That said my favorite thing about no kids is "robbing" my parents of smug satisfaction. They always would say things like "I hope your kid is a brat so you can see what it's like" never once thinking I could just skip it entirely.

Environment, hell global warming and a potential collapse seems like a good reason too. Maybe nothing will happen in our lifetime. But can the next gen or two say the same?

Whatever the case, if you can avoid family court I would do everything I could to stay away from that circus. Child support is no joke.

I have a kid, but I get rad & @ness's take.

There's no bad reason to not have kids.

There's definitely bad reasons to have kids though.

I originally interpreted rad's environment comment to mean personal financial readiness and maturity* considering some of his troubles the past year or so finding and locking down a job that makes him happy enough and also pays the bills.

His elaboration on his own dad issues also makes it makes total sense why he'd have hesitations.

Leaning so much on the political climate in Ohio or just the state of the current world in general seems harder to connect for me, and I think the counter arguments on that point have been sound... But generalized anxiety is definitely a thing, and if you're particularly anxious about a specific topic already, I think it's easy for generalized anxiety to dovetail into other concerns.

I feel like maybe a weak excuse to not have kids might be something along the lines of fear of them being gay or voting republican. But then the person with that kind of close-mindedness and likely lack of intelligence probably isn't best suited to care for and parent a child anyway.

*The maturity thing isn't meant to be a shot at all. Even now I doubt most days whether I'm mature enough or not to be a responsible parent. My addiction to PW and fondness for gummies tell me perhaps not, at least not always. However, I know I'm way more mature now than I was in my 20s when Wife and I originally started trying to have kids. Had we had a kid then, I tend to think things wouldn't have worked out as well. The maturity wouldn't have been there in me, and I/we/our marriage would've suffered and then so would our kids as a downstream consequence.

May 21, 2021 11:52:17 GMT @ness said:

That said my favorite thing about no kids is "robbing" my parents of smug satisfaction. They always would say things like "I hope your kid is a brat so you can see what it's like" never once thinking I could just skip it entirely.

Environment, hell global warming and a potential collapse seems like a good reason too. Maybe nothing will happen in our lifetime. But can the next gen or two say the same?

Whatever the case, if you can avoid family court I would do everything I could to stay away from that circus. Child support is no joke.

Maybe just have sex with a woman that you're happy to marry?
I agree the family court is nonsense, but maybe most people wouldn't have so many issues if they're a little more selective. Still more than 50% of relationships don't end in divorce and I would go as far as to say when you have two hard working and equally dedicated people they almost never do.

I watch so many people throw away good relationships because someone new they met gave them butterflies or an erection or something... Fast forward 3 months someone has to put the trash out and the butterflies fade.

Love isn't what we feel, it's what we do.

The most important thing is giving it serious thought and not treat it as something that just happens to you. I feel like that's how I was conceived.

Hope everything works out rad. Differences in children may just spell breakup as there's no compromise that won't lead to resentment.

So I don't have health insurance. The reasoning are mostly I never went to the doctor... for ANYTHING. I've never been in the hospital for much of anything, let alone the past 20 years, don't have any allergies or need for medication so I just didn't go. I never bothered getting insurance because again I never used health care. Once in a blue moon the dentist or someone might prescribe me a bottle of something, but I just go to the local pharmacy. Trust me, there is no "primary care" for me. No check ups, nothing. Now I do realize just because you *seem* healthy outright doesn't mean nothing is wrong with you. So I guess I was just gonna go without until STHF and in typical American fashion I deal with the crisis at the worst possible time. No doubt the reason america is so fat and fucked up is we aren't big on preventive care.

Another reason I have been hesitant to get coverage is insurance just feels like a massive headache. I grew up in the military (and oddly enough the last time I really used any form of HC was when I was still a minor on Dad's tricare plan) so I had assumed health insurance meant you pay a premium and you get coverage. But it's nowhere near that simple, is it? Yes congress and the military get that sweet deal, but the average Joe not so much. They got premiums, and co ways and deductible. And even that doesn't cover everything. There's out of pocket. And out of network. And it just created a major headache for me. It's not uncommon to see people post threads about getting send to collections despite the hospital never sending a bill. THAT RIGHT scared the shit out of me. I could be 1000s in medical debt just from getting a basic ass check up because the radiologist isn't affiliated with BCBS. So since I wasn't going anyway, I wasn't gonna bring that nightmare willingly into my lap.

On the rare occasion I needed any medical I just paid it in full. It was never surgery or anything and mostly dental related, so it was a case of swipe and done. No paperwork to concern myself with. Insurance covers whatever it wants and fights to cover less than what they should. The rest is on you. I'm gonna assume hospitals are just a red tape nightmare OR they figure enough people don't pay their bills, so odds are in their favor that it's going to debt collection anyway so save themselves the trouble. It's amazing insurance claims to have your back and you pay out the ass for the peace of mind, and then they wave their hands and you're still responsible. Ya know if you care about credit scores.

So about 2 years ago (Sep 19) I had an issue at work. I got suspended (Luke Harper'd for 30 days) admin leave so I still got paid. But a stip was I needed to see a psych and get a return to work document from them. Problem I ran into was simply finding a clinic that even did that. I called about 20 and 80% was like we don't do that. And if they did they only did it for "patients" and they told me it was MONTHS before they could start seeing me. They were all giving the same song and dance, so it made me assume that was the norm. I can't even imagine being an actual danger to yourself and being denied access immediately. It was utter bullshit. And my job was hanging in the balance. Sure I would love to be Luke Harpering for 6 months to a year in order to get things done, but I may not have that amount of time. The PO could just wave their hands of me and find someone else for my spot. Maybe union could fight for me back, but they might have also say fuck you.

Found a place nearby, but there was a catch. The psych wouldn't do it in 1 session. I just assumed it was a money grab or an attempt to get me as a FT patient. Anyways whatever I played ball. I ended up seeing him 3-4 more times and then he offered to write the letter. They got it, I went back. I paid like 100-something for the initial session and didn't pay anything else for the other sessions. Okay, figured I'd just get a hefty ALL TOGETHER bill at the end. Nope receptionist said I was all clear. And since I wasn't dealing with "what insurance might pay", I paid it no mind.

Got a bill in the mail today. Of course. 180. Each little appointment was like 60. WHY AM I BEING CHARGED NOW? I fucking knew those later appointments weren't free and was ready to pay then. Annoying as shit.

November is "open season" at work and I am considering finally getting it. The biweekly seems reasonable and I mostly want it so that on the chance I get in a wreck or end up in a hospital bed I don't wind up in debt (probably still will) so I guess emergency coverage over anything. Maybe since I'll actually have it, I'll get an annual visit at the minimum. Might be a whole laundry list of stuff I've been neglecting.

Is that how nationalized medicine works? You pay your premium via taxes and everything is covered through that even if there's a waiting period? Is it like buying groceries... you pay then and that's it? No mystery bills 2 FUCKING YEARS and literally no communication otherwise later. Now don't get me wrong, paying 300 to save my job is well worth the investment I just hate how they can seemingly pull "past due" notices literally out their asses and you have no choice but to pay or risk your credit score unless you're the type that isn't afraid to spend ungodly amount of time on the phone to talk it down or remove it completely. And honestly spending hours on hold and going through supervisor after supervisor is gonna "cost" me in time whatever the charge is.

And that's another reason I haven't gotten my shot. Do I just pay a small fee and get the shot or are they gonna charge me $500 10 years from now? Fucking hell.

I raised my two step daughters for 2 years and my friends daughter for 5. I will not have biological kids, but loved having kids around. The world is the safest it has ever been for kids, education the best it has ever been for kids and the job market has never been better for people willing to direct their education into an understaffed field.

May 21, 2021 3:26:07 GMT iNCY said:

May 21, 2021 3:15:56 GMT rad said:

Not really, I own a business and I am frequently in customers factories and I see the issues facing employers today:
The first is the constant chorus of "I don't get paid to do that" which is true, you don't but until you can do it you never will be paid accordingly.
The second is the lack of initiative, I have one customer who employs people on trial and gives them a 15 minute job to do, but makes sure that there is a broom in the area, if they finish their job and pick up the broom to do some tidying up, he always employs them.
Very few people pick up the broom and instead get their phones out.

In America based on current managerial theory, what you see as lack of initiative can be a way to be an objectively better employee.

I will break down a case from my old job experience.  Say you have two workers, hired for the same job of filling inventory requests with the same pay.  Each have on average 6 hours of a work a day and 8 hours to do it.  One of the workers works slow to spread the work out the other finishes early and looks for other stuff to do.  As a result, when there is downtime one of the workers goes to help a second department.  Review times come along and the person working slow gets the better review.  Why?  Because the evaluations are likely solely based on the duties you are contracted for, and not for extra work, so working slow but always being at your station is seen as being more productive than someone who works faster but is then off their station meaning that job orders that come in while they are away may go unfilled for an hour or so, while the person spending two hours on their phone a day will not miss any.  Or the second department will ask your your use more and more to deal with issues they are having leading to a decrease in your primary roles.  Since corporate reviews are summative and not formative, the whole will not be seen, only the part on your contract.

Most workers in the states been fucked over by this and now learn that it is better to work slow and only do your job than to take on other tasks, because you are not compensated for working harder, and can be punished it.

May 22, 2021 16:03:20 GMT c said:

May 21, 2021 3:26:07 GMT iNCY said:

Not really, I own a business and I am frequently in customers factories and I see the issues facing employers today:
The first is the constant chorus of "I don't get paid to do that" which is true, you don't but until you can do it you never will be paid accordingly.
The second is the lack of initiative, I have one customer who employs people on trial and gives them a 15 minute job to do, but makes sure that there is a broom in the area, if they finish their job and pick up the broom to do some tidying up, he always employs them.
Very few people pick up the broom and instead get their phones out.

In America based on current managerial theory, what you see as lack of initiative can be a way to be an objectively better employee.

I will break down a case from my old job experience.  Say you have two workers, hired for the same job of filling inventory requests with the same pay.  Each have on average 6 hours of a work a day and 8 hours to do it.  One of the workers works slow to spread the work out the other finishes early and looks for other stuff to do.  As a result, when there is downtime one of the workers goes to help a second department.  Review times come along and the person working slow gets the better review.  Why?  Because the evaluations are likely solely based on the duties you are contracted for, and not for extra work, so working slow but always being at your station is seen as being more productive than someone who works faster but is then off their station meaning that job orders that come in while they are away may go unfilled for an hour or so, while the person spending two hours on their phone a day will not miss any.  Or the second department will ask your your use more and more to deal with issues they are having leading to a decrease in your primary roles.  Since corporate reviews are summative and not formative, the whole will not be seen, only the part on your contract.

Most workers in the states been fucked over by this and now learn that it is better to work slow and only do your job than to take on other tasks, because you are not compensated for working harder, and can be punished it.

Being a hard worker only rewards you with other people's work. And that extra becomes your norm, so if you stop doing other people's work... they think you're slacking. LMAO.

May 21, 2021 4:08:09 GMT iNCY said:

May 21, 2021 3:48:16 GMT rad said:

Here's the thing that people have completely lost sight of:

YOU DESERVE NOITHING, I DESERVER NOTHING, NOBODY DESERVES ANYTHING

This is where we will always disagree.  As a society people should have basic rights.  This is what the US was founded on.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

These are rights that people claim they deserve.  They are not exhaustive but it is a good place to start.  All societies are based on the assumption that people have basic rights they deserve.  Many feel that we reached the point were people deserve a minimum standard of living, to obtain the right to live, liberty and pursuit of happiness and resources should be shared to enable as many as possible enjoy these rights.  

May 22, 2021 16:09:37 GMT @ness said:

May 22, 2021 16:03:20 GMT c said:

In America based on current managerial theory, what you see as lack of initiative can be a way to be an objectively better employee.

I will break down a case from my old job experience.  Say you have two workers, hired for the same job of filling inventory requests with the same pay.  Each have on average 6 hours of a work a day and 8 hours to do it.  One of the workers works slow to spread the work out the other finishes early and looks for other stuff to do.  As a result, when there is downtime one of the workers goes to help a second department.  Review times come along and the person working slow gets the better review.  Why?  Because the evaluations are likely solely based on the duties you are contracted for, and not for extra work, so working slow but always being at your station is seen as being more productive than someone who works faster but is then off their station meaning that job orders that come in while they are away may go unfilled for an hour or so, while the person spending two hours on their phone a day will not miss any.  Or the second department will ask your your use more and more to deal with issues they are having leading to a decrease in your primary roles.  Since corporate reviews are summative and not formative, the whole will not be seen, only the part on your contract.

Most workers in the states been fucked over by this and now learn that it is better to work slow and only do your job than to take on other tasks, because you are not compensated for working harder, and can be punished it.

Being a hard worker only rewards you with other people's work. And that extra becomes your norm, so if you stop doing other people's work... they think you're slacking. LMAO.

Yup, the real problem is once you pick up the routine of a second job.  The guy who takes up the broom may be expected to clean the office before he leaves for the day now.  If he main job gets busy and he does not have the time to clean, it will been as his fault for the office being messy, despite the fact that it was not his duty originally to clean.  This is an easy example but often times people will leave a company and their tasks will be given to other people, who now are doing their job but 30% of the work a second job with no extra pay.  Then a few other people leave and you have double the task load for the pay of one person and when it gets busy you cannot do the jobs of two people so your works suffers and you start to get bad evaluations that are used to justify not giving you pay raises.  My mom's department had 5 people 15 years ago and is now down to two.  She has to do the workload of the two jobs they got rid of, plus her own, without taking overtime.  The whole company is suffering because of a bottleneck here for the last five years but no one seems to see the problem.  She is working real hard to get laid off so she can take a package and get a job elsewhere.

For health insurance, the way national healthcare would work is you pay the government directly each month a portion of your income in taxes, that would be a fraction of what you pay now for private insurance, and you would get free healthcare basically. We do this now for 18% of the country. If we allow the government to negotiate costs of services, the amount that would need to be paid monthly will be a fraction of what private insurance currently costs. Medicaid in most areas is no longer a wait than private insurance healthcare, and often times faster to get appointments because they are used to larger volumes of patients. With more regularity in billing, more people will see general doctors instead of going to emergency care for all their medical needs, and it will also greatly reduce wait time in ERs or urgent cares. Could see the days of people waiting with pools of blood forming on the floor around them ending.

This would also get rid of people being bankrupted by medical debt and bring more money to medical providers who will see all debt be actually paid, instead of having to hunt down people with outstanding balances.

Until such a time when the US does this, getting any form of insurance to cover emergencies should be done, as if you are in a position without insurance were you are brought to a hospital, like unconscious in a car wreck, you are looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills you will be expected to pay that you never consented to. Also gets rid of the need to do at home healthcare like burning wounds shut or having a friend sew a wound shut.


COVID shots are free and billed to the Medicaid if you lack insurance IIRC.  Also depending on where you live, there may be free clinics and free psych clinics around you can go to.  Then you can use GoodRX for drug discount codes or Walmart's 3 dollar program to limit medications to what you can afford.  Not the best solution but an American one.  Can also order meds from India without prescriptions under questionable legality but they often can vary in dosing (as in some doses may only contain like 60% of the chemical you are taking them to get).  

May 22, 2021 16:16:42 GMT c said:

May 22, 2021 16:09:37 GMT @ness said:

Being a hard worker only rewards you with other people's work. And that extra becomes your norm, so if you stop doing other people's work... they think you're slacking. LMAO.

Yup, the real problem is once you pick up the routine of a second job.  The guy who takes up the broom may be expected to clean the office before he leaves for the day now.  If he main job gets busy and he does not have the time to clean, it will been as his fault for the office being messy, despite the fact that it was not his duty originally to clean.  This is an easy example but often times people will leave a company and their tasks will be given to other people, who now are doing their job but 30% of the work a second job with no extra pay.  Then a few other people leave and you have double the task load for the pay of one person and when it gets busy you cannot do the jobs of two people so your works suffers and you start to get bad evaluations that are used to justify not giving you pay raises.  My mom's department had 5 people 15 years ago and is now down to two.  She has to do the workload of the two jobs they got rid of, plus her own, without taking overtime.  The whole company is suffering because of a bottleneck here for the last five years but no one seems to see the problem.  She is working real hard to get laid off so she can take a package and get a job elsewhere.

And you deal with the skeleton crew situation for so long that it just becomes the standard way of business. Too many people have this irrational fear so they take up other tasks because "no one else will do it". Corporate America no doubt loves these types of people and wishes more were like them. This idea if you aren't willingly doing 2-3 jobs in addition to the one you were hired on for, they'll fire you or make an example out of you. We've all seen those Walmart documentaries.

"If you won't, we'll find someone who will"

Nearly every state has at will employment so you can be let go for any or no reason, so people will take on these extra unpaid tasks because ya gotta eat. Union backing is very rare in and of itself, and even when you do have unions there's plenty of laws in place that make them have very little power. The fact that unions have to represent non-dues paying members just means less people are gonna join.

In more ways than one they got us by the balls, which of course snobby management types will just quip with LEARN2CODE.

Then you get a coding job and they work you 90 hours a week until you break. Software industry got in deep shit when people started to learn just how many programmers on AAA titles had beds in their offices.

Well I see it more as self preservation. I actually don't HATE my job, despite my constant gripes. It's actually what I want to be doing and (for the most part) I enjoy the people I work with. My department was once a department of 40. We are now 6 - was 5 but we hired a 6th a year ago. How have I managed to escape the brutal claws of layoffs? Simple, by being more of a commodity or asset rather than liability. Honestly, if you are a manager and you have to choose who stays and who goes who are you going to keep: the person who comes in an does their 8-5 (with 1 hour lunch) and does only what is asked of them (no more and no less) and sits on their phone the rest of the time or are you going to keep the person who takes on more, maybe sometimes works through their lunch or an extra hour or two to make sure the field and client are happy?

It's why I've dodged the ax more times than I can count since 2014. It's why I can take an hour in the middle of the day and say 'I've got an errand to run' and they are fine with it because they know I've worked that hour and then some and why I am the only one in my department getting a raise during a recession.

Sure there is some down side to it, but the upside is I've managed to retain some sort of stability in a market of unpredictability by making myself of value.

That being said, I know no one is irreplaceable so I have no delusions that they would cut me tomorrow if they had to, but at least I know I have done everything I could for them not to.

I hear this a lot but if you company is large enough to have middle level managers, then likely the person who supervises you has little say in the decision as the decision to cut jobs is usually on the organization level and above the pay grade of people supervising employees directly. They look at costs and job descriptions and remove jobs at that level. That is what is taught in modern management training, do not make things personal, and solve for costs assuming a minimum AVERAGE standard is met.

Generally in this model those who have been there the longest are being paid more than the estimated cost for the position and are the ones targeted. May help you get raises from your supervisor's reviews, but not likely will be a make or break for your job once the decision is made to let people go. Either your job is worth keeping at your cost or it is not.

I got friends who literally bill at $300 an hour to tell managers that team composition, employee motivation and experience matter as occupational psychologists. Think it would be commonsense, but nope, they get brought into companies to tell them the paper management style is bad for everyone involved and costs the company since the linear systems managers use to assume work output is not realistic at all.

May 22, 2021 16:16:42 GMT c said:

May 22, 2021 16:09:37 GMT @ness said:

Being a hard worker only rewards you with other people's work. And that extra becomes your norm, so if you stop doing other people's work... they think you're slacking. LMAO.

Yup, the real problem is once you pick up the routine of a second job.  The guy who takes up the broom may be expected to clean the office before he leaves for the day now.  If he main job gets busy and he does not have the time to clean, it will been as his fault for the office being messy, despite the fact that it was not his duty originally to clean.  This is an easy example but often times people will leave a company and their tasks will be given to other people, who now are doing their job but 30% of the work a second job with no extra pay.  Then a few other people leave and you have double the task load for the pay of one person and when it gets busy you cannot do the jobs of two people so your works suffers and you start to get bad evaluations that are used to justify not giving you pay raises.  My mom's department had 5 people 15 years ago and is now down to two.  She has to do the workload of the two jobs they got rid of, plus her own, without taking overtime.  The whole company is suffering because of a bottleneck here for the last five years but no one seems to see the problem.  She is working real hard to get laid off so she can take a package and get a job elsewhere.

This is such socialist propoganda, that somehow all boss are evil and looking to exploit their workers but workers are invariably righteous, hard working and pure as the driven snow.

It must be nice to live in a bubble where actions don't have equal and opposite reactions.
I believe in a living wage and I think the USA is a circus, but you cannot engineer out scarcity. If you lift the minimum wage you lift the price of everything.
It's why when you walk into a McDonalds here most people order at a touch screen.

Half the US raised minimum wage 50 percent and had no change in the price of goods. Most items are priced on the national level, so the same 2 bucks milk costs me, here in CT with a $14 min wage and strong social support programs is the same $2 it will cost someone in Mississippi with $7.25 min wage and no social support programs. Been this way for a decade. We keep hearing about how raising min wage will raise prices, then in New England we do it, and prices remain the same.  Hell Australia last I knew is not some unlivable hellhole of insane prices, but your minimum wage converted to USD is twice that of the US.  According to cost of living adjusters you pay 17% more for items than in the US after increasing minimum wage to levels higher than what is considered socialist levels here.  You less in rent on average than the US too by 8% which is the largest cost of living factor in the US, despite being able to afford almost twice the minimum wage.  

As for socialist propaganda, the US has been consolidating industry for a century, and it is speeding up, so the concept of the small business where the manager knows everyone is becoming the exception. The whole notion of work hard and you get promoted up to supervisor then manager is bullshit now as well for most as they gate those jobs more and more behind prior experience in that position and degrees. Moreso many places have policy that does not allow direct promotion in your department. People from more socialist countries do not really get how bad things have gotten here. Entry level work now wants a degree and two years job related experience. Then you enter your stuff into a computer form, there is no one to speak to about a job first, they will contact you if interested only. All these notion of being a good worker and working your way up literally does not exist in many companies. Only working for 2% to 3% wage increases, then leaving your company entirely if you wish to be moved to a more senior position or receive a real pay increase for your increased experience.

Edit:

Looking at min wage increases in Australia if our min wage rose at the same rate as yours since 2007 min wage would be $13.00 now, well over that fall into a socialist society threshold the GOP paints at $12.  While your minimum wage rose 4.75 USD, in the US in that same 13 year period we remained at 7.25.  

You can spend ak off your communist manifesto all you like.
I believe in a living wage and a couple should be able to to work one job each to provide themselves with enough for food, shelter and the necessities of life. I don't believe in people having to work two full time jobs to put bread on the table.

All of that said, we have an $18 mimumum wage in Australia and I support it, but this is unequivocally one of the most expensive places in the world to live.
Look at the price of a weekly grocery shop here and you would have heart failure.

The other point that would kick the USA in the ass is that our high cost of wages has driven almost all manufacturing work out of the country. The industry I work in, you visit the USA and all the machines have manual feed and take off. In Australia it is all 100% automated.

A skilled factory worker here is 60-80k and automation is under 200k every plant that runs two or more shifts per day has made the change.
Its the same reason why you order on a screen in McDonalds and all the call centres are in the Philippines.

Socialism good for Australia, bad for the US?

Grocery prices are 15% more there. The average Australian household spends $45 more USD a month on groceries than the average American household. With your cheaper rent, cost of living washes. Again you are only 9% percent higher in terms of cost of living but the median worker makes 22% after controlling for currency.  Cost of living calculations assume you are in the US and not paying for healthcare insurance either, which is on average 1,152 USD a month per family or 456 for a single person.  

People in the US do not actually want socialism outside of the few of us on the fringe. What we do want is a living wage akin to what the rest of the world receives and the same social benefits that the rest of the civilized world gives it's citizens. We currently do not have that.

Your skilled factory workers would make 30k to 40k here in CT, 20k to 30k in the South. If you want insurance you give about a third of that back. In CT production workers with five years experience only are looking at a dollar over minimum wage. Salaries been risen only about 5% in the last 20 years due to small cost of living year on raises that are nullified by simple year end inflation. US purchasing power has been flat for the last 60 years despite being far more educated than they ever were in the past and the average productive power of employees doubling. The sole exception is for executive pay, which has risen 1000% in the last 60 years and went from a 20:1 ratio of their pay to the average workers, to a 300:1 ratio. Executive pay follows the US GDP, worker pay does not.  Mix in healthcare costs and the average US worker has 20% less real income now than they did 80 years ago.

That is what people want to change and that is what we are being told is socialism.

It's what you don't understand because you choose not to.
Everything here costs more, wages look great on paper but they get bled away in crazy costs. People aren't rich here, we just don't have the working poor you have.

You are also ignoring my point that automation is sub 200k it doesn't take much to drive these jobs out of existence. Our economy in Australia is a house of cards.

In 2018 Australia had the second highest median wealth per person in the world.

www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/australia-is-one-of-the-worlds-wealthiest-nations-credit-suisse-20181019-h16u1y

Meanwhile these many states in the US that oppose minimum wage increases are sitting at 20% poverty rate and full time workers are receiving food stamps because a full time job does not pay enough to at minimum wage to be above the poverty line.

May 23, 2021 10:56:09 GMT c said:

In 2018 Australia had the second highest median wealth per person in the world.

www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/australia-is-one-of-the-worlds-wealthiest-nations-credit-suisse-20181019-h16u1y

Meanwhile these many states in the US that oppose minimum wage increases are sitting at 20% poverty rate and full time workers are receiving food stamps because a full time job does not pay enough to at minimum wage to be above the poverty line.

Because we don't have the super rich here to skew the figures.
It's expensive to live here, I have visited a fair few places in my time and I am not talking out my ass.

But go ahead see if your industry survives, ours didn't.

I feel automation is coming even if we worked for peanuts and no back talk about it.

The kiosks, self check out and drone robots were coming whether fight for 15 was a thing or not. Payroll was always gonna be the first cut.

May 23, 2021 12:32:19 GMT @ness said:

I feel automation is coming even if we worked for peanuts and no back talk about it.

The kiosks, self check out and drone robots were coming whether fight for 15 was a thing or not. Payroll was always gonna be the first cut.

No, the automation isn't cheap, businesses don't spend unless it makes sense.
Australian businesses run with a fraction of the people they have in the US, c, doesn't get that... Australian businesses are about as lean as they can get and us businesses are morbidly obese.

I get it, what I do not get is why our workers do not deserve a job that pays enough so they do not need to get government assistance to eat.

And US will not automate until someone pays them to do it. Otherwise it is a cost that will cut into CEO profit. Until they are paid, many companies would rather fill ranks with cheap labor now that it is a cheaper to hire Southerns than Chinese after job creation related tax breaks.

We have the best AI tech in the world, but why pay for it when you can hire two dozen people at min wage instead and just use augmentation instead of automation?


Speaking of AI, the US is getting ready to allow drones to violate the first law of robotics as the military is pushing to allow drones to make their own decisions about employing lethal force since they can react without hesitation and access far more complicated situations than a human user can, moreso when swarm formations are deployed.

Article on it here:

www.wired.com/story/pentagon-inches-toward-letting-ai-control-weapons/

The past 12 months I have gotten:

Hernia surgery.
Corneal abrasion forcing me to stop wearing contact lenses and wear glasses.
Root canal.
Broken rib.
Went to the ER two weeks ago for chest pain caused by an anxiety attack.
Then I go play baseball at CitiField in a once in a lifetime opportunity and I pull my hamstring going for a double.

All during a pandemic. No wonder I’m losing my mind.

My mom’s boyfriend wasn’t feeling well neither does mom even though she is feeling little better but he went to the hospital today not sure he is staying overnight or even know he went to urgent care.

I feel very little to no sympathy to the guy and I know it sound messed up to say but the way he treat me and the way he is as a person is why I feel very littlest sympathy to none.

Lot of bs going on close doors over the last few years including last year and this year

May 23, 2021 13:05:20 GMT c said:

I get it, what I do not get is why our workers do not deserve a job that pays enough so they do not need to get government assistance to eat.

And US will not automate until someone pays them to do it. Otherwise it is a cost that will cut into CEO profit. Until they are paid, many companies would rather fill ranks with cheap labor now that it is a cheaper to hire Southerns than Chinese after job creation related tax breaks.

We have the best AI tech in the world, but why pay for it when you can hire two dozen people at min wage instead and just use augmentation instead of automation?


Speaking of AI, the US is getting ready to allow drones to violate the first law of robotics as the military is pushing to allow drones to make their own decisions about employing lethal force since they can react without hesitation and access far more complicated situations than a human user can, moreso when swarm formations are deployed.

Article on it here:

www.wired.com/story/pentagon-inches-toward-letting-ai-control-weapons/

People automate as soon as it makes financial sense to do so.
Unless this is one of those times that you are going to say down is up until people tire of arguing with you.

Of course the ideal is that everyone gets something to eat and a shelter over their head.
It's the old adage about the first rule of life-saving is to not drown yourself.
We cannot bankrupt societies in pursuit of an impossible utopia, it doesn't work.
My country is headed for a cliff, most of what is out there in Welfare is not sustainable or budgeted for, an ageing population will literally cripple our country.
That's the thing, crippled countries can't help anyone, visit Venezuela or Cuba and see how their ideals line up with what they can actually do.

It's a fine balance and the only model that works is socially minded capitalism, find me another single system that works and I will pay attention.
But for the USA to look wistfully at Scandinavia or Australia is to completely misunderstand the nature of your country and your workforce.
If you want to change your economy, you need to change your workforce.
I cannot believe the crap that still flies in the USA, you walk into an airport and there are people whose only job it is to tell people where to go.
Greeters at Walmart
Check out staff at grocery stores
Store attendants to answer questions

We have none of those things here, because we can't afford them without raising prices further.

May 20, 2021 16:47:18 GMT mikec said:

Got the kiddo all pumped up for a weekend trip to KC, some fun stuff, hotel pool, Royals game, etc. and then she broke her arm yesterday. Bummer.

Quick update on this, the kiddo’s break is routine enough that she barely needs a brace, let alone a cast. They expect her to be healed in three weeks when we go back. Our trip to KC was mostly uninterrupted, we got her a cheap brace and let her swim in that so she even got some pool time.

Weird story coming out of it: the doctor tells us he’s not going to cast it so I mention that she keeps loosening the brace and want to know how tight it needs to be kept and he said that the brace is basically there to remind her it’s broken and keep people from grabbing it. And then he said “I mean, just imagine all the kids in Africa right now. When they break their arm do they go see a doctor? No.” I wanted to tell him, as he was getting up after maybe 90 seconds of discussion, that I took a day off work, paid for an xray, emergency care, and was referred to a specialist to give me 90 seconds of his day to not change anything, that will be billed for all of those things at first wold prices so I don’t exactly expect third world medical advice.

And how many of them have bones that don't heal properly? I guess it depends on the kind of break.

My Grandfather broke his wrist between the levers of his tank in WWII. They didn't set it right and it bothered him for the rest of his life. Ate T3's like they were candy for relief.

Glad your daughter's break is not bad though and that she managed to enjoy herself despite it. If you don't mind me asking; what does an X-ray, emerg care and his 90 seconds cost there?