What Do Unions Do to Productivity? A Meta‐Analysis - "The impact of unions on productivity is explored using meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis. It is shown that most of the variation in published results is due to specification differences between studies. After controlling for differences between studies, a negative association between unions and productivity is established for the United Kingdom, whereas a positive association is established for the United States in general and for U.S. manufacturing."
Marxist Vegan Restaurant in Michigan Closes for Predictably Marxist Reasons - "After five years of business, Grand Rapids, Michigan's famously Marxist vegan sandwich shop is closing its doors due to bumps in the road toward what it hoped would be an egalitarian, worker-run business model. The Garden Diner and Café put Grand Rapids on the alternative diet map thanks to its widely acclaimed vegan, vegetarian, and raw food offerings. Unfortunately, the restaurant also proved the old adage that it doesn't matter how tasty your black bean patty is if you can't afford to pay your workers and it takes 45 minutes for you to put a sandwich together... Not only did the café struggle to pay its workers, part-owner Thad Cummings told local Michigan site MLive, but its Facebook page (no longer active) swelled with comments from angry customers who routinely complained of slow and spotty service, saying that they would sometimes wait nearly an hour for what we're assuming was a very passable vegan sandwich. And that's when it was open; thanks to a policy of setting hours by "group decision," the café didn't keep standard hours, as some users noted on its (four-star, for what it's worth) Yelp page... Although their food largely received praise, some people, particularly those of the "Redditor" variety, saw the restaurant's closure as an inevitable manifestation of Communism's flaws in practice. But not everyone was convinced that the restaurant was true enough to its proletariat stance; in August, it faced complaints after sending a free meal to the Grand Rapids Police Department, which some saw as a move that was just a little too chummy with a "nearly all-white police force in this era of police violence."... Which brings us to the real news here: Apparently, in Grand Rapids, you can rent a restaurant space—complete for three parking spaces—for a mere $1,650 a month"
Socialist-Themed Vegan Meat Company Learns Marxism Works Better in Theory Than Practice - "With products like Comrade Cluck (a plant meat, not actual chicken), No Evil Foods has had success casting itself as a “revolutionary” food company that embodies progressive values. But the company is learning marketing progressive ideas is easier than implementing socialist-style economics. For months, company leaders have been resisting a unionization effort by workers at their Weaverville, North Carolina plant... Two of the union organizers were later fired, allegedly for violating social distancing and dress policies... Vox Media was forced to cut 200 bloggers at SB Nation after California passed Assembly Bill 5, legislation that forced numerous industries to change the status of workers from freelancers to actual employees. Some astute observers pointed out that the firings came just a few months after Vox, a progressive media brand, had championed AB5 as a “victory for workers everywhere.”"
Asda 'shaming poor families' by putting cheap food in bright yellow packaging - "Asda has defended its new budget range of items after being accused of ‘shaming’ poor people with bright yellow packaging. The chain recently replaced Smartprice products with new Just Essentials branding, its 'largest ever budget-friendly range', which is intended to help shoppers combat the rising cost of living. It includes fresh meat, fish and poultry, bakery, frozen and cupboard staples as well as washing up liquid, toilet roll, shampoo and other toiletries and household essentials. However, the bright yellow design of the new range has led some people to claim that it stands out too much and gives 'poverty markers' to shoppers... Asda said its customers were ‘loving’ the range. A spokesperson said: ‘We don't understand why anyone would feel embarrassed for saving money and we are delighted by how much our customers are loving the new Just Essentials range, as shown by the great response and how they continue to add Just Essentials products to their basket every time they shop.’"
Product differentiation is discriminatory. So everyone has an even playing field, it's better to discontinue budget products
Companies need to spend money on design and marketing and absorb these costs and provide low prices at the same time
Ironically, we're told that poor people have a cognitive burden of poverty. But making things easy for them is bad because of "stigma"
Opinion: Ottawa, we have a problem: Is Canada’s economy heading toward disaster? - The Globe and Mail - "Canada has relied a lot on its natural resources to fuel growth. But look at how Argentina and South Africa, which also have an abundance of natural resources, ended up. Those two countries were the subjects of recent long reads in this newspaper and are very good examples for Canadian politicians of what not to do. Yet Canada’s politicians seem to be making the same mistakes politicians in Argentina and South Africa did. They behaved as if their countries’ wealth was endless, and look where they are now. Here are some critical mistakes that parallel those made by the aforementioned countries: The Canadian government has made it clear that it wants corporations to become benevolent organizations that put workers before shareholders. It favours taxing corporations and the rich and adding regulatory impediments to corporate activity. It is a big supporter of income redistribution at the expense of making the pie larger for everyone by investing in the expansion of productive capacity. It wants to regulate the economy and nudge corporations to submit to its social views and economic philosophy. Its policies discourage entrepreneurship and wealth creation and replace them with handouts to every significant lobby and activist group. The government increasingly seems not to understand how people get jobs and how they get by – and how heavily favouring environmental issues stirred up by activists over economic concerns kills jobs. Meanwhile, Canada has a productivity problem that has gotten worse over the past 10 years. Its GDP per capita has increased at a much slower pace than those of countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the United States since 1980 and particularly since 2015... The federal government has found ways to create jobs, however – just not in the right place. Between 2017 and 2022, it embarked on a hiring boom the likes of which Canada has never seen before, adding the same number of civil servant jobs as the U.S., a country with 10 times Canada’s population. Do we really need a hiring boom in the public sector? In addition, Canada continues to suffer from overinvestment in another less productive sector of the economy: housing. Housing-related activity is bigger than any other sector of the economy, including manufacturing, mining, oil and gas and so on. Economic strategies that rely on real estate for growth are misplaced and need to be reconsidered. Fundraising and investments have to be channelled to more productivity-enhancing industries, such as robotics, cybersecurity and additive manufacturing, to name a few. And yet, looking at the government’s most aggressive pro-immigration policy, one has to realize that this is not going to happen any time soon! As a country, we need strategies that promote wealth creation and economic prosperity by moving away from the public sector, resources and real estate to other, more productivity-enhancing sectors of the economy and aim for expanding productive capacity as opposed to playing Robin Hood."
Of course, poor economic growth is the fault of capitalism, which has failed
I wonder what happened in 2015
Trade unionism has become an elite sport - "Data from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, released last week, revealed that only 12 per cent of private sector employees belonged to a trade union. But even more interesting was that in the public sector, where trade union membership is of a much higher proportion, membership has dropped below 50 per cent for the first time since the records began in 1995, and now sits at just 48.6 per cent. Now, only a minority of public sector workers are trade union members. You can see how these unions have become detached from their purpose and from the people that most need representation. Far from the mass labour movements of the 1970s and 1980s, unions have become the playthings of a new public sector elite. This is illustrated by the fact that a larger proportion of union members now earn over £1,000 a week (17.7 per cent) compared to those on less than £250 a week (11.0 per cent). Unions are not speaking for those at the bottom of the pile. They are mouthpieces for a minority, people in some of the best paid public sector positions in the country. As a result of this shift, today, unions like the British Medical Association (especially the demagogues of the junior doctors committee) behave more like student socialist societies than membership associations concerned with achieving material improvements for downtrodden workers. They have been quite upfront that actually negotiating with the government is “no longer productive”. One member of the BMA’s ruling council described the junior doctor dispute as a “hugely important ideological-political moment” and said the BMA should situate itself “in a broader workers’ struggle.” This is hardly the language of a narrow body striving for fair pay and conditions. Rather, they behave more like a fringe political movement, determined to reshape our society without broader democratic consent... Now the PCS is even threatening to go on strike rather than implement the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme, having already been part of the legal action that has delayed the programme, even if the Court of Appeal decides the scheme is legal. It’s extraordinary that civil service unions are willing to strike to prevent a democratic government from implementing policies because they disagree with them."
Meme - Erin Ekins @QueerlyAutistic: "I've come to the conclusion that the sole purpose of homework is to condition children into accepting that unpaid overtime and ridiculous hours and not even being able to escape work even in your own home are a normal things to expect in their future."
Maybe leftists hate homework because they just hate work
dina on Twitter - "If you think about it. People with glasses are literally paying to use their eyes. Capitalism is a bitch."
We're all oppressed by gravity too. Damn capitalism!
Meme - "Why doesn't Batman kill his villains??? Because Blackgate and Arkham are For Profit prisons he's protecting his investments stay woke"
Youth unemployment in Europe and the world: Causes, consequences and solutions - "Employment protection legislation (EPL) also affects youth unemployment. During the 1980s, European economies suffered from high rates of unemployment. Policy makers consequently introduced a wide array of reforms. A common measure has been to ease EPL for temporary (fixed-term) contracts, while leaving EPL for permanent contracts unchanged. These reforms have contributed to raising employment during upturns, but many of the new jobs have been temporary jobs (Bentolila, Boeri, Cahuc 2010). These temporary jobs are mainly held by youth (e.g. Ryan 2001; OECD 2004). During recessions, many of the temporary jobs were the first to be shed, hence creating youth unemployment (e.g. Boeri 2009). Indeed, during the recent great recession, youth have been hit particularly strongly and temporary contracts have become the dominant contract type for newly established contracts of young people (O’Higgins 2012). The problem of segmented labour markets is particularly severe in Mediterranean countries of Europe, most notably Spain."
One leftist claimed that you shouldn't have two tier labour markets. If leftists would rather young people be unemployed than be on temporary contracts (this also applies to other groups who are less favoured by labour markets), that's a great sacrifice that they're willing to have other people make for your left wing beliefs. Of course, he then went on to claim that young people should not work but be in education, and unemployment can be solved with a federal jobs guarantee. Given that the definition of youth in the EU is 15-29, he wants people to be in university for 11 years, not to mention the problem of paying for everything (money can always be printed, and greedy companies can be blamed for inflation)
'Ugly Produce' Subscription Boxes Have Ignited a Food War - The Atlantic - "Food-justice advocates argue that profit-based solutions are unequipped to do battle against food inequality, and that even well-meaning companies could do real harm to community organizations... the crop scientist Sarah Taber wrote a long thread arguing that ugly produce isn’t the problem or solution. “The food system is a hot mess but using ugly produce is one thing it’s actually really good at”"
Basically selling ugly produce is bad because it's capitalism
Why AOC's tax plan makes sense: It would help keep oligarchs in check. - "mostly popular these days among thinkers on the political left. The main reason to hike top tax rates, in this view, isn’t to keep the deficit in check; it’s simply to keep individuals from becoming too wealthy, because inequality is itself toxic for society."
Leftists don't love the poor - they just hate the rich
Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism: Smutty Stories... | Microcosm Publishing - " Sexy, capitalism-defying adventures take you around the galaxy in this debut collection of five high-heat erotic short stories by MJ Lyons. A pack of werewolves tear through downtown Toronto to protest cruel treatment of workers, led by a werewolf & witch couple who are equally passionate about the cause and each other. From charnel landscapes to queer utopias, from the crepuscular cruising grounds of 19th century Paris to the urban werewolf hunting grounds of 21st century Toronto, from the tender to the consentacled, these tales of unapologetically queer, unabashedly smutty speculative fiction will thrill, titillate, and delight.
A male/male erotic short story collection from Microcosm’s Queering Consent series."
Bernie Sanders Doubles 2022 Income With Book Condemning Capitalism - "According to Sen. Bernie Sanders's latest annual financial disclosures, the Vermont Independent earned $170,000 in book royalties in 2022 for his recently-published best-selling book, "It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism." That's almost as much as the $174,000 salary that senators and House members collect each year. Coupled with another $170,000 royalties payment from publisher Penguin Random House in 2020, Sanders has so far made $340,000 from the book."
Toronto's proudly anti-capitalist cafe is permanently closing - "One polarizing coffee shop in Toronto is set to officially close its doors at the end of the month. The Anarchist, located at 190 Jarvis Street, describes itself as an "anti-capitalist, anti-colonial cafe, shop and radical community space on stolen land." The coffee shop first opened up back in March 2022 and offers all the beverages and baked goods you'd expect to find at a cafe, with a side of radical books, art, stickers, jewelry, clothing, and tote bags. "I hope by openly declaring the business as anti-capitalist I can motivate people to think and ask about what that means, and let those who are already anti-capitalists of one kind or another know that this is a place for them, where their politics, ideas, and identities will always be welcome," owner Gabriel Sims-Fewer previously told blogTO... "The Anarchist has been a huge success in every way I hoped, and has given me so much inspiration and education that I plan to put to use in future projects," the announcement reads. "Unfortunately, the lack of generational wealth/seed capital from ethically bankrupt sources left me unable to weather the quiet winter season, or to grow in the ways needed to be sustainable longer-term," the message continues."
'Anti-capitalist' coffee shop shuts down in Toronto after only one year due to lack of income - ""It's been an amazing experience," The Anarchist’s owner Gabriel Sims-Fewer wrote on the cafe’s website, "connecting with so many great community members, sparking desperately needed debate, raising the blood pressure of Conservatives (that includes you, ‘anarcho-capitalists’ and ‘Libertarians’), fulfilling the dream of most service workers by not having to tolerate the presence of professional class-traitors (pigs and military), and experimenting with living and working in ways that don't enthusiastically embrace the pure misanthropy of Capitalism.”... He concluded, "F*ck the rich. F*ck the police. F*ck the state. F*ck the colonial death camp we call 'Canada.'" According to the cafe’s website, in order to make coffee accessible to everyone and to prove that the business was not a capitalist venture, the shop had a "pay what you can" model that was subsidized by more expensive drinks. The unsuccessful model came under fire when The Anarchist first opened, as critics claimed it was hypocritical to charge high prices for inexpensive beverages."
Of course, this is the fault of capitalism
How to Avoid Eviction and Still Get a Tenant to Move Out - "Offering “cash for keys” can avoid eviction by getting your tenant to move out voluntarily. While this may not be the most immediately appealing of methods for handling tenant turnover, it is one of the more effective means of doing so. That said, it is going to cost you. However, it will likely prove to be worth it if you need the tenants out of the property as soon as possible. Also, it is as simple as it sounds. Through this method, you will be paying your tenants to leave your property. In turn, this will allow you to avoid the lengthy eviction process and even save money in the long run. Follow these steps below when offering “cash for keys” to avoid eviction"
Damn homeowners refusing to rent out their properties and worsening the housing crisis!
Full article: Do rent controls and other tenancy regulations affect new construction? Some answers from long-run historical evidence - "The (re-)introduction of tenancy regulation in the form of rent controls, tenant protection or supply rationing is back on the agenda of policymakers in light of rent inflation in many global cities. While rent controls promise short-term relief, economists point to their negative long-run effects on new construction. This study presents new long-run data on both rent regulation and housing construction for 16 developed countries (1910–2016) and finds that more restrictive rental market legislation generally has a negative impact on both new housing construction and residential investment. This is especially true for strict rent controls and housing rationing measures in the post-1960 period. Tenancy security can on average also dampen construction activity. The negative effect is overall less significant and strong in magnitude than expected and may have been offset by exemptions for new construction, by compensating social housing construction and by a flight of new construction into the owner-occupied sector. Still, on average, rent controls came at the cost of less construction activity."
Why Canada might just need a tenant revolution - "landlords—who are operating in a mostly unregulated market, where rent controls are becoming weaker and weaker—are also benefiting... There are folks, particularly in the real estate industry, actively lobbying for things to stay the same. An unregulated housing market benefits them enormously... we talk about housing as if it’s only a matter of supply and demand. The logic goes that if we build more housing units, housing will become more affordable. The answer is always to build more housing, and the corporate developers become the solution. So, the government drops regulations and provide more subsidies to the developers. But we’ve built more housing and prices continue to rise... We need to politicize the housing debate in Canada... We’re a rich country. Government, at all levels, has shown it’s capable of mobilizing massive amounts of resources when the political will is there. When we decide a project is of national importance, we’ll buy a pipeline, we’ll create CERB overnight, we’ll fund the development and deployment of a vaccine."
If you're deluded about the world, your solutions are not going to work. Debt does not matter to leftists
Meme - Ontario Tenant Rights: "What is a fair amount of cash to ask for keys?"
"35,000 Especially if they're selling Or say they're going to sell. After moving costs. All the other issues regarding moving. The increased rent And extra fees for moving your internet and other utilities. If they say no offer 40,000."
Condo owner must also pay up for tenant's disruptive behaviour, tribunal says - "Varun Sriskanda, a board member with the advocacy group Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario (SOLO), said tribunal decisions that "unfairly penalize" landlords for a tenant's actions could have a chilling effect on condo owners seeking to rent out their units. "Landlords are going to be very, very careful with who they let into their condominium units. It's going to create stricter renting requirements within a market that's already very difficult to rent in," Sriskanda said. "Landlords who have condominium units are going to ask to see references from another landlord that has a condo.""
Florida investor reveals secret to removing house squatters - "he was tipped off to a statute that allows cops to remove illegal occupants if landlords sign an affidavit saying they’re squatters... Sam got a call from a cop who told him that under a little-known Florida statute, squatters can be removed with a signed affidavit as long as the squatter is a transient trespasser and not a former renter... “She was cursing me out the entire time,” he said of one of the squatters. “As they passed us, they would scream and curse and she said, ‘I’m going to find you’ and other horrible things.” Sam discovered that one of the squatters, Shaneria Josey, has faced nine evictions. Sam contacted her previous landlord, who said Josey poured concrete down his property’s pipes after she was evicted but before she was out of the home. The damage cost the landlord $150,000."
The Meme Policeman - Posts | Facebook - "How about an economy where you don't need 2 jobs and a side hustle to pay the rent"
"Most would be surprised to see how few actually work multiple jobs. Out of ~155M full and part-time workers, just 7.1M hold multiple jobs, 4.6% of the workforce. And that’s been fairly steady... there’s never been a smaller percentage of multiple job holders... There’s a frequent narrative that people need to work multiple jobs just to pay the bills. If that’s the case, there’s certainly not too many who end up doing so, despite it being easier than ever to find work. So either people are just not paying their bills, or exaggerating the situation."
Meme - "When your "workers' party" is full of spoiled hipsters instead of workers"
Townhall.com on Twitter - "KJP: "If you buy a car, you are expected to pay the monthly payment...It's that simple."
Joe Concha on Twitter - "How about graduate students who take out student loans?"
American Enterprise Institute - "A new report from the The Brookings Institution , a left-leaning think tank, and authored by University of Virginia Professor Sarah Turner explains that the pause on student loan repayment—which has now been going on for over three years, since the onset of the covid crisis—has benefited affluent borrowers the most. This isn’t a surprise to anyone familiar with the data on student loans, which shows that the largest debts are held by high earners. But might come as a surprise to voters who were sold this plan as helping a group of economically-needy Americans... A nuanced solution to the real problem of student loan unaffordability would simply improve the existing programs to support and relieve borrowers with low income relative to their payments due. That’s much less sexy than the ideas that Democrats have been selling on the campaign trail—which is probably also why it isn’t really on the table"
What pleases noisy activists on Twitter doesn't benefit everyone
‘Financially Hobbled for Life’: The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off - WSJ - "Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000. Yet two years after earning their master’s degrees, half of the borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year. The Columbia program offers the most extreme example of how elite universities in recent years have awarded thousands of master’s degrees that don’t provide graduates enough early career earnings to begin paying down their federal student loans, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Education Department data... Lured by the aura of degrees from top-flight institutions, many master’s students at universities across the U.S. took on debt beyond what their pay would support... At New York University, graduates with a master’s degree in publishing borrowed a median $116,000 and had an annual median income of $42,000 two years after the program, the data on recent borrowers show. At Northwestern University, half of those who earned degrees in speech-language pathology borrowed $148,000 or more, and the graduates had a median income of $60,000 two years later. Graduates of the University of Southern California’s marriage and family counseling program borrowed a median $124,000 and half earned $50,000 or less over the same period... Undergraduate students for years have faced ballooning loan balances. But now it is graduate students who are accruing the most onerous debt loads. Unlike undergraduate loans, the federal Grad Plus loan program has no fixed limit on how much grad students can borrow—money that can be used for tuition, fees and living expenses... Columbia grad students who borrowed money typically held loans that exceeded annual earnings two years after graduation in 14 of the school’s 32 master’s degree programs tracked by the Education Department, the Journal found. In about a dozen Columbia master’s programs, the majority of recent graduates weren’t repaying the principal on their loans or took forbearance... Debt counselors recommend students not borrow more than they will earn right out of school. Yet about 38% of master’s programs at top-tier private universities in the U.S. failed that test... At least 43% of the people who recently took out loans for master’s degrees at elite private universities hadn’t paid down any of their original debt or were behind on payments roughly two years after graduation... Universities, which receive their tuition up front, have an economic incentive to expand graduate degree programs and face no consequences if students can’t afford to pay the federal loans after they leave. “They’re not really held accountable for the myth they’re selling to students,” said Ozan Jaquette, an associate professor of higher education at the University of California, Los Angeles’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His doctoral dissertation was on the growth of master’s programs. “We should not be giving federal-aid dollars to these programs that systematically saddle students with high debt,” he said... “We were told by the establishment our whole lives this was the way to jump social classes,” he said of an Ivy League education. Instead, he said he feels such goals as marriage, children and owning a home are out of reach. During a car ride last year with three friends from the film program, Mr. Black said, they calculated they collectively owed $1.5 million in loans to the federal government. “Financially hobbled for life,” he said. “That’s the joke.”"
Education makes society better off, so all education should be free for as long as someone wants to and we should even pay people to study, and we can pay for this by confiscating billionaires' wealth
