Cost is the main driver here. I am lefty, but I agree the unions are a little out of control. I am sorry, but a guy who stands in a production line building cars should not be making $125k per year (source was a series on TV, think 60 minutes where they talked to some of those workers).
I am glad unions are there to help make sure people are not overworked and have benefits, but come on guys. You shot yourself in the foot there.
Let's assume that a union worker won't get an extra $15 per hour worked that current retirees are receiving. So take $15 off of their labor costs of $70 per hour (complexity through obfuscation). So that's
$55 = VALUE of actual wages and benefits EARNED by WORKING 1 hour
hours_worked_per_year = 52*40 = 2080
earnings_per_year = hours_worked_per_year * $55 = $114,400
So you're correct, according to FactCheck.org, it's not $125k per year. But the point is still valid when you account for benefits. If my employer gives me a new Ferrari each year as a benefit, no one would consider me underpaid if I made $10/hour doing secretarial work.
Not only salaries, but also benefits. I think Health Care Insurance (that the company provides)is often overlooked. American Health Care cost for businesses has increased a ton over the last few decades.
+1 Had to read "The Goal' at SMU to graduate. I suggest all developers, managers or entrepreneurs to read it today! If you are a startup, when you read it think developers/designers as your industrial machines.
Which was my point of squareup or square neither probably got much search results, but now they have a killer domain with square. Instead of squa.re or something similar.
Twitter and Pownce both launched about the same time, Pownce is dead (sure it could have been founder execution issues).
Also, I am sure bigsaving.com gets a lot more traffic, but nobody to startup that ever hopes to get brand recognition would ever buy that. Its why fund.com, bank.com, ad.com will never have household recognition because its to generic.
To answer your question, no the amounts being offered will not get me to the next level.
One issue, companies that meet your requirements really aren't innovating or releasing new products. If they are, a overwhelming majority will be investing in short-term micro growth, like building a new bridge.
We actually have this system in place, VC's, Incubators and Angels. They verify opportunities and fund them. Startups are our future, whether you like it or not. And yes many will fail, but those that don't will provide long-term macro growth.
The biggest winner in about 10 years will be DST, they get it.
If the government wants to solve this issue lend capital to startups directly or via VC's, Incubators, Angels, or whatever. Maybe only lend it to those seeking C rounds to verify a companies stability and to prevent a bubble.
Totally agree. If they continue without all the lawyers they will be far more advanced in 20 years.
If this or some offshoot ever makes it to the US, we should see a dramatic decrease in family law, Federal subsides for child support, and could lead to dramatic decrease in crime.
That is, if it becomes as available as womens birth control.
You are making a huge leap from "this is an effective method of birth control" to "people will use this". See the movie Idiocracy. (actually just see the opening bit.)
Idiocracy isn't exactly based on fact. (It's an OK movie though.) For one thing, there's no evidence, that I know of, that supports the claim that only "smart" parents have smart children, or that smart parents don't have dumb children, or that dumb parents don't have smart children, and so on.
Although genetics likely plays some role in "natural" intelligence, it's far from a simple hereditary relationship, and there's increasing evidence that the bulk of natural intelligence is actually the result of environmental factors during early child development.
...that supports the claim that only "smart" parents have smart children, or that smart parents don't have dumb children, or that dumb parents don't have smart children, and so on.
That would be a silly claim to make. A more plausible claim, and one which is well supported by the evidence, is that smart parents are considerably more likely to have smart children than dumb parents.
Did the movie really contain genetic claims? I took the sequence at the beginning to be more a criticism of Cleavon's cultural traits. (example: "I thought you was on the pill or some shit!") In fact, most of the movie's humor centered around a downward cultural slide. Kids do pick up their parents memes more readily, after all.
Yes. IIRC, the "opening bit" that camiller was referencing above was about how intelligent people were continually having fewer children while less intelligent people bred as quickly as they could.
Ok, but isn't that difference in birthdate orthogonal to whether the "intelligence" is a result of nature or nurture? (Don't forget that when you have children you're not just propagating genes, but memes as well. Kids raised on Jersey Shore will tune in to Ow, My Balls!)
I don't recall the movie taking a stance towards nature. In fact, the moral of the whole story is to try to solve problems, and the great speech at the end envisioned a time where people cared whose ass it was and why it was farting. These are messages about cultural priorities, not genetic limitations.
> Don't forget that when you have children you're not just propagating genes, but memes as well. Kids raised on Jersey Shore will tune in to Ow, My Balls!
...right, which would make it irrelevant whether high-IQ parents are having kids or not (they can still work as educators, scientists, leaders -- much the same situation as now), which in turn would make that opening scene of the movie a non-sequitur.
> These are messages about cultural priorities, not genetic limitations.
Yes, but they are also the only feasible remaining strategy left given the resources at hand at the end. IIRC, the lead character was tested as having the highest recorded IQ in the world, so it's not like his strategy for solving problems could be "go find high IQ couples and mate them in a high-IQ zoo".
Maybe I'm wrong. I only watched it once, back at a time when I thought the world was doomed and the movie was prophetic (so I didn't really pay close attention). OTOH, a quick search online finds that I'm not the only one that interpreted it this way, so at the least it was less clear than it could have been on this point.
(they can still work as educators, scientists, leaders -- much the same situation as now)
I don't think working as an educator or leader, in the movie's world, would make any difference. They would be, after all, attempting to educate or lead people who equate speaking in grammatical, semantically precise sentences with "talking like a fag". (see Dr. Lexus, etc.)
As for Scientists, they were consumed with solving the problems of hair loss and prolonging erections.
> If this or some offshoot ever makes it to the US, we should see a dramatic decrease in family law, Federal subsides for child support, and could lead to dramatic decrease in crime. That is, if it becomes as available as womens birth control.
Nope.
Just as with vasectomies, we'll see far more men claiming to have had the procedure and women will believe them.
Yes, a few men who wouldn't have gotten a vasectomy will do this, but they're in the noise.
I was just thinking about this today. I check it once a week and all I ever see are connections being made. Guess this is good for sales people or recruiters looking for intro's.
If I am Product Manager or CEO at LinkedIn, I would buy or create ODesk on top of LinkedIn's data. They have all the professionals and work history.
In this case I think it's a bit simpler. GroupMe was born at TechCrunch Disrupt Hack Day 2010, and is probably the biggest success story of that event by an order of magnitude. Hence, they got a lot of TC coverage early on.
