You are supposed to be an income source for American Traffic Solutions, Redflex Traffic Systems, and the city in question. It isn't about safety anymore. It is about money.
Cities are known across the country to make yellow timing extra short to increase the money. https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-sho...
Care to tell that to Amazon or Wal-Mart?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...
https://newrepublic.com/article/146540/amazon-thriving-thank...
This is quite implausible, of course, which is why it's never explicitly argued, but the entire criticism falls apart without that assumption.
It's interesting you take the position that Walmart is helpless to pay its workers more, as if they were some mom and pop operation.
As always, I'm never sure which side of Hanlon's Razor to fall on, since the level of stupidity and the level of malice required for either explanation are off the charts
Most employers of relatively unskilled labor pay poverty wages because they can get the labor they are seeking at that price, and they haven't identified ways to get sufficiently better returns paying more to justify higher pay.
> and what can one of the biggest (or biggest) private employers in America do about it?
Why should they?
I'd rather just tax capital earnings as income, tax high-end income more, and fund a UBI than expect employers to act irrationally as public benefit agencies.
I think being able to reinvest profits into your own company is a great thing to be able to do. But I don't believe it's ethical to pay people little in order to reinvest in your own company and certainly not without the input of the workers affected. When Amazon's own workers are unable to do the very same thing -- reinvesting their own profits into themselves -- then Amazon's workers are certainly fleeced by a private corporation along the way.
Low wages are just the starting point here; any member of a community which is receiving less than a living wage also needs support from the community. Sometimes that support comes from friends and family or churches. Often it comes directly from your tax money.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to send my tax money to help people though. I'm absolutely saying that I shouldn't have to. Large corporations reap millions and billions from their own employees. Why, exactly, is it fair that they should profit at the expense of the actual real humans doing their work?
I think I understand what you are saying, but let me make sure. Are you saying you think corporate tax should be funding people in need and not personal tax (whether it property, sales, income, etc.)? To be honest, in my original comment I didn't really think about where the tax should come from, but I think I do agree with you. I do think something like a universal income could allow corporations more freedom as they'd be freed from the burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and healing an entire nation.
While I think a universal income is a laudable goal, I do not think our economy is automated enough to support it.
You don't think corporations should share the burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and healing the nation in which it reaps its profits?
I see. I live in an heavy income tax state, so I think that is why my mind went there initially.
> You don't think corporations should share the burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and healing the nation in which it reaps its profits?
Oh I do, I just don't want those things connected to employment. I am not comfortable with the current coupling of health care and employment, but corporations paying adequate taxes to fund these services offered to all I'm all for.
Thanks for the reasonable conversation, by the way. This thread has helped me learned more and think about different viewpoints on this topic.
If red light cameras were about safety, the addition of warning signs "Red Light Camera Intersection" ahead of the lights would drastically reduce the amount of dangerous behavior.
That isn't how the incentives work, though. Instead they hide them, throwing away the powerful deterrent they've created, in an attempt to make money from the unwary.
It was also an intersection that had tons of accidents from people running the light before the camera was installed.
https://saferstreetsla.org/679/case-studies-longer-yellow-li...
Also increasing yellow light duration is significantly cheaper than contracting out a network of cameras to a vendor who takes over half the revenue from each ticket.
It's cheaper for society, yes. It's much more expensive if you're the government notionally "paying" for that contract. It's paid out of revenues you didn't have before.
The idea is to stop people running red lights everywhere, not just at red light locations.
If you run red lights, you should be banned from driving just like if you speed. The roads are unsafe enough as it is.
If it was about safety, it would only hit people when the crossing traffic light turned green.