Agustus

What is the role of the employer to provide any of these items, these are all archaic fringe benefits that obfuscate a wage and greatly enable large corporations to keep talent from moving to a new start-up.

* The pension based retirement defined benefit plan is a bonus item that originated because the government encouraged it in the 1921 Revenue Act [1] by exempting pensions from being taxed as income. Then when the National Labor Relations Board "interpreted" the law 27 years later to include it as a benefit that was inclusive of employment did it become a larger liability. Large companies were able to absorb the costs of pensions being paid into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation [2] after the 1974 setting of requirements, hurting the ability of small companies to set up comparable benefits. The slow death march of private based pensions follows the incentive curve and the movement to defined contribution for companies enables smaller companies to be more competitive with the big companies [3].

* The medical coverage one vexes me financially, as I do not know how guaranteed this is, of all the things that would be eliminated in a bankruptcy, this is most probable and would save the receiving company a lot of money.

My point here is that the 401k and retirement program free of the company means you create an employee who has more worries about retirement, but is not locked into an employer's retirement pension contribution system.

[1] http://www.ebri.org/publications/facts/index.cfm?fa=0398afac...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corpo...

[3] http://20somethingfinance.com/defined-benefit-vs-defined-con...

Your comment about right-wing backlash is not documented in most publications and falsely directed at a group to reinforce your group-think against them. The only critique I could find was Rush Limbaugh saying it was “I hope this company is a case study in MBA programs on how socialism does not work, because it's gonna fail,”, although this is not a backlash in suggesting that it should be boycotted, so if you have others it would be appreciated. Rush Limbaugh is incorrect as the community does not own the company i.e. socialism, but to be fair, there is no theory on what to call this politically; it is not communism, socialism, or any other -ism. Those in the Seattle [2] Times article suggesting "backlash" point to companies behaving rationally in the market expecting fee increases in the future. The alleged companies quitting usage based on political concerns is not given to a number and without direct quotes from the companies as to the reason for quitting, I find it simply a buffer for the story. An Entrepreneur critique piece specifically mentions no ill-will to the company. [3]

The criticism, mostly originating from Austrian based economic thought not right-wing groups (however most individuals on the right subscribe to the Austrian thought), was that the economics of the $70,000 wage was not going to end well for the company, not any suggestion of opposition to fairly paid society.

Comments varied between what the profit margin would be and the effect on role distinction. The main comments were how the effect would play out for those employees that the company had previously valued at $75,000 with a double pay differential from the $35,000 now having the individuals who performed the same task being given the $50,000 wage and phased up to the $70,000; eliminating the meritocracy of a $75,000 wage. Additionally, the internal machinations and reports bore out the Austrian point of view as valued employees quit citing unequal pay raise values for the lowest valued employees. [1]

To be fair, MarketWatch and Slate bring up a doubling in profits and revenues, but how much of this is based on an increase from the publicity and is it a long term sustainable idea.

Gravity Payments is profiting $2.2 million on $150 million in revenue. The Seattle Times article notes that payment processing services are razor thin margins.

Let's do the following financial analysis: * Gravity Payments has a 1.5% profit margin at its current rate of burn, $2.2 million over $150 million.

* Gravity at announcement time had 120 employees, of which a documented 25% would see a double in their pay, 30 employees who were making $35,000. Estimating the rest of the company's effected staff, estimate another 30 will be brought up to $50,000, another 20 brought up next year to $60,000 and then finally another 20 to $70,000, for a total of estimated 100 employees affected by this move.

* Costs have now increased for the 30 base salary employees to $1.5 million more, assuming a cost increase of $20,000 per person average for the remaining group of 70, you are an additional $1.4 million.

* After the full effect of the increase is factored in, the costs outweigh the current operating situation.

* The counter-argument of increases in business are offset by the companies need to hire additional staff to handle the increase. These individuals are brought into the existing cost structure and are not able to move the profit margin.

The company will be having some issues next year making good on its promise of wage increases and certainly in 2017. This basic analysis is why the finance person quit, she saw what I am showing.

[1] https://mises.org/library/what-happened-when-one-company-set...

[2] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-company-cop...

[3] http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249313

[4] http://www.businessinsider.com/employees-reaction-to-70000-m...

The male versus female is amazing, but what about that drop in ability from age 29 to 33. I know one of the video game FPS coaches said that after you turn 30, one is out of the game, but look at that drop. There should be studies to figure out what causes that; it is impacting male and female.

This is a great use of technologies from other applications to bring a solution for the rote method of crater detection. Thank you for submitting this Gracana!

The paradox does not take into account the rigidity of a roadway user's route. If your current route to work takes x minutes amount of time to drive and a new roadway is about to be opened that will reduce the drive time by ten minutes (x-10). News announces the new route, ribbons are cut, and signage is put in place announcing the new roadway.

* The user is aware of the new roadway and utilizes the roadway.

* The user knows that the old route was 10 minutes more and was the current ideal.

* Other users utilize the route under the same 10 minute saving condition, driving up the amount of traffic over time, even when the new route ends up adding travel time to the original time.

* Users do not consider going back to the old route, even though it may be better now as the system builders had declared this route to be the best. There is also an internal feeling that if the new route was like this, what will the old route look like.

* When talking to people who drive, once a known route has been established, it takes a lot to get them to change. That is why accepting Waze provides such a great opportunity for balancing traffic and utilizing roadway capacity.

Ten years down the line the drivers will be replaced by automated vehicles.

Twitter is expanding its product offerings with Periscope and as of today's press releases is looking to expand past 140 characters.[1]

The curiosity is what becomes of the 2,000 engineers on staff. What is the break down in terms of their roles within the company, i.e. back-end, development, user-experience. When does the twitter back-end become a mature platform and you can start to wean down the number of engineers.

As an aside, I would love an app or system that will trace the origin of a story within the web eco-system. One comment from Re/Code is recounted / repackaged across the entire system.

Also, I was trying to find the original Periscope iterative development post through Google and Bing, no luck thanks to the two sites now integrating news into their search results.

1. http://recode.net/2015/09/29/twitter-plans-to-go-beyond-its-...

Which app do you use?

The article mentions that particulate is in a classification that is known to cause cancer, however, the article admits that "IARC isn’t in the business of telling us how potent something is in causing cancer – only whether it does so or not."

The amount needs to be identified, because it could be similar to the radiation levels in bananas... There is some, but it may not be enough to be deadly.

It depends on how much they donated to the political process. If you donate enough to the system you can have a directly killing feature on a vehicle only cost you $900 million to go away, but it will cost you $157 million in political contributions. Another company has a feature that possibly could kill users who misapply brakes get fined $1.2 billion, but it will cost you $62 million. Volkswagen's $17 million contribution leads to a $18 billion fine for an item that may have an impact on deaths.

Based on this, you can develop Agustus' Contribution to Fine Equation:

Fine = 2E+20*(Political Contribution)^(-1.398)

Charted: http://i.imgur.com/6tPySYs.jpg

Open Secret:

1. Volkswagen: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000042113&c...

2. Toyota: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000030495&c...

3. General Motors: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000155&c...

Yes, they are among one of the four items identified in improving fuel economy: Aluminum frames (carbon fiber is better but cost prohibitive at this time), diesel, streamlining (read shrink), and the other that I am currently blanking on.

a. Diesel engines get 33% better fuel economy. [1] b. Have a lower total cost of ownership. [2] c. They are better than petrol gasoline on three out of five emission items, the one that is noticeable to the naked eye, particulates, is what causes concern. [3]The caveat is that petrol gas emits particulates at a smaller micron level, unnoticeable to the naked eye, and may actually be of greater concern to the general public.

1. http://www.carsdirect.com/car-buying/diesel-fuel-vs-unleaded... 2. http://www.dieselforum.org/files/dmfile/20130311_CD_UMTRITCO... 3. https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200609260829...

Whatever you see on the store shelves 60% goes to the store, 40% goes to the manufacturer as a starting point; you can of course negotiate, but just assume this. You could back track from the egg minder being $80 and people who are shocked to find this out when they need a certain cost to cover costs, estimate that it was $32 originally to make a profit; still not going to work.

The key concept is to look in stores to find what product category you fit into. Are you selling a timer, what does another timer look like and cost, that's your target. If there is not a comparable item, then look to see what item has a similar finish, does it look like an Apple Watch or a $5 egg timer. Egg timer is $5 at Wal-Mart, start poking around that price.

Current data is only available till 2014. In 2014, the relative worth of $2,000,000.00 from 1983 is:

  $4,750,000.00  using the  Consumer Price Index  
  $4,060,000.00  using the  GDP deflator  
  $4,660,000.00  using the  unskilled wage  
  $5,240,000.00  using the  Production Worker Compensation  
  $7,000,000.00  using the  nominal GDP per capita  
  $9,540,000.00  using the  relative share of GDP  

It ranges from $4 to 9.5 million. [1]

1. http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/result.php?year_sour...

1. Lack of time to completely read a comment means that the first few words prominently determine a persons interpretation of a comment. If it is something they disagree with, anger motivates more than positive.

2. Preconceived notions of big pharma.

3. It looks better than black.

A dead giveaway that I am not a prolific hard alcohol consumer..

Absolutely great TV. Think Silicon Valley but with a name tied to it. We need to get the naming rights to get initial viewers, but you and me, DiabloD3, we have a show here.

Treatment:

Name: Ashley Madison or some generic name so as to avoid copyright and naming issues.

Dramatis Personae: Ashley Madison President, Ashley Madison programmers, IPO Finance Team, Hacker team

Story Arcs:

A Story: Follow the Ashley Madison president as he goes about his 2014-2015 tour to promote the site across the globe, focus on the Japanese campaign, in preparation for the IPO. Detail the trials and tribulations of the IPO setup, pressures from the M&A team. Then lead up to the hack and the bourbon scotch being thrown against a wall as a man who built an empire realizes it is crashing. The programmers in Ashley Madison trying to figure out if the data was expropriated, how much, and lead up to the internal discussions on the blackmail offer.

B Story: The hacker group recruits team members, identify weak points and sets up to acquire the data. Once the data has been lifted, they struggle on what to do with a release, expecting to have received blackmail monies, fending off the popularity it brings to them and how to exit what they have done.

The season ends when the news report starts to detail you can get the database on TOR.

This could be on HBO, Amazon, or Netflix.

And now I have a new hobby.

A known localized metric, level of service, is in the works to be superseded by a regionwide metric, vehicle miles travelled. The level of service is an intersection, corridor, and roadway metric that can be quantified and is was to replicate. Vehicle miles traveled is a poor way to compare where money should be spent to make an impact, but it does provide political cover for CALTRANS to not have to address critical problems, instead, they are perfectly happy to allow drivers to cut through local roads.

The article demonstrates the reality versus pie in the sky comparisons with level of service versus vehicle miles traveled: The emergency vehicle response will have a more difficult time in the new mobility plan.

Also, this reporter is on board for the plan, just wish he would do a little more due diligence; what will a 170% increase in bicyclists look like on roadways: 100 to 270 bicyclists on a corridor does not justify removing a vehicular lane which can transport 880 vehicles. Walking up by 38%, walking is a localized transport method and does not address long distances, transit use up 56% with 147,000 current riders brings the 2035 value up to 230,000 individuals, or 90,000 less trips. With a 10 million population and an estimated a population of 2.5 million between 18 and 64 and an estimated 75%, my estimate, you get 1.9 million drivers per day. With 1.9 million trips, 90,000 does not make a significant difference.

That's the fun of these service economy start-ups. When you run a hotel and a dog tears up the room, you can off set repair costs with a number of other profitable rooms. If you are the owner operator and your vehicle goes out of commission, what is the offset?

It is a good point, but how many businesses want to take that up with the owners at the store. The emotional support animals (I say this because there was an emotional support hamster) by definition are supporting emotionally unstable individuals, do you want to tell that person to beat it?

There needs to be more for this story to make sense. ADA compliance is not retroactively required.

Whatever building she was going to passed the ADA requirement at the time of construction. Businesses are loathe to remodel buildings because of ADA compliance [1]. Therefore, the negotiations that your girlfriend was engaging in suggest that these were not negotiations, but trying to accommodate her issues. At which time, your girlfriend can take her business elsewhere or try to work within the parameters of the buildings ADA requirements at the time of construction.

Alternatively, you can file a frivolous lawsuit to try and force a business to fix the issue.

A good defense attorney would bring forward past activism to prove that the plaintiff's background suggests a history of causing issues for businesses. Who knows, this may show that she is one of the disability filers who just does it over [2] and over in what some claim are legalized extortion [3]. The defense is merely trying to show that she may be associated with such groups, seek counsel from these groups, and other items. That being said, do not give those passwords unless they get a subpoena, because they do not need it unless the judge agrees.

All this being said, I do agree with you on the ADA compliance. I walk through stores and bring up with employees that certain areas are not ADA accessible, tight walkways or weird floor movements, I AM LOOKING AT YOU FORMER HOLLISTER LAYOUT. The problem for actual disabled people are the jerks who take advantage of ADA to force compliance issues beyond a reasonable doubt and in the case of the Uber, I understand that people might not want fake service animals in the car tearing up their luxurious leather interior.

[1] http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jan/19/disability-lawsui...

[2] http://legalnewsline.com/issues/tort-reform/254776-eight-pla...

[3] http://overlawyered.com/2014/04/nbc-affiliate-california-ada...

I am excited that more people can learn the crazy world of business compliance and its insanity, especially within the ADA compliance.

What a great incentives lesson:

* You have a business that wants to make sure that employee cars are in tip top condition.

* You have an employee who wants to maintain tip-top condition.

* You have a user who would like to board their service animal

* There exists a certain percentage of service animals that their service animal status is for emotional stress and does not have an animal trained to the level of a blind user. These animals tear up a car, urinate within a car, etc. Witness the "service animals" on airplanes defecating and rerouting a plane. [1] Getting the "service animal" status entitles owners to a lot of benefits [2].

The owner does not want their car damaged by the "service animal" and lose the ability to provide services to future clients. The future clients will give bad ratings for the physical appearance of the car and take the owner's ability to work out of operation. If this issue was brought up by the taxi industry, I want to elect that person to the National Security Council, because this is a brilliant solution to bring down Uber.

1. http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Dog-Poo-Forces-Phi... 2. http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2014/08/03/flie...

Get them onto Shopify, the untold story of Shopify is the ease a layperson can work with the back-end. He can adjust all sorts of things, upload pictures, and edit text without having to contact you.

I like Shopify, they are going to have customer service growing pains as they ramp up to handle customer loads, but going public means it is sink or swim time.

We can start taking statistics seriously when the presentation of the statistics is done meticulously. The bubble chart should be done on a per one hundred thousand population, like they do for murders (something JoeAltmaier mentioned).

In the never ending war to identify differences in systems, why are we looking out outputs and not inputs? Here we are simply looking at metrics of 14,674 test takers in 2003 and 39,278 in 2014.

Who chooses where to offer the AP Computer Science test?

AP Computer Science has to be selected by a school to offer the test, the school district administrator has an incentive to do this as they get a bonus based on the number of test takers. The risk is that a school will have all failing students so the administrator and reflect badly on the administrator. The administrator needs to identify the schools that provide the best opportunity for success, where computer classes have already taken root and have a pipeline of qualified student to take a test with an average score of 2.9.

Who are the students taking the test?

Computer programming requires mathematics, logic, and other functions. It takes hours of personal development, failure, and problem solving in programming. Why do the white / asian / males have a proclivity toward this? A more direct question would be to ask why are the asian females not taking the test, if we could identify this, we could identify inputs that would change the outputs from the system.

Please stop looking at the outputs and saying change the outputs, you simply find metric abuse.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP_Computer_Science

Thanks for your insight Mr. GreggMan, I figured the hostess title meant that they were not doing seedy thing. I wanted to point out the addictive property of going to work for a high pay job that was only good for a period of time and having the ability to get away from that job.

I wondered about the seediness level and your comment helped explain it better.

Even in the smoking realm there was politics. Because there are no adults in a room to make judgement calls anymore, you need to place your claim on zero or nothing.

The smoking industry could not admit there might be the slightest possibility of a link, otherwise they would have a BPA-plastic situation on their hands; the public goes into hysteria over a possible link. The lie had to be maintained in order to preserve the company. The government lied with their statistics in their attribution of risk correlations, look at how serious second hand smoke is treated as a serious concern and that was used to move the public against the cigarette companies; citing that smokers heavily affect asthma sufferers. However, the number of asthma sufferers climbed as the number of smokers declined [1], suggesting, statistically, that smoking was good overall for society. Then the government turns around and uses the smokescreen, good one Agustus, to levy a tax on the cigarettes themselves, enabling a ridiculous tax on the poor to maintain their habit. Now as smokers transition away in numbers to the less taxed and insanely less-taxed e-cigarettes, there is a push to do the same horror statistics as cigarettes; witness the e-cigarette test that used a highly modified tube to show the possibility of formaldehyde developing [2].

This being said, I have no doubt that smoking increases lung cancer and other risks. The problem is the environment in which the sides of an argument push their agendas.

The politics are very real when a politician can easily overcome political hurdles to give out pork projects that would otherwise be tied up in regulatory hell. Solyndra gets built, politicians photo-op, donors get paid back, fails. Solar farms are fast-tracked through regulatory processes and impact the environment at magnitudes larger than oil [4]. Politicians recognize this, fund projects that create the article's headline and then use the issue to push an agenda which gets money to donors who in turn give it back to them next time they run a campaign.

BIGGEST EXAMPLE of the lengths politicians will go to [5]:

Senator Timothy Wirth: We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer. Well, it was June 6th or June 9th or whatever it was. So we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day on record in Washington, or close to it.

DEBORAH AMOS: Did you also alter the temperature in the hearing room that day?

Senator Timothy Wirth: What we did is that we went in the night before and opened all the windows, I will admit, right, so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room. And so when the- when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and double figures, but it was really hot.

[1] http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/urbanmaap/projects/projec...

[2] http://www.clivebates.com/?p=2706

[3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/02/us-solartrust-bank..., http://freebeacon.com/issues/billionaire-trying-to-force-cos...,

[4] http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/burned-birds-beco...

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXCfxxXRRdY

Thank you!

Could you cite sources for the coal to wind economics?

It is not a lack of opportunity, it is a lack of dual parent opportunities that can place the proper amount of time into their children to develop them for school and career opportunities.

Taking a step back from race, let us focus it on one parent families. While it is possible to successfully raise a child in a one-parent family it is a difficult variable; there is a reason why the news includes single parent as a hardship in their tales. Locating child-care, staying home with a kid who is sick and cannot attend day care, one income wages, and a host of other variables create issues for allocating the one-on-one time necessary to develop the ABC's, numbers, and mannerisms that a two-parent family is capable of; be they gay, straight, black, white, asiatic, hispanic.

The question is how can we, as a society, encourage two-parent families, so we can get people a good start to be successful?

On the website, there are societal factors within Japan that are creating suicidal individuals without any hope for the future:

* Salary careers are no longer as optimum as before, Mr. Tadayuki is taking the same action as those of second born individuals from centuries past, seeking opportunities in other lands. Staying in Japan only creates suicidal thoughts.

* Hostess girls fall into the same trap as strippers, there is so much up front monies to be made that pursuing a career seems dubious for those who are not able to see long term benefits or have requirements that necessitate large up-front monies (drug habits). Getting them off of these careers would require a government or privately run stripper wean off program.

I have no idea why this is being downvoted, this is a legitimate comment. If there were ever a point that the emotional argument will try and force others out, this demonstrated it.