Employee Benefits are gone
anonymous
January 17 2008, 19:54:30 UTC
At least they are as we've known them. Every business uses "best practices." Today's benefits comprise Personal Time Off (PTO) systems that replace both vacation and sick time. They essentially give you more time that you can use towards vacations, but punish you if you are unhealthy. It is what it is. I'll give you my theory on why employer (and goverment) benefits are inferior to self secured benefits some other time.
I do partly agree that multinational corporations can be problematic, but what would be the solution? You have to remember that these companies place products on store shelves that consumers value. The modern world is much more connected and dynamic, and there is not any easy way to address this new paradigm. Global minimum wages would certainly increase American advantage in the world and is precisely why we cannot expect the world to comply. Most every business book I have seen has chapters that address cultural differences and how companies face troubles when they mistakenly try to implement traditional American culture in foreign operations. So many computer jobs are outsourced, and the remaining ones have lower pay grades than before. Basically you and I chose careers already in decline when we were together. You can argue about it, but it's true. Computers even before the "boom" were a doomed field. Current computer theory is at least 30 years or more old, and the integration trend bucks computer support. People don't really need support personnel in the same way for a cell phone that emails that they do for a computer. This is from better design processes combined with more of a disposable model. When a cell phone starts acting strange after a year or two, people simply purchase a new one. And Microsoft -as much as many dislike the company- has been steadily reducing the computer support required per 1000 users. This means that when we were in school IT growth was already a contraction if you could recognize the trends.
I will recommend a book to you. Thomas Sowell's A Personal Oddysey. In it Sowell describes working as an economist for the agricultural branch of government. There were debates about the causes of an upswing in some commodity's price. After giving thought to the issue, he concluded that there was a way to settle the argument scientifically and determine which side was correct. When he proposed the way to determine, both sides balked. Too much was at stake on both sides to risk pure scientific truth because it might discredit their argument. This kind of thing is what we must constantly ask ourselves; Are we too concerned with our side that we are unwilling to test? I'm not pro or con global warming BECAUSE I took (and aced) geology. The earth is simply too compex to truly know...
Re: Employee Benefits are gonebludragonJanuary 22 2008, 23:54:50 UTC
(You do get me going, don't you?)
It's more accurate to say corporate and trade law needs solutions to keep a leash on corporate misbehavior. According to the documentary "The Corporation" (and its companion book), a large part of the problems with corporate law stem from the fact a corporation is regarded as simultaneously a person and not a person in the eyes of the law.
As you know, pure capitalism can be a very destructive beast. It seems to me this is because it has a tendency to favour progressively larger and larger animals, at the expense of newcomers. World governments/trade orgs primary job ought to be prevent these newcomers and smaller competitors from being squashed out of the game. There have been good moves in this direction (such as the Sherman Antitrust act and the forming of the WTO), but they have been and continue to be resisted.
As for the state of affairs here: I hate to say this, but from what I've seen, all of the "benefits" you mentioned are little more than excuses for overworking the employee rather than paying just a little bit more to take care of them. The Japanese experimented with similar policies in the 80's, with the result being losing a generation of fathers to stress related illness, and the coining of a new term to describe "committing suicide through work".
At least I am optimistic that there will be a blowback from the disappearance of domestic manufacturing, but only once some major technological breathroughs in the pipeline become household appliances (such as the 3D printer or other kinds of rapid manufacturing). In the meantime, just letting the market completely kill certain domestic industries is a mistake, as you lose something with the disappearance of this knowledge base. Likewise, letting foreign companies completely take over certain sectors introduces a host of new problems. (ie India tech support, Chinese Quality Control, etc.)
In the meantime, I feel Britain and Japan have the right idea in terms of preserving their knowledge base in key areas with government protections and aid. I know that's going to piss you off, but the alternative is America's current condition. Been to Detroit since 2001?
Global warming? You don't seriously believe a few "sponsored scientists" paid for by American churches and oil companies are putting forth a scientifically valid argument against global warming, do you? The first data on human-caused climate damage was collected in 1896 (by a Nobel Laureate), and even then the coal mine owners fought against it. It's never been a debate of science (nearly every single scientist not paid for by the Christian Coalition or Shell says there is no argument), it's about politics. As you say, pure scientific truth is a weapon. The easiest way to blunt it is fabricate reports to make it into a debated subject. Besides, it saves the government a lot of money if they "don't have to do anything until the other countries improve their emissions." (Romney's actual stance on global warming according to the NY Times.)
Obama is better than Hillary, but then again McCain is better than Hillary. She has all the disadvantages of her husband but none of the advantages or charisma. Ironically, she's probably going to win for the same reason W. Bush made it into office the first time-- too much money and marketing muscle behind them.
BTW let's continue this elsewhere. Email me at neujack@hotmail.com. And I'll respond to your letter with the answer.
Re: Employee Benefits are gonebludragonJanuary 23 2008, 00:03:48 UTC
I missed one of your points.
I agree with you that jobs to shift and change. But I would say that's because they become more specialized.
The problem with the US right now is that more jobs are NOT being created, particularly within manufacturing. I think the only really increasing job sectors for the past decade have been finance (especially real estate and consumer credit) and service.
Part of the reason why the real estate crash has taken so long and will hurt so much is because the real estate industry had become such a juggernaut over the past decade. They've been manipulating everything they could to keep prices rising, and for the most part it has worked until people actually started running out of both money and credit.
I do partly agree that multinational corporations can be problematic, but what would be the solution? You have to remember that these companies place products on store shelves that consumers value. The modern world is much more connected and dynamic, and there is not any easy way to address this new paradigm. Global minimum wages would certainly increase American advantage in the world and is precisely why we cannot expect the world to comply. Most every business book I have seen has chapters that address cultural differences and how companies face troubles when they mistakenly try to implement traditional American culture in foreign operations. So many computer jobs are outsourced, and the remaining ones have lower pay grades than before. Basically you and I chose careers already in decline when we were together. You can argue about it, but it's true. Computers even before the "boom" were a doomed field. Current computer theory is at least 30 years or more old, and the integration trend bucks computer support. People don't really need support personnel in the same way for a cell phone that emails that they do for a computer. This is from better design processes combined with more of a disposable model. When a cell phone starts acting strange after a year or two, people simply purchase a new one. And Microsoft -as much as many dislike the company- has been steadily reducing the computer support required per 1000 users. This means that when we were in school IT growth was already a contraction if you could recognize the trends.
I will recommend a book to you. Thomas Sowell's A Personal Oddysey. In it Sowell describes working as an economist for the agricultural branch of government. There were debates about the causes of an upswing in some commodity's price. After giving thought to the issue, he concluded that there was a way to settle the argument scientifically and determine which side was correct. When he proposed the way to determine, both sides balked. Too much was at stake on both sides to risk pure scientific truth because it might discredit their argument. This kind of thing is what we must constantly ask ourselves; Are we too concerned with our side that we are unwilling to test? I'm not pro or con global warming BECAUSE I took (and aced) geology. The earth is simply too compex to truly know...
Do you like Obama?
I'll talk some more later,
jk
Reply
It's more accurate to say corporate and trade law needs solutions to keep a leash on corporate misbehavior. According to the documentary "The Corporation" (and its companion book), a large part of the problems with corporate law stem from the fact a corporation is regarded as simultaneously a person and not a person in the eyes of the law.
As you know, pure capitalism can be a very destructive beast. It seems to me this is because it has a tendency to favour progressively larger and larger animals, at the expense of newcomers. World governments/trade orgs primary job ought to be prevent these newcomers and smaller competitors from being squashed out of the game. There have been good moves in this direction (such as the Sherman Antitrust act and the forming of the WTO), but they have been and continue to be resisted.
As for the state of affairs here: I hate to say this, but from what I've seen, all of the "benefits" you mentioned are little more than excuses for overworking the employee rather than paying just a little bit more to take care of them. The Japanese experimented with similar policies in the 80's, with the result being losing a generation of fathers to stress related illness, and the coining of a new term to describe "committing suicide through work".
At least I am optimistic that there will be a blowback from the disappearance of domestic manufacturing, but only once some major technological breathroughs in the pipeline become household appliances (such as the 3D printer or other kinds of rapid manufacturing). In the meantime, just letting the market completely kill certain domestic industries is a mistake, as you lose something with the disappearance of this knowledge base. Likewise, letting foreign companies completely take over certain sectors introduces a host of new problems. (ie India tech support, Chinese Quality Control, etc.)
In the meantime, I feel Britain and Japan have the right idea in terms of preserving their knowledge base in key areas with government protections and aid. I know that's going to piss you off, but the alternative is America's current condition. Been to Detroit since 2001?
Global warming? You don't seriously believe a few "sponsored scientists" paid for by American churches and oil companies are putting forth a scientifically valid argument against global warming, do you? The first data on human-caused climate damage was collected in 1896 (by a Nobel Laureate), and even then the coal mine owners fought against it. It's never been a debate of science (nearly every single scientist not paid for by the Christian Coalition or Shell says there is no argument), it's about politics. As you say, pure scientific truth is a weapon. The easiest way to blunt it is fabricate reports to make it into a debated subject. Besides, it saves the government a lot of money if they "don't have to do anything until the other countries improve their emissions." (Romney's actual stance on global warming according to the NY Times.)
Obama is better than Hillary, but then again McCain is better than Hillary. She has all the disadvantages of her husband but none of the advantages or charisma. Ironically, she's probably going to win for the same reason W. Bush made it into office the first time-- too much money and marketing muscle behind them.
BTW let's continue this elsewhere. Email me at neujack@hotmail.com. And I'll respond to your letter with the answer.
Reply
I agree with you that jobs to shift and change. But I would say that's because they become more specialized.
The problem with the US right now is that more jobs are NOT being created, particularly within manufacturing. I think the only really increasing job sectors for the past decade have been finance (especially real estate and consumer credit) and service.
Part of the reason why the real estate crash has taken so long and will hurt so much is because the real estate industry had become such a juggernaut over the past decade. They've been manipulating everything they could to keep prices rising, and for the most part it has worked until people actually started running out of both money and credit.
Reply
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