GOP chairman blocks quick passage of paid sick leave bill

Hello Woko Haram,

Woko Haram said:
How so? When people talk about things like paid sick leave and related topics like maternity leave, what they often fail to mention is that a lot of other countries fund said things at least partially via taxes and government. The burden doesn't typically fall completely on the employer.

There's a good reason for that. Admittedly, this is also why a lot of other countries have socialized medicine. Putting the burden of health benefits on the employer makes our market less competitive in many respects.

So yes, I actually do support socialized medicine (if the French design is used, not the UK or Canadian one), but by the same token, I don't support adding burdens to employers when we already have certain disadvantages in terms of being competitive with other nations in hiring.
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It's a good point. This bill was almost assured to be shot down. Murray had to know that. Is it really just a 'stunt bill?' Or a 'PR bill?'

The reason, of course, is that the Senate can't spend money. There is no way a Senate bill can appropriate funds for government backing this up. That needs to originate in the House. So where is the House version of this?

And even if this went through, how are small struggling employers supposed to be able to foot this bill? It doesn't seem very well thought out.
 
Hello Woko,

Woko Haram said:
That's not really related to this discussion, but in general, our wealth and income disparity are connected to a number of things:

1) Historical gaps in wealth that fall along racial lines and were initially created by systemic oppression but are currently exacerbated by cultural issues within said communities.

2) Differences in ability among the general population.

3) Having a freer market than many other 1st World nations.


The freer the market is, the more economic mobility there is. However, economic mobility can be in either direction. You have the potential to rise in wealth through hard work and business acumen, but you also have the potential to face poverty from poor decisions or sometimes just bad luck.
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The bad luck of being born into the wrong family in the wrong situation in America. Being born into a family of cross-generational poverty is not conducive to making it in this world.

Woko Haram said:
A lot of other nations are less free but have more of a safety net. So the debate is always one of "what is the optimal balance of freedom and security?"
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A challenge we are still struggling with.
 
Hello Trumpet,

Trumpet said:
The point that I was getting to, is that many of these employers are making huge profits, and whining about paying some family leave.
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Yeah, you would think the big and profitable employers could do this. It would be worth the PR for them to do it on their own without being required to by law.
 
Hello Woko,

Woko Haram said:
Depends on the business. The margin that most small businesses make is relatively small as well. Most big businesses provide paid sick leave and maternity leave.

So when bills like the one mentioned are proposed, they will mostly only affect small businesses.

The few big businesses that don't typically have paid sick leave and maternity leave are franchise structured, like restaurants. This is because they are more structurally similar to small businesses on the individual location level. Franchisees do most of the management, but they have a larger supply chain to work with.

We can debate the merits and flaws of the franchisee system, but in practical terms, they are small businesses despite being connected to a larger brand. Not surprisingly, they are similar in their benefits structure (or often lack thereof).
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Where big money is being made off a brand name, the money exists to do this. The only question is the greed of the people controlling the big money.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Woko,



Where big money is being made off a brand name, the money exists to do this. The only question is the greed of the people controlling the big money.
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There you go again thinking it's your place to spend someone else's money.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Woko,

The bad luck of being born into the wrong family in the wrong situation in America. Being born into a family of cross-generational poverty is not conducive to making it in this world.

A challenge we are still struggling with.
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Some people definitely will struggle more in our system than others, but the reason I'm less concerned about that than some is that our history reveals that the most ambitious people succeed usually.

We can see how plenty of poor Europeans came here in the 1800s and early 1900s and managed to rise in wealth. Plenty of other immigrants have done the same since then.

The fact that we now have a safety net should make it easier to get by than it was for our ancestors. Granted, the downside to the safety net is that it can make some people complacent rather than ambitious.
 
Hello Woko,

Woko Haram said:
Some people definitely will struggle more in our system than others, but the reason I'm less concerned about that than some is that our history reveals that the most ambitious people succeed usually.

We can see how plenty of poor Europeans came here in the 1800s and early 1900s and managed to rise in wealth. Plenty of other immigrants have done the same since then.

The fact that we now have a safety net should make it easier to get by than it was for our ancestors. Granted, the downside to the safety net is that it can make some people complacent rather than ambitious.
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Our society has decided it is worth it, just as most advanced societies have. And this makes sense in the long run. Capitalism's goal is to maximize profits by minimizing labor. With population growing, that means more available labor with increasingly less labor required for capitalists to make big wealth. That equals less and less opportunity for labor, and lower average wages, compared to the maximum wealth build up of the rich. It is a recipe for growing resentment of the wealthy ruling class by the working class.

The wealthy class would be very wise to constantly increase the social assistance government provides to the disadvantaged as the numbers of those individuals grows.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Woko,



Our society has decided it is worth it, just as most advanced societies have. And this makes sense in the long run. Capitalism's goal is to maximize profits by minimizing labor. With population growing, that means more available labor with increasingly less labor required for capitalists to make big wealth. That equals less and less opportunity for labor, and lower average wages, compared to the maximum wealth build up of the rich. It is a recipe for growing resentment of the wealthy ruling class by the working class.

The wealthy class would be very wise to constantly increase the social assistance government provides to the disadvantaged as the numbers of those individuals grows.
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Having a safety net overall is probably inevitable, but it's clear that certain countries have too large of a safety net, which creates a cycle of dependency.
 
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