Bingo. This is precisely how big companies leverage big government to prevent challenges from threatening their business model. Amazon is investing its money into lobbying for "Main-street Fairness" ... https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-amazon-lobbying-idUSL1N1...
I thought she put it well enough to understand, but here's another stab at it:
Fifty years ago, if the husband gets a job offer in a town of 10,000 people with one main employer, he'll take it and relocate the family there. It doesn't matter that there's no career prospects for the wife, because she isn't likely to be working in a career job.
Today, the husband (or wife) gets the same job offer, but the family doesn't take it because the other spouse works in public relations (or whatever) and there are no good jobs of that type in the small 1-industry town.
"I mean you might get a few people who are willing to commute 4 hours a day, but certainly not enough to satisfy SV's needs. I doubt a company would pay their janitorial staff enough to live there without being forced."
Of course they would if they had to --- supply and demand. Do you really think companies would not find a way to solve the "my office is a pig sty" problem?
The central problem is the motive. Low income individuals do not have such a powerful lobby that they're able to compel States to create laws that require affordable housing. It's the real estate/development/construction lobbies. They are very powerful and affordable housing is a big business. Everyone has to get their cut.
"but this memo was a mistake and showed poor judgement and more than a little bias"
"openness" and "freedom" are core values of Google. Even in a scenario where someone made effective arguments refuting all of James' key points, a "one strike and you're out" policy seems antithetical to Google's culture. Or any healthy culture for that matter.
If James wrote what you said he did above (I think you mischaracterize him greatly), and if his ideas are as poorly constructed as you suggest they are, surely Google employs someone intelligent enough to go point by point through his memo and really school him. Such a response would do more to build a case for the worldview you appear to espouse than the lazy, generalized retorts being lobbed his way.
> If James wrote what you said he did above, (I think you mischaracterize him greatly)...
By all means ignore the part relating to honesty/competence, I'd probably apologise to him for that if I met him so probably shouldn't have written it.
Most of my comments however speak to his actions so are not a matter of characterisation.
> ...surely Google employs someone intelligent enough to go point by point through his memo and really school him
They do. They have. However, Damore violated Google's code of conduct and by extension his conditions of employment. That's not a line any employer of thousands can play coy with in the name of educating one individual.
> Such a response would do more to build a case for the worldview you appear to espouse than the lazy, generalized retorts being lobbed his way.
"A corporation may not be the best place to bring up these topics, if your goal is to avoid getting fired"
Agree. In fairness to James, however, I believe HR solicited feedback.
"[T]he guy probably had some fantasy that he can have a constructive conversation"
Seriously, what a let down. The "Sergey" and "Larry" who created Google would not have stood for this. Either they have lost control of their company, or they have changed.
Working proactively to address racism/sexism/n'ism: Good, not evil
Demanding orthodoxy of thought (or enabling those who do): Bad; EVIL
Google was being already investigated/accused of extreme gender pay discrimination. I'm not sure how anyone could think they'd want to engage in any kind of discussion that could be interpreted as discriminating to women while being under investigation for discriminating women. sigh
Shutting down an honest discussion of something because there is an investigation and it might be revealing is pretty high up there on the immoral scale.
I think your mixing two separate things here. The discussion was shut down not because it "might be revealing". It's plain and simple because they think is more harmful to have the discussion at a point when they're in legal trouble (with the corresponding financial penalty) than the argued loss of honest discussion (whatever exactly that means for you). It's because work is not a frigging politics/social debate club. You go to work to do whatever it is you were hired to do, not to discuss topics that may actually reduce productivity on your diverse work force for feeling discriminated.
I understand there's an inevitable social/political aspect of working together, but is not the focus and if you don't agree with the political views/decisions of a company, and you can't get them (through proper channels, your manager, HR) to change, no one grants you the right to say whatever you want in the work place, especially when what you say is widely considered (by the company) as harmful to their interests.
No. I think you're jumping to conclusions. It only implies they may need to look harder to find equally skilled people in a smaller talent pool (e.g minorities interested in tech). Sure, it'd be somewhat cheaper to not worry about those constraints (if the laws were different), but I think in the grand scheme of things the different in cost is largely irrelevant.
You seem to have a prevailing view of undeveloped counties as being there fundamentally because of their "own fault". This is very much akin to blaming the poor to being lazy or incompetent or stupid.
While its certainly true that a lot of countries don't have their shit together now, its also true that most undeveloped countries were either under foreign domination (e.g. Indian Subcontinent, most of Africa) or domination by proxy (e.g. China).
The moral of the story is: don't accept the propaganda of "International Financial Institutions" as existing strictly for the assistance of developing countries (their stated goal) but rather as a continuation of exertion of power over developing counties through financial means.
"Predatory" lending is only possible in the presence of coercion.
If Party A is such a bad credit risk that the only loan they can get is from Party B at a high interest rate, and that requires them to dramatically change the behavior that created the cash crisis in the first place, Party B is not a predator.
If Party B is charging too much for the loan, surely another "greedy" party will undercut them and offer better terms to Party A.
If Party A accepts the debt on the same conditions, but then fails to dramatically change their behavior such that they insist the terms of the original deal be modified or else they'll default, Party A is acting like the predator.
> If Party B is charging too much for the loan, surely another "greedy" party will undercut them and offer better terms to Party A.
You are assuming perfect competition in the area of loans to nation-states: this is certainly not the case. There are only a handful of lenders playing at this level, and they are mostly driven by politics, not profit.
There are many lenders playing at "this level," presuming that by "this level" you're referring to the market for sovereign debt.
The area where there are only a handful of "players" is lending to countries that are very high credit risks. And for good reason. What rational investor would lend money to a party clearly unable to pay it back? None. That's a death wish.
Except of course when governments guarantee that party's credit for political reasons. Usually the arguments for such "support" include precepts that the free market leaves some nations behind, and so intervention is justified.
But the intervention, as we have seen quite often with the IMF itself, can do more harm than good.
The tone of your comment suggests disagreement, but the meat of it is in full agreement with my earlier comment, so much so that yours can be thought of as a more fleshed-out version of mine.
>> There are only a handful of lenders playing at this level...
> The area where there are only a handful of "players" is lending to countries that are very high credit risks. And for good reason. What rational investor would lend money to a party clearly unable to pay it back? None. That's a death wish...
>> ...and they are mostly driven by politics, not profit.
> Except of course when governments guarantee that party's credit for political reasons
Your reference to lenders began with: "You are assuming perfect competition in the area of loans to nation-states," and you said "there are only a handful of lenders playing at this level." I disagreed because this is untrue, and suggested your comment may only be accurate in reference to countries representing very high credit risks.
Regarding politics and profit, we disagree here as well. Yes, I referenced political reasons as motives for lending to these very high credit risk countries, but it's not mutually exclusive. I believe if you dig into that political motive you will find a strong profit motive. Maybe the "State" isn't motivated by profit, but often the people who exert power over the State are. What else would they be motivated by? Doing good for humanity? Please...
In the case of the World Bank this is not a compelling argument.
Both critics and advocates claim that WB does not exist in a vacuum -- it is part of the larger post-WW2 western world order. Critics claim the coercion happens decades before WB offers the loan.
> "Predatory" lending is only possible in the presence of coercion.
Most certainly not true. It can also be caused by lack options, or awareness of options.
e.g. The US overwhelmingly opposed the creation Asian Development Bank, funded by China, precisely because of the leverage that it would lose over the ability to make loans through a proxy (World Bank) and dictate strict conditions around those loans.
Against it, until their growth created a nexus in most states and required it.
Now they have been one of the most forceful lobbyists advocating for it. They call it, "Main Street Fairness."