BOA - $20 an hour

[Xan]

I've actually considered incorporating and going to my boss and offering him a Independent Contractor arrangement on that basis alone.

That would almost certainly be a big win for you, but your boss might not go for it. That could potentially hurt his own Qualified Business Income deduction.

[moda0306]

I've actually considered incorporating and going to my boss and offering him a Independent Contractor arrangement on that basis alone.

That would almost certainly be a big win for you, but your boss might not go for it. That could potentially hurt his own Qualified Business Income deduction.

He probably doesn't have to worry about that... his main limitation is the SSTB limitation (accounting firms phase out of the deduction above $315k) not the wage limitation (he's got lots of staff). But you've got your head in the right place.

When the Xan/Moda agreement stars align, probably means a good conversation is happening. Just sayin.

[moda0306]

I don’t know I follow. Most of the time, innovators or inventors are simply a higher wage form of labor. You’re talking engineers here. Not ceo’s usually. It is capital, not high-wage labor, that is the enemy of labor. And capital doesn’t invent. It just supplies capital.

I was trying to say that if automation replaces humans, then those humans don't have any leverage over the people with the robots except for voting for representatives to change the rules to make (or incentivize) the people with the robots either:

- to hire people
- to give people the money they make from the robots

My point was that even though the humans have that power, nobody can FORCE the capital/business owners to locate their businesses where they'd be subject to those rules. I think businesses locate in America because we have the most friendly laws for them, and we have had the people they needed to work in their companies. But if we change our laws so that they're relatively worse than other countries, I would expect the corporations with the robots to leave and go somewhere else to make their stuff with their robots, and then export it to the US (or rather, whoever in the US can pay for it).

Without robots, labor and capital have to agree to terms because they need each other. But if capital has robots what do they need labor for? And if capital doesn't need labor (ie, to be located where labor lives so that they can get to work), and labor votes in representatives that are going to extract resources from capital, why would capital stick around? That's what I was getting at. More of a thought experiment, not a prediction.

That's why labor needs to ORGANIZE. It's not doing so now currently. Massive corporations can easily play countries against each other because they've got free trade laws juxtaposed against competing tax systems. If we had a NEW free trade bill that limited tarriffs but used our collective state bargaining power to tax capital and globocorps at much higher levels, so they can't play countries against each other, that would be the ideal outcome IMO. But the pockets of neoliberal governments that make trade deals have little interest in the well-being of anything but global capital.

[Kriegsspiel]

That's why labor needs to ORGANIZE. It's not doing so now currently.

Organize and do what? That was what the Joker GIF was saying... what does the power to go on strike mean when you aren't needed to do the work in the first place?

Massive corporations can easily play countries against each other because they've got free trade laws juxtaposed against competing tax systems. If we had a NEW free trade bill that limited tarriffs but used our collective state bargaining power to tax capital and globocorps at much higher levels, so they can't play countries against each other, that would be the ideal outcome IMO. But the pockets of neoliberal governments that make trade deals have little interest in the well-being of anything but global capital.

I'm unaware of a cartel that has ever lasted, there's just too much incentive to cheat. In this scenario I predict wild cheating.

[moda0306]

That's why labor needs to ORGANIZE. It's not doing so now currently.

Organize and do what? That was what the Joker GIF was saying... what does the power to go on strike mean when you aren't needed to do the work in the first place?

Massive corporations can easily play countries against each other because they've got free trade laws juxtaposed against competing tax systems. If we had a NEW free trade bill that limited tarriffs but used our collective state bargaining power to tax capital and globocorps at much higher levels, so they can't play countries against each other, that would be the ideal outcome IMO. But the pockets of neoliberal governments that make trade deals have little interest in the well-being of anything but global capital.

I'm unaware of a cartel that has ever lasted, there's just too much incentive to cheat. In this scenario I predict wild cheating.

Labor is still needed enough... and I'm not talking about going on strike, although it would probably help immensely in lower income parts of the world, but instead enacting policy that keeps corporations from playing countries lax labor and environmental standards against each other.