I think the 'vibe' is part of the problem. It's somewhat dishonest.
Why do all companies need to be 'family?' Can't we just respect each other as we get the job done and go home to our actual families? The 'company culture' is a ruse to get employees to have loyalty where the company does not reciprocate.
what the commentor said, may not be true, but you didn't actually make an argument or at least back it up with anything.
as far as I can tell, your comment boils down to 'hiring internal compliance employees/consultants is not a waste.'
but you didn't say anything to back up that the money going to compliance is not a drag. What value does it add to the business? It seems it just prevents catastrophe (legal problems) and has its own costs (termed 'drag') but doesn't add business value as it does not contribute to the USP of product/service to the customer.
Even in your own case, if compliance takes any % of time there is an opportunity cost: you can't work on something that adds to the product/service because that time is spent on compliance.
I wear my seatbelt everyday when I drive my car because I'm expecting a car accident. Strangely enough, it has yet to happen and I have yet to need my seatbelt. What a waste!
There’s an element of intent which your sarcastic response doesn’t really account for. But yes clearly everyone who wears a helmet to a protest does not intend to start a physical attack.
That doesn’t mean it’s not an effective preventative measure and de-escalating technique.
Police standards and the populace's standards of what constitutes legal gathering and protest are often quite different, as evidenced by the unnecessarily harsh deployments against protesters as seen in Hong Kong and less recently in the US. More often than not, police forces make the first move in otherwise legitimate protests either with direct oppression, false-flag tactics, or unnecessary displays of force (or potential force).
A helmet is entirely necessary in peaceful protests because the authorities resisting the demands of the protest do not play fair.
RE: Reversing Transactions
- I'd call it a necessity for any currency. Cash works this way.
It's a middleman or escrow who performs this service. Credit Cards and banks act as the middlemen to reverse transactions. No reason cryptos can't have those too. I imagine Uphold or Coinbase or whoever can serve this function.
as far as people being thieved I would agree that it is important to shore up computer security. Physical wallets and stashes of cash also are stolen when security is lax. Again, a middleman might play a role to secure, just as banks do for USD/EUR /etc. Giving money to a bank is essentially delegating the protection of your savings. The alternative being a home safe or under a mattress where the security remains the holder's responsibility.
concerning 'controlled by a non-democratic entity'
I'd say it's a step sideways.
The USD or any fiat currency is not controlled democratically or by a democratic entity either. When was the last time we heard of a vote before increasing the money supply of a nation's currency? If there is a vote, it is done by people who have not been democratically elected.
>I think the most important thing is not using Slack or avoiding Slack, it's building a culture that allows people to opt-out of it, without any sort of penalty, perceived or otherwise.
The new book "Indistractable" makes exactly this point. Incidentally it also talks about how the Slack company uses Slack, and this is exactly their point, too.
The book goes on to talk about "Psychological Safety." In this case, defined as the lack of '>any sort of penalty'
I suppose it depends on how those programs are funded/achieved. If they are funded via something that acts as monetary stimulus (just print the money to pay for it) then I imagine there would be a heavy burden of resulting inflation.
wages seem to be the last thing that rise with general inflation, and as such don't rise as much as other prices, especially the ones mentioned: housing, schooling.
I think the data bears this out, looking at 'real wages' vs inflation-adjusted cost of housing/schooling.
I could see how other sorts of stimulus would be preferable in this case though. All depends on who gets the benefit of spending new money on old prices.
Going back a comment, it depends on if you got into the loan (school, house) before the inflation. Or locked in a low rate. Always nice to pay back money that's worth much less.
> 1. inflating the money supply[0] has a usual consequence of price inflation[1].
Except this hasn't been the case for well over a decade in the U.S., and for several decades in Japan. The money doesn't trickle down, it just sits in reserve because nobody wants to invest it in capital goods, labor, etc.
And monetary policy doesn't even seem to be the primary culprit of asset inflation. Profits sit in reserve, too, and the past 15+ years of global profits have been enormous.
Say what you will about Elon Musk's financial profligacy, but the man plows money into capital goods and labor. And the fact that he's plowing other people's money is what makes it so laudable. We need more salesmen like him who can convince investors to actually invest.
The FED did something different the last recession. The "last 15 years," as you say, have been different because the FED started paying interest on excess reserves. This is the reason for the new money to just sit. It provides incentive NOT to lend, a risk free return for the commercial banks. It has counteracted the loose monetary policy.
this has been the reason we haven't seen the usual price inflation from QE
This same factor (FED giving interest on excess reserves) can also account for profits sitting in reserve.
But I suppose now it seems like I'm arguing both ways... (Inflation! & NOT Inflation!) I'll have to take a step back.
+1 on Elon Musk, or at least the sentiment you described
I don't know what this means - investors are on a constant search for yield especially now and that has taken them into riskier assets. The trend of the last decade is exactly opposite what you are saying.
That said, you are correct that rising money supply doesn't automatically translate into rising prices
> rising prices disproportionately affects the poor who must spend a greater percentage of their income on needed goods.
Inflation has a cause, and often that cause is beneficial to the working class. For instance, a rise in the minimum wage or increased workers' union power would increase prices, and disproportionately benefit the poor. If assets don't increase in value, inflation erodes the wealth of the investor class.
as for other causes: you are arguing minimum wage benefits the poor but raises prices as does increase in union power. I don't quite follow...
Minimum Wage: It seems you are ignoring ("the forgotten man") workers displaced by minimum wage (and increased barrier to entry of no/low-skill labor). Then arguing that the increased income for those who receive it as a raise either offsets the inevitable price increase in consumer goods or is worth it due to the time it takes for the consumer goods to find equilibrium with the new minimum. You may well say this is preferable to monetary stimulus which the banks and rich receive first and get the benefit of the time it takes for a new equilibrium to be reached.
Union power: benefit to protected union workers, subsidized by all consumers (who must pay the increased price of goods the union effects). this works out to just be special treatment. Granted, some may prefer we treat this class (working-poor, low-middle class) as special as opposed to that class (ie rich, upper-middle class). To each their own.
> Inflation has a cause, and often that cause is beneficial to the working class
While what you are saying might be applicable at other times, it does not follow that inflation can only be caused by things good for the working class.
Current inflation seems to be the result of an ongoing housing bubble, and other mandatory finance-based expenses. This is decidedly bad for the working class, or really everybody who doesn't already own the inflating assets.
This inflation also seems like the direct result of the overt policy to erase the natural deflation of manufacturing and technology to keep everyone working "full time", when human labor is needed less and less.
> This inflation also seems like the direct result of the overt policy to erase the natural deflation of manufacturing and technology to keep everyone working "full time", when human labor is needed less and less.
A low minimum wage combined with in-work welfare benefits essentially subsidises labour for employers, and is deflationary. Inflation would be naturally higher if not for such government policy.
Indeed. The Great Depression was precipitated by deflation in Europe, with deflation being a side-effect of the gold standard. Deflation leads to labor cuts (why invest if you can get richer sitting on your money?), which Europe struggled with throughout the 1920s. And eventually the Europeans deflated themselves into poverty; they stopped buying American goods and stopped investing in American stocks, and the whole house of cards came crumbling down.
We've had modern capitalism for, what, 150-200 years, now? And the one consistent thing we know about capitalism is that money accumulates at the top. Moderate inflation is one way to counter that dynamic, albeit an increasingly ineffective one. Inflation makes people feel insecure, but like with everything else the "security" of a very low inflation or deflationary environment will benefit capitalists far more than labor.
How does moderate inflation counter money clustering at the top?
It seems to me that it exacerbates the problem as 'the top' are fixated on assets and inflation tends to inflate those: "The rich get richer."
The working class, on the other hand, faces higher consumer prices with a delay in increasing wages and, having less 'disposable' income, is strongly affected. "and the poor get poorer"
Also, the lower-to-middle class must somehow navigate stocks or some assets in a 401k/IRA just to protect the purchasing power of whatever nestegg they try to grow (whether it's retirement, or putting kids thru college). Can't just keep that money safe in a savings account (paying 0.1%), it will erode.
> How does moderate inflation counter money clustering at the top?
Because inflation creates a use-it-or-lose-it scenario. With inflation you have to invest your money, otherwise your net wealth will decrease.
Returns from investments are also delayed for investors. Inflation can be difficult for everybody, but no matter what the situation is wealthy investors will have an easier time accumulating and holding wealth than others. This is no surprise, so saying that inflation can hurt the poor is not saying anything. What matters is that deflation is evenworse for labor, as is the instability from naive attempts to keep things at 0%.
The point is that if you want to maximize the redistribution of wealth, you need to coax the investor class to actually invest in things. Moderate inflation is one tool in that toolbox. It's not the only tool, and maybe not even the best tool, but moderate inflation has that function. The problem is that there are many other dynamics at play, too.
Showing that wealth inequality has exploded since the 1970s-1980s, overlaying graphs that show a contemporaneous correlation with inflation targets or whatever your boogeyman, and then suggestively wiggling your eyebrows, doesn't prove anything causative. It may suggest that your inflation targets are ineffective, but doesn't tell you why. (Don't forget that the Bretton Woods systems ended because of the pressure increasing global trade was putting on the dollar and the American economy.)
A multitude of things have been ongoing since the 1970s and 1980s--explosions in global trade and the global economy, massive tax decreases for the wealthy, dismantling of pension systems, etc. All of these things are known and were expected to put downward pressure on wages. They're more than sufficient to explain the trend, and there's no reason to believe that the trend contradicts what we know about the basics of economics. What we are learning is that there are other systemic forces that were previously unknown or poorly understood and which are more powerful than believed.
People keep banging on QE, QE, QE. But global asset wealth is about $300 trillion. QE in both the U.S. and Europe at best injected a few trillion. Why is so much cash just sitting around? Maybe because there's $300 trillion of it! Where is most of it coming from? The industrialization of the so-called third-world. Why is so much of it sitting in the U.S. and European countries? Because of dollar-denominated trade, corruption, risk averseness, and a host of other complex factors.
The labor class is intrinsically vulnerable. It doesn't take much of a change in investor behavior to really screw them over, and you don't need wild conspiracy theories or new physics to explain it. The explanations are out in the open.
I think service for any of these companies is highly variable and dependent upon locale. Perhaps it's a culture thing.
The USPS worker never rings my doorbell for left packages and just yesterday a package was delivered damaged in my mailbox.
I live in a nice part of town (I think) but the service culture here may be different than where you live (and different than other locales where I've resided).
Completely agree. Multiple times I've had USPS drivers report packages as "delivered" late in the day when they were not delivered at all, then they are actually delivered the next day. Sure makes their metrics look better, though.
I think the 'vibe' is part of the problem. It's somewhat dishonest.
Why do all companies need to be 'family?' Can't we just respect each other as we get the job done and go home to our actual families? The 'company culture' is a ruse to get employees to have loyalty where the company does not reciprocate.
reminds me a bit of the blog post: <https://www.yegor256.com/2015/10/06/how-to-be-good-office-sl...