Playing devil's advocate, what happens to businesses in the presence of an even higher regulatory and tax environment and what will the impact of increased taxes be on employment and business viability as well as the cost of living?
For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it becomes increasingly unviable for the business to stay in business. Once they shutter their doors, the tax base and employment decreases. Extending the argument, consider other organizations that have a healthier margin and are growing and hiring. The presence of substantially increased taxation raises the costs of growth (re: hiring) and raises the costs of employing Americans and earning money in America which reduces their ability to compensate employees / develop new products etc. Yes, they might have the margin to pay the increased tax rate, but the tradeoff is they lose money that goes into R&D, increasing salaries, hiring more people, and other business activities we think are good and useful.
As a consumer, I'm also curious to know what this does to my cost of living. Prices will not stay static and if businesses are incurring higher costs to produce goods and services, those get reflected in price. Given wages aren't keeping pace with inflation, what will a sudden price shock do to the cost of living in the face of businesses adjusting prices to address the new taxes? This could take people who are getting by now and turn them into a new wave of impoverished as necessary goods and services increase in price or it could prevent UBI from achieving its goal because prices keep rising to offset the tax rate which puts goods and services outside what people can afford on UBI.
Most restaurants derive most of their cost from labor. With basic income in and minimum wage out, you can pay people much less than you had to before. Yes, you may pay more in taxes, but that's from profit after everything else has been taken care of.
So if you end up with less total profit than before, it sucks, but your control over the situation is far more variable than if you had to simply suck it up and plan to pay your $9.00/hr dishwasher at least $15/hr in three years.
> Most restaurants derive most of their cost from labor. With basic income in and minimum wage out, you can pay people much less than you had to before.
That's plainly false.
No one's going to wash dishes at Chain Restaurant #12 for 15 cents an hour, not even if the government is giving them $10,000/year. Infinite increase in their current effort for a 1% increase in annual income?
That's like the most pathologically slanted example of diminishing returns possible.
It's the opposite. The utility of money decreases as the amount of money owned/earned goes up. $9/hr to a person without basic income is worth more than $9/hr to a person with basic income.
Now people need more money to gain the same utility as they could have previously gained without basic income.
Why would people wash dishes if they didn't need to pay the bills?
I think there's a lot of untapped utility in better quality jobs, that doesn't get explored at the moment because people's first priority is getting enough money to survive.
Maybe no one wants to wash dishes (so buy a machine), but I imagine quite a lot of people actually enjoy being waiters, since you get to be directly helpful to a lot of people every day.
And now you're not afraid of being fired, you can even start to negotiate about the parts that suck. Obnoxious customers? Hey that restaurant down the street pays a bit less, but they're also willing to throw people out for being jerks. Maybe not going home upset once a month is worth a lot more to you than a new TV.
Things like this might not even cost the business very much, but they've never considered them because people take what they're given.
Those people sound useless. The same way its less expensive to house the homeless than to chase around with cops, I feel like its better to just pay them to stay in their own little world.
Does the delta between lowering the cost of labor (assuming people will work for the lower wage) cover the tax increase?
Labor, in the service industry, is already handled like a variable cost. If you expect a rush, you increase the number of people on the shift and if you don't, you schedule the bar minimum. If there's mismatch between staffing and projected work - and say schedule too many people for what turns out to be a dead shift - they get sent home. Changing the minimum wage from $9/hr to $15/hr reduces the number of people you can run per shift and keep your costs the same (assuming all other inputs continue to cost the same). I.E. It costs me $30/hr to keep two waiters when I could run 3 for $27/hr so I cut back one waiter per shift.
Where the business gets in trouble, in terms of survival, is the price of fixed inputs. They need to buy goods and services that will fluctuate in price and if the cost of doing business goes up due to higher fixed costs in the form of taxes, those costs will reverberate through the chain. The food supplier will raise prices, the restaurant will need to raise its prices to afford the food, which will impact their ability to attract customers which impacts their ability to derive revenue to pay the food supplier, their tax bill, and so forth.
Similarly, if businesses are having to charge higher prices and wages are depressed due to UBI + <other wage>, will people have the money to afford goods and services at the higher rate?
> For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it becomes increasingly unviable for the business to stay in business. Once they shutter their doors, the tax base and employment decreases.
That's a big assumption. As long as there is demand in a free market, they will stay in business and prices will adjust accordingly.
Or not, since they might get more business from all these people who now have a minimum income. Also consider that the trend is for operational costs to go down with continued automation of the whole production chain.
The OP's point about certain businesses disappearing is valid. Just as an example, pizza parlors may disappear. Instead that demand will be satiated by highly efficient instant delivery services (with no storefront and almost no staff) or perhaps not at all. Do you see many elevator attendants lately?
Also to be clear, we're not talking about anything remotely like a free market.
I managed >1TB Postgres installs using not-fancy tools and we did just fine. The How:
Installing databases was pretty easy. We wrote DDLs for our databases and created shell scripts that would leverage pgsql via the command line to create the databases with all our desired extensions, plugins, functions, and schemas. Repeatable every time by even the least trained IT guy on the staff. Data loading was a little more finicky, but that was easily doable by using pgdump if we were coming from an existing database and it was executable by shell script.
Stats wise, we wrote stored functions in the database that would leverage the built in, and excellent, stats API. Our management system would execute a shell script that leveraged PGSQL to execute the stored procedure(s) and pass the resulting values to our graphing and system monitoring software. Standard setup on each DB box. Worked like a champ.
For managing configuration files, we preferred to be hands on and edit pgconf directly as each database box ended up being a little different in terms of needs and we would annotate the configuration file with notes to selves about why settings were the way they were.
How do other services do this via console? They interface with the database API directly (like you can do) and make an interface to trigger the commands they're executing.
This is my biggest gripe with the modern technology industry. We've gone from "you have the background and skills to do the work - here's how we do what we do" to "You don't check these thirty boxes specific to our company?! No job for you!" It's getting rather absurd, especially when you're job hunting and the recruiters give you the "you have an impressive background and could do this work, BUT you don't have <exact ten things> ergo we'll pass." Very few people take the route of finding talent then training them up. Companies willing to take the time to train their people and focus on finding raw talent they can mold will make a killing. Not only will the people be trained exactly how you want them, but I'd argue they'd be cheaper and you could tie compensation increases to hitting defined mile marks in the training program or demonstrating competencies.
From the flip side, I see the company concern - kind of. If I bring in raw talent and train it, I've sunk $X into the talent and if they leave shortly thereafter, I'm out $X with no benefit. The counterpoint to that argument, I think are signing bonuses and defined time contracts. In exchange for us training you to do this job and completing the program, you get a signing bonus of $X at the start, $Y at the end, and sign a 2 year agreement to work here. If you leave beforehand you agree to payback the $X+Y signing bonus (unless laid off by the company).
There are ways to address the "skills shortage". The problem is, no one wants to take the time and the cost to do it.
Playing devil's advocate, could this also be a means by which Amazon increases their influence in the book selling world by decreasing the value of the title of "best selling" author? In the traditional sense, we think of best selling authors as achieving certain sales numbers in a given time period (NYT Best Seller's List for instance) where access to the club is limited by the amount of space on the list. In terms of a writing career, it used to be an illustrious achievement to make one of the major newspapers' best seller lists and became an advertising perk for later writing and speaking endeavors.
Now, with the advent of Amazon, anyone can be a best seller based on very fine grained categories (as shown here) but claim the same accolades based on the title of Best Selling Author. A lot of people accept the title at face value. Over time, this shifts the power from the traditional lists to Amazon since Amazon has most of the power in determining who gets a "best seller" label and at what granularity.
I think this is what the author is really concerned about. In the article he mentions his job consists of working with authors to promote their books and their metric of success is aiming for the NYT best seller's list. If that list loses its value and the cache of being a NYT Best Selling Author decreases, then the author's value add to an individual author is diminished thereby threatening his underlying business model as it stands now.
Depending on the category, roughly 3,000 to 9,000 sales in a week will get you near the top of one of the NYT lists.
It's basically the same deal as Amazon, but on a bigger scale. Unfortunately it's not that much harder to game if you have spare cash and/or plenty of friends and/or followers and/or a significant marketing budget.
Not many people understand that sales can peak and dwindle rapidly. Unless you're J.K Rowling or George R.R. Martin, many books typically get a week of marketing effort at most.
So it's not unusual to hit the lists for the first week with - say - 10,000 copies, but only sell another 5,000 - 10,000 copies in the next 12 months.
This may be enough of a reason for a publisher to drop an author. Even after a book gets the coveted NYT best-seller tag, total royalties may still not cover a modest initial advance.
Staying on the lists for a long time is a whole other game, and much more of an accolade than getting on the lists in the first place.
Speaking from personal experience, I think a lot of them end up in the boat of having just enough paying customers that the idea looks viable but not getting enough long term traction to go from niche product surviving on raised capital to self-sustaining. Riding the initial public interest wave a bunch of people signup and the revenue projections look really good which lets the company go raise more capital to keep going, but over time, the company taps out their customer base and their revenue growth flatlines and ultimately they can't jump from niche product running on capital to self sustaining.
A lot of these postmortems, I think end up with CEOs looking at metrics, especially the early growth metrics, -- and they want to be successful, most of the time it's their baby -- and seeing enough interest to make them think they're close. Ergo, the "only if we had more time/money" postmortems.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with you here and argue that understanding some facets of psychology (perhaps wrapped in a broader definition of people skills) are essential to long term success managing teams and projects.
Specifically, understanding Goal-Setting Theory, Motivation Theory, and Self-Regulation Theory can provide substantial insights into why people think the way they do and give managers a framework to understand their employees and how their actions will impact their motivation and goals. The book PeopleWare touches on this a little bit when they discuss the role of autonomy in improving worker performance. Knowing that people like to feel ownership of their work and projects helps me, as a manager, guide the team and work on framing things in terms of my direct reports exercising autonomy rather than me dictating. They'll be happier and feel more involved in the work and as a result, the quality of work will be higher.
This isn't to say you need to be a life coach, therapist, and parental figure wrapped up in one. That's not your job -- though team member's lives will impact their work at some point and you'll need to empathetic. Your job to is to guide your team to meeting their objectives and understanding part of the human psyche and what motivates people will make you better at this job. Hands down.
I'd add to that some understanding about major personality types/dimensions. Being able to recognize them helps you in negotiations, assigning people to roles etc.
Yes! Best way to keep up with blogs and websites I like, especially ones that don't update very often, and avoid a lot of the cruft that can make the websites themselves hard to use.
Moved over to Feedly after Google Reader shut down and it's been fantastic.
A couple of questions I've found helpful when talking to startups are as follows:
1) What is the funding situation like - specifically, how much capital is available, is any of it tied to contingencies (i.e. hitting a sales number), what are your plans for getting more if it runs out/is there investor interest in giving you more?
2) When do you expect to be cash-flow positive? (incoming cash >= expenses)
3) What's your burn rate? More specifically, given the current rate of cash burn, when is drop dead?
4) When do you anticipate being able to make a decision on whether to bring me on full time if I join you as a contract-to-hire worker?
5) What's the duration of the contract and what are the renewal options if we don't go full time hire?
It's the same strategy the Japanese tried using in WWII to turn islands into stationary aircraft carriers. So long as you can keep them resupplied, it works to a certain degree. The moment the supply line gets into trouble, the island starts losing its ability to project power. Replacement parts, supplies for the ground crews, etc. all start disappearing. As a deterrent, they make a great show piece, as a practical matter, it's possible to either exhaust their supplies and bypass or take them out via other means.
Realistically, in the event of hostilities, we wouldn't send in the air force to take the islands out. We'd launch a bunch of sea skimming cruise missiles from a submarine or a special forces raid onto the island to punch a hole in the air defense grid then let the planes through. We did something similar in Gulf War I & Gulf War II. Planes only went in after other forces ensured the air defense grid wouldn't be defending much.
War is Boring had an interesting article last year basically making the same argument, that the way for the U.S. to win a war with China would be to focus on disrupting its maritime supply lines: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/to-defeat-china-in-a-confli...
That's only during wartime though. At present it is purely a show of force and a way to prevent the US advising "their" airspace.
If they do want to sell a couple to Turkey, then a US plane being "accidentally" being downed by one due to operator error, would make for a good advertisement. I'm such a cynic.
Right now it's being used to build out the Air Defense Identification Zone they claimed over the south china sea a couple years ago and back up their claim with the threat of shoot down. By projecting force over the South China Sea, they, in essence, use the islands to turn it into their own private lake and effectively take over what are considered international waters render moot the ongoing arguments at the UN regarding islands and mineral rights. If the geological estimates concerning the amount of oil in the SCS are correct, it's a major coup and has the possibility of turning China into a net oil producer.
As an air defense base, yes. As a FOB for non-wartime activities, no. As a defensible base in an all out war, yes.
That said, I can't imagine Diego Garcia's primary role is to act as a buffer/barrier so the two aren't really comparable in that way. After all, it has:
"two parallel 12,000-foot-long (3,700 m) runways, expansive parking aprons for heavy bombers, 20 new anchorages in the lagoon, a deep-water pier, port facilities for the largest naval vessels in the American or British fleet, aircraft hangars, maintenance buildings and an air terminal, a 1,340,000 barrels (213,000 m3) fuel storage area, and billeting and messing facilities for thousands of sailors and support personnel."
Is this comparable to what the is being done by the Chinese?
The comment I reacted to mentioned the strategy of the Japanese in World War Two. They had islands with lots of infrastructure (for the time), too.
I think the problem for the Japanese was that they didn't have enough ships. Knowing that, they went for the island approach. Doing that, they gave up mobility in exchange for size and robustness. The mobility of the US navy allowed the US to concentrate firepower and take an island at a time. If distances between islands were smaller the Japanese might have been able to better defend against the US by rapidly moving planes and infantry between islands.
They also didn't have enough planes, the ability to make significantly better ones due to the engines, and not enough pilots (they didn't change to war tempo pilot instruction until way too late). They really had no business getting into a war with a mature and robust industrial power like us, their only hope was breaking our will and that, at best, would have only happened when we started invading the home islands.
The war was all but over after the South Pacific campaign which started with our landing in Guadalcanal. Neither of us did anything particularly clever there, besides our only neutralizing vs. taking Rabaul, it was just a brutal slugfest where, for example, in one night action we lost two rear admirals (2 stars). By the end of it, IJN airpower, land and carrier based, was broken, and most of that was done by US land based aviation. For a really in depth look this book is highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813338697
You do have a point about our tactic of defeat in detail, when we were willing to expend enough lives and material we could and did take islands as we needed. I guess one of their big mistakes was thinking they could stop that for any particularly island with their air and naval forces in the region.
Diego Garcia is not part of a defensive line, it is a force multiplier. The problem with using an island chain to defend yourself is that you must keep all the islands supplied, and this is a logistical nightmare. A single island is much easier to supply and defend.
Diego Garcia is a single island, more like Malta than the Japanese islands and islets. Diego Garcia's capacity for basing large strategic bombers close to potential conflict zones is a huge force multiplier, much like basing aircraft in Malta allowed the Allies to disrupt axis resupply efforts to North Africa.
As with all other Forward Operating Bases (FOB), it will face the same challenges as any island during conflict. If you can exhaust the island's supplies and constrict replenishment, the utility of the island diminishes. In the case of Diego Garcia, assuming a conflict with China, they lack the force projection capabilities to effectively shut down the flow of supplies to DG. (Assuming the US submarine force > chinese submarine force in capability). Their best bet would be to render it inert using cruise missile and non-nuclear ICBM strikes to disable the runways, mine the anchorages, and destroy the fuel supplies. Bonus points if they can sink ships in the lagoon.
It's unfortunately common that once you're salaried, your compensation is capped at $X/yr for 40hr/week of work but it's reasonable for managers to demand extra hours above the 40 without increasing compensation accordingly. Rereading my last employment contract, the stipulation was I was paid assuming 40hrs/week, but the office expectation was 40 was a floor. 50-60 was more the norm. The whole salary exempt from overtime thing gets to be annoying quick.
Part of me thinks I should start invoicing employers for time spent at work over the 40hrs, charging an overtime rate, or something to increase compensation in exchange for the lost time, or modifying the contract accordingly if there's not an alternate compensation mechanism like comp time offered. The one employer I've worked at who was good about this let you disappear from the office if you hit your 80hrs for a 2wk pay period.
There is another side to this though: I am salary and I can work 6 hour days. My boss won't bat an eye. I can come and go when I want. I can take 2 hour lunches, whatever I want.
Obviously there's a limit, and this is highly dependent on where you work, but I love being salary vs being hourly.
Good luck getting anywhere on this front with without both working in an in demand field and having a competing offer in hand when you ask for (demand) a raise.
> Rereading my last employment contract, the stipulation was I was paid assuming 40hrs/week, but the office expectation was 40 was a floor. 50-60 was more the norm. The whole salary exempt from overtime thing gets to be annoying quick.
That's only because if you refuse someone else will step in to take your place under those terms. Collective bargaining can be a powerful aid with things like that.
For the sake of argument, think about businesses with razor thin margins like restaurants. In the presence of increased taxes, their margins significantly diminish, if not vanish, and it becomes increasingly unviable for the business to stay in business. Once they shutter their doors, the tax base and employment decreases. Extending the argument, consider other organizations that have a healthier margin and are growing and hiring. The presence of substantially increased taxation raises the costs of growth (re: hiring) and raises the costs of employing Americans and earning money in America which reduces their ability to compensate employees / develop new products etc. Yes, they might have the margin to pay the increased tax rate, but the tradeoff is they lose money that goes into R&D, increasing salaries, hiring more people, and other business activities we think are good and useful.
As a consumer, I'm also curious to know what this does to my cost of living. Prices will not stay static and if businesses are incurring higher costs to produce goods and services, those get reflected in price. Given wages aren't keeping pace with inflation, what will a sudden price shock do to the cost of living in the face of businesses adjusting prices to address the new taxes? This could take people who are getting by now and turn them into a new wave of impoverished as necessary goods and services increase in price or it could prevent UBI from achieving its goal because prices keep rising to offset the tax rate which puts goods and services outside what people can afford on UBI.