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Admin
UK
35 hrs per week, 5 weeks paid holiday, plus public holidays. No overtime but can work extra to build up time off in lieu, so that five weeks can be added to.
Also as long as i rock in before 10 and do my hours it's cool with the boss. Salary could be better but you can't have everything....
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Oh but he's young, well-off, and has read Atlas Shrugged forty three times. There's no way he could ever be stupid or irresponsible enough to need someone else's help.
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Nice Troll! :-)
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Yeah... people think "insurance: good, taxes: bad", but in the end they are the same thing. Taxes insure you against crime by paying for a police force and law courts, protect you from invasion by paying for military, insure your healthcare (or not?), ensure you have roads, postal service, schools and so on. Insurance is kind of the same thing - you all pay together and the lucky ones end up paying for other people's misery.
If you pay for medical insurance (or your employer does, same thing in the end), and you are healthy, you are paying for other people's operations, people who might have taken drugs, had sex, had much more fun than you did. Aren't you angry about that, too??? They aren't dealing with the consequences of their own actions. They're getting a free ride.
So insurance is definitely out - it doesn't follow your ideals. Government is out, too.... In fact, accepting any form of help from anybody at all is out. That means: no public roads, only toll roads and dirt tracks. No army, navy, airforce, police. You could pay for a private militia maybe, but sharing with anyone is out, because they might be attacked first and you would be paying for the bullets.
There may still be a country in Africa like that, but I doubt it - most all have some semblance of government, and besides, they mostly have a tribal group mentality where they help one another - and some kind of tribal elder microgovernment.
I would prefer to live in Saddam Hussein's Iraq than your dystopia - but that's just my opinion.
On the other hand, I'll admit I'm not mad keen on US government either - but not because it's too big. It's too inefficient, too corrupt, and too disrespectful of people's rights, mostly because of Neoconservative kneejerk politics, Bush/Palin style. The media aint helping much, either.
There's a long road to better times, but currently the dems are the only ones even pointing in vaguely the right direction.
Admin
No problem. Just don't ask me to pay for the fire brigade which puts out the fire in your house due to an accident on your part. And why should I pay for the police to rescue you from that mugger in that dark alley you wandered into?
Idiotic concept. It's called a "society", moron. Altruism is an evolutionally superior concept, that's why it evolved in the first place.
But I guess that went straight over your head.
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As for your question, it is irrelevant to the point being discussed. There are other ways to help victims of war or disability, besides government-mandated minimum vacation.
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Not really an email but the instant message which everyone uses internally And the message i sent everyone was:
Vince: Hello everyone, we have to shitdown the the system. Please save all work and log off when you can Thanks
My boss comes up to me and asks....so how do you shitdown the system? and laughs Mind you, I have accidentally done this several times....those i's and u's are so close together
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The intro reads that there are three examples to follow, but I see five. WTF?
Admin
So all you folks insisting how much better it is to have a system run by violence instead of choice, just listen to yourselves. Really? You really want armed enforcers controlling everyone and everything because you're afraid some people might make choices that don't lead to the outcomes you think are better for them?
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Admin
Best of the unnoticed title typos?
The first one makes me think "the law requires us to warn everyone about this, so here you go."
Brett M needs to learn how to use apostrophe's.
I can see spellcheck correcting "NewDev" to "Nude", but how did this go unnoticed? Even if it were one of those silly auto-correct systems, would you not notice a word's been changed?
Silly, silly people.
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Wait.. What.. Violence? armed enforcers? It may be different over there in Iraq but in the rest of the world there are normally quite civilised court processes for non payment of tax.. Never heard of some one being threatened with violence for non payment (CCJ maybe, violence? Naaah)
Also I dont think that allegedly means what you think it means.
Admin
Yeah, Until something happens that your insurance doesnt cover... NHS may be in a bit of a state at the moment but at least I know if something happens to me now no matter what treatment is required, if its available, Ill get it. Whats more I will never be aware of the cost of this treatment Im pretty sure thats part of the NHS charter.
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I agree - the things I have said are very trivial but so many people still don't/can't/won't connect the dots.... they can't get past the feeling of "I'm the most important, I'm the centre of the universe" or maybe they have seen some bright light that I haven't..... so enlighten me, what makes you come to a different conclusion. I would love to hear it.
For many people the answer will be something like: "my parents are republicans", or "I hate <some minority>" - for others it might be "we have to compete with the chinese", or "it's best for business"... but it would be great to hear real arguments against social thinking (socialism, if you will - the theory, not the russian/chinese communist implementation), because all you usually get is references to Communism based on little or no actual knowledge.
Admin
You get taken to court, yes.
And when you still refuse to pay?
In practice, either your money is in the hands of other people (banks) who hand it over when so ordered despite your refusal, or your income gets garnished (paid before you get your hands on it, again despite your refusal).
In theory, if you actually did keep your money in tangible form, kept it hidden where people couldn't find it to seize, and didn't have (or no longer had) an income to be garnished, then refusal to pay would get you sent to prison - for refusing a court order, if nothing else. And if you didn't cooperate with that, they would indeed use force to get you there - and if you used force to resist, they would bring in greater force, including any armaments they might need.
So, yes, the "implicit threat of force" argument is valid, for taxation as for pretty much every other aspect of law. There are a lot of societal barriers to prevent it ever getting brought into play, but it does exist.
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Admin
Sorry but your argument isnt really valid, the same could be said of talking loudly in a library. They would ask you to be quiet, you refuse, they call security to remove you, you use force to resist they call the police you get tazered. This doesnt mean that there is an "Implicit threat of violence/force"
Admin
That was kind of the point, how do you know what you need to cover, how do you know that your insurance company wont find a loop hole to get out of payment? What happens if you cant afford insurance and you have an serious accident? You get left to die?
On another note how did we get from some funny emails to debating tax vs insurance?
Right, its 1am and I have to be in work between 8-9 tommorow so Im going to leave you to it.
Admin
There's a comment somewhere to the effect that "the first duty of a government is to establish a monopoly on the use of force" (a fairly loose paraphrase). This principle is exactly why. I don't much like the idea, but in practical and objective terms, I can't refute it.
Admin
I'm surprised you say you didn't hear such arguments before. This is not something very deep, it's just a way some people feel. I can definitely see how people could disagree with it. That's why I used the word "I" so often -- "I feel I'm not responsible for their decisions"; "I feel the benefits are small". Other people may definitely feel otherwise and disagree. But that's not what you said; you said you didn't hear any arguments against socialism at all? Why don't you consider this a valid argument? Is it just because you disagree with it?
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You think that's bad? I got to come in on the 26th to make up for having Christmas Day off - the office was closed on the 25th because it was Christmas, so it's not like it was my choice, what with not caring two hoots about Christmas.
Then, my boss told me that after going home on the 31st, I needn't come in again til 4th January. When I worked out that was New Year's Day, Saturday and Sunday, I started looking for a new job.
Admin
I think you should calm down, take a deep breath, and re-read the thread from the top, and maybe not get too hung up about the word “mom”.
My hypothetical low-income employee does not have a choice, because if she refuses to work sixty-hour weeks, her employer will fire her and hire someone who will.
Jay, to whom I originally replied, is perfectly capable of making decisions about his or her working hours, more importantly, is free to do so, but my hypothetical low-income employee, while in possession of the mental faculties required to make such a decision, lacks the freedom to do so, because the only choice she has is between an abusive employer or no employer at all. The law exists to set limits to how abusive her employer can be.
Even relatively privileged and highly-skilled white-collar workers may not have that freedom. Jobs are not as easy to come by as they were in the nineties. I can walk out of my job and get a new one within two weeks. Maybe you can, too. But for every 1 of us there are 99 others who can't, who remember that the last time they got downsized they were living on ramen for six months until they managed to land a new job, and they don't dare rock the boat, and white-collar employers can be just as abusive as blue-collar ones. If you don't understand what I mean by that, google “EA wives”.
Admin
No one here is talking about subsidies except you and Notadad. We're talking about labor laws and regulations concerning work hours, overtime and vacations.
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I don't know where you work, but everywhere I've ever worked in the UK was the minimum 28 days, but it was unpaid and including public holidays. Oh, there was some accounting fiction where they took some of your paycheck each week and granted it back so they were 'paying' holiday time, but it was all your own (already taxed) money. One place I worked would deduct a second round of tax and NI contributions and hope you didn't notice. Since you weren't liable to pay, they could keep the cash unless you complained.
As for paid sick leave, I don't know what alternate reality you live in, but this isn't the Seventies any more. Most places, taking six weeks off in hospital in a full-body cast means you won't have a job to come back to. Labour laws mean bugger-all in this country, because they're all opt-out - and you can't keep a job if you don't opt-out.
Admin
But infringing on the employer's god-given right to pay rock bottom wages and work their serfs^H^H^H^H^H employees like dogs is effectively a subsidy to the dirty unwed minority teenage mother welfare queen burger flippers.
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After 20 years, it goes up to 25 vacation days.
So, uh... suck it.
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You use col 1 to mark your comments. You use col 2-8 for your labels. That gives you an entire 72 cols for your logic! Tabs will just mess that up! Jeez
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My company's justification for "40-45 hours/week" policy (i.e. just 40 is frowned on):
assume 40 hours/week (40 hours/week) * (52 weeks/year) = 2080 hours/year (2080 hours/year) / (12 months/year) = 173.33 hours/month (173.33 hours/month) / (4 weeks/month) = 43.33 hours/week
Admin
I'm going to make two replies, first I'm going to tell you my current holiday arrangements at work and the legal minimums in my country (The Netherlands).
Minimum:
Minimum holidays is 20 days. This is per ratio of your work week, so if you work 36 hours/week you get 36x20 hours off, if you work 45 hours/week, it's 45x20 hours.
Public holidays are a minimum of 3, max 8, depending if days like new year, christmas or liberation day are on a weekend or not. 3 is the minimum is all holidays would be on weekends, although I'm not sure if Januari 1, April 30, May 5 and 25/26 December can all be on a weekend in the same year.
Sick leave and other personal leave (relative dies) are regulated but unlimited. If you are sick for the entire year, you get paid the entire year. If you have a lot of relatives die in the same year, you get leave to properly grief for each them.
What is most usual in this country are contracts of 36, 38, or 40 hours, where people actually still work 40-45 hours a week, but accumulate this over time for extra leave.
Myself I have 26 days of holidays, and given my 38 hour contract but 40 hour work week, I get to take about 38 days a year off, plus the mandatory Public holidays for a total around 43-44 days a year.
I have many colleagues from the USA and Canada, who when first arriving here, need to adjust, but then find that they actually have time to visit friends and have hobbies.
I had one Canadian colleague who went for an 8 week holiday back to Canada and enjoyed visiting her own country and staying with different friends each week. After each week's visit their friends would need to go back to work, but she would still have many days left. She was able to enjoy herself in a way that she never had time for when she was still living in Canada.
I once read it worded like this: "Europeans work to live, Americans live to work".
Admin
As my second comment I want to say something about the differences in opinion between the more libertarian USA and more socialist Europe.
I think most of the european welfare state is built around three principles:
Children should not suffer for the errors of their parents. This means that for those with poor parents, education, health care and a minimal standard of living are provided for in some way (nearly) for free.
Even those that did make poor choices in life, and those that just ended up being unlucky, have a right to a (decent) life. If because of old age, health or their own stupidity they can't provide their own most basic food, shelter and health care, it should be provided for them. People who end up there of their own stupidity are however often closely monitored and have limited control over their spending.
Education and health care are seen as a right, just as protection by police, fireservices and armed forces, access to roads, etc. This usually means that as long as you keep passing your tests, education is cheap or free, and health care is provided for all inhabitants.
My personal opinion on the last point is, that a better educated and healthier populace, will in the long run pay more taxes because it will be wealthier.
I now have a few musings to add related to this topic, but in a more or less random unrelated order. Mainly to some of the effects of the different approaches between Europe and (esp.) the USA. Of course the numbers I link to might be biassed, but then provide some others of your own, as a technical and scientific schooled person, I prefer to argue based on numbers (which are not always the same as facts)
A) Firearms: I can only say, the USA has one of the highest numbers in murders by firearms per capita in the world (27 times higher than he UK for example): http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita
B) Severe punishment, including the death penalty: Despite having relatively severe punisnments including the death penalty, crime rates in the USA are high. The main effect seems to be that the USA is by far (22% more than #2) the country with the most people in prison per capita. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
C) Wealth distribution and income inequality. The economic growth of the USA over the past 30 years has mainly benefited the top few percent, when you adjust for inflation: Bottom 20%: 1979 - $12,600 2000 - $13,700 Middle 20%: 1979 - $36,400 2000 - $41,900 Top 20%: 1979: $84,000 2000: $141,400 Top 1%: 1979 $286,300 2000: $862,700 After-tax household income: source: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, CBO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
It's mainly the top 20% percent that is earning the money, more so even the top 1% is earning more than the bottom 40% combined: US INCOME DISTRIBUTION Bottom 20%: 4.9% Second 20%: 9.7% Middle 20%: 14.6% Fourth 20%: 20.2% Top 20%: 51.3% Top 1%: 15.5% % share of total after-tax income: source: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, CBO.
D) Health care costs. Providing health care for your entire populace for free/cheap seems cheaper in the end than the current American system: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_car_fun_tot_per_cap-care-funding-total-per-capita
In the end, to come back to the single mom flipping burgers that seems to be the centre of all the discussion: I have a question for those that defend letting her cope with bad luck or bad decisions in her past without help from the state/tax payers: As I assume you are against any socialist-type ideas, I'm also assuming you are against minimum wage. So my question becomes, if this single mom can not provide for herself and her child, either because her job doesn't pay enough (below current minimum wage), or she can't hold on to a job, would you then in the end have this woman and/or her child starve to death? In a less extreme case: would you have this mom not send her child to school, but have it work instead? To what extent do you want to have the child be limited in it's opportunities because of the errors or bad luck that the mother had to deal with? Would you ultimately go so far as to let people die of starvation?
Addendum (2010-03-05 00:28): In other words: where do you draw the line if you don't draw it where most European countries seem to draw it?
Admin
Translation: OK, before you imbeciles bombard me with phone calls asking "WHERE'S THE MICROWAVE!!!!", have a look behind your fucking back ...
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The "Bouncing" is classic!
Admin
I don't know what NotADad is complaining about. He's not the one subsidising the single mother's children.
It's the other single mother who can't get a job because it's too expensive for Wendy's to hire more employees because of the amount of benefits they have to pay to their current ones, who is subsidising our single mother's children.
Admin
Well, I think I'm rather well off in the vacation department. I have 39-hour weeks, a mandatory day off every two weeks (or one half day every week), and six full weeks of vacation. The legal requirement is a mean of 35 hours per week and five weeks of vacation, so I wouldn't have the sixth week at just any other employer. I have a punch clock, and up to four hours of plus/minus per week is automatically carried over to the next week. To avoid errors and abuses like people working 3x12h and taking Thursday-Friday off, the punch clock complains to me (by e-mail) and to my boss and to HR if I work more than ten hours a day, if I am not present at least 9-12 and 14-16 (useful for scheduling meetings), if I am present before 7:00 or after 20:00, or if I take less than 30 minutes for lunch. Oh, and 20:00 - 7:00 is overtime and paid double, and Sunday is triple /and/ subtracted from normal working hours the following week, or something similar... I don't do too much overtime.
Most of this is normal French legislation (like, "employees have the right to at least 30 minutes for lunch"), but the addition of an intelligent punch clock makes people actually respect the rules :-)
Of course, salary isn't much compared to the US, but saying to your boss "I have to go now otherwise the punch clock will yell at me" is absolutely priceless. Your boss saying "You worked from home last night, so don't forget to punch in those hours manually so you get paid for them" is equally priceless.
And no, before you ask, this is a privately owned company of around ten thousand employees, and it is profitable. Low employee turnover and the ability to pick and choose new recruits from a sea of candidates probably has something to do with it.
Admin
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Honestly, that's kind of like quoting a statistic that Indian reservations are home to more gambling than the rest of the US. Sure, it's true, but do the numbers mean that Native Americans all have gambling addictions?
Admin
apart from the problem you mentioned, considering K&R dangling braces - no matter what was the reason they initially used it, they're more practical because you can see the line which started the block (in other case it looks disconnected to the braces), and any decent code editor marks the paired braces, so no need to align them in order to match them - thus eliminating the only argument for aligning them. Plus, if you really want to differentiate the code block, that leads us to another code-formatting standard invented - indentation. That shitty 2 spaces indentation used only pro formae, instead of a real indentation of at least 4 chars, just makes no sense (especially on today's widescreen and ever growing monitors). And there lies another problem - mandating the code indentation by spaces, instead of using "tabs for indentation, spaces for alignment" system. Thus, the code will always look exactly how the developer pleases, but still keeping compatible with other developers (and if you code on a laptop, you can decrease indentation, and increase it on your dual-24" setup).
And btw, regarding the Atlantic swimming - Linus said, to paraphrase, if you have more than 3 indentation levels, you're doing something wrong. Of course, 3 levels may not be too much in today's OO languages, but he has a point in general.
Ok, I know it's a holy war, but I needed to say this, 'cause it just hurts to watch this thing happening over and over again.
Admin
[quote user="AstroBurger"][quote user=DES] The single mother who flips your burgers at Wendy's is not. [/quote]
I've only ever seen teenage high schoolers flipping burgers. Single mothers usually become waitresses, where if they provide good service can usually take in $40 or more per hour.[/quote]
Ah yes, the barbaric US practice of making employees depend upon the charity of customers instead of getting a fair wage from their employer. That respectable woman probably has to flirt a lot for that $40 per hour so it's really not removed a mile from pole dancing instead of being a fair job with a fair wage as it is in other places.
Admin
Thanks for your reply, gil.
I guess this was a point I was trying to make, though I didn't make it very well - I rather hoped that in this forum I could get some sort of republican analysis of why their system is better, the same way I might expect an analysis of whether instance pooling on a modern java runtime is slower than just using new Foo() each time: if people just responded with "I feel like letting the garbage collector do things for me is a bad idea, I like to do things for myself", I would be very disappointed, and not really trust their conclusions. I am looking for facts linked together in an argument, without the use of "I feel".
Admin
There, fixed that for ya
Admin
[quote user="davedavenotdavemaybedave I don't know where you work, but everywhere I've ever worked in the UK was the minimum 28 days, but it was unpaid and including public holidays. Oh, there was some accounting fiction where they took some of your paycheck each week and granted it back so they were 'paying' holiday time, but it was all your own (already taxed) money. One place I worked would deduct a second round of tax and NI contributions and hope you didn't notice. Since you weren't liable to pay, they could keep the cash unless you complained.
As for paid sick leave, I don't know what alternate reality you live in, but this isn't the Seventies any more. Most places, taking six weeks off in hospital in a full-body cast means you won't have a job to come back to. Labour laws mean bugger-all in this country, because they're all opt-out - and you can't keep a job if you don't opt-out.[/quote]
I don't know where you work either, but that sounds remarkably like contractor arrangements to me. In which case you are your own boss, and should you be sick you're obliged to find someone else who can do the work for you.
The 'second round' of Ni is employers NI in addition to employee's Ni which i fully agree is a righteous scam. But since you are your own boss, employing yourself, and due to some funky Uk laws can't really operate as a sole trader, you're obliged to pay it.
What you're describing is totally illegal under uk employment laws for regular employees. If the companies you've used have required you to operate as a contractor to get around these laws, then presumedly they've paid you handsomely for it.
Admin
[quote user="davedavenotdavemaybedave I don't know where you work, but everywhere I've ever worked in the UK was the minimum 28 days, but it was unpaid and including public holidays. Oh, there was some accounting fiction where they took some of your paycheck each week and granted it back so they were 'paying' holiday time, but it was all your own (already taxed) money. One place I worked would deduct a second round of tax and NI contributions and hope you didn't notice. Since you weren't liable to pay, they could keep the cash unless you complained.
As for paid sick leave, I don't know what alternate reality you live in, but this isn't the Seventies any more. Most places, taking six weeks off in hospital in a full-body cast means you won't have a job to come back to. Labour laws mean bugger-all in this country, because they're all opt-out - and you can't keep a job if you don't opt-out.[/quote]
I don't know where you work either, but that sounds remarkably like contractor arrangements to me. In which case you are your own boss, and should you be sick you're obliged to find someone else who can do the work for you.
The 'second round' of Ni is employers NI in addition to employee's Ni which i fully agree is a righteous scam. But since you are your own boss, employing yourself, and due to some funky Uk laws can't really operate as a sole trader, you're obliged to pay it.
What you're describing is totally illegal under uk employment laws for regular employees. If the companies you've used have required you to operate as a contractor to get around these laws, then presumedly they've paid you handsomely for it.
Admin
They should have everyone including Debbie agree that the correct version of the first sentence is "I will be bouncing in the nude in 5 minutes". That way it cannot be possibly confused with the second sentence even by the spellchecker.
Admin
That's what I thought too, the guy can't read. I thought it's quite funny though to point out that poo / vomit (and 12 sheets of paper) is all that is acceptably flushed with company toilets.
Admin
This whole discussion about Welafare Queens / Burger Flippers etc is pretty stupid. The fact is, most corporations would screw the workers over if the government and/or society allows it, just like they screw over their customers. See, for example, how credit cart companies are based in states where usery laws are lax or non existent. Had it not been for the organized labor in the US, the IT/ white collar asshole drones would be working 60 hour a week because that'd be the 'industry-wide standard practice'
Admin
If you don't want your government to regulate anything, go and live in the fucking Somalia.