Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[SilverSolder]

[...] In an actual Supply & Demand market, they wouldn't be able to ship all those jobs overseas to a slave wage nation with zero repercussions... they would be tariffed to death when they bring those goods back here[...]

To me, tariffing things to death is a political decision - a means of reining in a free market that is stampeding out of control?

[mnementh]

No, tariffs are a tool of proper economic Regulation... a "free market" is not the same as lack thereof. This is a lie which has been beaten into us for generations now by that same machine for the benefit of the machine's owners, not that of the economy as a whole.

Unregulated capitalism quickly turns into economic feudalism, with the smaller holding being gobbled up by the larger to the benefit only of a few wealthy barons and their kings. Which, shockingly, is exactly what we have right now in most of the "first world".

EDIT: We learned these lessons the hard way a century ago with the fallout from the Great Depression, and instituted strong antitrust laws to prevent exactly that kind of monopolistic economic destruction. Of course, those who benefited from said monopolies have done everything in their power to bring them back for most of the time since we came back from "The War"; hell, most of the major players are even the same exact families.


mnem
 

[BU508A]

Meanwhile somewhere deep in the statistics:

[mnementh]

Wait... what? I'm on that list...?

How...?

I'm supposed to be the class clown... the comic relief... the diversion... not some pillar of the community...   

mnem
Okay... maybe a grime-encrusted recycled wharf-piling of the community...?

[Cerebus]

Yes I'd agree with that. Apart from Switzerland 

What is it with Switzerland?

I know I'm missing something here, but from the general "vibe" I get the feeling that Switzerland is a land of it's own idiosyncrasies ... and that maybe I shouldn't dig any deeper.

Some relatives of bd139 are living there. Wearing white socks, probably. 

Which, if he follows the precedent set by my ex-wife while describing a sub-set of her family, he will be calling "the out-laws".

[Cerebus]

Unless I've been living under a rock for the past 67 years I've never seen any local grocery chain offer delivery. And what inventory system they did have was far from accurate. And going back further was on pieces of paper.

You just don't want to consider my point, which is nothing new. 

Delivery service has been in existence over this side of the pond for some time now.

Not from your local Spar or Nisa though, which is what Med is talking about.

[mnementh]

[...] The problem is the age-old one of those who have not being willing to pay a living wage for work they believe is "beneath them". [...]

It seems to me that is a pure supply and demand balancing issue?  E.g. if the price of having someone mow your lawn rises to $1,000 a month for an average suburban home, a lot more people would get a lawnmower and (re)discover the fitness benefits of doing their own gardening...   If the price of mowing the lawn falls to $10, a lot of people would take that offer, and find their exercise somewhere else.

So, those jobs that pay very little, probably pay very little because:
  (1) people are not willing to pay all that much for them, instead doing it themselves if the price is "not worth it"  (inelastic demand curve), and
  (2) a relatively large number of people are able to do simple jobs that require no particular skills other than showing up (large supply)

The problem is that "the machine" allows a very few people to keep that actual supply & demand artificially skewed in their favor... so that, like in your case, the individual who wants to do yard work has to lay out huge cash expenditure in terms of advertising, upscale trade dress, insurance and permits up front to even be able to work at what he's good at.

Or, in some markets, one has to actually buy into a franchise for that kind of work, because there are regional franchisers who've cornered the market on the higher tax bracket neighborhoods and you literally can be run off as a vagrant if your work vehicle isn't flying the right colors. *coughSquirrelHillcough*

Your hypothetical self-employed gardener, once an honorable if menial profession, now finds himself left with a choice between working under the table for scraps by words of mouth, or going to work for someone who does have the money for all that up front, and getting paid... again... scraps. Okay, maybe he's not that hypothetical; I might have known him once upon a time.

No, it's the "Ponzi Scheme Economy" money pyramid we need to fix first... we need to stop letting the machine which is directed by the very few set the price on a man's labor; they've proven again and again they will do anything rather than pay a man a living wage. After that, actual Supply & Demand will level things out.

mnem
 

It seems to me that consumers are as much to blame for the situation as anyone else...   instead of buying from smaller web sites, we tend to flock to the "safety" and "trust" of Amazon, eBay, etc. because it is easier and less stressful.  In other words, "the machine" as you call it may be an emergent property of ourselves, as consumers!

Back to the gardening example, there is still a limit to what people are willing to pay for lawnmowing.  If a worker can optimistically mow 8 lawns in a day, whatever those 8 homeowners are willing to pay becomes the ceiling.  Say each homeowner is willing to pay $30...  that would put $240 on the table, max. - and there will be many days where you won't get 8 customers, due to competition, the season, or whatever.  Then you have to pay for your pickup truck, your mowers and other tools.

Basically, paying a "living wage" for a job that people simply are not willing to pay all that much for, is always going to be tough!

Yet even with your example, it is closer to a living wage than most people in that line of work can actually get. When I was in my 20s, people were trying to get the minimum wage raised to $15/hour just to match inflation over the previous 2 decades. Here we are 30 years later and the US Federal  minimum wage is still $7.25/hour or less if an employer can assume tips, with even progressive California not yet there until 2022, and then only for businesses larger than 25 employees.

And I know intimately the costs involved in this kind of onsite pay-per-play work; both back then and now.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

Yep. Nothing wrong with that either. Also delivery drivers get paid a lot more than the actual supermarket checkout staff do.

Interestingly perhaps, our supermarket delivery vans here are mostly electric now as well.

Yeah, unless you drive for Uber, etc. Then you make just enuf to pay for the car you're driving the wheels off of while they take your profit margin. 

mnem
 

Yeah, much the same thing with many couriers as well, I think you will find that most of their drivers are employed as self-employed drivers / owners and that also includes drivers for Amazon in their white vans and most of these drivers are delivering up to 9:00pm 7 days a week to make the payments on their vans and make enough to live a basic life. No matter which way you look at this situation, you end up with the same reasons, corporate and personal greed, which is the hideous face of capitalism. Money does corrupt, and it's morally wrong that most of the wealth ends up in the hands of a comparative few globally. I have a view that it might be because once you have made your first million, the second takes that much longer and so does the third and so on, as the profits increase, the growth seems to slow. At this point accountants and owners motivated only by percentages  etc kick into a higher gear to step up the increase and this leads to looking at removing costs and people are costs that can be removed easily and are the first step of that process.

If your Amazon drivers have a basic income to fall back on then Amazon will have to work hard to retain staff rather than keep them a prisoner of circumstance.  Another benefit.

Personally and I think most people would agree, it would be far better for Amazon and other employers to pay a really realistic liveable wage and have great conditions of employment so that the worker really feels appreciated and can draw a huge sense of pride from their efforts is the better option all round. I know that I would feel far better in myself if I was working in a position that I felt valued in and see that the bosses were not making a huge profit out of my efforts, and I was able to earn to reasonable return for my skills, so my family were not going without and still having something behind us for a rainy day. Surely that is all anybody needs, it is not essential to own your own private islands, or huge estates and mansions, planes and luxury yachts that are small ocean capable liners, have garages stuffed full of exotic and expensive cars etc.

I have seen first hand just how having a bit of money and position is such a huge life changing thing, seeing just how much those people changed from being really nice, warm and approachable people to becoming so self-righteous and superior to everyone else and chasing that maximum profit line becomes all consuming to the detriment of everything else.

[SilverSolder]

No, tariffs are a tool of proper economic Regulation...

Understood, but you are not going to get "regulation" without a political decision to put regulation into effect - right?  So at the end of the day, the world we live in is...  a political decision, one way or another.

a "free market" is not the same as lack thereof [regulation, I assume?]

With no regulation whatsoever, we end up with the law of the jungle...   which is the fallback position when all attempts to civilize things fail?


Real world politics is a multidimensional balance of some kind - a balance between rich/poor, strong/weak, selfish/altruistic, all kinds of dimensions....    This balance probably doesn't even have an ideal "setpoint" where everything works perfectly...  there may always be give and take between the competing dimensions?

[BU508A]

If somebody else is interested, there are more 1M 0.005% Vishay VHA516-T resistors available:

four of them:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/402841099981


three of them:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/402841100427

[bd139]

Meanwhile somewhere deep in the statistics:

I’m gonna run for prime minister 

[Ice-Tea]

Dude buys a 125€ scope. Gives me neutral feedback "Boxing could be better, CRT was dirty behind cover screen. For the rest product is OK as described.".

CRT was dirty??? What am I, a fucking window cleaner?? Christ.

*ice-tea out*

[nfmax]

Dude buys a 125€ scope. Gives me neutral feedback "Boxing could be better, CRT was dirty behind cover screen. For the rest product is OK as described.".

CRT was dirty??? What am I, a fucking window cleaner?? Christ.

*ice-tea out*

You supplied him with dirty videos? You should have charged extra!

[SilverSolder]

[...]
Say each homeowner is willing to pay $30...  that would put $240 on the table, max. - and there will be many days where you won't get 8 customers, due to competition, the season, or whatever.  Then you have to pay for your pickup truck, your mowers and other tools.

Basically, paying a "living wage" for a job that people simply are not willing to pay all that much for, is always going to be tough!

Yet even with your example, it is closer to a living wage than most people in that line of work can actually get.  When I was in my 20s, people were trying to get the minimum wage raised to $15/hour just to match inflation over the previous 2 decades.

[...] Here we are 30 years later and the US Federal  minimum wage is still $7.25/hour or less if an employer can assume tips, with even progressive California not yet there until 2022, and then only for businesses larger than 25 employees. [...]

I don't disagree with the goal that everyone should have a "living wage", obviously.

The problem is that by setting a high minimum wage, some low skilled jobs will simply disappear as not being viable (consumers won't pay).
 
Perhaps instead of having a high minimum, the state could simply "back fill" the lowest paid, up to the minimum level - keeping them in work, and with a living wage.  This could be fairly simple to implement via the tax system, via the employers.

[Ice-Tea]

Dude buys a 125€ scope. Gives me neutral feedback "Boxing could be better, CRT was dirty behind cover screen. For the rest product is OK as described.".

CRT was dirty??? What am I, a fucking window cleaner?? Christ.

*ice-tea out*

You supplied him with dirty videos? You should have charged extra!

Now there's a plan. Would put people on a better mood for sure.

[SilverSolder]

Yep. Nothing wrong with that either. Also delivery drivers get paid a lot more than the actual supermarket checkout staff do.

Interestingly perhaps, our supermarket delivery vans here are mostly electric now as well.

Yeah, unless you drive for Uber, etc. Then you make just enuf to pay for the car you're driving the wheels off of while they take your profit margin. 

mnem
 

Yeah, much the same thing with many couriers as well, I think you will find that most of their drivers are employed as self-employed drivers / owners and that also includes drivers for Amazon in their white vans and most of these drivers are delivering up to 9:00pm 7 days a week to make the payments on their vans and make enough to live a basic life. No matter which way you look at this situation, you end up with the same reasons, corporate and personal greed, which is the hideous face of capitalism. Money does corrupt, and it's morally wrong that most of the wealth ends up in the hands of a comparative few globally. I have a view that it might be because once you have made your first million, the second takes that much longer and so does the third and so on, as the profits increase, the growth seems to slow. At this point accountants and owners motivated only by percentages  etc kick into a higher gear to step up the increase and this leads to looking at removing costs and people are costs that can be removed easily and are the first step of that process.

If your Amazon drivers have a basic income to fall back on then Amazon will have to work hard to retain staff rather than keep them a prisoner of circumstance.  Another benefit.

Personally and I think most people would agree, it would be far better for Amazon and other employers to pay a really realistic liveable wage and have great conditions of employment so that the worker really feels appreciated and can draw a huge sense of pride from their efforts is the better option all round. I know that I would feel far better in myself if I was working in a position that I felt valued in and see that the bosses were not making a huge profit out of my efforts, and I was able to earn to reasonable return for my skills, so my family were not going without and still having something behind us for a rainy day. Surely that is all anybody needs, it is not essential to own your own private islands, or huge estates and mansions, planes and luxury yachts that are small ocean capable liners, have garages stuffed full of exotic and expensive cars etc.

I have seen first hand just how having a bit of money and position is such a huge life changing thing, seeing just how much those people changed from being really nice, warm and approachable people to becoming so self-righteous and superior to everyone else and chasing that maximum profit line becomes all consuming to the detriment of everything else.

Avoiding becoming "white trash with money" is a laudable aim! 

[med6753]

I go to my pre-surgical screening this morning and come back to nearly 2 pages of OT drivel. When TEA re-surfaces someone send me a memo.

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

[Cerebus]

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

Can you clean up Ice-Tea's stock at the same time, save him from some future bitching customers?

[SilverSolder]

I go to my pre-surgical screening this morning and come back to nearly 2 pages of OT drivel. When TEA re-surfaces someone send me a memo.

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

...and I'm going to mow the lawn! 

[tggzzz]

I go to my pre-surgical screening this morning and come back to nearly 2 pages of OT drivel. When TEA re-surfaces someone send me a memo.

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

You really really really don't want to know what I've been washing today

[Cerebus]

I go to my pre-surgical screening this morning and come back to nearly 2 pages of OT drivel. When TEA re-surfaces someone send me a memo.

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

You really really really don't want to know what I've been washing today

The 80 year old stripper?

What!?!   You filthy minded lot.  I obviously meant this:

[mnementh]

I go to my pre-surgical screening this morning and come back to nearly 2 pages of OT drivel. When TEA re-surfaces someone send me a memo.

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

...and I'm going to mow the lawn! 

Did that yesterday. Broke these in:   

Today I'm hoeing oot the back shed; getting my old bipsychos out to put up on Kijiji while they're still worth the assache. Will no doubt break those boots in some more.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Meanwhile somewhere deep in the statistics:

I’m gonna run for prime minister 

I'm gonna run away & hide.

mnem

[tggzzz]

I go to my pre-surgical screening this morning and come back to nearly 2 pages of OT drivel. When TEA re-surfaces someone send me a memo.

In the meantime I'm gonna go wash the car. 

You really really really don't want to know what I've been washing today

The 80 year old stripper?

That would be a comparatively pleasant and relaxing thought

As my daughter would put it, FML.

[xrunner]

What, if you format the first disk with the LOADR on it, so that it is bootable?
Not sure, perhaps it was format a: /mbr

Interesting idea but that wasn't the problem. But ... it's installing now! 

Oh my ... the solution is convoluted. 

I'm going to write it up today and post so someone else can find it someday. Be back with it later.