Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Walmart has many issues concerning workers wages and healthcare. Healthcare was a big issue a few years ago.

I have to echo, that is the fault of UNREGULATED insurance compainies.

Capitalism works fine usually. Except in some cases.

Car insurance is mandatory. If they raise rates, there is nothing you can do (Look up how expensive car insurance is in NJ, amongst the tops in the country)
Healthcare is so expensive (And using Obamacare as an excuse to raise rates even though they are about to get 308,745,538 (2010 census) mandated customers...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...948908976.html

I picked a Rupert Murdoch owned paper as a source to prevent from being flamed by the hardcore righties here, but I can dig up the lefty sources too.

[frau kaleun]

I generally judge how an employer treats its employees by the way that treatment trickles down to me as a customer.

Yes, it's possible to encounter an employee who is friendly and helpful and seems happy even in a place that doesn't treat its workers all that well, because some people are just like that. And it's also possible to encounter an employee who has a bad attitude even in a place that generally treats its workers well, because some people are just like that.

BUT when you go into a store - or in the case of Walmart, several stores scattered across town, with neighborhood demographics that vary widely in almost every respect - and continually encounter employees whose attitudes transmit very clearly the fact that they do not like it there... it's hard not to get a really bad feeling about an employer over time. And in the case of Walmart, that's if you can even *find* an employee as they seem to be perennially understaffed. Either they don't want to pay to keep the stores fully staffed (heaven knows they can probably afford it) or else they cannot, even in this economy, attract enough reliable workers to keep the stores fully staffed even during busy shifts.

[AVGWarhawk]

with neighborhood demographics that vary widely in almost every respect

This comprises the largest portion of reason why a store is the way it is and the employees act like they do. IMO...of course. The two stores around me are are like night and day!

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

I generally judge how an employer treats its employees by the way that treatment trickles down to me as a customer.

Yes, it's possible to encounter an employee who is friendly and helpful and seems happy even in a place that doesn't treat its workers all that well, because some people are just like that. And it's also possible to encounter an employee who has a bad attitude even in a place that generally treats its workers well, because some people are just like that.

BUT when you go into a store - or in the case of Walmart, several stores scattered across town, with neighborhood demographics that vary widely in almost every respect - and continually encounter employees whose attitudes transmit very clearly the fact that they do not like it there... it's hard not to get a really bad feeling about an employer over time. And in the case of Walmart, that's if you can even *find* an employee as they seem to be perennially understaffed. Either they don't want to pay to keep the stores fully staffed (heaven knows they can probably afford it) or else they cannot, even in this economy, attract enough reliable workers to keep the stores fully staffed even during busy shifts.

I will just quote this so people read it a second time. Very good Frau.
No matter where in the country you are this applies.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Is that a comparative or an absolute value? As our economic strength falls are we actually worse off? I may be wrong, but it's my understanding that "standard of living" refers to how we live, and, though comparisons are made, it's not really comparative. Does Dowly enjoy a better standard of living than I do? As more countries obtain modern conveniences, or necessities, does that really lower my "standard of living"?

I hate to use Wikipedia but it's a simple explanation and i'm kinda pressed for time atm.

Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as real (i.e. inflation adjusted) income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods (such as number of refrigerators per 1000 people), or measures of health such as life expectancy. It is the ease by which people living in a time or place are able to satisfy their needs and/or wants.

Standard of living is often used as an economic component to measure people's welfare. It usually refers to the economic level achieved by an individual, household or firm. It may also be a measure of the goals that individuals set for themselves as consumers. Standard of living refers to the level of wealth, comfort, material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class in a certain geographic area. The standard of living includes factors such as income, quality and availability of employment, class disparity, poverty rate, quality and affordability of housing, hours of work required to purchase necessities, gross domestic product, inflation rate, number of vacation days per year, affordable (or free) access to quality healthcare, quality and availability of education, life expectancy, incidence of disease, cost of goods and services, infrastructure, national economic growth, economic and political stability, political and religious freedom, environmental quality, climate and safety. The standard of living is closely related to quality of life.
Hence we can conclude that the Standard of Living, suggests the level of well-being of an individual, household or firm as measured by various parameters like income, consumption etc. However to be more specific the widely acknowledged measure for standard of living is: Average real gross domestic product(GDP) per capita. We can explain this terms as follows:

• GDP measures annual economic output — the total value of new goods and services produced within a country’s borders.
• Real GDP is the inflation-adjusted value.
• Average GDP per capita tells us how big each person’s share of GDP would be if we were to divide the total into equal portions

So yeah there is more to it than just economic strength but like the saying goes: "Money doesn't buy happiness but being poor sucks".

[tater]

Car insurance is mandatory only to protect other drivers and cars. Not your own.

Since uninsured rates are so high, anyone without "uninsured motorist coverage" is an idiot. You have to have it. Which makes the idiotic requirement to buy it in the first place moot.

The government should not require anyone to buy any insurance of any kind, IMO.

Curtailing costs is not even part of Obamacare. It's trillions of dollars to insure a few % more people with medicaid. It is designed to make employers dump people onto the medicaid rolls. Medicaid pays specialist providers less than it costs them to treat patients (my family paid—out of pocket—20-something grand to take care of medicaid patients last year (and every year). That's not our FICA tax bill, that's in addition—a tax solely on us because my wife is forced to treat them, for which she receives this negative reimbursement). The only reason any take it is because they are forced to if they want hospital privileges since hospitals are forced to take it in the ER.

The government is the problem. Allow health insurance across state lines. Dump the idiotic paradigm of employer-provided insurance—people should shop for insurance as they do for car insurance, home owners, etc. If any government care is going to exist for the desperately poor, that's fine, but make it pay what it should so the private pays don't have to eat the cost. Do this by increasing copays.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

I hate to use Wikipedia but it's a simple explanation and i'm kinda pressed for time atm.

Never a problem with me. I'm aware of the possibilities for abuse, but I'm also aware when the author backs his article up with a multitude of references.

So yeah there is more to it than just economic strength but like the saying goes: "Money doesn't buy happiness but being poor sucks".

Reminds me of something I heard in high school, more than forty years ago: "Money may not buy happiness, but you can sure be miserable in a nice apartment."

My point was simply that technically I live in poverty, yet I have my own place, a working toilet, good food to eat, books, the internet, reliable transportation and money to pay for it, in fact pretty much all I really need. I'm working on getting a new computer and a car. I have access to a gym and a pool. If someone elses standard of living increases to match or surpass that it won't affect me a bit. I call that a pretty high standard of living.

[TarJak]

Given the choice, I know where I'd rather live:




How many people from Kinshasa have an account here at Subsim?

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

My point was simply that technically I live in poverty, yet I have my own place, a working toilet, good food to eat, books, the internet, reliable transportation and money to pay for it, in fact pretty much all I really need. I'm working on getting a new computer and a car. I have access to a gym and a pool. If someone elses standard of living increases to match or surpass that it won't affect me a bit. I call that a pretty high standard of living.

Well technically you do live pretty well, at least compared to the folks whose home is in the first picture Tarjak posted, but then again who is to say that your standard of living won't continue to decline until it gets to that point?

[Sailor Steve]

No one at all. We were discussing the concept that one standard of living has to fall as other rise. I don't see that as necessarily so. Ours might fall. If it does, is it connected to the rise of another? I don't know. I'm just not convinced anybody else does either.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

No one at all. We were discussing the concept that one standard of living has to fall as other rise. I don't see that as necessarily so. Ours might fall. If it does, is it connected to the rise of another? I don't know. I'm just not convinced anybody else does either.

I don't know what it would take to convince you Steve but it seems pretty logical to me.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

I don't know what it would take to convince you Steve but it seems pretty logical to me.

As I said, comparative vs real. Many countries have improved theirs in the last several decades. While we are ranked below a lot of them, are we really worse of now than in 1945, or better? We're currently having economic problems. All the arguments I see here and elsewhere blame governments, corporations, and other factors. Has anyone blamed that on the fact that other countries are doing well economically? It looks to me like others are having problems as well. I'm not sure how someone else improving his lot has to mean that mine is getting worse. Mine is getting worse, but I don't see the connection, nor do I see any logic in it.

[nikimcbee]

Detroit?

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by TarJak

Given the choice, I know where I'd rather live

Aussie Homes:

[TarJak]

LMAO