The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

QJo:
why is it inhumanistic to pay on ebay the agreed price?

Why is it inhumanistic to pay agreed wage?

Strolskon · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Why is it inhumanistic to pay agreed wage?

If you are a poor, unskilled worker, you can only choose to agree to the wage or starve/die.

Since the 2nd option is inacceptable, choosing the 1st is not a real choice, and there cannot be considered an agreement.

The only solution is to abolish minimum wage, and instead pay a minimal living allowance to every citizen unconditionally, so everyone can freely choose to work or not, and people can actually negotiate for their wages

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Strolskon:
If you are a poor, unskilled worker, you can only choose to agree to the wage or starve/die. Since the 2nd option is inacceptable, choosing the 1st is not a real choice, and there cannot be considered an agreement.

Yes it can, because it is. That's the main reason the majority of the people are working, you know :). Even those that earn much, much more than minimum wage.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Strolskon:
>Why is it inhumanistic to pay agreed wage?
If you are a poor, unskilled worker, you can only choose to agree to the wage or starve/die.

Since the 2nd option is inacceptable, choosing the 1st is not a real choice, and there cannot be considered an agreement.

The only solution is to abolish minimum wage, and instead pay a minimal living allowance to every citizen unconditionally, so everyone can freely choose to work or not, and people can actually negotiate for their wages

I wouldn't say "the only solution", but it comes across as a mighty attractive one.

An advantage to that approach is that it removes the need for a large function of government: the one which administers such matters as: which people deserve which benefit; and how do we catch the ones who are claiming what they are not entitled to; probably others as well which I can't think of. The only answerable argument against it that I've heard (I don't consider "It's not fair" and "I hate scroungers" as arguments against) is that it's too expensive to give everybody a stipend. To which I would suggest that it would probably cost less than is currently spent on the military (haven't done my arithmetic so I haven't got any proof of that).

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

EvilSnack:
And the notion that an entry-level job, that can be done by trained monkeys, should pay enough to support a family is pure emotionalism masquerading as an idea.

But shouldn't it be able to support a single person? The concept of a full-time job that still doesn't pay enough to live seems absurd (but that's what current minimum wage seems to be).

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

That's Javascript, so I kinda doubt there's any better way of doing that.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Oslo:
Pumkinpatch:
Real WTF is using console.log without testing for it's existence.
TRWTF is browsers where you have to.

TRWTF is forgetting how to code for the Web.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Meep:
How is it humanistic to put people in prison because they wanted to work for less than some arbitrary "minimum wage"?

You want to work for less money? Please wire the surplus to my account. Thanks!

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Back in the 1800's in England they put men in jail for not working.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Back in the 1800's in England they put men in jail for not working.

Well, no. They put people in prison for not paying their debts. And then kept them there, away from any opportunity to earn money, until they had paid said debts.

operagost · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Strolskon:
>Why is it inhumanistic to pay agreed wage?
If you are a poor, unskilled worker, you can only choose to agree to the wage or starve/die.

Wow... only if you live in a communist state, where the owner of every business is the same. In my country, we're allowed to choose which jobs to apply for, and in times when we don't have incompetents in government stifling the economy there are normally many non-poverty-level choices.

The only solution is to abolish minimum wage, and instead pay a minimal living allowance to every citizen unconditionally, so everyone can freely choose to work or not, and people can actually negotiate for their wages

Did you actually propose that people be allowed to sit on their asses and collect money from their neighbors?

Steve The Cynic · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

QJo:
To which I would suggest that it would probably cost less than is currently spent on the military (haven't done my arithmetic so I haven't got any proof of that).

A few years back I actually looked at a breakdown of the UK annual government budgets. The military budget was a *quarter* of the combined "Social Protection" (i.e. Welfare in all its guises) budget. The NHS, however, has a separate budget, so Social Protection effectively includes pensions and all the clobber lumped together as "benefits", but not health care.

Steve The Cynic · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

operagost:
Did you actually propose that people be allowed to sit on their asses and collect money from their neighbors?

There's a non-zero number of countries where that's already happening.

DrPepper · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Strolskon:
> The only solution is to abolish minimum wage, and instead pay a minimal living allowance to every citizen unconditionally, so everyone can freely choose to work or not, and people can actually negotiate for their wages

Actually this is no solution at all.

First: I'd certainly rather go fishing than work. If someone paid me to sit in a boat all day watching my bobber, I'm there. You'd find that few people will actually WORK when there is no incentive.

Second: The people who actually work, who contribute all the money to the pool that is handed out to people who don't work, will revolt. Consider someone who works hard all day, but who earns (after taxes) just a few pennies more than the person on the dole. He'll quit and go live the easy life.

Third: In order to actually hire and keep employees, an employer would have to offer a wage sufficiently higher than the dole amount; in order to do so he'd have to raise the price of the product so high that people on the dole would not be able to afford it. With a limited set of customers, the revenue the company could generate would be limited. The combination of high salaries and limited sales is unsustainable; eventually the business would have to close.

What you end up with is most people living on the dole; no body working; runaway inflation; no companies making any money; and a collapsing economy.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Part of what Walmart is fighting against is the notion by some lawmakers that they can/should write laws such as "Hmm, well, you're Walmart, and you make a bazillion dollars a year. In our fair city, you must pay everyone a minimum of $15/hour. Pay no mind to all those other businesses around yours for whom this minimum does not apply. We're just going after you because you have deep pockets."

They aren't doing this with the goal of "justice for all", otherwise they'd work to legislate an across-the-board raise to the minimum wage. But they're politicians, TRWTF.

Then those same legislators get offended when Walmart hints that "Hmm, since you just changed the economics of our business in your city, perhaps Walmart will NOT build 6 new stores within your city boundaries."

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

DrPepper:
Strolskon:
> The only solution is to abolish minimum wage, and instead pay a minimal living allowance to every citizen unconditionally, so everyone can freely choose to work or not, and people can actually negotiate for their wages

Actually this is no solution at all.

First: I'd certainly rather go fishing than work. If someone paid me to sit in a boat all day watching my bobber, I'm there. You'd find that few people will actually WORK when there is no incentive.

Oh, there is an incentive. Notice that he said a minimal living allowance, not luxury, probably way below your current living standard. To keep that standard, you'd still need to work.

Second: The people who actually work, who contribute all the money to the pool that is handed out to people who don't work, will revolt. Consider someone who works hard all day, but who earns (after taxes) just a few pennies more than the person on the dole. He'll quit and go live the easy life.

So it's a question of the tax system, so most of your (first few K$) earned do not go to taxes, so it's actually worthwhile to work.

Third: In order to actually hire and keep employees, an employer would have to offer a wage sufficiently higher than the dole amount;

Same point. If you can actually keep a large fraction of what you earn, there's still an incentive, even with moderate wages.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Steve The Cynic:
operagost:
Did you actually propose that people be allowed to sit on their asses and collect money from their neighbors?
There's a non-zero number of countries where that's already happening.

One of them being right here in the United States of America.

Matt Westwood · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

anonymous:
Steve The Cynic:
operagost:
Did you actually propose that people be allowed to sit on their asses and collect money from their neighbors?
There's a non-zero number of countries where that's already happening.
One of them being right here in the United States of America.

People who refuse to work should be machine-gunned down in the street. There is no excuse for sitting on your arse doing nothing nowadays. And if someone had killed that fucking Rowling woman 20 years ago we would never have had Harry Fucking Potter imposed upon us.

Communists and other assorted shitfuckers and cunt bugger wankey nancy boy piss drinkers should be aborted before they're born.

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

QJo:
You even seem, in general, averse to such a humanistic concept as a minimum wage. What price ideology ...

As others have pointed out, there is in fact a minimum wage in the US. I don't know how you could have missed it.

And the reason for all the fast food workers last week whining about wanting to be paid twice that amount for what is basically non-skilled entry-level work that just about anyone can do, is that they were incited to do so by unions, particularly the SEIU. Why? Because there are a lot of union contracts that are written such that THEIR minimum wage is a multiple (like 2.5x) of the regular minimum wage. Raise that and it's cha-ching time for them.

Nope, they did it entirely out of sympathy for the poor slobs who think the minimum wage was intended to be a "living wage".

bgodot · 2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Anon:
"Hmm, since you just changed the economics of our business in your city, perhaps Walmart will NOT build 6 new stores within your city boundaries."

Please, oh Please do not throw me into that briar patch!

2013-09-03 Reply Admin

Captcha:ideo:
EvilSnack:
And the notion that an entry-level job, that can be done by trained monkeys, should pay enough to support a family is pure emotionalism masquerading as an idea.
But shouldn't it be able to support a single person? The concept of a full-time job that still doesn't pay enough to live seems absurd (but that's what current minimum wage seems to be).

That is every bit as much based on emotionalism. Any claim that a job should pay any particular amount of money is just wishful thinking.

Labor is subject to the same law of supply and demand that governs every other desideratum. If people cannot buy it at the price they are willing to pay, they will simply not buy it.

Every jot and tittle of legislation that has tried to avoid this truth has failed. No business (or society) can indefinitely escape the consequences of paying someone more than the value of their effort. The chief effect of minimum wage laws is to force into unemployment those whose efforts are not worth the minimum wage.

And no, you do not get to substitute your judgement for the judgement of the employer when deciding who is worth what. Unless you're a closet Hitler.

(Godwined on purpose.)

Steve The Cynic · 2013-09-04 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
Communists and other assorted shitfuckers and cunt bugger wankey nancy boy piss drinkers should be aborted before they're born.

I think you don't like these people. I don't like them either, but I wouldn't go that far, mostly because of the unfortunate conundrum that you don't know that they are those people until after they have begun to exert their malignant influence on the world...

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

Al H.:
... A final thought: if a McDonalds has to pay a low-skilled worker $15 (or whatever) when does he simply buy a robot to flip burgers...
Just sayin,

When the robot costs less than $500,000, doesn't need two months of testing and debugging by a $250/hr consultant, and then still doesn't sling every third burger onto the floor.

Next, you have to train the robot to clean, not only the grill, but itself, to be aware of problems like fire and people passing nearby, et cetera...

(The video of the burger-flipping robot was by no means intended to show a practical purpose. It was a demonstration unit being silly).

I know - I build them. There's a time and place for robots, but the capital investment is gargantuan, the applications highly specialized, and don't even try to pass a food processing inspection with one unless you are a company large enough to have bought off the politicians who can overrule the inspectors.

There are (mostly) automated food factories. They work. They are not even remotely comparable to a corner burger joint.

J.

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

Kiwi:
Herr Otto Flick:
Most countries (who am I kidding, all countries apart from the US) celebrate the working man on May Day, also known as International Workers Day
You've never worked in Australia or New Zealand have you?

It's called Labour Day in Australia and falls on different days for each state. NZ is not comparable to Australia, you're a low wage country like the US.

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

Captain Oblivious:
wintermute:
The high-profile case of Walmart comes to mind, which (unless we outside the US are all being deliberately misled) is actively campaigning *against* there being a minimum wage, i.e. fighting against getting one introduced.
What is the current situation there?

Individual states sometimes have a higher rate, but the federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, or about half what it was (in real terms) in the 1960's. There is a movement to increase it to $15/hour (I suspect that's more of an opening bid than a real goal), and Walmart is strenuously opposing any increase.

Interestingly, they claim that only 1% of their employees are paid at minimum wage, which would mean that increasing minimum wage would cost them almost nothing, while increasing costs for their competitors and putting more money in the pockets of low-income families, which make up Walmart's customer base. They should be leading the charge unless they're, you know, lying.

Or unless they're, you know, paying a large fraction of their workforce above minimum wage and significantly less than 15$ an hour.

If you support raising the minimum wage, ask yourself how upset you would be; while earning $11/hour after working at the same job for 4 years, and suddenly find that everyone who started last week is now making $11/hour as well. Your 4 years worth of well-earned raises? Vanished. Did you expect a $4/hour raise along with everyone else? Not the way it works when minimum wage is artificially increased. Oh, and that combo meal you were used to getting for lunch? Yes, it is keeping up with your hourly wage, and is $15 now, too.

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

CigarDoug:
Captain Oblivious:
wintermute:
The high-profile case of Walmart comes to mind, which (unless we outside the US are all being deliberately misled) is actively campaigning *against* there being a minimum wage, i.e. fighting against getting one introduced.
What is the current situation there?

Individual states sometimes have a higher rate, but the federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, or about half what it was (in real terms) in the 1960's. There is a movement to increase it to $15/hour (I suspect that's more of an opening bid than a real goal), and Walmart is strenuously opposing any increase.

Interestingly, they claim that only 1% of their employees are paid at minimum wage, which would mean that increasing minimum wage would cost them almost nothing, while increasing costs for their competitors and putting more money in the pockets of low-income families, which make up Walmart's customer base. They should be leading the charge unless they're, you know, lying.

Or unless they're, you know, paying a large fraction of their workforce above minimum wage and significantly less than 15$ an hour.
If you support raising the minimum wage, ask yourself how upset you would be; while earning $11/hour after working at the same job for 4 years, and suddenly find that everyone who started last week is now making $11/hour as well. Your 4 years worth of well-earned raises? Vanished. Did you expect a $4/hour raise along with everyone else? Not the way it works when minimum wage is artificially increased. Oh, and that combo meal you were used to getting for lunch? Yes, it is keeping up with your hourly wage, and is $15 now, too.

The real WTF is buying a "combo meal" for $15 when you're not paid much. But then you can't expect people who are too stupid to get a good job to be clever enough to know how to buy inexpensive ingredients and to prepare quick and easy meals for little financial outlay which are every bit as (and indeed, for many of these options, far more) nutritious as the fast-food that they feed themselves so as to leave more time for watching low-brow entertainment on their electronic communication devices.

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

Captcha:ideo:
EvilSnack:
And the notion that an entry-level job, that can be done by trained monkeys, should pay enough to support a family is pure emotionalism masquerading as an idea.
But shouldn't it be able to support a single person? The concept of a full-time job that still doesn't pay enough to live seems absurd (but that's what current minimum wage seems to be).

It absolutely does. It supported me at $3.35/hr, it even supported me at $2.13/hr plus tips. I didn't die. I did without, until I developed my marketable skills, and now I do pretty well. That's what a (mostly) free market does: Gives the individual the opportunity to grow into a productive member of society who can demand more than minimum wage, or even start his own business if he wants.

You know one thing I thought would be stupid to have when I earned minimum wage? A wife and family. So I didn't get one, again, until I had marketable skills that paid me enough. Why is this such a hard concept?

By the way, combo meals at McDonalds, Burger King, etc. were $3 back then. Now they are around $7. Wow. It's almost as if they are an indicator of the current minimum wage. Tell me again how artificially inflating something in the market benefits the worker at the low end of the scale, when the price of everything INCREASES to keep up.

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

QJo:
CigarDoug:
Captain Oblivious:
wintermute:
The high-profile case of Walmart comes to mind, which (unless we outside the US are all being deliberately misled) is actively campaigning *against* there being a minimum wage, i.e. fighting against getting one introduced.
What is the current situation there?

Individual states sometimes have a higher rate, but the federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, or about half what it was (in real terms) in the 1960's. There is a movement to increase it to $15/hour (I suspect that's more of an opening bid than a real goal), and Walmart is strenuously opposing any increase.

Interestingly, they claim that only 1% of their employees are paid at minimum wage, which would mean that increasing minimum wage would cost them almost nothing, while increasing costs for their competitors and putting more money in the pockets of low-income families, which make up Walmart's customer base. They should be leading the charge unless they're, you know, lying.

Or unless they're, you know, paying a large fraction of their workforce above minimum wage and significantly less than 15$ an hour.
If you support raising the minimum wage, ask yourself how upset you would be; while earning $11/hour after working at the same job for 4 years, and suddenly find that everyone who started last week is now making $11/hour as well. Your 4 years worth of well-earned raises? Vanished. Did you expect a $4/hour raise along with everyone else? Not the way it works when minimum wage is artificially increased. Oh, and that combo meal you were used to getting for lunch? Yes, it is keeping up with your hourly wage, and is $15 now, too.
The real WTF is buying a "combo meal" for $15 when you're not paid much. But then you can't expect people who are too stupid to get a good job to be clever enough to know how to buy inexpensive ingredients and to prepare quick and easy meals for little financial outlay which are every bit as (and indeed, for many of these options, far more) nutritious as the fast-food that they feed themselves so as to leave more time for watching low-brow entertainment on their electronic communication devices.

You completely miss the point (by the way, I usually ate for free or at a discount, working in a restaurant and all). The point is the cost of a combo meal is a rough indicator of the price of other goods and services, particularly at stores that use a lot of minimum wage employees. I have watched combo meals keeo pace with the hourly minimum wage since the 1980s. The cost of things has gone up along with the minimum wage, so how on earth do you think it makes things better for the poor slob earning minimum wage, if the cost of everything keeps pace with what he earns?

It needs to be stated again, and again, and again: Minimum wage is for people who are ENTERING the work force. They have no real skills, so they get to stock shelves or flip burgers. Once they develop skills, they get raises from their employer or they get a better job elsewhere. Artificially setting the minimum wage to a higher number HELPS NO ONE (except, of course, Union employees who get an undeserved raise).

2013-09-04 Reply Admin

A combo meal where I live is around $8, the minimum wage is $17. Healthcare is mostly free or you can go private. If you get seriouly ill you are not facing bankruptcy. The number of beggers on the street is insignificant compared to what we see in the US. Stop deluding yourselves.

2013-09-05 Reply Admin

harry hashtable:
A combo meal where I live is around $8, the minimum wage is $17.

So, after taxes, about $8.

2013-09-05 Reply Admin

anonymous:
harry hashtable:
A combo meal where I live is around $8, the minimum wage is $17.
So, after taxes, about $8.

You pay >50% taxes on low income? That's TRWTF.

2013-09-05 Reply Admin

foo:
anonymous:
harry hashtable:
A combo meal where I live is around $8, the minimum wage is $17.
So, after taxes, about $8.
You pay >50% taxes on low income? That's TRWTF.

No, but I don't live somewhere where the minimum wage is $17.

Scarlet Manuka · 2013-09-06 Reply Admin

anonymous:
foo:
You pay >50% taxes on low income? That's TRWTF.
No, but I don't live somewhere where the minimum wage is $17.

Here in Australia: Minimum wage is $16.37/hour And someone earning it pays no tax on the first $18,200 and 19% on the rest*. So (depending on the length of their work week) they're effectively paying around 8-9% tax if they're full time. If they work for 21 or fewer hours per week, none.

Oh, and combo meals are around $8-10.

If they are working for more than around 44 hours a week they will start to see some of their income taxed at 32.5%.

2013-09-06 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
People who refuse to work should be machine-gunned down in the street. There is no excuse for sitting on your arse doing nothing nowadays. And if someone had killed that fucking Rowling woman 20 years ago we would never have had Harry Fucking Potter imposed upon us.

Imposed? Did somebody tie you to a chair and forced you to read or have read to you Harry Potter and the pain was so excruciating that you spit blood, and got bruises everywhere because of the nasty words that plenty of other people - the sadists - like? You poor literarily-abused thing!

Matt Westwood:
Communists and other assorted shitfuckers and cunt bugger wankey nancy boy piss drinkers should be aborted before they're born.

You do realise you'd make that list somewhere near the top right? No? That would explain your comments then :)

TRWTF is that there are people out there who think they're perfection incarnated.

2013-09-06 Reply Admin

EvilSnack:
Any claim that a job should pay any particular amount of money is just wishful thinking.
Labor is subject to the same law of supply and demand that governs every other desideratum.

That is true, but the problem is that people have only a limited supply of time, and cannot get more. So each society has to decide whether to let those who cannot earn enough money to support themselves die of disease because they can't afford medical care, be homeless, malnourished, and whatever else because of supply and demand, or do something to help them. I think pretty much every first world society decides on the latter (or some mix of the two), so then there are massive arguments about the right way to help them.

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