#fixed wages

[townpostin]

Tata Motors Chassis Drivers Submit Demand Letter to DC

Drivers Demand Fixed Wages, Bonus, Insurance, and Payment Through Banks On Friday, Tata Motors chassis drivers submitted a demand letter to the Deputy Commissioner, seeking resolution of their issues related to wages, bonuses, insurance, and payment methods. JAMSHEDPUR – Tata Motors chassis drivers submitted a demand letter to the Deputy Commissioner (DC) on Friday. The drivers have requested…

[ominouspuff]

Kote’s House

Kote’s first house is a pathetic thing, and he is incurably proud of it. The twi’lek he purchased it from very evidently could not make up his mind what to do with a man that grinned while he haggled, but it was the first time Kote had haggled over a purchase of his very own. He had thoroughly enjoyed it.

The house is built for one being, and a compact being at that, but Kote doesn’t have much. Moving in is quick, and most of his efforts during the next few days after go into attempting ambitious repairs for things he doesn’t know the first thing about. 

His plumbing is an issue, he knows. Something is getting blocked up. Somehow while trying to fix the kitchen tumbler, his fresher spout explodes.

He hadn’t kept his new house a secret from anyone by any means, but it is still surprising when Fox barges in through his jamming front door. He finds Kote on the floor in his cramped kitchen while the fresher rains water in the adjacent room, laughing so hard and so crippled with delight that he can’t get up.

He tries to explain how wonderful it is —

“I-I have to fix my plumbing on my own, vod—”

—but judging by Fox’s single raised eyebrow he knows it doesn’t translate.

Fox, it turns out, is moving into the neighborhood. Kote doesn’t ask about the house Fox already has — the house he has visited, which is very nice and fancy — or point out that Fox’s contract there cannot possibly be up, which begs the question of why he’s here in Kote’s neighborhood — except that Kote already knows the answer to that question. So he doesn’t ask.

Fox doesn’t show him any grace or forbearance, though.

“Don’t even know how to fix a damn pipe, front lining show-off—” His brother snarls, but it is muffled; his top half had to go down beneath the floor they’d pried up to get at the plumbing issue.

“So that’s what they had you doing all these years.” Kote says, because he really is in a criminally good mood. He barely ducks the foot-long pipe Fox throws at his head, feeling giddy.

He makes dinner that night in thanks. Fox stays, ostensibly because now that he’s fixed the fresher he intends to use it, because his new house isn’t hooked up properly yet to all the supply lines and power grids. 

They choke on homemade tiingilar (vode-style; Kote can’t pretend at the real thing yet) so heavily spiced it’s got grit to it that sticks between the teeth. It’s disgusting, but Cody had bought fifteen different spices and while usually he likes to keep his approach to the unknown more cautious, more methodical, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than use them all at once for the first time. 

Wolffe joins them not long after; brings a few others along by recommending the apartment he picks out, so that soon most of the complex is taken up by vode, Kote hears, but he doesn’t visit yet. Everyone’s too busy coming over to his house, it seems; filling up his kitchen and asking why he hasn’t fixed the trash disposal yet, why he doesn’t have a couch, doesn’t he know they’re all the rage among civilized folk?

Kote fixes the trash disposal with Rex, who is better at it than he is but says it’s only due to Skywalker’s influence on managing all things mechanical. 

“How is Skywalker?” Kote asks, and gets more than he bargained for over the next hour. At first he’s a bit off-put, because he’s trying to get dinner sorted again and he’s not been very fond of Skywalker at the best of times, but Rex is snorting out a story and laughing and it’s contagious, so Kote just resigns himself and settles in to enjoy.

Skywalker has little ones, now. Obi-Wan is the only one that can get them to sleep. Ahsoka is distressed; she knows better, but every instinct in her is apparently in agony over the little ones’ inability to eat meat yet. She obsesses over nutrients in their diet — which, given what tiny natborn humans primarily ingest in the early stages, makes for some slightly awkward conversations.

Rex helps with dinner afterward, and they take turns being incredulous over natborn baby facts, shoving around one another in the tiny, uncomfortable kitchen.

“What’s your next project?” Rex asks at one point, glancing sidelong with a cheeky look, and Kote levels his vegetable knife at him (he’s got a vegetable knife. Specifically for vegetables. It’s a very new concept). 

“I make everyone’s dinner on Tuangsdays.” He says. “I’m productive.”

Rex’s sharp-toothed grin turns thoughtful. “Yeah” He says. “Everyone loves coming here, you know. You could be the new 79’s.”

Kote knows. He plans and plots, and puts more work into researching recipes than he’s put into any research whatsoever in months. It feels a bit like coming out of a shore leave; his thoughts quicken and his excitement grows. He hunts down a market. He brings a bag. He shops, bargains, and returns victorious.

He sends out a few comms., and can’t help but shake his head and grin at how different the responses are. 

What a marvelous idea, Cody. His general — ex-general — says.

Yus pls, Ahsoka sends back, with some sort of strange tooka vidclip that dances with wiggly gyrations Kote can only assume indicate excitement.

Where is your house, Anakin says, blunt and to the point, and Kote can appreciate that. 

He sends the address. He cooks all day. The sun sets, and Fox and Wolffe arrive, already bickering, Rex trailing behind with a long-suffering look sent to Kote, begging commiseration.

“Ugh, don’t you ever stop smiling, now?” He gripes when Kote just grins at him. 

“Nope,” Kote says, unrepentantly.

He leaves the soup on the stove, simmering, and takes his cup of caf to the window. He leans on it, breathing in cool air, and just listens — listens to the squabbling as Wolffe gets on Fox’s case for not washing Kote’s dishes correctly the last time they visited. Hears the soft thumps of Rex sneaking into the cramped room Kote has set aside for plants and the sole pet he has; a pastel goullian, fins swaying ever so gently, permanent scowl in place. Thinks he catches, distantly, the sound of his remaining three guests (Padme couldn’t attend, and had made him feel very awkward by how thoughtfully she apologized for it) plodding up the hill. 

“Cody!” Ahsoka cries, coming into view and waving. 

Kote’s cheeks have stopped aching from all the smiling he’s gotten used to, so it’s easy to let another through.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The housing crisis considered as an income crisis

I'll be in TUCSON, AZ from November 8-10: I'm the GUEST OF HONOR at the TUSCON SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.

A paradox: in 1970, everyday Americans found it relatively easy to afford a house, and the average American house cost 5.9x the average American income. In 2024, Americans find it nearly impossible to afford a house, and the average American house costs…5.9x the average American income.

Feels like a puzzler, right? Can it really be true that the average American house is as affordable to the average American earner as it was in 1970? It is true, as you can see from Blair Fix's latest open access research report, "The American Housing Crisis: A Theft, Not a Shortage":

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/10/23/the-american-housing-crisis-a-theft-not-a-shortage/

Fix also points out that is even more true of rents than it is of house prices. The ratio of rent to average income has actually fallen slightly since 1970. Rents are also, in some mathematical sense, "affordable."

Now, those of you who are well-versed in statistical card-palming will likely have a pretty good idea of the statistical artifact at the root of this paradox: the word "average." If you remember your seventh grade math, you'll recall that "average" has more than one meaning. Sure, there's the most common one: add several values together, then divide the total by the number of values you added. For example, a nonzero number of people have one or zero arms, so the average human has slightly fewer than two arms.

That average is called the "mean." The mean US wage is pretty robust: $73,242/year:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A792RC0Q052SBEA/1000

But the majority of Americans are not earning anything like $73k/year. Since the Reagan years, the number of Americans living in poverty and extreme poverty has climbed and climbed. And while their declining income sure drags down that average, it's dragged way, way, way up by another group of Americans – the ultra-rich.

You see, as Fix writes, back in the Reagan years, America initiated an experiment in redistribution. Reagan enacted policies that moved most of the nation's wealth from the great majority of working people to a tiny minority of people who ended up owning pretty much everything. Throw their income into the mix, and the average American's income is sufficient to finance the average American home, with plenty to spare.

In other words, this isn't an "average human has fewer than two arms" situation, it's more like a "Spiders Georg" situation. Spiders Georg is a Tumblr meme about a guy who eats 10,000 spiders every day and is thus single-handedly responsible for the (false) statistic that the average human eats two spiders a week:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiders_Georg

The American rich – Reagan's progeny – are the Spiders Georg of house prices. By hoarding the great mass of American national wealth, they create a statistical mirage of affordable housing.

Now, that's interesting, but where Fix goes next with this is even more fascinating. If the average price of housing (relative to average income) has stayed fixed since 1970, then it follows that the price of housing isn't being driven up by a problem with supply. Rather, these numbers suggest that America has enough housing, it's just that (most) Americans don't have enough money.

If that's true – and I have a couple of quibbles, which I'll get to in a sec – then the most common prescription for solving American housing (building more of it) is somewhat beside the point. For Fix, using public funds to subsidize cheaper housing is like using public funds to pay for food stamps for working people whose wages are too low to keep them from starving. Sure, we should do that: no one should be without a home and no one should be hungry. But if working people can't afford shelter and food, then we have a wage problem, not a supply problem.

Fix – as ever – has a well-thought through, painstakingly documented "sources and methods" page to back up his conclusions:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2024/10/23/the-american-housing-crisis-a-theft-not-a-shortage/#sources-and-methods

And while Fix acknowledges that reversing the mass transfer of wealth from working people to their bosses (and their bosses' idle offspring) is a big lift, he rightly wants to keep the question of wages (rather than housing supply) front and center in our debate about why so many of us are finding it hard to keep a a roof over our heads. We need progressive taxation, higher minimum wages, protection from medical and education debt, and hell, why not a job guarantee?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/25/canada-reads/#tcherneva

I love Fix's work, and this report is no exception. He does it all in his spare time. Some nice progressive think tank should give him a grant so he can do (a lot) more of it.

That all said, I do have a quibble with his conclusion about the adequacy of the American housing supply. In California, we have a shortage of 3-4 million homes, a number arrived at through the relatively robust method of adding up the number of California families that would like to have their own homes and subtracting the number of homes available near those families:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_housing_shortage

How to explain the discrepancy? One possibility is that the price of housing is artificially low, because more than 181,000 people are homeless here. Hundreds of thousands of more people are living in overcrowded housing, with multiple families inhabiting spaces intended for just one (or even a single person). If all of those people were competing for housing, the price might rise even higher.

Think of the people who have given up looking for work – because they're not in the workforce, wages go up. If they were competing in the labor market, wages would fall. Maybe all those people would prefer to have a job, but they're missing from the statistics.

That's one theory. Another is that we're getting tripped up on averages again here. California does have some towns with many vacancies, extra supply that is pushing down prices; it's also got many places with far more people who want to live there than there are homes for. It's possible that there's enough supply on average across the states, but – as we've seen – averages are deceptive.

Ultimately, I think both things can be true: we have a wage problem and we have (many, localized) supply problems. Both of these problems deserve our attention, and neither is acceptable in a civilized society.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/24/i-dream-of-gini/#mean-ole-mr-median

[wouldminimumwagefixthem]

Siffrin(ISaT)

[pinacoladamatata]

oh fen'harel we're really in it now.....

[koko2unite]

[svartalfhild]

In case anyone was wondering what the vibe is at my job, today I had to stop a fistfight between two 7 year olds while attempting to convince another two to stop saying inappropriate things before I run out of chances I'm willing to give them. This is a normal Tuesday. I'm a reading tutor.

[politedemon]

if i'd succeeded in any of my phd applications i'd be starting today 🙃

[aromantyczno-liryczna]

Buy me a coffee

THIS HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY DRAFTS FOR LIKE TWO HOURS ASKING FOR THINGS IS LITERALLY MY WORST FEAR BUT FUCK IT WE BALL

my mum could really use £30-40 for groceries. We've spent a lot of money fixing stuff this month like replacement pipes and central heating (that really should be our landlord's responsibility..). She only has £150 left but we've still got bills to pay later this month so not much to spend on food and other necessities. Universal credit + her wage doesn't get paid until the end of the month (something is coming next week too but idr) 🥲

Usually we ask family and close friends for borrowing money but no one has been able to lend any aaa

No pressure to donate whatsoever — but if you have some extra money, any support would be greatly appreciated mwah <3

[nando161mando]

fixed this guide

[burning2know]

i made the mistake of looking up Temu on tumblr

[kushamisaru]

I think we should hunt price gougers for sport but maybe grocery prices wouldn't be such a compelling argument if it was... I dunno, easier to get a SNAP card? Just a thought.

[here-on-occasion]

If I ever acknowledge just how ooc the mcdonald's stuff was for sylvie I'll probably never get over it so i'm gonna ignore the whole thing

[droodlebug]

soo many of my ocs.. and like All my beloved ones.. are people who just desperately want to live a quiet, peaceful life with their loved ones. but forces outside of their control keep making that impossible for them, and they aren't able to keep going through the situations against them without having to hurt and push themselves too far but still keep Choosing to be good and do good things because it is just what you should do

this says nothing in particular about me, i am sure.

[wouldminimumwagefixthem]

Javert(Les Misérables)

[hneycmb]

I need people to stop thinking of robots and AI in their current states of advancement as conscious beings. It's a weird amount of anthropomorphization that really misses the mark on what the concerns surrounding these things should be. When you start talking about AI and robots as anything but tools, you begin to view robots and AI themselves as the problem instead of the people in charge of them and what they're being used for. It also makes you sound like a luddite who thinks the voice in their smartphone is Literally The Devil.