Political Discussion

RenegadeMonster said:

Surging egg prices mean record profits for largest US egg producer​



Surprise surprise or rather no surprise.
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And this is why I get my eggs at the farmers market. It seems that every industry is realizing that they can charge whatever they want because our suppliers are consolidated down to essentially monopolies. With no competition, we get to pay the price they decide thus supply and demand is no longer as relevant.
 
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Lee Newman said:
Trump and Biden were/are just awful presidents. Trump was not fit to hold the office. Biden is an ineffective leader long past his prime.
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This is what happens when we're presented with a choice based on the lesser of 2 evils. That said, as long as only 50% of the country feels the need to vote what can we expect.

We're a country of extremes when it comes to politics, the masses are at both ends of the spectrum, the over involved/over educated and the It's never gonna change/what's the difference, everything else falls in the middle where they live their lives day to day and politics, local or otherwise, don't factor into there lives at all, regardless of the fact that it does.

I've cut down on my political consumption for the sake of my sanity and stress level, but I can't help but honestly feel that we're at a turning point, crossroad, something catastrophic is on the horizon if all this political "theatre" isn't kept in check, let alone if accountability of any kind goes out the window..............as it seems to be the direction we're headed.
 
AnthonyI said:
I've cut down on my political consumption for the sake of my sanity and stress level, but I can't help but honestly feel that we're at a turning point, crossroad, something catastrophic is on the horizon if all this political "theatre" isn't kept in check, let alone if accountability of any kind goes out the window..............as it seems to be the direction we're headed.
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So, not to beat a dead horse here, but I have been reading about historical patterns in societies to see what is likely to happen for us right now. We need a leveling event, but I am concerned that we are going to be unable to level without violence which is my primary concern.

Here we critically review evidence of the effects of such events on inequality from medieval times till the present. We show that in spite of the marked differences in character and direct impact of the shocks we consider, most historical disasters were rather followed by a widening of wealth gaps. This can be understood from the wealth distribution and institutional outlay of these societies at the moment of the shock, which to a large extent shaped both the impact and the institutional measures chosen in response to the crisis. As most societies were characterized by economic and political skewness, the result mostly was a further widening of disparities. Over the centuries, exceptions to this rule have occurred in situations where the ordinary people had strong leverage in shaping the response to the crisis through organizations such as guilds, fraternities, trade unions, cooperatives, and political movements. Our results provide empirical support for the view that in nations where such leverage of ordinary people is weak, the responses to novel crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic may boost inequality.
www.nature.com

Historical effects of shocks on inequality: the great leveler revisited - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Inequality of wealth and its associated power has varied greatly over human history. It is often thought that the main levelers of inequality were natural disasters such as epidemics or earthquakes, and social turmoil such as wars and revolutions. Here we critically review evidence of the...
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
Zelle, a payment transaction processor like Venmo and Cash App is experiencing major outages today rather nasty glitches. Particularly for Bank of America customers who saw all their Zelle transaction disappear from their account like they never existed putting them in the red.





On Reddit, thousands of people are reporting the missing money and many of them have overdraft fees with Bank of America.

Peoples debit cards are not working because of their zero or negative balance and automatic payments to credit cards and over accounts have bounced resulting in more fees with both Bank of America and other banks in the case of Credit Cards.

There has been no official statement from either company as of yet, and it's near impossible to get through to either.

Crazy that this can happen, and people can end up with no money and nothing they can do but wait it out and deal with the repercussions.
 
epyon415 said:
I assume this is only targeting Covid vaccines and not any of one’s required for school admittance? Because if it is everything that’ll be some interesting 💩
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www.cnn.com

DeSantis pushes to permanently ban Covid-19 mandates in Florida | CNN Politics

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called on state lawmakers to make permanent existing penalties for companies that require all employees get the Covid-19 vaccination, his latest move to curtail pandemic mitigation efforts.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

Appears to be.
 
I love Lina.

You’re not really free if you don’t have the right to switch jobs or choose what to do with your labor,” Lina Kahn, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, wrote earlier this month. But thanks to noncompete clauses that ban employees from working for similar businesses if they leave their jobs, that is the reality for millions of Americans. Under Khan, the FTC wants to eliminate that practice. On January 5, the agency, which is responsible for regulating businesses so they don’t engage in unfair and uncompetitive practices, announced a proposed rule that would make noncompete clauses illegal.

“Non-union workers have one source of power with respect to their employers, and it is their ability to quit,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “The only thing they have is the ability to say, ‘If you’re not paying a competitive wage, I’m just going to go somewhere else.’” Even if they don’t leave, it often takes a credible outside offer to get an employer give someone a raise.
www.thenation.com

The FTC’s New Rule Against Noncompetes Could Raise Wages by $300 Billion

Quitting a job for a better offer is non-unionized workers’ best, and often only, trump card. Noncompete agreements take that power away.
www.thenation.com www.thenation.com
 
The Today Show just had a good segment about job recruitment and the "paper ceiling".

Many corporations of switch from recruiters sorting through applicants to filter down the potential applicants to computer algorithms. The primary motivation for corporations to make this move to automation is cost savings. They can reduce labor costs of recruiting which of course is good for profits and shareholders.

However algorithms create something called the "paper ceiling". Algorithms are not looking to see if someone has the skills to do the job, but rather if they meet the requirements. And these requirements often include degrees. And if a job applicant doesn't meet a requirement they are filtered out and never given a second look or review by human eyes to check if the job applicant contains the required skills or work history. The process is very much dehumanized and rigid.

Companies have loads of job postings available, and keep saying that they can't find the workers. And this "paper ceiling" is the number one reason why. Companies get tons of applicants who have the skills to do the job, but are never considered for an interview because they don't have a college degree.

Traditionally, a college degree has been considered a requirement for jobs. But in many cases this is only an arbitrary requirement, the degree itself has no impact on whether or not someone is able to preform the job. Especially with tech jobs. As baby boomers retire and fewer people are able to afford a college degree companies should reconsider degrees as a requirement. But so far they haven't. They continue to insist on the requirements. I have seen that at work. We write the job description, don't include a degree in the requirement, but the official job posting HR publishes includes the Bachelors degree requirement. This irks one of my co-workers, who manages the QA team. He doesn't have have a college degree, the job does not require any type of degree whatsoever to have the required skills. Yet time after time they keep putting the degree as a requirement, and this means that the people we are hiring would be more "qualified" than the manager. The pay also doesn't reflect what one would expect with a bachelors degree and often leads to turnover.

The story also featured a company who's gone back to using humans to filter job applicants, And most people on their team today do not pass the algorithm filtering when their resume's are run through it. Yet they have all the skills required, and are hard workers. Some of the best, hardworking peoples don't have college degrees. Some of the most successfully and wealthiest people in the world also do not have a college degree.

So why is this a requirement? And why does the job market have such a hard line filtering against people who don't have a degree?
 
RenegadeMonster said:
The Today Show just had a good segment about job recruitment and the "paper ceiling".

Many corporations of switch from recruiters sorting through applicants to filter down the potential applicants to computer algorithms. The primary motivation for corporations to make this move to automation is cost savings. They can reduce labor costs of recruiting which of course is good for profits and shareholders.

However algorithms create something called the "paper ceiling". Algorithms are not looking to see if someone has the skills to do the job, but rather if they meet the requirements. And these requirements often include degrees. And if a job applicant doesn't meet a requirement they are filtered out and never given a second look or review by human eyes to check if the job applicant contains the required skills or work history. The process is very much dehumanized and rigid.

Companies have loads of job postings available, and keep saying that they can't find the workers. And this "paper ceiling" is the number one reason why. Companies get tons of applicants who have the skills to do the job, but are never considered for an interview because they don't have a college degree.

Traditionally, a college degree has been considered a requirement for jobs. But in many cases this is only an arbitrary requirement, the degree itself has no impact on whether or not someone is able to preform the job. Especially with tech jobs. As baby boomers retire and fewer people are able to afford a college degree companies should reconsider degrees as a requirement. But so far they haven't. They continue to insist on the requirements. I have seen that at work. We write the job description, don't include a degree in the requirement, but the official job posting HR publishes includes the Bachelors degree requirement. This irks one of my co-workers, who manages the QA team. He doesn't have have a college degree, the job does not require any type of degree whatsoever to have the required skills. Yet time after time they keep putting the degree as a requirement, and this means that the people we are hiring would be more "qualified" than the manager. The pay also doesn't reflect what one would expect with a bachelors degree and often leads to turnover.

The story also featured a company who's gone back to using humans to filter job applicants, And most people on their team today do not pass the algorithm filtering when their resume's are run through it. Yet they have all the skills required, and are hard workers. Some of the best, hardworking peoples don't have college degrees. Some of the most successfully and wealthiest people in the world also do not have a college degree.

So why is this a requirement? And why does the job market have such a hard line filtering against people who don't have a degree?
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Yet another reason why algorithms suck. Maybe people should be in charge of thinking instead of computers.
 
nolalady said:
Yet another reason why algorithms suck. Maybe people should be in charge of thinking instead of computers.
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Fore sure. And while they didn't touch on it beyond saying these algorithms impact people of color or rural Americans the most. They are for sure certainly contributing to wage inequality and raising the barriers to get out of poverty. And very likely especially when it comes to people of color.
 
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