illegally round up workers and courts that are forbidden by constitutional amendment from demanding striking workers stop....
Labor wins. Holy shit does labor win if you take the gloves off.
The only way labor was stopped last time was via _illegal means_, and then their tactics were _strictly_ restricted, while granting them some concessions to keep _legal_ unions in play. The laws, as is, _cripple_ unions, but are designed to stop just short of crippling them so much labor will illegally cause problems. (And even then, it doesn't work...witness all the unions restricted from striking that still illegally 'strike' in various ways.)
I know for some reason the right seems to delusionally think otherwise, that laws 'give unions power', but the right is completely, utterly, near-pathologically incorrect about this. You remove restrictions on unions, and the entire damn labor market has a meltdown.
As to public service unions, these are a privileged monopoly by definition. They work for a firm which consumers have to buy from
That does not make _them_ privileged, that make the people buying their services (Aka, their employers) privileged. That is the _opposite_ of a monopoly. If an EPA regulator, for example, wants to find another job, his choices are limited because the people he is selling to is a monopoly, as there is only one EPA.
and have to use a specific entity with no allowable competition.
And why would there be no allowable competition? What are you talking about? You do remember we're talking about a universe with no union regulation, right? And hence there certainly could be other unions.
Of course, just like _any other government contract_, the government might choose one supplier of labor or another, presumably via some sort of bidding.
This is two levels of privilege. If firms could compete with them, and customers (citizens) were not required by law to buy the service, then I would agree they should be free to unionize and strike.
You've just successfully argued that _governments_ are privileged, which is a nice fun argument, but completely moot. We were talking about unions that supplied things to governments, not governments.
You seem to think wages or prices in a competitive market are a struggle of wills rather than set by supply and demand.
Erm, the supply of labor is almost entirely due to 'will'.
On “A Side Note About Licensing”
The real problem here is rather indirect, and it's because the legal system has been totally subverted in favor of the rich. Well, not 'subverted', that implies that it used to work and now it doesn't.
But the problem is, for example, if a hairstylist is negligent and totally destroys someone's hair, it is not actually possible, in any manner, for a normal human to recover damages from that. Not that the damages should be harsh, but that really is a hundred dollars or so in injury.
Hell, the only reason that malpractice suits actually exist is that there is so much money in them so lawyers can work off commission. But good luck even with that if the problem wasn't obvious wrongdoing, but just a busy doctor who missed something and the damages in the mere thousands.
Not only is it impossible for normal people to recover small damages done to them by people they hired, but there is an entire political movement out there that appears to think lawsuits are _too easy_ to do, and wants to make them _harder_.
Certain professional, right now, have to behave in specific manners or they will lose their license and lively-hood. Without licenses...well, they almost certainly won't get sued, and, hell, if they do rarely get sued, the worse that often happens is that they lose their _business_ and have to start over.
I honestly have no suggestions in how to fix this problem, but it appears to be the _actual_ problem that licenses are a stopgap measure to fix.
On “The Anti Rent-Seeking Amendment, Part II: The Amendment”
Does that type of right-to-work law actually provide special privilege to the business by making it harder for unions to recruit dues-paying members?
Right to work laws _deny_ unions privileges that all other corporations have as a matter of course: To enter into exclusivity contracts as they so choose.
I.e, it is legal for Coca-Cola to present a contract to McDonalds saying McDonalds will only sell Coke products in their restaurants as one of the clauses of the contract. (Probably for lower prices from Coke, but it can be for whatever consideration the contract may offer.)
In my state, a 'right to work' state, it is _not_ legal for a union to present a contact saying that McDonalds will only hire union works. Hell, it's not even legal for a union to present a contract saying McDonalds will _pay_ the union anything. (The union, instead, collects union dues from people who have bothered to join the union.)
So it's less a special 'privilege given to corporations', and more a denial, to unions, of the basic right to enter into any contract they feel like. I.e, it would be a violation of laws that 'serves to create a barrier to entry to any industry or occupation'
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Heh, and I see that everyone else already pointed this point. Nevermind.
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As an example, one purported reason to privilege unions to be able to require employees to join is that it offsets an unfair power or advantage that employers have. Again, I totally reject the argument, but I am pretty sure they disagree with me.
You reject the argument that it offsets it, or you reject the argument employers have such an advantage?
But, hey, I actually think this it would make unions stronger. Why? Because it makes 'right to work' laws illegal.
A 'right to work' law is a law forbidding a union from entering an exclusivity contract with a corporation. You know, _exactly_ the sort of exclusivity contract corporations enter all the time.
In my state, Georgia, it is perfectly legal for my hypothetical restaurant to sign a contract with your soft drink company to only sell your soft drinks in my restaurant. (Assuming this in some way doesn't create a monopoly or trust.) It is, however, _illegal_ for my restaurant to sign a contract with a union to only employ its workers. This is called a 'right to work' law. Why is it illegal for my restaurant to do that? To keep unions from forming.
If I understand what this amendment is trying to do, that would now be unconstitutional, assuming that 'unions' are now an 'industry' under the meaning of it. (Which seems to be the assumption here, otherwise unions wouldn't be affected at all.) So if organizations can form exclusivity agreements, unions can too.
Likewise, sympathetic strikes? Oh, look. They're now legal too!
Union members refusing to provide services to non-union companies? Also legal! (Hell, it probably will end up _in their contract_.)
And public workers can now strike also. That seems somewhat debatable, but I don't see how the law can treat public sector unions differently.
A lot of people don't understand that the law treats unions different in _many_ ways, and like to whine about how the law is 'nice' to unions. Which is, in fact, totall bullcrap, and unions are literally the most restricted 'industry' in the US, outside of nuclear power and a biological labs and a few rare example.
People don't quite understand what sort of hell exactly would break loose if you set unions free and removed all restriction on them.
(Of course, right now unions are excluded from anti-trust regulations, and presumably that would go away also...but the simple fact is that most unions are not anywhere near a 'monopoly' in the first place and so that exception is complete nonsense anyway.)
On “Stupid Tuesday questions, Groundhog Day edition”
Wait, Andie McDowell is a human being? I thought she was a very well-built android.
I actually thought that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was an amusing romp until the revelation at the end.
Which is why I didn't think anything was wrong with the entire movie. If you find yourself caring about the actual McGuffin nonsense and what it's all about in Indiana Jones, you're probably watching the wrong movie. All those movies had magical thingies with goofy nonsensical ending premises, it's just the others based theirs on incorrect religious myths instead of sci-fi myth.
I’m tired of the overall angst that is ruining action movies. Some heroes are meant to be jaunty and generally upbeat like Robin Hood and Superman. Superman should always be done with Christopher Reeve charm.
The problem with the latest movie wasn't that Superman had angst. Superman can have angst...about the fact he can't save everyone, about the fact he has to keep his life secret, about all sorts of things. He's Superman, not fricking Captain Marvel, he can be a little angsty and unhappy, as long as he still does his job.
What he can't be is a lazy shiftless bum. What he can't be is someone who will let people die to keep his secret. What he can't be is someone who never even tries to help people.
People who thought the end of that movie damaged his character were wrong. Superman can, indeed, do that if he _must_. The problem is that he never had a character _to start with_.
I mean, compare it to Smallville, which often was very stupid, but at least understood _Clark Kent_. And Jonathon Kent.
And, of course, I think I've already mentioned here the other problem with that movie, that General Zod was completely correct to attempt a coup of a government that had _blithely caused, and then completely ignored the destruction of their planet_. He only became the bad guy because they made him want to kryptoform earth, instead of literally any other planet in the galaxy.
So, to get back on topic...I want a Man of Steel where General Zod is not handed the idiot ball and says 'Hey, we're a super advanced society and we'll share with you, if you find Kal-El and _give us Mars_.' Of course, this is would not actually work as a movie, but, seriously, it's just so stupid it's hard to get past.
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I am convinced that Nicholas Cage is under some sort of magic curse. He built his house over the an ancient Hollywood-producer burial ground or something.
I mean, he's not the greatest actor in the world, but he can indeed act to some extent. And usually the reason the movie is bad has very little to do with him. In the movies he himself is bad in, it usually looks like bad _direction_ to me instead of bad acting, or sometimes just stupid casting.
Why can't he find some sort of moderately good movie to be in?
On “Always act like everything’s your fault”
@kim
Successful rapists (about, say, 5% of the American population) do not get caught. and hell, even with a god-damn policewoman there, you still probably couldn’t prosecute.
Oh, you sure as hell could prosecute. You arrest the guy, throw him in jail, present the evidence in court.
Might not be able to _convict_, but you sure as hell can prosecute.
(if NOTHING else, rapists tend to go for the naive and innocent. And you can’t tell me you’ll have fifteen year old policewomen).
Erm, police officers go undercover as minors all the time.
Sure, you could catch the careless. But, far better than what you’re suggesting, would be to simply seize the photographic evidence of rape (if you don’t believe me, I suggest you watch Jesus Camp. Lotta candid photos out there).
Why would I not believe you?
As I said, rapists are literally the most careless felons in the world. If burglars or muggers behaved like most rapists, we'd have no unsolved crimes of that sort.
I'm not entirely sure what you think we would do with the photographic evidence, though.
@j-r
You are suggesting sending policewoman out with the specific intention of pretending to be drunk, or otherwise vulnerable, and engage in heavy petting with random men, with no particular concern for how this sort of thing would play out in court and you think that everyone else is a moron…
I like how you've invented 'heavy petting' in there. I'm pretty certain I didn't say anything about the police officer initiating any physical activity at all.
And I especially love the idea that the important thing 'how this would play out in court', somehow. How, you can't quite explain. But I know _exactly_ why you can't explain...because you're a rape apologist and explaining would require you to admit one truth or another you don't want to admit.
Here are the two options:
1) The person who _assaulted a police officer_ would not be convicted, which would rather demonstrate how _horrifically_ biased our system of justice is in favor of rapists. (Especially considering how normally biased it is in favor of police officers.)
2) The person _would_ be convicted, which would, uh, mean that 'how it played out in court' is _exactly right_ and we just got a rapist off the street.
(And there's option 3, wherein the man don't do anything, but that is not going to end up in court and hence isn't what you're talking about. And option 4, where the undercover officer is actually injured or killed...which presumably would _play out in the courts_ perfectly fine...the problem there isn't the _court_.)
Please note that other people are objecting to this because of hypothetical _danger_, or that regardless of the actual danger, the public would think it was too much danger. It has nothing to do with the court at all. (Will Truman mentioned it, but he thought I was talking about something else, and we've cleared that up.)
You're the only person here is worried about 'the courts', which is a very telling mention. There are only two possibilities 'how it plays out in court'...it _either_ demonstrates systematic bias in the legal system in favor in rapists, _or_ a rapist is off the streets.
Which of those two things are _you_ objecting to?
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@blaisep
Rape stings, at best, can only catch the careless outlier in the population of rapists.
My theory is that rapists don't actually understand what they are doing is illegal.
And hence they are _extremely likely_ to be careless while doing it.
In fact, they _are_ careless. Rapists are often trivially identified, in fact, they are often known to their victim. They make absolutely _no_ effort in covering up their crime. They leave evidence everywhere.
Rapists are basically the most careless felons in the world. The only reason they _don't_ get convicted more is systematic bias in the system.
Rapists know their victims. They commit their crimes the victim’s residence. Law enforcement runs prostitution stings where the business is happening. I just don’t see how we can prevent a crime which is happening inside the victim’s home with a sting operation.
Police stings do not exist to prevent some other crime.
Police stings exist to arrest criminals by having a criminal commit a crime in front of the police.
You cannot prevent a rapist from taking an acquaintance home and forcing himself on her. But what you can do is hand a rapist a pre-packaged victim, vulnerable in all the right ways. He'll go for it.
(And when this tactic becomes public, hey, win! Now rapists won't assault vulnerable women they think might be cops!)
@glyph
So to nab the suspect on the rape charge, we have to accept that he might get some licks in first. That’s a bad position to put the cop in, and different from prostitution or drugs where all they have to do is negotiate the deal to prove the crime.
While I am not a woman, I'm fairly certain we could find women to do this, especially for _this_ purpose.
And the first time the door doesn’t get busted down in time, and/or she gets overpowered/disarmed (every sting goes sideways sooner or later), there could be a real outcry over using women as bait, dangled in front of people we strongly suspect to be rapists.
Yes, people are morons.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.