Once when I was in SB, the doors to the personnel room were open and I saw bunch of hand drawn things, hand written colourful weekly goals (rather than just printed), etc. That shows their, management people, approach and goals.
So I think this decision fits in pretty well in their long term mission.
Marx called this the "reserve army of labor."
#Edit, yeah for some odd reason this opinion isn't flying so well with someone on HN. I am disappointed, I figured people are reasonable and can see the merit of not wanting to bring a child into this world that they can't take care of. Perhaps people would rather they bring a child into this world, innocent and naive, and then throw it to the wolves while crying to the state to fix a problem they created and inflicted on an innocent? Shame on you.
Now does that really seem like an unreasonable number of children for a couple to have? I mean if 1 or 2 children are too much for the average family, do you suggest that only the extremely wealthy should reproduce?
So i suppose people are downvoting you because they feel that your comment isn't a reasonable debate, but is more of an irrelevant rant.
[1] https://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabST-F1-20...
And let's be honest, most poor people do not have the resources, or healthy social support structures from family to raise a healthy adult through childhood. I'm all for communities taking care of those in need, and those who end up having kids they can't take care of. But we all need to understand that it is reckless behavior on the part of those that create those children knowing full well that they can not take care of them like they deserve.
Or are you prepared to accept that some people with seemingly stable jobs have children and make plans and start saving but that stuff happens and those people end up in difficult situations?
Sure, if you can't care for kids don't make 'em. But if you're going to demonize what sounds like a broad swath of the population, you'd best define the crux of your proposition, to wit "care for".
If the parents need to ask for assistance from the state for basic things such as the items above, then I'd argue that they're not able to take care of children. Most of the items are given to them by the state anyways, and they still don't "manage".
Oh really?
I have a question - have you ever sat down and actually talked to more than one poor person?
So, let's skip all that, and you tell me what your actual point/argument is?
There are plenty of poor people with resources and healthy social support structures. There are entire countries full of them. Being poor and being part of a fractured social structure are different, while overlapping. US law and society nudge them ever closer but that's our problem -- it's not part of the human condition.
IF you think it can't ever happen to you, you are wrong.
>give a good education to my spawn
>can see the merit of not wanting to bring a child into this world that they can't take care of
So you are useless if you don't have a college education? Doomed to poverty and failure? And that not being able to afford college (of all things) constitutes "can't take care of?" That's the implication.
Personally I think too many people have a college education.
It's kind of like saying there's nothing warm and fuzzy about people doing volunteer work because they ultimately derive self-satisfaction from it.
You're right in that all parties win. But we would be all joshing ourselves if we didn't acknowledge that the muse beckoning to the boardroom here was the profit-motive.
I'm not doubting their were some well-intentioned individuals involved in this initiative - hats off to them. Just saying let's be realistic about why this is happening.
This is false. While there may well exist exploitation, the vast majority of successful businesses, especially those that are successful on the longer term, were and are successful because their profit/employee/customer value proposition is one of win/win/win.
Vast majority, really?
Call me a cynic but win/lose/win seems a lot more common to me.
Is spending $8 on a milky Starbucks coffee a better value for the customer than the immediate alternatives to spending it, including not spending it? In that case, he "wins".
Is keeping the capital invested in the assets that make up Starbucks a better value for the investors than not? Then the owners "win".
And is taking a job at Starbucks a better deal than taking any alternative job available? It seems a whole lot more pleasant to me than most other low-paid, low-skilled jobs I can think of. If so, the employee "wins".
This education effort will likely make a Starbucks job even more attractive than the alternatives, for rather little money, making working at Starbucks a "win" for more people.
'fun' dress code is only fun when the person wants to dress in that manner.