jimmywanger

> An ex-WeWork employee says Neumann frequently pushed hard to cut costs associated with office furnishing, a major expense.

How much could the furnishings have possibly cost? They lost 1.25 billion in the third quarter[0]. Sounds almost like fiddling while Rome burned.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/13/wework-q3-2019-earnings-lost...

Until you can somehow show profit on sales per unit, then you certainly aren't running a sustainable business. All of the more clued in investors are running for the hills. Google ventures invested early in Uber - when was they last time they tossed Uber more money? (Honest question, I don't know)

Seems like WeWork wants to enlist true believers/people who think they can flip their investment. I don't see an exit plan.

See how trippingly accusations flow out of you. Seems like you're misinterpreting everything I'm saying, almost deliberately.

> This will be my last attempt at interfacing with you.

Can I have a written signed contract to that effect?

> You did not even allude to the "garbageman/artist" example. You insinuated that I was "complaining" and "feeling entitled to other people's money", which is trite conservative bullshit.

You misread that change "You have no right demanding that other people work to make things you're entitled to. Instead, you have to get it yourself. Learn to be a RN and figure out how to get the money, or stop complaining." I didn't think I had to clarify thatto "Nobody has a right...to make things one is entitled to." That doesn't flow as well.

Even though you're (I'm referring to you personally now) a white male (why does that matter) software engineer (which is a well paid professional job), you personally cannot demand a lear jet, just as a starving artist cannot demand that society supply him with supplies.

> If we keep "sanitation work" and other difficult, menial tasks to their minimum rather than putting people to work for profit first and foremost, then the people who DO clean toilets and collect garbage will have more time in their week to find purpose and actualization elsewhere.

If one (see how that works) keeps those tasks to a minimum, lots of people can't get the only job they're qualified to do. Either qualify for another job and demand more money, or make do.

They increased minimum wage at Target to 15 an hour. People are actually making less now because they cut hours, and they're absolutely dumbfounded. Or they'll automate more things.

You cannot compel people to pay taxes, as New York discovered to its chagrin. [0] These are no longer Oregon Trail days, where to move you have to sell property and buy a stagecoach and oxen and spare axles. You just sort of buy another house in Arizona or Florida to ride out winters and don't spend more than 179 days a year in New York.

> If you think taxes are equal to slavery, you've never been a real slave.

Slavery is just an extreme form of taxation. Not only do you give up all fruits of your labor, but also give up your children from you.

If you don't believe me, you face fines for taking your kids out of public school in the US and the UK for taking your kids on vacation while school is in session. Probably because because they know better than you do what your child needs. How's that non-slavery working out for you? [1] [2]

[0] https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/State-facing-unexpec...

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/taking-kids-school-travel/stor...

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/family-holidays/term-time...

Congratulations for your situation in life and happiness. Many people will never know that.

> I am a white, male software developer. I have absolutely nothing to complain about or envy others.

Then you must feel very privileged because of your ethnicity, your country of citizenship, and education.

> Find something more solid to lean on than a straw man.

You're the one that raised the example of the garbageman/artist and just because I point out some flaws in that example, your personal situation makes this a strawman?

> If those who feel entitled to the work of others enrage you, then perhaps you should point your anger at the parasitic bourgeoisie who siphon wealth away from society for doing absolutely nothing useful.

Like, maybe sit at a screen all day and tap at a keyboard once in a while? Does that count as "the parasitic bourgeoisie"?

You realize that there are people in your age group which because of differing backgrounds, live in unimaginable squalor, get paid piddling amounts of money, and fight for those jobs. Also, mess their country up with pollution because we can't do that here.

vs two sentences later.

> And, yeah, at that point you have a bit of coercion

Which is it? Can you compel a poor peasant farmer to stay on the farmer and grow food because that's what society needs as a right?

> If a home doesn't, they're probably going to be in violation of some kind of law.

Law itself is coercion. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The only reason we pay taxes for stuff we might not use, like the public education system and libraries, is forced by the threat of violence and imprisonment. Would you be going to jail if you didn't pay the portion of them that went to the military? What do you think happens when you refuse to go to prison?

Do you need broadband, the new mobile, or a car and insurance? Will 3 days working as a garbageman make you reasonably happy?

If so, please go ahead and do that and spend the rest of your time doing art.

If you really feel as though you need amazon prime and new shoes every 3 months, you better to out and make that money.

You have no right demanding that other people work to make things you're entitled to. Instead, you have to get it yourself. Learn to be a RN and figure out how to get the money, or stop complaining.

"Based on family background, education, and IQ tests, we estimate that your best job is electrical technician."

This might end up being a black mark on your resume.

That means our garbage would never get collected or our toilets cleaned, because I don't think anybody's intended purpose is doing sanitation.

If you're just assigning jobs to give a purpose, you're forcing labor. If not you have dirty living quarters and a glut of artists.

If WeWork get all Regus assets for free and half their business, sure, why not? That would be an immediate 3-4 billion dollar injection. As it currently stands, their coolness(tm) is not enough to compensate for their bloated fees and limited office space locations.

That summarizes the issue. Why pay 200k or even 100k at the beginning of your adult life for something you can read and then talk to people?

If you think students or professors at these colleges will turn you away when you've studied the material, you're sadly mistaken. Why do you need to get stuck with the bill when you're not really getting anything out of it?

Basically, there's going to be a dip in the worldwide demand for oil, and with the permian basin coming online, we can satisfy much of the world's demand for plastics and lubricants. Makes sense that they would try to get a last hurrah out there.

This looks like the upper limit for WeWork. It doesn't matter how much nicer looking their offices are or if they have free beer bashes and parties, those expenses are all tiny when it comes to the bottom line of a multibillion dollar corporation.

Plus, Regus has more desks and branches than WeWork, and is orders of magnitude less expensive.

That shows no evidence that they are willing to make their views public or that they are shared by republicans on a national level. There is absolutely no evidence for that. > The judgment is on a law that affects both.

That is not in evidence. The article you cited did not link the court decision mentioned. The court decision is only speaking to the decision to close polling spots on Sunday because it will suppress black, and majority Democratic voters.

> They switched.

A lot of them switched for reasons unrelated to race. "Many white southerners switched to the Republican Party, some for reasons unrelated to race. The majority of white southerners shared conservative positions on taxes, moral values and national security. The Democratic Party had increasingly liberal positions rejected by these voters.[20] In addition, the younger generations, who were politically conservative but wealthier and less attached to the Democratic Party, replaced the older generations who remained loyal to the party.[20] The shift to the Republican Party took place slowly and gradually over almost a century.[20]"

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Southern_Unite...

Democrats enacted Jim Crow laws (0). I see no evidence that Republicans have enacted any laws that systematically discriminate against black people, in fact Trump has tried to reform the criminal justice system (1). He pardoned Jack Johnson posthumously, and has been handing out pardons like candy to wrongfully accused blacks.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/3100-inmate...

I don't see how it follows that a state legislature's cupidity directly translates to a national party's intentions. That's a bridge too far. If there's a smoking gun, such as a leaked internal memo, I would agree totally. People are scumbags and are biased to try to make their side win in most situations.

>It literally links directly to the court judgement.

Yes, for closing the polls early, not for voter id laws.

None of those things make any sense. A church is more than welcome to only accept people with a passport. I can't imagin that will be going on for long. The post office is a service, and they will sell to whoever can pay. Sending a letter to your representative - you'd probably get a bigger impact if you somehow managed to convince him you voted regularly for different parties. As for "access to a free press", I don't know what you mean. They want your eyeballs as long as they can make some dosh there.

The rest of your post doesn't make sense. The computer analogy breaks down as you don't have a nice evidence log for voting and possible illegal voters, so you start trying different things.

> The majority of vote fraud (the 'r' is deliberately dropped, BTW) is by the incumbent party systematically preventing votes and voters from being counted

That's begging the question. You're asserting the point you're trying to prove, which is what "begging the question" means.

> Jimmy Carter tells the story, for example, of a town in Georgia where the voters were recorded as having voted in alphabetical order. That's real vote fraud, and something that no amount of pretend voter ids will help.

Yes. First, the plural of anecdote is not data. Second, just because something helps in that situation, doesn't mean it will help in the problem you want to solve right now. You _can_ do both. Nuance and stacked solutions are important.

Your linked source is talking about an entirely different issue. Does not prove your point about Republicans using voter id laws to suppress the votes of certain demographics, or that it's a point of the Republican party as a national organization to do that. All we know is that some Republicans are biased, just as all people have biases. Also, your source is not substantiated.

I'd be happier if proof of citizenship was required to vote, not just photo id. Don't know of a practical way to do that except to check passports, but the passport office would be overwhelmed.

Would it be more economically feasible to invest the money into fourth generation nuclear technology and then research solid aluminum batteries that are hot swappable? That would cut down on costs for copper or steel for electrification.

"Enormous effort" and "it should be done" without an economic analysis is generally ill thought out.

If you artificially depress the price of a commodity, you induce a scarcity. Apartments are slightly less liquid than say apples, but the principle still stands. It should express itself in demand outstripping supply. If supply and demand were in equilibrium, there would be no point in rent control.

I think that robots are more fungible and predictable in failure than humans. You can plan around that, like plugging in spare hard drives and machines when they fail so throughput is not affected.

This box robot saves material (little wastage of cardboard) and labor costs, and doesn't ever call in sick. Why wouldn't they want robots for everything?

The markets are irrational sometimes. Basic economics assume rational behaviour, which is something that cannot be assumed.

> And indeed, I am all for using laws against abusive corporate entities.

I don't think you can pass laws against companies specifically. First, define what you mean by abusive. Uber/Lyft doesn't have a gun against your head to force you to drive.

You have to pass them against specific behaviours. Also, for ridesharing companies, what does "per hour mean"? Time you spent logged in, adding time you spent stuck in traffic getting to the customer, or time you are actively moving towards your destination after pickup? There are obviously unintended side effects to give in to knee jerk reactions to something that you feel is wrong. Would Uber/Lyft drivers be happy if the companies implode and they're stuck with a bunch of worthless predatory leases on cars? Or the fact that part time drivers no longer have that option to at least make some money?

Why wouldn't you pass a tax on search and social media companies that sets the minimum wage of engineers to 1 million dollars a year if you want to break up twitter, google, and facebook? That's logical equivalancy.