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Sundae posted:This applies pretty much everywhere. My manufacturing operators in Indiana started at $20+ an hour plus benefits and 1.5X overtime as a default, and some of our more experienced ops or people working on high-risk processes (as in, gently caress up and we lose tens of millions of bucks) would be in the $30+ hourly range. This is for HS diplomas, GEDs, etc. We honestly had the best, hardest-working, and (important in pharma manufacturing) most careful operators I've ever seen. We almost never had problems that could be traced back to operator issues. Haha, oh gosh, I used to work in pharma manufacturing (and may do so once again), and this gave me flashbacks. The company I worked for had quite possibly the most bone-headed hiring practices I have ever experienced. About 60-70% of the Manufacturing Techs were full-time employees. Good pay - not great, but better than a lot of stuff in the surrounding area - decent yearly holiday allowance, benefits, set schedules without any mucking around, overtime if you wanted it, etc. Most of these people liked the job. It came with a lot of responsibility (drop a box and yeah you've just shattered millions of dollars worth of drugs) but it was worth it. People cared, there was a real sense of comradeship and purpose. The remaining 30-40% of MTs were temp workers, not employed directly by the company but by an outside staffing agency. Minimum wage, no holiday, could be fired on-the-spot without any reason, could be laid off without warning en mass if there was a lull in work. If there was something poo poo that needed doing, inevitably the temps would be sent to do it, but they had exactly the same level of responsibility as a full employee. These jobs were not advertised as pharma manufacturing but instead as "warehouse work" and 90% of these temps looked like deer in headlights when they turned up and saw what the place actually was, many of them being asked to work in a giant fridge or in air hoods. Most of them didn't last a week and I don't blame them. On top of that, the company would never advertise for openings - only promote from temps. They were constantly short-staffed and seemed to have no idea why.
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Jan 15, 2018 11:57
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Hungry posted:Haha, oh gosh, I used to work in pharma manufacturing (and may do so once again), and this gave me flashbacks. The company I worked for had quite possibly the most bone-headed hiring practices I have ever experienced. When I worked in aircraft, about half the people at the factory were temps. They were on six month contracts, and were eligible to be hired on after a certain point, which happened maybe 20% of the time. They were paid poo poo, no benefits, by an outside agency, all that. But the thought of getting hired on with the rest of us was enough to get a few to stick it out and do good work. Still, that's like 30% of your staff being temps that don't give a poo poo. All the same issues.
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Jan 15, 2018 16:11
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Star Man posted:If you have to ask, then they don't have openings nor do they provide benefits. The only benefit Amazon gives is that Bezos fucks your wife.
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Jan 15, 2018 16:15
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MiddleOne posted:Whomever it was before that stated that companies exist to provide goods and/or services for profit really needs to go back to college and study some basic finance because that's not the name of the game anymore.
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Jan 15, 2018 16:23
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ryonguy posted:lol if you think completely unsustainable business models for short term profit is a reasonable situation that needs to be perpetuated. Just because corporations forgot how to function due to an over-reliance on paper tricks to increase cash flow at the expense of actual revenue streams doesn't mean the fundamentals of a private enterprise have changed; financial gimmicks are not the end all and be all of private industry no matter what MBA douches say. This, plus at the high end some of the better schools are really pushing heavily into changing their curriculum. It will be horribly long process to fight back against years of inertia in business practice, but places like Harvard, Oxford, Columbia ect... have all been working with MNCs to start fixing the structural problems with the shareholder first and only mentality.
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Jan 15, 2018 16:28
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ryonguy posted:lol if you think completely unsustainable business models for short term profit is a reasonable situation that needs to be perpetuated. Just because corporations forgot how to function due to an over-reliance on paper tricks to increase cash flow at the expense of actual revenue streams doesn't mean the fundamentals of a private enterprise have changed; financial gimmicks are not the end all and be all of private industry no matter what MBA douches say. Yeah you're right I'm sure capitalism will start "functioning" correctly any time now. The fact that it never has before and there is no proposed mechanism by which it will, that's probably irrelevant. Any day now, those noble-minded captains of industry, who totally exist, will right the ship, I'm sure.
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Jan 15, 2018 16:32
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crazy cloud posted:Yeah you're right I'm sure capitalism will start "functioning" correctly any time now. The fact that it never has before and there is no proposed mechanism by which it will, that's probably irrelevant. Any day now, those noble-minded captains of industry, who totally exist, will right the ship, I'm sure.  There are multiple groups of businesses and schools that are each attempting to tackle these problems. Like I said in my last post, it is hardly an easy task, but work is being done to try to right this sinking ship. Triple bottom line, the conscious capitalism movement, the completing capitalism research program, ect are out there and are interesting topics for those with enough brain power to think critically beyond "full communism now" as the only answer.
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Jan 15, 2018 17:05
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And as soon as they notice they get more money to continue loving poo poo up, they'll continue loving poo poo up.
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Jan 15, 2018 17:07
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SpaceCadetBob posted:
lol @ runnin around talking poo poo about other people's brainpower when your amazing analytical powers still have yet to figure out that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that private property is theft, my guy
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Jan 15, 2018 17:40
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Unbelievably Fat Man posted:The only benefit Amazon gives is that Bezos fucks your wife. Do you have an actual complaint? I'm curious about the thread in general, in a competitive retail environment it isn't Amazon that kills businesses, it's customers choosing a better option for themselves. So when you complain about Amazon it sounds like Ludditism. Like what is the actual Amazon specific complaint? I mean separately from our economic and financial system. As far as I can see customers are voting with thier dollars. Money is speech and they are voting for the person they want to win.
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Jan 15, 2018 17:45
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SpaceCadetBob posted:
This is not untrue. But you know what I found, only 20-30 % of the students buy it. The remaining 70-80 % are just looking to jump through the hoop get the masters / credentials. Of the ones that buy it half are competent. Then there are the groups that are doing the opposite. We need a larger change.
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Jan 15, 2018 17:47
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BrandorKP posted:This is not untrue. Union dues should be pulled from politics and used to buy majority shares in publicly traded companies and convert the firms to employee owned and controlled companies, or sell them into Mondragon. Start with the smallest firms and keep reinvesting part of the profit and work the list until every publicly traded company is Union or employee owned and controlled.
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Jan 15, 2018 17:56
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At the very least we should put labor on boards, on all boards.
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Jan 15, 2018 18:04
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KingFisher posted:Do you have an actual complaint? Lmao
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Jan 15, 2018 18:06
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Even dumbass capitalists put up good faith arguments to break up amazon
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Jan 15, 2018 18:08
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I guess the one good thing about PE firms is that they prevent monopolies by tanking the most successful and highly valued companies
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Jan 15, 2018 18:10
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To wit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NyFRIgulPo
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Jan 15, 2018 18:11
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KingFisher posted:Like what is the actual Amazon specific complaint? And they do basically nothing about fake reviews or their search function being garbage for a lot of product types, because they're big enough that they don't have to care. Also the whole monopoly threat thing. Rated PG-34 posted:Even dumbass capitalists put up good faith arguments to break up amazon
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Jan 15, 2018 18:12
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Inescapable Duck posted:And as soon as they notice they get more money to continue loving poo poo up, they'll continue loving poo poo up. never underestimate greed
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Jan 15, 2018 18:13
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crazy cloud posted:Yeah you're right I'm sure capitalism will start "functioning" correctly any time now. The fact that it never has before and there is no proposed mechanism by which it will, that's probably irrelevant. Any day now, those noble-minded captains of industry, who totally exist, will right the ship, I'm sure. I want to nationalize energy, food, telecoms, and housing; you're getting mad at the wrong guy. I'm just pointing out that the current stupidity isn't really functional even under capitalism.
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Jan 15, 2018 18:13
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KingFisher posted:Union dues should be pulled from politics and used to buy majority shares in publicly traded companies and convert the firms to employee owned and controlled companies, or sell them into Mondragon. Start with the smallest firms and keep reinvesting part of the profit and work the list until every publicly traded company is Union or employee owned and controlled. would you honestly take stock options over a pension working for a company?
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Jan 15, 2018 18:14
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I don't see why, any of these companies can easily be taken out if someone actually put in the effort to compete with them. If bing was an actual alternative to google all it would take is some effort into making a decent search engine since the barriers to entry to switch search engines is practically nil There's a reason why google always invests in creating dumb software apps like google plus and all their other useless shjt they end up dropping support for, they have to stay ahead of the competition
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Jan 15, 2018 18:16
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BrandorKP posted:This is not untrue. No doubt. A complete rewriting of financial and business regulations is definitely in order. So many things need to change it is almost impossible to pick a starting point. But even a few people and businesses on the other side of the coin starting to realize what a colossal mess they've made will only make these changes easier.
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Jan 15, 2018 18:30
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It's been a ongoing topic on the Marketplace "Make me smart" podcast.
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Jan 15, 2018 18:36
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I think if you just kill like the top 10% of capitalists every year that would be excellent motivation for people with the knowledge and connections to make the changes necessary for capitalism to be less hated and reviled.
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Jan 15, 2018 18:58
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KingFisher posted:Like what is the actual Amazon specific complaint? I’m interested in responses to this question too. Monopoly threat notwithstanding, Amazon is pretty good for consumers right now IMO—this is how they got to be so dominant in retail. The guy complaining earlier about Amazon’s shipping and search is missing the big picture which is that, while it would be nice if they could be better, Amazon still is miles ahead of their competitors.
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Jan 15, 2018 20:38
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The issue with Amazon’s shipping is that they’re regressing - I’ve had more problems with their in-house shipping in the last six months than all the years I’ve used UPS/Fedex/USPS. I know they’re trying to save money, but they need to do a better job with training and procedures, or give up doing it themselves.
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Jan 15, 2018 20:44
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Is their in house shipping mostly a East/West coast thing? Last I knew everything I ordered from them comes UPS and ships fine, but then again I live in the rural nightmare zone of central Kansas, so...
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Jan 15, 2018 22:55
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If you live in the Puget Sound area, amazon is the most reliable delivery mechanism available.
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Jan 15, 2018 23:01
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HEY NONG MAN posted:If you live in the Puget Sound area, amazon is the most reliable delivery mechanism available. Not if you're on the Canadian side of that area...
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Jan 15, 2018 23:01
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Magius1337est posted:I guess the one good thing about PE firms is that they prevent monopolies by tanking the most successful and highly valued companies That's not what they do at all. Market leaders have very little potential for explosive growth so what they typically pick up is market followers which strengthens the position of the market leader in the long-term. ryonguy posted:I want to nationalize energy, food, telecoms, and housing; you're getting mad at the wrong guy. I'm just pointing out that the current stupidity isn't really functional even under capitalism. Who said anything about functional? I'm just stating that this is the current state of affairs and that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Magius1337est posted:I don't see why, any of these companies can easily be taken out if someone actually put in the effort to compete with them. It's not that simple, some of the biggest corporations on the planet with massive war-chests have tried and failed. Microsoft couldn't compete with Google on search engines, Google couldn't compete with Facebook on social media, companies are still struggling to catch up to Amazon's early lead on cloud-based web-hosting. A problem with a lot of internet businesses is that they are what we economists like to call 'natural monopolies'. That is, some aspect of how they function make them fundamentally unsuited for competition. High-barriers to entry, economies of scale effects, limited access to resources or network externality effects are usually the causes. Google's search engine is the most classic example of this of all time and right up there with railroads. Modern search engines (unlike the ones that came before google and yahoo) get better the more they get used. This means that by the time Yahoo started losing the arms-race the chances of any competitor ever entering the arena again without government intervention was zero. The cost of delivering a competing product would be astronomical and the odds of ever catching up slim, so it doesn't happen. Let me count googles current monopolies: 1. Youtube, complete dominance in a staggering number of countries 2. Google, between 80-90% market share in most countries (notable exceptions being Russia and China) 3. Android OS, the de-facto most used mobile operating system on the planet Google is well aware of this and it's also why they capitalize on it further by tethering these services to each other to facilitate creating extensive intermingling network externalities. You talk about the barriers to entry to switch being zero but Google has intentionally made it so that is is not so. That's why they started tethering free services that they operated on a loss to the search engine like Youtube and Gmail. In any other sector this would be recognized as the anti-competitive price-dumping (which it is) but in tech were the law is seemingly never catching up it's all fair game. Internet explorer was not dominant for as long as it was because it was a great product, it was so because it came bundled with another monopoly (Windows) giving it an inherently unfair advantage against competitors which was really only shaken up thanks to smartphones. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and increasingly Apple are all in the monopoly-building game. If you believe it's in our interest as consumers then you are a sucker. Content creators on Youtube being arbitrarily bled dry, Facebook driving news-organizations worldwide by 'borrowing' their content and Amazon's ever-increasing list of labor abuses and supplier shakedowns are our canaries in the coal-mine. MiddleOne fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 00:31
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MiddleOne posted:That's not what they do at all. Market leaders have very little potential for explosive growth so what they typically pick up is market followers which strengthens the position of the market leader in the long-term. Good post! So the question becomes how you can use antitrust to break them up? Like I could see forcing alphabet to break up search from YouTube from services. Same with amazon I guess forcing a split between physical products, digital, and AWS. Facebook though, no idea there.
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Jan 16, 2018 00:49
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MiddleOne posted:Internet explorer was not dominant for as long as it was because it was a great product, it was so because it came bundled with another monopoly (Windows) giving it an inherently unfair advantage against competitors which was really only shaken up thanks to smartphones. It was a great product though. Netscape had been the dominant and paid browser, which was "better", but it's advancements stopped (largely due to making bad decisions on how to progress from versions 3 and 4). In the meantime, IE forced them to a free for most people model and didn't essentially halt development in late 98, so it was hands down the best browser from basically 1998 up til 2004. Particularly in the early years of IE dominance, the competition was a laugh. Among other things, Opera was simply not working right with web standards for a long time plus it was either ads or paid. Projects like Konqueror usually had obtuse interfaces and only full support on nerd alternative operating systems, as well as having rendering issues. It's too easy for the foolish to forget that IE wasn't eternally IE 6 in 2010, an outdated browser that was still being used, or the later versions that couldn't make up for the technical debt incurred since Microsoft had decided new IE versions should be tied to new Windows releases - so when Longhorn's original 2004 release ended up being Vista's 2006 release, poo poo got out of whack. It was the best, most standards compliant and most stable browser you could get. SpaceCadetBob posted:Good post! So the question becomes how you can use antitrust to break them up? Like I could see forcing alphabet to break up search from YouTube from services. Same with amazon I guess forcing a split between physical products, digital, and AWS. Facebook though, no idea there. You don't. Because that makes no sense to do. All you're doing is creating multiple monopolies at that point which doesn't really help. Think: if you split up a company that used to be the monopoly provider and owner of say, the electric utility and the gas utility, they'll individually be a monopoly electric provider and monopoly gas provider. fishmech fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 00:51
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The search engine thing isn't barriers to entry, it's network effects. There's a whole industry of SEO helping google get its results right.
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Jan 16, 2018 00:55
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Baronjutter posted:Not if you're on the Canadian side of that area... Really? I can't say I've had a single problem with Amazon deliveries anywhere in Canada, regardless of carrier. I think a UPS package went astray once and they shipped me another one overnight. The original showed up six months later. Even when something needs to be shipped from the US, I've never had a problem with duties or fees or any of that loving nonsense that a lot of companies will hit you with. Whatever it is, it appears Amazon takes care of it themselves.
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Jan 16, 2018 02:46
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The biggest Amazon fuckup I've ever had was the time they stuffed my package into the bush outside my door and told me they left it with a "resident".
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Jan 16, 2018 02:56
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Resident Bush
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Jan 16, 2018 03:11
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My sister-in-law had a fairly ridiculous size request of a tea pot for Christmas. My wife hunted high and low locally before "giving in" and ordering from Amazon. I've had loving cat litter delivered packed with their bubble wrap. A ceramic tea pot? Nope! Not even on return and resend? NOPE! Sorry sister-in-law. No teapot for you.
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Jan 16, 2018 04:06
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Magius1337est posted:would you honestly take stock options over a pension working for a company? In 2018, I'll take cold hard cash over either. Multiple PE firms have demonstrated exactly how to get out of paying pensions now, and stock options in a culture of crash and burn capitalism are worse than worthless. They are an insult. Edit: Amazon''s usefulness has decreased vastly for me in the last two years as a customer, 100% by their own lack of effort. There areally three major issues. First, they don't curate sellers or reviews at all, which leads to the current state where shoddy knockoff products with hundreds of obviously bot generated 5 star reviews are pushed to the top of searches. Second, they aggregate both sales and stocking by sku, so even if you get past the knockoff listings you may still get a knockoff product because they don't care to keep stock separate if it claims to be the same sku. Third, their shipping has become crap. 'Two day' shipping on Prime has consistently been 'next week' for the last year, and most stuff shows up rattling around in too large boxes without padding. I ordered a cell phone off them and it showed up with the retail packaging but tossed into a box twice that size with nothing to fill the space. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 04:46
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Amazon sucking isn't going to drive sales to brick and morter retail though, it's just going to push them to other online stores. Example: I wanted to buy some ski poles and get them by sometime this week. One of the places I looked was Amazon and it's quite possible that they had something I wanted cheaper than anywhere else. But their sorting is bad and marketplace sellers all have their own shipping rates and times, so I bought them from a dedicated sporting goods store where I could filter by length and material and there's a uniform shipping policy. Going to a physical store would have been more expensive and a worse experience than online still. There's some amount of Amazon monopoly where every other online store goes out of business, but I don't see them getting there without fixing their problems and there's not that huge of a barrier to entry for starting a competing business if Amazon gets complacent in its monopoly.
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Jan 16, 2018 05:21
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