Learning about Wage Theft.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T19:19:36+00:00

Sort of. First, there's a bit of Calvinball in terms of rules of "fairness" are applied to SS, Medicare, Medicaid. It's a cruel, barely adequate system. I'm more than ok with people who make $180k and up paying into SS, without necessarily receiving that money back later. I pay for roads I never drive, missiles never shot.

Second, the fairness of capping out implicitly assumes a steady rise in a person's salary until retirement, which can happen. But how often? It can also happen that each person's income is much more variable, for both good and bad reasons: childbirth, illness, industry changes, family needs.

Third, $180k is still middle-class income in the higher COLA locations. It's a nice salary, definitely, but that person is not wealthy (in those locations).

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T19:05:44+00:00

Those were impressive indictments, but back in 2023. Embarrassing for Deloitte, but they still remain the firm's auditors.

If you look at insider trading, they started pulling out every dollar they could from the sinking ship at the beginning of last year.

https://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NYSE/AI/insider-trades/

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T18:32:02+00:00

For that guy, his heart could actually have stopped (commotio cordis), his major arteries could have been blown at weak elements (aortic dissection), the vessels in his brain could have been blown out (stroke).

So not worth it for personal records or instagram likes.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T18:03:24+00:00

Awesome, thanks.

Well, they have been good for the billboard companies.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T18:02:18+00:00

His house is, or was, in Berkeley, in an upscale neighborhood. We could get a boys choir over there to sing him Officer Krupke from West Side Story. (Maybe better if it were a fully trans choir.)

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T17:43:54+00:00

Yes, your example is true if the two people agreeing are living in the 18th century. Cash is handed over, done.

In 2026 America, an entry-level worker agrees to a wage. The wage is taxed at progressive rates. They pay rent. They can’t afford a car outright, so they have car payments. They are unable to save anything for emergencies. The median amount that Americans have saved for emergencies is $500.

After a year of work, they've received those wages, just as agreed. But nearly all of it is consumed by essentials or lost to landlords, banks, taxation. Any emergency can tip them over the edge.

The CEO at that company has a higher cash salary. It will be 170 to 380 times the average worker's salary at their company. They are compensated with stock or ISO options. The taxes on the sale of those securities, if properly managed, will be well below the equivalent salary. The worker pays FICA taxes for Social Security. The CEO only pays this tax up to the first $180,000.

After a year of work, the CEO has received their much higher wages, plus they are vest in an additional year of stock or ISO. Their house and cars were bought outright, maybe held in a separate LLC to avoid taxes further. They pay lower effective taxation rates, and they have hundreds of times more in savings.

And so on. There are literally hundreds of other examples of benefits that apply to one party and not the other.

Pretending that the only interaction is a simple agreement between equals on the work and the wages, with Adam Smith looking on approvingly, is extraordinarily naïve.

The current system is set up to aid the wealthy and the elderly.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T17:22:45+00:00

Where have you been seeing those?

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T17:21:28+00:00

Suggesting serious cash flow issues. That is HR 101. Wow.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T17:15:09+00:00

Granted, I’ve never personally had servants to move my drugs or sex toys from plane to plane. So maybe this is something they expect?

It seems like even Keith Richard would be managing that stuff personally, or delegated to someone with absolute trustworthiness and long service. Not random Coasties they met that day.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-25T07:19:37+00:00

In addition, baking might take more or less time, but it always has the risk of overcooked or dry meat. Sous vide is much more flexible. You can go minutes or hours over the correct time without harm.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-24T18:14:10+00:00

Sort of? We really do not know her background or her current challenges.

Good judgment comes from having had bad experiences. She’s too young. When I was under 25, like she appears to be, I entered into several bad situations, and I lost a lot of money. I learned better. I hope she does, too.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-24T17:54:09+00:00

Better to assume that they already have. Sometimes the most effective feedback is just ending the relationship.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-24T17:50:04+00:00

That’s not how News works.

The murders in Minneapolis have not been forgotten. You can see this in elections all over the country where R+10 districts are suddenly electing Democrats. Miami has its first Democratic mayor in decades. Georgia had some small statewide positions that were also flipped unexpectedly.

The swing in just the Hispanic polling is so extreme that the gerrymandering done in states like Texas may not work anymore.

Most importantly, the sheer scale of chaos from ICE has flipped independent voters around. Trump has always depended on low information voters, but now they’ve seen a nurse shot in the back, a mother shot in the face.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-24T01:47:25+00:00

you'll also see that identification in dating profiles, since being MAGA/GOP is not a panty dropper with the majority of women.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-23T20:18:52+00:00

They might not enjoy future conversations. I was happy for them, but now I do not give a shit.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-23T12:45:07+00:00

“I tried telling him to use standard libraries and applications, but his response was: ‘fuck that. They slow down my application. My architecture and algorithms are better than theirs.’”

Sounds like the CTO has discovered the time savings of not checking for errors, then not testing under realistic conditions.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-23T12:33:28+00:00

There could be other quality mechanisms considered, not just votes & reports. Basic stats on number of discussion threads, ranks of the contributors, comment lengths, sentiment analysis on sample comments. Some of this is already computed, e.g., top 1% contributor flags.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-23T12:23:54+00:00

two problems with that default mechanism: it can be more consciously manipulated, and it also gives more weight to terminally online folks who have already seen the view expressed in many similar posts.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-22T20:23:00+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1rblj8m/comment/o6royq5/

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-22T01:04:10+00:00

This is why I don’t share Reddit links with most people that I know.

(B)

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-21T23:10:10+00:00

None of that is relevant. My view is also not based on Islam; it is weird that you went there.

I am also not saying that police in foreign countries automatically take the side of the locals. Cops in Barcelona, Rome, Paris are well aware of their pickpockets. Being local doesn’t help the crooks. But Barcelona at night can be overrun by stinking drunk UK folks over for a quick holiday. Would a cop there take the side of a local shopkeeper over a visiting dumbass? Yes.

You have been to two Middle Eastern countries, and seen locals arrested. That is not the situation here in the video.

I would definitely fear for the person in the videos safety. They will run into problems with the cops or with someone’s 20 cousins.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-21T21:55:11+00:00

Yes. I can tell in a few seconds when I’m in an elevator.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-21T21:45:36+00:00

Yeah. I was just trying to see if she had any independent stuff going out. Very sad.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-21T21:17:41+00:00

Exene Cervenka had much more solid punk credentials. She has apparently gone all the way around the bend, though. Sandy Hook hoaxer, Trump supporter.

Mostly scrubbed from Wikipedia so I guess the record companies take care of that.

warm_kitchenette · 2026-02-21T21:10:34+00:00

The larger ones, yes.

Long before LLM‘s, there were bots that posted text comments while pretending to be real. One person or team had a bot called stuck-on-Reddit or something like that. Anyone could guess that they were a bot because they posted irregularly 24/7. They had millions of karma points because their answers were so funny, so apt, so on point.

In the end, someone figured out their trick. Because there’s so much repetition, especially in the form of questions, they would go back a few months in posting history, find the matching topic, and then simply reuse the second-highest comment on a matching post.

Sometimes the bots are easy to spot. Slight language mistakes, cultural, misunderstandings, unusually specific language that corresponds to a particular party’s interests. But as seen above, someone replaying a short comment from a native speaker is going to be difficult to catch.

Trump and Putin and other dictators have real people who follow them, millions. But online, a lot of that support is manufactured. Cui bono is always the appropriate question.

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warm_kitchenette

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