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Sounds like bullshit to appear sympathetic to the public. Had they actually felt that they'd have refused those bonuses.
dear god
unless you're like, a partner, or whatever. then I can see that.
At a university, certainly. My guess is that it's a different ball of wax for investment bankers, engineers, doctors, and lawyers.
Maybe doctors are a bad example since they have patients.
I don't really think you need to KNOW people to sympathize with them. If you can't look at income disparity in this country and see that there's a problem, you need to pay attention more. Regardless of the number of vagrants you dine with on a frequent basis.
Let's call it an investment in a securities bond, perhaps.
BTW, has SKFM ever said what kind of lawyer he is? I'm just curious, because while I don't understand how a lawyer can come across as so ... argh, I am trying to think of something nice to say, he does at times seem to be willing to admit the value of a good debate and change his opinion, its just so many of his opinions highlight gross inequalities.
It just reminds me my young cousin who is a US citizen who is ridiculously intelligent, like genius level, who comes from a relatively poor rural family/community wants to grow up to be an investment banker / manager this last family get together at Christmas. I mean, I swear this kid could come up with a way to find a cure for cancer or build a moon base and he wants to be the ultra-rich - I didn't have the heart to tell him how much the deck was stacked against him even if he did manage to become new money and it dismayed me because it feels like our future generations ambitions are torn between being good people and living as the working poor sub class of society.
Which is what happens to those of us in the "real world." Since we have no steady and expected bonuses to be cut, when the company decides it wants or needs to spend less on employees it simply fires a bunch of us. And then we stay out of work for going on 2 years while the family members who ARE still employees have to buckle down and "tighten our belts" to pay the rent and utilities. And when us plebs get fired there seems to be an expectation that we have savings in the bank to cover the months (or years) between jobs followed by buckling down and spending less when we do get new, lower-paying jobs. But if your bonuses suddenly get cut, without having an actual cessation of wages, that's...different somehow?
The financial industry spends a lot of its time dicking over the poor and the middle class, it should not be a surprise if that same organization starts dicking over its employees later. It's kind of like being surprised when a Sith Lord who has no further use for you decides to practice using Force Lightning on you. It is a "maybe" on "should have seen it coming," and a "definitely" on "shouldn't be surprised."
It still isn't impossible to understand people who are from different classes then they are. There's been books on the poor and poverty for centuries, which has only been added to with new media like tv, film, magazines and internet. There's no excuse to be ignorant in subjects when it's easy to find information in the modern era.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
this is actually probably why the financial sector, at least being a financial adviser or a trader, has such a low job satisfaction level. I think I read it in The Big Short, but basically investment firms don't like their traders to be happy. at all!
also I think space is a compensation lawyer
Maybe they should dip into their savings to bridge the gap till the economy improves?
Or is that only for poor people?
Meeting them, certainly. But most people do tend to hang out with others with the same socio-economic status. When you're rich you don't hang out with people who are not rich even at university.
A lot of waiters make like $3 an hour or something. You suggest they don't plan around tips, so they should live under a bridge and eat packets of ketchup?
I don't want to get too much into this but the employer must make up the difference if they don't have a wage that'd be at minimum wage. I've seen payroll checks made out to waiters and servers are bars for like, $20. Except they had $100 dollars in tips (or at least reported $100, so only $100 had withholding remitted).
tips are god damn a shady area
Sure, but he's claiming he's never known them. That's what seems so insane to me.
It's ridiculous to suggest that someone who's living on tips has the capacity to do anything but spend every fucking penny of them. When they don't get good tips, their electric bill goes unpaid for a month or two, because they have 3 months to make a payment arrangement at a modest late fee. You can't just decide to live without electricity or a car because your tips might not materialize.
I have repeatedly been stiffed on wages, pressured to work without breaks or lunches, work off the clock, etc.
What's strange is when I worked at Wal-Mart they went out of their way to make sure I was being treated okay, the store manager talked to every employee personally every few months to make sure they weren't being exploited by their manager and filled out a "manager satisfaction" survey, but it may have been unique since the manager there used to be a cart pusher. Hey though, after only 20 years of making just above minimum wage he got promoted to management, and can live out his late 40s in the style only one who makes $26,000 a year at 60 hours a week worked can.
I'm really bitter about issues like this. I still wake up sweating and check the time to make sure I wont be late to work and something might have gone wrong with my alarm because it cost me my job once and I was nearly homeless over it, forgetting that I work for people that don't have a hostile relationship with their workforce now.
just like any employer who treats you like a W-2 employee and ends up 1099ing you. the IRS gets this shit all the time and it hates it.
Someone living on tips=/=a banker who gets a small bonus.
"Oh no, my kid has to go to public school or I have to sell my other car" vs "Oh no, I won't be buying medication or paying rent this year"
Conversely, I've had managers yell at me for reporting my tips.
Probably because someone trying to pay their way through college / university on top of the loans is working when someone who doesn't need loans to attend has considerably more "free" time to study, research, relax, and socialize. And it is unsurprising when a rich person is more likely to get connected with a better job in their chosen field of study:
I have a personal anecdote of this happening, my wife is not white and by no means rich, she did everything she could to get her bachelor's in hospitality. She was tired of being in house keeping and being passed up for front desk positions and wants to run her own hospitality business one day. Her class mates, some who became friends, for the most part were wealthy international students, people for whom the thought of hopping on a plane for spring break was the norm, not a pie in the sky pipe dream that is the equivalent of a couple months of rent and food that you have to choose between. She heavily relied upon the school's assistance in getting her co-op placement ... and got dishwashing, then housekeeping when she probably knew better than the people already there on how to run their business. The rich people got placements in rich resort towns like Whistler or international destinations in tropical climates. What did a bachelor's in hospitality management get her after all her hard work and toil? A front desk position ... and she found a secretary job in a local government's office that paid more and recognized her education's worth more so than her actual field of study. The rich friends? Working as managers for chains like Hilton, Hampton, and Marriot in what come across to me as someone who can barely afford to travel within my province let alone internationally as exotic locales around the globe.
The so called american dream is bullshit, not just anyone can be the president, a senator, congressman, or rich. Winning the lottery is an illusion, making it big is just "new money". Maybe that is why something like Wallstreet or Hollywood appeals to so many because at least in those circles you get to mingle with other "new" money ... at least until they cut your bonuses in the downturn they created.
Here's a graph to say all this:
I was talking to the person that said people shouldn't plan their finances around tips
Most people on tips don't have the luxury of financial planning
Whistleblower protections are a load of shit in this country, and when you can't afford to miss a single paycheck fighting back is a pipe dream
"I work for an entity which will happily charge a broke-ass family $55 on a $0.35 overdraft fee, causing them to have to choose between food or power this month; however, I'm a real person, not poor, and I didn't think they would do this to a real person!"
Which is why I feel like it's a silly comparison to make in general. To be honest, I was kind of co-opting your stuff to prove my own nefarious points.
The banks send deceiving letters to customers to get them to agree to it. It sounds like Obama's going to personally steal your car if you don't agree to it.
Ah, yeah, I see that now. That's a load of bullshit that they can do that. At least there's this, though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/business/bank-overdraft-fees-to-be-scrutinized-by-consumer-bureau.html?scp=2&sq=Overdraft fees&st=cse
The problem with our labor laws is that even if you fight and win (which takes years) your recovery is reduced by anything you earned in the meantime. It's a broken system, and the only viable way to bring a suit is to organize a class action, but even then, no individual member will see meaningful recovery. And class actions are tough, since the recent holding that employees at multiple locations of a single company cannot form a single class unless it is in response to a central policy, and no company has an official policy of noncompliance with wage and hours laws.
The 1099 misclassification point is a good one. It is currently a top IRS enforcement objective, and if you are being paid on a 1099 when you should get a w-2, then it is definitely worth reporting to the IRS.
IRS Circular 230 Disclosure
To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any U.S. federal tax advice contained in this document is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code, or (ii) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any transaction or matter that is contained in this document.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Diversity does not have inherent value, the value of it comes from having people explain their different views and life experiences. Since no one ever talked about being poor in any social or class setting when I was in college or law school (at a VERY liberal school) I would not say that I got to know poor people in their capacity as poor people even if I knew people who were poor. I think this is a critical distinction.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Critical, but ultimately meaningless since how much money one makes means exactly dick about their worth.
Also diversity does in fact have inherent value, as the more differences there are in a population the better prepared that population is for survival. This is a principle of biology and democracy.
Who is talking about personal worth? IMO, diversity only matters to the extent that it is meaningful. Colleges could recruit for eye color diversity, but this would not benefit the student body, because eye color diversity would not bring new or different perspectives to the conversation. My college was shockingly homogenous (over 87% white, I believe) and it was very noticeable how much having someone from a different background could add to a discussion.
If there were poor people (and I have no doubt there were) but they did not come to the discussion from that perspective, then the mere fact that they were poor did not add meaningful diversity in my opinion, which is why I said at the start that I either did not know poor people or did not know they were poor. Either way, I did not get direct exposure to how being poor influences views, or how someone who is poor might view a situation differently from me. Honestly, this forum is the most exposure I have gotten to how being poor can affect views.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Begging the question, that's like saying we cannot disprove the existence of god therefore god exists. Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but your reasoning is fallacious.
He never said that diversity is not inherently valuable, he distinguished between 'eye-color diversity' and actual socio-economic diversity. Like say, recruiting a black professor for diversity's sake when he's just as privileged as any of the white faculty and has nothing to add in the way of perspective from a disadvantaged background.
This is a little off topic, but our society absolutely rewards the wrong things. I was valedictorian of my college, and work with brilliant people who come from useful backgrounds like hard science degrees (I actually have former ivy league professors at my firm), and we spend our time figuring out how to make rich people richer, how to minimize taxes or how to keep patents as long as possible. At least now that I practice employee benefits and executive compensation, I do "good" by helping protect pension plans from huge penalties if they are not operated correctly. When I was a tax attorney, I literally did nothing but help companies pay less in taxes.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I'm not going to feel sorry for somebody who has champagne tastes on an champagne budget that isn't expressly stable. If you make $700k a year, live like a $700k a year person, and then get busted down to $300k a year and have to make some "readjustments", I'm willing to bet the $700k those "readjustments" are going to be far less painful than the austerity measures someone like me is going to have to employ when they go from making 21k a year to 13k a year.
EDIT: And FYI, "wants" are fucking luxuries, not necessities. I "want" a nice car. I "want" a big house. I "want" a new computer with bleeding-edge hardware. I need food. I need clothing. I need shelter. The next time I hear a rich guy whine about how he can't get what he "wants," I'm going to introduce him to my friend currently being crushed under mountains of student loan and medical debt who actually doesn't get all his basic needs met on a day to day basis, like a warm meal and a bed to sleep on.
It looks like he did.
The way UnknownSaint characterized my post was completely accurate. I was saying diversity for diversity's sake (like eye color diversity) does not have value. I did not say anywhere that true diversity does not have value, and I even pointed out how it can add to a discussion. Seeking diversity to enrich the conversation by bringing in more viewpoints is almost always good IMO. But seeking diversity as an end into itself, without regard to whether we are increasing the diversity of experiences, ideas, or opinions makes no sense to me. More directly on topic, I think bringing people from different economic backgrounds to the conversation is of great value if this leads to more view points bring shared. But if everyone expresses the same view, or the diversity of viewpoints has nothing to do with the divergent economic backgrounds, then I don't think you have created meaningful diversity.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Eye color diversity isn't diversity. Diversity is about bringing new opinions & ideas from various backgrounds whether it's different ethnicities, nationalities, classes, sub-cultures or economic backgrounds which this thread has already discussed at length. The only reason many posters have similar beliefs here is because we are from the poorer spectrum, not just from America either, rather then your usual social circle.