World History – 30 June 2019

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/30/children-border-crisis-america-wasnt-prepared-for-trump-us-immigration

“In testimony, children at one processing facility in Clint, Texas said they were not being given soap or toothbrushes. Some said they were sleeping on the concrete floor. “

Employee and Owner Mindset to Company Money

Quora commenter:

“So let me understand this. I’m working for a start-up at half the salary I should get paid in exchange for some paper in the company. The company wants to provide every employee, all 40 of us, with a $100 jacket. And according to your logic, this $4,000 expense could bankrupt the company causing us to lose our jobs.

Sorry, if $4K is the difference between keeping my job and a something I can proudly wear to show my affiliation with the company, then it really won’t matter. That $4K worth of jackets will only change the bankruptcy filing from an afternoon filing to a morning filing – same day, 3 hours earlier. No one is suggesting that they buy everyone a car or fly us all to SuperBowl. But for $100 per employee? A simple and well deserved perk.”

Me:

“It’s not the 4,000, it’s the management team and employees that thinks speening 4,000 on something that won’t return 20,000 is ok.

There’s an employee’s mindset to company money, and there’s the owner’s mindset to company money.

The employee’s mindset is that company’s money is a tool being paid by someone else to do my job.

The owner’s mindset is that the company’s money is money that the owner could use to go vacationing in the carribean, so why the F should it be used on anything that won’t generate 5x more money?

With VC providing funding to people that’s too young to have a serious amount of their own money to properly respect it and/or be senior enough in their career to have interact and absorb the values of actual company owner’s or close enough by jow they’re incentivized, we have company management that approach money with an employee’s mindset.

4,000? I could use that 4,000 for 1 week trip in Europe (exclude airfare), if the company is not going to use it to make 20,000, what business does the management have in spending that 4,000? Get me the person who sign this order, and his/her supervisor.”

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-big-mistakes-that-startups-make-after-receiving-money-from-an-investor/answer/Brett-Fox-8?ch=10&share=53bbb041&srid=9j01

Merit? Too many externalities to conclude

www.quora.com/In-the-United-States-why-do-some-people-think-that-welfare-and-food-stamps-should-only-be-allowed-to-buy-bread-and-water/answer/Jonathan-Bates-15

Someone made this argument in quora:

“People in poverty do spend less time working and more time on entertainment than middle class and upperclass people. Most also spend more money on frivilous items like cigarettes, drugs, alcohol and lottery tickets.

It’s not heartless to point this out. If impoverished people worked 40+ hours and spent money conservstibely, they would find themselves in the middle class.”

My response to the person is:

I This argument has several issues:

1. The assumption that working 40 hours a week would result in living wages. Often, the wage for low lever jobs are set between not what result in living wage, but based on market rate. But this market rate is set by supply and demand participants with very different negotiationg position. We can say that such workers get what’s coming to them and the capitalist system are thus fairly used, if we believe that fellow human beings should be priced with the same method we price cattle. The cattle as a supplier has minimal power vs the rancher as the source of demand. As a result, the poor often have to work more than 40 hours just to sustain a menial existence

2. The prejudice that enough poor people engage in poor decisions to classify them as a group to engage in the same poor decisions. And though the poor do engage in splurging activities, most of them engage in such activities in the same manner as the middle class does, only the medium is different. Are we saying that the middle class is reckless for buying a game or concert tickets (vs lottery), purchasing a home wine chiller (vs beers and liquors).

3. The lack of research being cited. While anecdotal evidence can be use in arguments, in arguments where generalizations about a large sample is made, scientific research is needed to make robust adjustment.

To make it clear, I don’t say these things because I am part of the poor. My annual income is about 70x the average GDP in my country. However, I was born in lower middle class family, both my parents have to work just to put their kids through school. I have days in college where I don’t have enough money to take public transport, a meager US$ 9 cents when I was in college. And I achieve this vertical mobility in a country that was among the most corrupt in the world (meaning: nonexistent government tool to help people climb the socio economic ladder since the power cronies want to keep everything for themselves) and where I am a double minority.

But despite where I am, I recognize that the statement “I achieve” is BS. I was lucky to have a mother that works until 1 AM and still struggle to make ends meet. I was lucky to find a school that would give a 70% discount to tuition fee. I was lucky to find the job announcement for my first job just 2 days before the opportunity is closed. There’s a thousand points that if it weren’t for luck or the kindness of strangers, I won’t be here.

I do put effort to be where I am. But still, too many kind strangers and pure luck to say that (i) the poor deserve the poverty and (ii) if the situation is reverse the definitely for sure I can be where I am now.

So while I recognize the activities the poor do engage in, putting all the onus on them won’t help them, and when we have billions of people still in poverty, the world is that much worse off.

CEO and Expectations on Working Hours

www.quora.com/I-have-two-employees-that-usually-leave-work-at-6-pm-They-are-good-but-I-don-t-like-that-their-commitment-lasts-for-work-hours-only-What-should-I-do-as-a-CEO/answer/Cameron-Lockey

I am and have been a CEO. My work hours extends far beyond 9 to 5. The thing is, I didn’t work beyond 9 to 5 after I become CEO, I have done it throughout my career, and I do think that that’s one of the reason for my role right now. That despite increasingly knowing what a cynical and cruel place a corporation can be, I give owner-level commitment and effort. And because I see the benefit for my own personal and professional development, I expected others would see it in the same light. So for me it’s not out of malice, but it’s what I have been doing to myself and the results I get from it. In the process I could have made the wrong assumptions that others value the same things as me or have the same ecosystem as me.

I commend this answer on quora for 2 reasons:

1. Ability to see the question from a positive light when so many, and it’s so easy, to see it in a negative light.

2. Giving a very fair and rational response to how management can share their passion.

Gravity, Mass, Light

www.quora.com/What-did-Elon-Musk-mean-by-this-People-are-almost-always-surprised-to-learn-that-Earth-s-gravitational-reach-is-infinite/answer/Robert-Frost-1

I read the above article.

I think, what if:

“Due to the presence of gravity, space time is curved to allow energy to be trapped enough to be mass”

Or perhaps:

“Gravity is not a force that pulls things together. Gravity is a force that coagulates matter, the more gravity you have in a spot, the more dense matter can exist in that spot. So gravity doesn’t get stronger because there’s more mass, there’s more mass because the gravity is stronger.”

 

 

China history and attempts to subjugate the country

2 June 2019

“If you don’t obey us, we will make you poor”

Well, China experience both poverty and subjugation and I think this country has power levers and history that would enable country wide acceptance of economic loss, if needed, to avoid subjugation.

From the article:

“The Chinese people will be damned if they allow a replay of that traumatic period of their history when, among other indignities, their government had to yield the sovereign right to collect custom duty to foreigners.”

https://amp.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3012679/trumps-biggest-mistake-us-china-trade-war-not-realising-chinese?ch=99&share=d45dd4de

Commentary on Christianity in the US

www.quora.com/Why-do-socially-progressive-Christians-align-themselves-with-a-religion-that-promotes-bigotry-and-hate/answer/Anne-Harris-Wyckoff

“Unfortunately in the US, the dual party system means people ends up being labelled as democrat or republican.

And it has reach the extent that being religious means being republican, and being democrat means anti-religion.

It’s difficult because some of the values espoused by Christ (don’t let materialism consume you, give to the poor, welcome strangers, be kind to those that are evil to you), are sometimes represented more by democrats at a policy level rather than republicans.

And people that promotes unregulated greed, accepts mass shooting as a price for everyone to have any firearm as they can buy, that force women to not be in control of their own reproductive system, often identify themselves as republican.

And since there’a a perception that christian evangelist in the US are republicans, this makes christians in the US looks callous to the social evil happening around them, to be a religion of bigotry and hate, to be traitors to the values that Jesus gas asked from His followers.

I am looking for a third party, where I can be religious and yet reject the illness of unlimited unregulated greed, reject libertarian values of every man for himself and if you’re not there it’s your own fault, where I can recognize that yes indeed the bible said that homosexual acts are sin but I got no right telling people to live based oh my religious believe.”