| ▲ | tracerbulletx 5 hours ago |
| Before the 1980s layoffs were seen as a massive failure of the company and almost never happened to tenured employees unless the company was collapsing. Before we are all made to think this is normal and unavoidable behavior. |
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| ▲ | zamadatix 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I wouldn't have nearly as many complaints about this mindset change if ones life (e.g. insurance) weren't still so deeply tied to who your current employer is. |
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| ▲ | jimt1234 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm aware that HN frowns on "THIS", but...THIS!!! I don't know what the best solution for the current healthcare clusterfuck in the US is, but I think disassociating health insurance from employer/employment is a great first step. | | |
| ▲ | brianwawok 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | As a business owner yes please! Charge me a flat insurance tax. And then give everyone insurance. It’s such a cluster. | |
| ▲ | kelvinjps10 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Improving coverage and acceptance by plans in the marketplace would be a good start. Multiple healthcare providers only accept plans from an employer or the state, not individual plans bought in the marketplace. Crazy that in a pro-business country, if you have your own business or you're self-employed, you can't have access to healthcare | | |
| ▲ | collabs 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | The goal should be a single payer health care system.
I am not asking for like luxury spa five star treatment.
However, there definitely should be a
"free of cost at the point of service"
option that does not have any means testing
of any kind. That should be the goal and once we have that,
it will not matter if you are self employed
or own a business.
We keep doing half measures
and pretend to be surprised when it doesn't work. | | |
| ▲ | bigfatkitten 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The U.S. already spends considerably more tax dollars per capita on health care than almost any other country, with much less to show for it. |
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| ▲ | yamillove 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | sbochins 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think you’re on the wrong website. You’re allowed to be conservative here. But, you can’t be conservative and an idiot. | |
| ▲ | iwontberude 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Obama was a corporate stooge and neoliberal fuckhead who had majority in the senate and the house and spent his time fighting to pass a republican health care bill and wage illegal wars. I am a democrat but never ever will fall for that trick again. A fool can’t get fooled again. | |
| ▲ | outside1234 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And the Republicans wrecked it by getting rid of the mandate and then not funding the subsidy. | | |
| ▲ | wombat-man 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | yeah, and no public option | |
| ▲ | cramer4next 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | lovich 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_repeal_the_Affordab... > On November 2, 2017, a bill later known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was introduced by Representative Kevin Brady of Texas. Included in the bill was the move to change the tax penalty for not having health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act to zero.[62][63] Economists said this would lower interest in obtaining health insurance coverage.[64] The bill was signed into law on December 22, 2017 by Donald Trump,[65] with the loss of individual mandate taxation being set to take effect January 1, 2019.[62] | | |
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| ▲ | torben-friis 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I know HN is mostly against regulation, but I'm very glad my country restricts mass firings, and particular stricter rules apply for companies that turn a profit. If you're generating benefits, there should be very few reasons you need to let go people massively. |
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| ▲ | vanrysss 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I have a cousin in Belgium who was laid off following some restructuring and her severance was 52 weeks. Not out of the goodness of the company's hearts, but mandated by law since they gave no notice and she had accrued seniority. US labor laws are a joke in comparison. | | |
| ▲ | Matticus_Rex 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm sure that level of overhead has nothing to do with the reason Belgian incomes, standards of living, and business outcomes are worse. | | |
| ▲ | HatchedLake721 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Reminded me of https://youtu.be/ML3qYHWRIZk | | |
| ▲ | ecshafer an hour ago | parent [-] | | His little rant about "freedom" ended up aging poorly as most of the countries he lists as being more free have put serious limits on free speech since then. The most Soorkin screed he has written, might as well be John Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged for how much its just the author inserting his political views. |
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| ▲ | FireBeyond 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > standards of living As measured by ... purchasing power. Let's take a look, Safety Index - US 50.8, Belgium 50.6. Health care index - Belgium 75.9, US 67.8, Pollution Index - US 36.7, Belgium 49.2, Climate index - Belgium 86, US 78.5. As it stands US standard of living is better really only in "you can buy a larger house" (shocking, giving the relative size), and "it'll be slightly cheaper". Not by any other metric. | |
| ▲ | ozgrakkurt 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It is a delusion that US is rich because of capitalism. It is an insult to the people that founded the country and people that developed science/tech/finance etc. in it. And ofc the space, natural resources and isolation from wars. Saying US is rich because capitalism is about as accurate as saying it is rich because it is christian | | |
| ▲ | matchbok3 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you think those natural resources would have been taken advantage of as well in some other system? Same with the geography and isolation. You are talking about entirely different things. Makes no sense whatsoever. You could make your same argument about any economic system. The natural resources are inputs, not the outcome. | | |
| ▲ | ozgrakkurt 26 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Do you think those natural resources would have been taken advantage of as well in some other system? What I mean is those factors can obviously effect a country's success. And can be argued that that do much more easier than arguing about religion or ideology. Similarly it is easier to argue that proper nutrition, sleep, drug usage etc. can effect an athlete's performance very positively. But you would find it much harder to argue on their religion, place they live, how wealthy were their family etc. As another example I think it is pretty easy to argue that the Jewish scientists going to US because of Hitler was a massive gain for US and a massive loss for Germany. And there are so many concrete factors like this that, all things considered, ideology seems irrelevant in comparison. You might say "this is all because US is capitalist in the first place". I want to point out how similar this kind of thinking is to the way some religious people think and how inconsequential it is in real world. |
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| ▲ | KittenInABox 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How do you want to measure standards of living here? |
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| ▲ | yamillove 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Now compare your cousin’s yearly salary in Belgium with the average salary of a US employee doing the same job. | | |
| ▲ | heylook 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Now you compare the all-in cost of living across salary, taxes, housing, healthcare, and everything else. | | |
| ▲ | infecto 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Really depends on the type of job. Software? You are making bank in the US and partly because companies in the US can move quick because of their labor laws. |
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| ▲ | para_parolu 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This also a reason why starting a business in USA is usually better. | | |
| ▲ | torben-friis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Economics is hardly a reproducible science, but an American company has basically instant access to 350 million consumers (and workers) with no language barrier and little inter-state red tape. It's hard to imagine that this isn't a larger differentiator than the ability to fire hundreds at will. | | |
| ▲ | infecto 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You would be surprised. Don’t think about it as firing but also being overly cautious. If you run a division in the EU you are overly thoughtful for every single HC you add. You don’t take risks because that HC at minimum is going to cost a year of severance. It’s a balancing act, maybe less new jobs but you get less layoffs. |
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| ▲ | bunderbunder 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Perhaps, but one does have to wonder why the US favors making life easier for founders and venture capitalists over making life more livable for people who aren’t already rich. Like, a while back my employer had 10% layoffs, and their most profitable year ever, in the same year. There’s a real reason why that happened, ans the reason is that the C suite seriously fucked up on managing the company’s finances. In a sane world they should be the first to bear the consequences. Instead they got fat bonuses while hundreds of people who had no part in creating the problem lost their jobs. And the moral justification for a society that allows this is somehow, “But isn’t it great that it’s easier for privileged people to play fast and loose like that?” That is, at best, circular reasoning. | | |
| ▲ | matchbok3 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Would you rather they never hire those people? Because that is one option. |
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| ▲ | infecto 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is a tough problem because it’s not always great. There is a reason companies largely (not all!) think twice about innovation, hiring and building out new facilities in European countries and part of that are those labor laws. So you miss out on upside but maybe it evens out on average. This is not me advocating for either side but it’s one of the reasons most startups exist in a country like the US. | |
| ▲ | PowerElectronix 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And people wonder why there are zero companies in europe competing with american ones in the tech sector... | | |
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| ▲ | wbl 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The Nordic countries provide income replacement and retraining instead. Labor market inflexibility locks out younger unproven workers. | |
| ▲ | ronnier 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | HN is very much pro regulations of all types. |
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| ▲ | 33MHz-i486 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| the business people took over tech and somehow convinced us Jack Welch’s management philosophy (targeted attrition, layoffs for financial engineering) was a best practice even though he and his proteges drove numerous old guard tech companies into the ground |
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| ▲ | cramer4next 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In the 80s you didn't have the majority of your employees being white collar and making six figures. The U.S. is suffering from office worker bloat. They have an increasing growing population of people who know very little about physical labor and most likely won't be able to adapt to upcoming AI induced mass unemployment. I only see the pain getting worse for them. Not sure what the solution is for them here. |
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| ▲ | Avicebron 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't know how the social contract between employees/employers gets rebuilt..feels like it needs to though |
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| ▲ | danans 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I don't know how the social contract between employees/employers gets rebuilt. The only social contract that is guaranteed is the one written into law. That's why we have government, but the problem is that the government is (for a while now) captive to / bought by large corporations, not responsive to employees/workers/voters. Whatever principled social contract you may have thought large corporations upheld was smoke and mirrors. It just worked for enough of the right kind of person for a while. | | |
| ▲ | b3kart 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | What’s written into law is just “contract”, not “social contract”. Your argument is basically “if it’s not illegal it’s not wrong”. | | |
| ▲ | eli_gottlieb 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, he's arguing that if it's not legal, it's not enforceable by men with nightsticks. | | |
| ▲ | danans 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I was thinking the justice system, but yes the entire concept of government and law is built upon the monopoly of violence. Bringing it into this discussion is reductio ad absurdum. Even property rights are protected by the same monopoly (and even more directly). My point is that the so called "social contract" has never been upheld by large corporations - it may have seemed that way at times but it was mostly self serving marketing, not anything that would influence their treatment of employees vs their shareholders and executives. Furthermore I'm arguing that we shouldn't rely on them to uphold it. If we have a belief in what is universally fair or just (i.e minimum wages, no child labor, no slavery), we should encode it in law, not hope corporations find their conscience to renew the social contract. |
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| ▲ | jknoepfler 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah. There is no such thing, especially and in particular with publicly traded companies. The only meaningful way to change behavior is regulation. Beyond that, "social contracts" benefit the powerful and have a tendency to turn a blind eye to the worst off. Does the "social contract" require me to be a white, college educated male to secure worker protections? If you need a clear example of this, consider the relationship between citizens and police in the United States, and how blind the majority has been to how fundamentally broken the "social contract" around policing has been for minorities. That's what a handshake-society looks like. Granted having both might be nice, but relying on a social contract is like relying on a benevolent dictator. It's great until it's not. |
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| ▲ | heylook 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You tax the everloving hell out of the rich, so they can't just buy whatever policy or judiciary outcome they want or build mega "just in case, i promise uwu" bunkers. | |
| ▲ | yamillove 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When you are making $250k or above you should not think the job someone gave you is some kind of God-given right. | |
| ▲ | nosioptar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Employers will only do the right thing in two cases: they're afraid of stiff government penalties or they're afraid their workers are going to cut their heads off. Personally, I'm in favor of regulations and stiff penalties for employers who break them. | |
| ▲ | jknoepfler 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't think it's rational to rely on relationship with a business, especially and in particular a publicly traded business. Change starts with regulation. That's how every other advanced economy handles it. It's really not that complicated. It's the same situation as healthcare. You shouldn't rely on the free market to do anything other than maximize short term profits. |
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| ▲ | darth_avocado 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| When Elon fired 80% of the company, I remember a lot of celebration on HN. Some of it was the perceived political bias within the employees and some of it was “The app works fine what were all those employees doing? They probably deserved it.” At the time I remember talking about this becoming a norm as CEOs follow the lead and getting downvoted heavily. Its unfortunate that we are here, but also not surprising, given how limited empathy people have for each other at times here on HN. Unless we stand for each other, this won’t change. |
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| ▲ | monksy 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's not from what I remember. I'm sure there was some skepticism about some of the roles that were there. But I do remember Ian Brown just completely dunking on that triobyte on Twitter Spaces. (Ian Brown is an ex-Twitter performance engineer, he pushed Musk on "what is non-performant, and you explicitly define it".. suffice to say gehot and Musk got a little embarassed and kicked him off the stream). | | |
| ▲ | pram 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | George Hotz’s entire tenure as a Twitter “intern” was so hilariously embarrassing. And the entire preamble at the time about basically “purging the parasites” and Heroic 100x Coders (the search still sucks) |
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| ▲ | phendrenad2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The tech industry spawned a new type of Wall Street investor who thinks a stock is a high-interest savings account. There's no room for risk, you need to grow at exactly 3.141593% per quarter or you face the pitchforks-and-patagonia-vests threatening to take their money down the street to the next bank. |
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| ▲ | outside1234 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The worst part about the current situation is that the company is then just turning around and hiring people. It is almost like the company really is just doing it to arbitrage or get rid of expensive (aka old) employees. |
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| ▲ | Rekindle8090 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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