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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (48056)	7/8/2013 12:00:40 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 85487

I already did. To repeat - Bloomberg's attempt to ban large sodas, rent control, massive difficult and expensive requirements before you can legally start a business (often put in place at the behest of other businesses who want to keep out competition, once again big government helping out "plutocrats"), etc. and that's just a start Sticking to just local government (there would be other examples on the state and federal level) - the proliferation of SWAT teams, and the over use of them for minor offenses (a number of which shouldn't even be offenses), connected to that last one the whole war on drugs (which is a local, state, and federal thing), at least most of gun control, in general a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork requirements, subsidizing favored businesses, including doing so by grabbing land for them from those with less political pull (more likely to be "the little guy", while government is favoring "the plutocrat") etc.

To: koan who wrote (48056)	7/8/2013 12:22:07 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

Dispatches from California September 4, 2012, 2:41 pm 1. On the lighter side, a customer came into our establishment in California the other day with a horse. Claimed it was a "therapy animal" and therefore it would be a violation of the ADA to not allow the horse in. Not knowing the law but with some experience with California, my managers rightly let the animal in, then researched it later. It appears that we are safe denying entry to animals that are not licensed service animals, but this is an evolving part of the law, apparently. Since it costs us about $25,000 a pop to get even the craziest suits dismissed in California, we will continue to err on the side of caution. 2. Perhaps even crazier, we recently were forced to institute an HR policy in California that working through lunch is a firing offense. One warning, then you are gone. Why? California has a crazy law that allows employees to collect substantial ex post facto compensation if they claim they were denied a 10 minute break every four hours or a thirty minute unpaid lunch break after five. Suffice it to say we have spent years honestly trying to comply with this law. The 10-minute break portion is less of a compliance hurdle, but the lunch break portion has caused us no end of trouble. Theoretically, under the law, the employee has a choice - work through lunch paid, eating at the job post (e.g. in a gatehouse of a campground) or leave the job post for 30 minutes for an unpaid lunch break. As background, every one of our employees have always begged to have the paid lunch because they are from a poorer area and need the extra 30 minutes of pay. Unfortunately, it does not matter what preferences the employee expressed on the job site. In the future, the employee can go to the labor department and claim he or she did not get their break, and even if they did not want it at the time, and never complained to the employer about not getting it, the employer always, always, always loses a he-said-she-said disagreement in a California Court or review board. Always. Sure, it takes someone utterly without honor to make this claim in Court, but there seems to be no shortage of those. So, we took a series of approaches to getting people on-paper, on-the-record as having asked to work through lunch. Unfortunately, one court case after another has demolished each safe harbor we thought we had. A few weeks ago I was advised by a senior case-worker at the California Department of Labor that the only safe harbor left for employers is to FORCE employees to take an unpaid lunch. This means they clock in and back out, this means they have to leave the job site (because if a customer happens to ask them a question, then they are "working"), and this means we have to ruthlessly enforce it. Or we are liable for scads of penalties. So, we find ourselves at the bizarre crossroads of making working through lunch a firing offense, and employees who generally want to work an extra thirty minutes each day to earn more money are not allowed to do so. Yet another example of laws that are supposed to be "empowering" to employees actually ending up limiting their choices. coyoteblog.com

To: koan who wrote (48056)

7/8/2013 7:37:51 PM

From: sm1th

1 Recommendation

Recommended By
TimF

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 85487

Name something.

<<
Much of what gets done in government on any level doesn't need to get done. A fair amount of it is actively negative.>

Requiring licenses for interior designers FL
Requiring licenses to braid hair most states
Limiting the number of Taxi licenses most cities
Providing the drivers license exam in 26 different languages MA
Providing subsidies to rich film-makers in the delusion that it will create jobs MA and several other states
State lotteries, to prey on the poor and stupid.
Limiting what kind of light bulb can be sold
Promoting tourism. If there are any benefits, they go to relatively wealthy business owners
The Export-Import bank. Welfare for corporations like Boeing
Subsidizing solar panels in dark northern climates
Subsidizing $100K Tesla automobiles for the wealthy who could afford them without the subsidy
Agriculture subsidies, for mostly corporate farms and wealthy farmers.
Blocking cheap sugar imports to prop up an inefficient industry at the expense of all sugar consumers
Mandating the use of celulosic ethanol, when there is no manufacturer or know process for creating it.

should I continue? the list is endless