Oski87;842475342 said:

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At minimum wage in Oakland, using a Kaiser silver level plan for an average age of 40 years old and with payroll taxes, workers comp (his employees in customer service are minimal but the warehouse workers are about one third of their income in Work Comp), along with the new sick leave law and the state mandated disability plan, holiday pay, etc are about 19.25 per hour. At $15 per hour minimum wage, that would increase to $23.53 per hour. So at 2080 hours per year (not including OT) that works out to $48,951. That does not include any additional benefits such as dental, vision, life, disability, 401k match, vacation time or educational support - which may add an additional 10%.

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Our real wages for minimum wage employees is less than $19.25 per hour. It is closer to $14.

As for the question about relocation, our customers are local and we deliver to them. We cannot move.

Our delivery service is what separates us from most of our competitors. We do repeat business and have loyal customers. My concerns are for the long-term. Sales have grown but profits have stayed the same. I just wanted to express the reality that employees are expensive and paying them more gets very expensive

Perhaps we should sell to a corporation

1979bear;842475293 said:

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Sorry your experience with charter schools have been poor. My son's experience has been terrific. And it has nothing to do with your corporate money grab statement. Generalizations tend to be wrong. And they suggest opinion not fact. My son's school is run by the local school district and its full of kids whose parents care about their kids. Our school is more than half Mexican american, some of whom are one generation removed from field work. The principal was a Mexican immigrant. He gets the kids to give their best. He also encourages the few problem kids to get with the program or leave. The kids are expected to succeed and are treated that way. I am very happy my son has this choice. And it hasn't harmed the public schools. It is one.

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I'm glad you had a good experience with your school. But is it one of the many currently under investigation for mismanagement of tax dollars? It might be. My comments refer to Diane Ravitch's revelations, so they're not anecdotal or "generalizations." Have a read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-why-states-should-say-no-thanks-to-charter-schools/2012/02/12/gIQAdA3b9Q_blog.html

Oops, wrong link. Try this instead:
http://www.alternet.org/education/diane-ravitch-charter-schools-are-colossal-mistake-heres-why

Good discussion on YouTube:


So if you want to disregard these warnings, so be it. Let's let Wall St. run our schools. Let's let shareholder pressures determine class size. Great idea! What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

And specific to my preschool comments, do you actually know any preschool teachers earning $15-20/hour? I do. They live in Oakland. They're college graduates with graduate certificates and/or degrees, yet they have low pay, zero job security, no retirement plan, paltry major-medical insurance plan ($5k deductible). Yeah, yeah, I know, "Bad life choices. Get a better job! Move!" Well, should all the preschool teachers just quit, pick up and move to Manteca? Actually, that isn't a bad idea at all - they should organize and form a union and demand better compensation. Problem is, even if they did do that, they'd get a "huge" pay raise and probably earn what starting teachers in the Bay Area earn, which is a wage FAR BELOW what professionals should be able to earn to afford a middle class life in the Bay Area.

If the charter school movement has its way, THIS is the picture of charter school teaching positions. Low pay, at will employees with revenues going to the top: the owners or shareholders. Not what I want to see "public" education become in this country.

Go!Bears;842475294 said:

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The regulations are definitely part of the equation, but as Dajo points out, we want them in this country to create an acceptable living and work environment. My issue with trade policy is that it did not adequately account for what we would consider "minimum standards" and encourage trade with countries that would approach our standards. So now our businesses compete with countries that have no standards and we give them a free pass into our market. For what? What did the average American get in exchange for that access? Some of us got cheap prices. Others got a pink slip.

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okay, your initial point went over my head. I agree with your point generally, but would suggest that there are a lot of nuances to trade policy.

Go!Bears;842475294 said:

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The regulations are definitely part of the equation, but as Dajo points out, we want them in this country to create an acceptable living and work environment. My issue with trade policy is that it did not adequately account for what we would consider "minimum standards" and encourage trade with countries that would approach our standards. So now our businesses compete with countries that have no standards and we give them a free pass into our market. For what? What did the average American get in exchange for that access? Some of us got cheap prices. Others got a pink slip.

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Does not make sense to send manufacturing to China just because they can dump pollutants into the shared Pacific ocean, or use child labor, or.... while we won't. Any free-trade agreement has to have certain agreed upon standards regarding labor and the environment.

calumnus;842475360 said:

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Does not make sense to send manufacturing to China just because they can dump pollutants into the shared Pacific ocean, or use child labor, or.... while we won't. Any free-trade agreement has to have certain agreed upon standards regarding labor and the environment.

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Q: "How do you know the local fabric factory in Taiwan/China/India is making blue cloth that day?"
A: "Look a the river. When it's blue, they're using blue dye. When it's' red, red dye."

I may have told this story, but it's worth repeating. A friend of mine was touring a Chinese bicycle production facility as the product manager of a pretty large account. As he entered the production floor, a man was being whisked out the back door. My friend happened to notice the scuffle and asked, "Hey, what's going on back there?" "Nothing." was the reply. Well, his curiosity had been piqued, so he inquired further and asked that the man be brought back into the room. The production floor managers protested but finally relented when my friend insisted. The man was missing an arm, which he had lost in one of the machines and they didn't want the US bigwig to see it. His injury was the result of a lack of health & safety regulations that US manufacturers must "suffer" under. This friend also saw first-hand the dumping of pollutants directly into the environment. Those burdensome, business-killing regulations aren't a bother in China!

Unfortunately, the bicycle industry, like so many others, followed the inevitable "race to the bottom" by moving first to Japan, then Taiwan, briefly to Mexico, and now mainland China. I understand the unrelenting economic pressures they face. If you didn't do it (Cannondale), you suffered slow sales. But when all's said and done, what are we going to tell future generations? "Sorry kids, the need to have cheaper throw-away consumer goods in the US was just too great for us to leave you a nice planet. Good luck with that."

TandemBear;842475374 said:

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Q: "How do you know the local fabric factory in Taiwan/China/India is making blue cloth that day?"
A: "Look a the river. When it's blue, they're using blue dye. When it's' red, red dye."

I may have told this story, but it's worth repeating. A friend of mine was touring a Chinese bicycle production facility as the product manager of a pretty large account. As he entered the production floor, a man was being whisked out the back door. My friend happened to notice the scuffle and asked, "Hey, what's going on back there?" "Nothing." was the reply. Well, his curiosity had been piqued, so he inquired further and asked that the man be brought back into the room. The production floor managers protested but finally relented when my friend insisted. The man was missing an arm, which he had lost in one of the machines and they didn't want the US bigwig to see it. His injury was the result of a lack of health & safety regulations that US manufacturers must "suffer" under. This friend also saw first-hand the dumping of pollutants directly into the environment. Those burdensome, business-killing regulations aren't a bother in China!

Unfortunately, the bicycle industry, like so many others, followed the inevitable "race to the bottom" by moving first to Japan, then Taiwan, briefly to Mexico, and now mainland China. I understand the unrelenting economic pressures they face. If you didn't do it (Cannondale), you suffered slow sales. But when all's said and done, what are we going to tell future generations? "Sorry kids, the need to have cheaper throw-away consumer goods in the US was just too great for us to leave you a nice planet. Good luck with that."

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Exactly, we should be saying,"You want a free-trade agreement with the US? Here are the standards you must meet." In my experience employers/workers are happy to comply--if compelled and they can not be undercut by competitors who do not.

I deal with the real estate, design & construction industries every day.

The environmental restrictions, regulatory burdens and labor costs in California are driving more and more businesses to ignore the laws.
(Don't call their business decisions illegal, call them undocumented.)

Go!Bears;842475029 said:

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Google & FB don't make anything, so there were no jobs to export - but with a different trade policy Apple might do more of their manufacturing employing our fellow citizens.

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Unit2Sucks;842475303 said:

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Do you have a cell phone and if so, where was it assembled? Motorola made a phone in Texas but unfortunately it didn't help sales.

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Of course you cannot manufacture phones in the US, even in a low wage, low regulation state like Texas. But with a different trade policy, maybe some things could come home.

BGolden;842475424 said:

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I deal with the real estate, design & construction industries every day.

The environmental restrictions, regulatory burdens and labor costs in California are driving more and more businesses to ignore the laws.
(Don't call their business decisions illegal, call them undocumented.)

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great word usage ...

Go!Bears;842475436 said:

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Of course you cannot manufacture phones in the US, even in a low wage, low regulation state like Texas. But with a different trade policy, maybe some things could come home.

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You sure about that?
[URL="http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4717796/made-in-america-a-look-inside-motorolas-moto-x-factory"][/URL]

TandemBear;842475355 said:

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I'm glad you had a good experience with your school. But is it one of the many currently under investigation for mismanagement of tax dollars?


"If the charter school movement has its way, THIS is the picture of charter school teaching positions. Low pay, at will employees with revenues going to the top: the owners or shareholders. Not what I want to see "public" education become in this country.

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As to your first question: NO. So her findings do not matter to me in the case of my child's school. You are pretty worked up about charter schools. You may be justified. I don't know your situation. You obviously found an article and decided to run with it.

You are on a soapbox. I am not. You make blanket statements about charter schools. You quote someone from the Post and someone on youtube. Okay, you are convinced that charter schools are really bad. All my comments are from personal experience. I missed youtube. My experience has been good. Being pleased with a good school has nothing to do with "letting Wall St run our schools." Wall Street has nothing to do with my son's charter school. A great principal, good teachers and some pretty good parents have everything to do with it. Your concerns, or the Post author's concerns, are not universal. It's a big issue to YOU. So run with it. But do not try me how to view charter schools because you have a Post article and a youtube video.

Sorry, I only read the charter school comments. I have no quarrel with your preschool teacher comments. I know very well how they are paid. I agree that it is awful. Do you have a solution? I don't.

Tandem, at least preface some of your statements with "my opinion is." The tenor of the entire post is "I think charter schools and their financial backers will ruin public education." Well, my county backs the one my son attends, not some ill-defined Wall Street. I'll ask some of the same type of questions you put in yours--and they are just as argumentative and probably inappropriate, but your approach deserves a similar response--Did you get fired from a charter school? Or laid off from a public school because a charter school took some of the public school students away from the school where you taught? You seem pretty angry. If many of us who were well educated at Cal were happy with the regular public schools, we would not consider sending our kids to charter schools or private schools. I can't afford an expensive private school. But I can afford a free charter school run by the county school district. In my son's case, they have a kick ass music program and his jazz band performs a lot and the kids love that, as do we parents. The public school where he would otherwise go? Very highly rated, and a great athletic program. Art and music? No. They were the necessary budget cuts at the great public school where my older kids went. Thankfully, the public school charter school has what he wants. The charter school is no voucher system. It does provide a choice he is glad he got to make. I can't fix the problems other schools have, charter, public and private. But I can and do suppport my child's school because I am very pleased with how it is educating my son, and I know he and his friends really enjoy it. I hope if you have kids they have a similar experience.

PS--I do agree with your comments related to the bike industry.

TandemBear;842475374 said:

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.. race to the bottom..

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consider the classic economics parable from nearly halfway back to the middle ages by brit nerd William Forster Lloyd, "the tragedy of the commons". later popularized in the 1960s by the late great environmentalist Garrett Hardin. imo nobody knows nuttin' [honey] till they integrate TTOTC with their world view.

snipped from wikiwiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Quote:

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In 1833 the English economist William Forster Lloyd published a pamphlet which included an example of herders sharing a common parcel of land on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In English villages, shepherds had sometimes grazed their sheep in common areas, and sheep ate grass more severely than cows. He suggested overgrazing could result because for each additional sheep, a herder could receive benefits, while the group shared damage to the commons. If all herders made this [U]individually[/U] rational economic decision, the common could be depleted or even destroyed, [SIZE=1]to the detriment of all.[/SIZE]

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# external dis-economy

... this discussion relates a bit to the other OT...

68great;842473143 said:

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Well it seems that we are entering the doldrums with little news on Spring Practice. The flame war over Public Pensions seems to be petering out. And there is little news on the Korean Girlfriend front.

So let's start up another flame war. Paul Krugman commented in today's NYT:
"Two impossible things happened to the U.S. economy over the course of the past year or at least they were supposed to be impossible, according to the ideology that dominates half our political spectrum. First, remember how Obamacare was supposed to be a gigantic job killer? Well, in the first year of the Affordable Care Act's full implementation, the U.S. economy as a whole added 3.3 million jobs the biggest gain since the 1990s. Second, half a million of those jobs were added in California, which has taken the lead in job creation away from Texas.
Were President Obama's policies the cause of national job growth? Did Jerry Brown the tax-raising, Obamacare-embracing governor of California engineer his state's boom?"


Can it be that California is not in a death spiral due to its tax and spend. Can it be that as in the past, California can lead the way in the ongoing economic recovery.

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your flame engines!

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I'm curious to know where he got those statistics.

Dark Reverie;842499555 said:

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I'm curious to know where he got those statistics.

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Government stats on job creation are easily found at bls.gov. Here is cnnmoney quoting from the same stat.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/07/news/economy/jobs-february-where-they-are/

States do similar reporting. Here is the LA Times reporting on stats from California.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-jobs-20150307-story.html

You can do your own research here

http://www.bls.gov/

Question, when one state takes jobs from another state, I know that is creating jobs for that specific state, but is it truly creating jobs?

burritos;842499608 said:

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Question, when one state takes jobs from another state, I know that is creating jobs for that specific state, but is it truly creating jobs?

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I agree, that is not really creating jobs.

GB54;842473333 said:

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Oil and gas in Texas isn't as big a deal as it was in the 1980's. It will
certainly be felt in certain pockets but Alaska is the place where it will really take its toll.

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North Dakota.

Ok, I see this has already been mentioned.

smh;842475497 said:

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consider the classic economics parable from nearly halfway back to the middle ages by brit nerd William Forster Lloyd, "the tragedy of the commons". later popularized in the 1960s by the late great environmentalist Garrett Hardin. imo nobody knows nuttin' [honey] till they integrate TTOTC with their world view.

snipped from wikiwiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons



# external dis-economy

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Many are of the belief that the "tragedy if the commons" is a myth.

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/08/25/debunking-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/