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 dogma wrote:
Ah, the "You only disagree with me because you're young and impressionable!" argument. Always the best way of supporting a contentious position.

It's been my experience that only minimum wage workers believe minimum wage workers to be valuable.

So you trust government to regulate who can receive severance, but allowing them to regulate who can be severed is over the line?

No, I was talking about unemployment, not severance.

 Seaward wrote:

 dogma wrote:
Ah, the "You only disagree with me because you're young and impressionable!" argument. Always the best way of supporting a contentious position.

It's been my experience that only minimum wage workers believe minimum wage workers to be valuable.

And only non-arseholes recognize them as fellow human beings.

Merry Christmas!

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

And only non-arseholes recognize them as fellow human beings.

Merry Christmas!

They're certainly fellow human begins, but they're not exactly a top-flight workforce, hence not very valuable from a business perspective.

 Seaward wrote:

It's been my experience that only minimum wage workers believe minimum wage workers to be valuable.

And this marks the first time in this thread that "minimum wage workers" were mentioned directly. Not only that, but it is conveniently being used to dodge the actual criticism of the initial argument. Which, to refresh, was that hiding behind age and experience is poor form (appeal to authority), especially on the internet.

 Seaward wrote:

No, I was talking about unemployment, not severance.

What do you think unemployment insurance is? The employer pays into a fund and, according to government regulations, helps to determine how the contents of it are dispensed. It is, essentially, government mandated, communal severance.

I am always amazed when people basically argue that businesses are some sort of actual entity that should be protected by the government who shouldn't do anything do hurt them. While the actual citizens of the country are a commodity that should not be protected by said country and should be allowed to live at the whim of businesses everywhere.

Many businesses rely on minimum wage workers so they can make more money for themselves and deliver cheaper goods and services. You seem to relish the idea of making money off the backs of low paid workers and then looking down your nose at them as being worth very little. Says a lot IMO.

 dogma wrote:
And this marks the first time in this thread that "minimum wage workers" were mentioned directly. Not only that, but it is conveniently being used to dodge the actual criticism of the initial argument. Which, to refresh, was that hiding behind age and experience is poor form (appeal to authority), especially on the internet.

It's an irrelevant argument. Age and experience usually does suss out the, "My company should be forced to take care of me!" crowd, but even if it doesn't, it remains a ludicrous stance.

What do you think unemployment insurance is? The employer pays into a fund and, according to government regulations, helps to determine how the contents of it are dispensed. It is, essentially, government mandated, communal severance.

I think it's not severance, for one thing, largely because it's not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Many businesses rely on minimum wage workers so they can make more money for themselves and deliver cheaper goods and services. You seem to relish the idea of making money off the backs of low paid workers and then looking down your nose at them as being worth very little. Says a lot IMO.

Nah, most folks in my field are pretty highly paid. There is, as I mentioned, also a fair bit of voluntary and involuntary turnover, often for reasons that have nothing at all to do with an individual's job performance. If you wish to champion the cause of the unfairly-terminated defense contractor, be my guest.

 Seaward wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

And only non-arseholes recognize them as fellow human beings.

Merry Christmas!

They're certainly fellow human begins, but they're not exactly a top-flight workforce, hence not very valuable from a business perspective.

That's nonsense. They can entirely be a top flight workforce at what they do. Skillsets are relative to the tasks at hand and 'valuable' is a relative quantifier, an excellent team in a McDonalds makes that place more efficient and more profitable, investing in training, protected rights and improved conditions leads to a better workforce who are more capable and more likely to invest more loyalty and drive to the business, leading to improved profits. I know some of you right wing folks would like to see the reintroduction of serfdom, but pushing the majority of the nation further into poverty will only work for so long before the majority will start resisting, the further you push, the harder they will eventually resist. Then the nation as a whole goes down the plughole.

Really, the way you've posted in this thread reads like you're trying to type whilst balancing a large powdered wig and nibbling on cake. The bottom rungs of the payscale hold the entire economy together, fueling the buying and selling and provide the infrastructure necessary to allow a nation to function. Perhaps the rarefied air up there is clouding your reasoning?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
That's nonsense. They can entirely be a top flight workforce at what they do. Skillsets are relative to the tasks at hand and 'valuable' is a relative quantifier, an excellent team in a McDonalds makes that place more efficient and more profitable, investing in training, protected rights and improved conditions leads to a better workforce who are more capable and more likely to invest more loyalty and drive to the business, leading to improved profits. I know some of you right wing folks would like to see the reintroduction of serfdom, but pushing the majority of the nation further into poverty will only work for so long before the majority will start resisting, the further you push, the harder they will eventually resist. Then the nation as a whole goes down the plughole.

Really, the way you've posted in this thread reads like you're trying to type whilst balancing a large powdered wig and nibbling on cake. The bottom rungs of the payscale hold the entire economy together, fueling the buying and selling and provide the infrastructure necessary to allow a nation to function. Perhaps the rarefied air up there is clouding your reasoning?

I'm gonna go chuckle over that while lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills or something.

This thread has generated several alerts and some of the replies are skirting the lines between assertive debate and insult.

In interest of a fairly interesting thread/court case--let's take a step back, a deep breath, wish each other a merry Christmas and stick to respective, objective argument. Thanks (and Merry Christmas!).

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

That's nonsense. The bottom rungs of the payscale hold the entire economy together, fueling the buying and selling and provide the infrastructure necessary to allow a nation to function.

Yeah you're right. That IS nonsense.

That's a lot of talking down about a group of people, especially from the side that always claims "blah blah blah class warfare blah blah blah"

 d-usa wrote:
That's a lot of talking down about a group of people, especially from the side that always claims "blah blah blah class warfare blah blah blah"

I really don't think I was putting down business owners. What's wrong with suggesting they went into business to make money rather than to hand out cash to people and look after them? Sure, it's not exactly charitable, but it's not insulting.

 Seaward wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
That's a lot of talking down about a group of people, especially from the side that always claims "blah blah blah class warfare blah blah blah"

I really don't think I was putting down business owners. What's wrong with suggesting they went into business to make money rather than to hand out cash to people and look after them? Sure, it's not exactly charitable, but it's not insulting.

TBH if you expect to make money off of people's work you better damn support them as well. There's nothing preventing companies from treating their employees good AND earning money (see most of Europe for example...).

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
TBH if you expect to make money off of people's work you better damn support them as well. There's nothing preventing companies from treating their employees good AND earning money (see most of Europe for example...).

Support them like with a paycheck? Done and done.

 Seaward wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
TBH if you expect to make money off of people's work you better damn support them as well. There's nothing preventing companies from treating their employees good AND earning money (see most of Europe for example...).

Support them like with a paycheck? Done and done.

Realistically, do you want the lower payscale of the US to reflect the lower payscale in, say, China or India?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Realistically, do you want the lower payscale of the US to reflect the lower payscale in, say, China or India?

I don't recall voicing opposition to the minimum wage in this thread, so I'm not sure why that's relevant.

 Seaward wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
TBH if you expect to make money off of people's work you better damn support them as well. There's nothing preventing companies from treating their employees good AND earning money (see most of Europe for example...).

Support them like with a paycheck? Done and done.

In my, and many other people's, opinion, that is not enough.

 Seaward wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
That's a lot of talking down about a group of people, especially from the side that always claims "blah blah blah class warfare blah blah blah"

I really don't think I was putting down business owners. What's wrong with suggesting they went into business to make money rather than to hand out cash to people and look after them?

Again, how is saying that business people are to 'hand out cash' and 'look after' employees in any way equivalent to the subject of the criticism in this thread which is that employers have the popwer to sack people at any time for any reason?

Feel like I'm repeating myself.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The real story is how odious At-Will employment really can be. This time, she was fired because her boss (and his wife) couldn't handle the fact that she was attractive. Next, maybe she can get fired for being a Christian other than the bosses denomination of Christianity, not flossing, or for not laughing at the bosses jokes.

You can have special skills, and work hard; and still get fired for something that has very little to do with your work performance. At-Will employment is a bigger joke than Right-to-Work.

At least she got 1 month severance.

Absolutely. It's a God-given right in this country to get a job, and then be free to camp out in it for as long as you like no matter what.

How is criticising employer powers to sack people any time for pretty much no reason at all, equivalent to giving employees a 'god-given right to a job' which they can sit in forever regardless of their behaviour?

Oh wait, it isn't. You're just being intellectually dishonest and utterly misrepresenting what someone else said. Try again.

You're just misrepresenting what other people say. Asking for some rights in a job isn't the same as expecting full social support for the rest of your life. Which seems to be how you insist on framing what other people say. It's just pathetic. Respond to what is actually being said or just don't fething bother with your 'I'm all right jack' bull gak. And you point the finger at others for not having any life/work experience. You don't know gak about other people on here, the fact that not everyone doesn't share your enthusiasm to tread on the low paid and treat them like dirt doesn't make them naive or inexperienced.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Again, how is saying that business people are to 'hand out cash' and 'look after' employees in any way equivalent to the subject of the criticism in this thread which is that employers have the popwer to sack people at any time for any reason?

Criticism of an employer's ability to terminate you for whatever reason they like isn't equivalent to saying that employers have a duty to look after their employees. This, however...

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Employers have some duty of care to their employees.

...is.

You're just misrepresenting what other people say. Asking for some rights in a job isn't the same as expecting full social support for the rest of your life. Which seems to be how you insist on framing what other people say. It's just pathetic. Respond to what is actually being said or just don't fething bother with your 'I'm all right jack' bull gak. And you point the finger at others for not having any life/work experience. You don't know gak about other people on here, the fact that not everyone doesn't share your enthusiasm to tread on the low paid and treat them like dirt doesn't make them naive or inexperienced.

I treat the low paid pretty well, actually. I make it a habit of treating most people pretty well. That doesn't mean I'm obliged to pretend that the low paid are possessed of a particularly valuable skillset to my business, or that I should be obliged to keep them working for me if I can do without them.

 Seaward wrote:
I don't recall voicing opposition to the minimum wage in this thread, so I'm not sure why that's relevant.

It's got to be at least as relevant as the idea that I only feel the way I do because I'm too young and naive to know better (I'm actually not that young, by why let facts ruin a good fallacy).

 Seaward wrote:

It's an irrelevant argument. Age and experience usually does suss out the, "My company should be forced to take care of me!" crowd, but even if it doesn't, it remains a ludicrous stance.

No it isn't. While greater age and experience may generally indicate greater knowledge, they do not do so necessarily. As such, claiming that advanced age and experience justify your argument is fallacious.

Also, who argued that a company should be forced to take care of its employees? I've seen numerous people claim that employers should not be permitted to fire someone without cause, but that's where it has stopped. At least until you introduced the concept of caring for employees.

 Seaward wrote:

I think it's not severance, for one thing, largely because it's not.

We can agree to disagree in that regard, and I will admit that equating unemployment insurance with severance was wrong. However, they do bear many similarities in concept and implementation.

But am I correct in believing that you think a company should not be forced to take care of its employees, and believe in the provision of unemployment insurance at the expense of employers?

 Seaward wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Again, how is saying that business people are to 'hand out cash' and 'look after' employees in any way equivalent to the subject of the criticism in this thread which is that employers have the popwer to sack people at any time for any reason?

Criticism of an employer's ability to terminate you for whatever reason they like isn't equivalent to saying that employers have a duty to look after their employees. This, however...

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Employers have some duty of care to their employees.

...is.

You do have a duty of care towards employees. You're not working a victorian coal mine however much you lust for those days when everything came second to making profit. You have to offer a safe working environment for one. You don't get to exploit them, discriminate against them or otherwise subject them to harm from your working conditions, other employees or members of the public without some kind of safeguarding in place.

 dogma wrote:
No it isn't. While greater age and experience may generally indicate greater knowledge, they do not do so necessarily. As such, claiming that advanced age and experience justify your argument is fallacious.

Also, who argued that a company should be forced to take care of its employees? I've seen numerous people claim that employers should not be permitted to fire someone without cause, but that's where it has stopped. At least until you introduced the concept of caring for employees.

I introduced the concept of termination without cause. Whoever it was that did a miniature version of Obama's "You didn't build that," speech introduced care for employees and society in general.

 Seaward wrote:
We can agree to disagree in that regard, and I will admit that equating unemployment insurance with severance was wrong. However, they do bear many similarities in concept and implementation.

But am I correct in believing that you think a company should not be forced to take care of its employees, and believe in the provision of unemployment insurance at the expense of employers?

I believe in providing the minimum baseline regulation necessary to keep a certain level tilt to the playing field, and nothing beyond that. Unemployment insurance is, in my estimation, a good enough check on the apparent termination without cause epidemic we're enduring to make "you can only fire with cause, after three verbal warnings, an essay, and written permission from the Labor Secretary," laws unnecessary.

 Seaward wrote:
"you can only fire with cause, after three verbal warnings, an essay, and written permission from the Labor Secretary,"

In the UK, unless it's forced redundancy, you need cause and it's a verbal and written warning before you're sacked, unless it's gross misconduct. And you don't even need that in the first two years of employment, when you can be let go at any time with a notice period. But no, please tell us more about how all this amounts to giving people the right to stay in a job forever 'no matter what'.

 Seaward wrote:

I introduced the concept of termination without cause. Whoever it was that did a miniature version of Obama's "You didn't build that," speech introduced care for employees and society in general.

No, you didn't. You made a snarky remark based on a hyperbolic premise:

 Seaward wrote:

Absolutely. It's a God-given right in this country to get a job, and then be free to camp out in it for as long as you like no matter what.

 Seaward wrote:

 dogma wrote:
Ah, the "You only disagree with me because you're young and impressionable!" argument. Always the best way of supporting a contentious position.

It's been my experience that only minimum wage workers believe minimum wage workers to be valuable.

Let's see the CEO operate his stores without them then.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AustonT wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

That's nonsense. The bottom rungs of the payscale hold the entire economy together, fueling the buying and selling and provide the infrastructure necessary to allow a nation to function.

Yeah you're right. That IS nonsense.

So, AustonT, you actually think 3.4 million people will buy five times more than the other 330 million people in America - or on a per capita basis, 5,000 times more? Because right now they control five times more wealth than the rest of the country, or 5,000 times more on a per capita basis.

That's a big part of the stagnation of the American economy. The people with the money are not spending it at anything close to the speed the rest of the population would IF they had it.

Let's make that into a concrete example for you. The average American goes out to eat twice a week, spending around $25 bucks per outing. For a 1%er to spend a proportional amountm they would need to go out to eat for every meal (10x as often) and drop $2500 per outing. Short of political fund-raisers, I don't think there's any restaurant that costs THAT much.

And if they do that, they aren't spending the weekly $500,000 that is 5000 times as much as the average American' $100 dollar weekly grocery bill.

SCALE is what gives the middle and lower classes economic power. There's a lot more of them buying than the 1%. That's why there's a lot more McDonalds restaurants than 4-star dining 'experiences'... none of which show up on the stock exchange.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And as to the OP:

It is a sad but true fact in America: You can be fired for any reason - or no reason at all - so long as the stated reason isn't your sex, race, sexual orientation, or... there's something eles I forget but there is something else. Being too sexy isn't it.

You can't be fired because you're a woman. You CAN be fired for being distracting on the job... even if it's not your fault.

Such is the freedom available here in America.

 dogma wrote:
No, you didn't. You made a snarky remark based on a hyperbolic premise:

I have too many friends working for alphabet agencies to believe it's a hyperbolic premise.

 Seaward wrote:

I have too many friends working for alphabet agencies to believe it's a hyperbolic premise.

So you honestly believe that anything other than at-will employment allows employees to "camp out" in a position for as long as they wish?

 dogma wrote:
So you honestly believe that anything other than at-will employment allows employees to "camp out" in a position for as long as they wish?

I honestly believe there are an awful lot of people who've obtained jobs with the government that would have been fired a long time ago had the person in the position to make that call not been subject to far more strict termination rules than are found in the private sector. I'd certainly hate to see that level of scrutiny become the commercial standard.