Uber Will 'Shut Down' in California If It Must Classify Drivers as Employees

[Hinastorm]

I spend less time commuting living outside the metro area driving into than when I lived inside it.
Housing cost= limited supply X high demand.

That's an excessively simplistic take on housing costs. Yes, that's true, but that doesn't mean there aren't things we can do to fix it.

It's the same shit as saying "Oh well rich peoples' finances are too complicated to tax, lets not bother".

I really hate this mindset.

I also completely don't understand your explanation to my question. How does living 45 miles away from something end up being faster than living closer to it in the city?

I assume you're talking about heavy traffic in the city, but I dont understand why that's any different with you being further away? Won't you be in that traffic either way?

[Kellhound]

That's an excessively simplistic take on housing costs. Yes, that's true, but that doesn't mean there aren't things we can do to fix it.

It's the same shit as saying "Oh well rich peoples' finances are too complicated to tax, lets not bother".

I really hate this mindset.

Sure, you can enact price control, or convince people they actually want to live in an apartment instead of a house, or build more houses (which is harder to do inside an established city).

Rich people's finances are easy to tax, tax law written to make it hard to tax them is a different matter.

[eschatological]

Sure, you can enact price control, or convince people they actually want to live in an apartment instead of a house, or build more houses (which is harder to do inside an established city).

Rich people's finances are easy to tax, tax law written to make it hard to tax them is a different matter.

Or, NYC could be its own state (hell, it has the population higher than something like 38 states, and numerous European countries), stop having to subsidize failing farmers in upstate NY, and use the massive revenue it generates to.....say, help subsidize housing costs in NYC, help with rent control, maintain and modernize the MTA, etc.

But I guess us city folks will have to continue to prop up the poor rural folks and nevertheless be blamed for their problems.

FWIW, when I lived in NYC, my budget spent on gas was $0, and my commute was shorter than it would take to get there in a car because of midtown traffic.

[Kellhound]

Or, NYC could be its own state (hell, it has the population higher than something like 38 states, and numerous European countries), stop having to subsidize failing farmers in upstate NY, and use the massive revenue it generates to.....say, help subsidize housing costs in NYC, help with rent control, maintain and modernize the MTA, etc.

But I guess us city folks will have to continue to prop up the poor rural folks and nevertheless be blamed for their problems.

FWIW, when I lived in NYC, my budget spent on gas was $0, and my commute was shorter than it would take to get there in a car because of midtown traffic.

Well, yeah, if you are dumb enough to get a job in the center of NYC, your commute times from any location with decent housing costs is going to be high no matter how you get there. I am well aware of that from way back when my mother commuted into NYC from Middlesex N.J.

[eschatological]

Well, yeah, if you are dumb enough to get a job in the center of NYC, your commute times from any location with decent housing costs is going to be high no matter how you get there. I am well aware of that from way back when my mother commuted into NYC from Middlesex N.J.

It has more to do with NYC having a comprehensive, complete public transportation system, unlike say, L.A. or Chicago, but much more like Europe (except dirtier).

[Beazy]

They tried this in Austin TX. Uber shut down. And about 6 months later, they repealed the law and Uber is back. People in Austin were flipping shit without their Uber rides n eats.

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Talk to me again when y'all stop spending between 7-10% of your personal incomes on gasoline.

You should move to TX, we have 20 cents per gallon tax. Compared to 50.5 cents in CA or 45.5 in NYC. Our sales tax is about 1.5 % lower too.

[shimerra]

Sure, you can enact price control, or convince people they actually want to live in an apartment instead of a house, or build more houses (which is harder to do inside an established city).

Rich people's finances are easy to tax, tax law written to make it hard to tax them is a different matter.

Wage based income is easy to tax which is what most people make. But 99% of people who make most of their income through wages are not considered rich. Thanks to things like Social Security/Medicare aka payroll taxes it's reported by your employer and you with the information being reported/confirmed multiple times in a given year by multiple agencies. When there is fraud it's generally small and it's much much easier to investigate because of how it's paid and reported.

Most of what we'd consider truly "rich" people do not get their wealth from their easily verifiable and reported to 20 government agency wage based income. The hundreds of financial instruments, stocks, out of state and foreign holdings, and properties that frequently fluctuate in value that makes up the bulk of the "rich's" income is quite complex. While you're right tax law is by intent, thanks to lobbying and money in politics, designed for rich people to reduce and avoid taxes it's in no small part due to that complexity that the helps make it easier for them to exploit or create loopholes even without resorting actual tax fraud.

One example basically involved a company buying a capital good and "donating it" to another shell corporation they also owned which was considered a non-profit. That non-profit then sold the goods back to the original company for a penny. Because of the charity deductions/misrepresenting the value of the good sold it basically resulted in 10's of billions in illegal tax avoidance that was only caught because a single IRS employee who was entering the paper application into the electronic record(they don't enter every single bit and which bits are recorded are fiercely fought over for budget/tax avoidance reasons) happened to think something was funny and reported it to their supervisor. I forget the exact amount amount stolen was such that is essentially eclipsed the entire amount of fraud committed by everyone on the whole food stamp program. You couldn't even begin to achieve that level of fuckery for most of us with primarily wage based incomes.

You're 100% absolutely incorrect to say it is "easy" to tax, but we do our damndest to make it as easy as we can for anyone in the top wealth brackets to avoid paying them.

[Elegiac]

They tried this in Austin TX. Uber shut down. And about 6 months later, they repealed the law and Uber is back. People in Austin were flipping shit without their Uber rides n eats.

You should move to TX, we have 20 cents per gallon tax. Compared to 50.5 cents in CA or 45.5 in NYC. Our sales tax is about 1.5 % lower too.

I'd rather not move to a place where people care more about fattening their asses on the cheap rather than people being paid decently, thanks.

Shockingly enough the low tax low service model only works for the already propertied. Which is precisely why we have landed gentry from flyover country insisting that it's the only way to go.

[JohnBrown1917]

Automation is good since there's infinite potential for new opportunities.



The reality is that life is about 'education' and nobody should expect a decent life if they're not committed to rapid and lifelong education. Thanks to the internet education has never been cheaper and more accessible. If you're thinking that we're heading into a jobless world where everybody lives a decent life on UBI well then I think you're going to be very disappointed.

If only everybody could get proper eduction.

...Oh wait.

[Shalcker]

If only everybody could get proper eduction.

...Oh wait.

Then everyone would be getting Uber driver wages.

[JohnBrown1917]

Then everyone would be getting Uber driver wages.

Yeah, those dirty lower classes don't deserve shit! Are you related to the Romanovs by chance?

[Shalcker]

Yeah, those dirty lower classes don't deserve shit! Are you related to the Romanovs by chance?

You're fighting wrong fight as far as i see. If education will not make life of people better then they might be better off not wasting time on it (at least formal one) and go straight for some trade.

Education for education's sake is sales pitch of education salesmen.

Speaking as someone from country with free education (as long as your SAT equivalent is good enough for that university/faculty).

Does it made poor disappear and everyone magically get middle class? No, it did not.

[shimerra]

You're fighting wrong fight as far as i see. If education will not make life of people better then they might be better off not wasting time on it (at least formal one) and go straight for some trade.

Education for education's sake is sales pitch of education salesmen.

Speaking as someone from country with free education (as long as your SAT equivalent is good enough for that university/faculty).

Does it made poor disappear and everyone magically get middle class? No, it did not.

Are you not aware that those trades and learning how to do them is a form of education and that no one implied that a university/bachelor or higher degree is the only path we should be looking into?

While it's not the answer for everyone education quite literally is shown to have almost entirely positive effects for wage growth and other areas of life. How certain countries finance it is a related but separate issue but assuming all else the same a more educated population is a happier/wealthier one.

[Shalcker]

Are you not aware that those trades and learning how to do them is a form of education and that no one implied that a university/bachelor or higher degree is the only path we should be looking into?

While it's not the answer for everyone education quite literally is shown to have almost entirely positive effects for wage growth and other areas of life. How certain countries finance it is a related but separate issue but assuming all else the same a more educated population is a happier/wealthier one.

But "everything else" is never the same. The education isn't the end in itself; it needs to lead to actual opportunities. And large part of modern education (and society) does not.

I'm more hopeful of approaches like Lambda school, where education is directly linked to earning opportunities, and institution itself is directly incentivized in finding them for their pupils - and tailoring their curriculum to that end.


But going back to original argument, if large part of opportunities around people is Uber-like, then no matter the education you'll get Uber wages.

And, on another hand, you don't necessarily need education for every earning/class lifting opportunity; you could go about creating them directly rather then "educate yourself and then everything will probably sort itself out".

[Zan15]

They tried this in Austin TX. Uber shut down. And about 6 months later, they repealed the law and Uber is back. People in Austin were flipping shit without their Uber rides n eats.

No in TX it had everything to do with background checks and fingerprinting not employee vs IC and pay.

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/20...tion-rideshare

You should move to TX, we have 20 cents per gallon tax. Compared to 50.5 cents in CA or 45.5 in NYC. Our sales tax is about 1.5 % lower too.

Median income in CA 71,228 TX 59,570

Also helps TX taxes the shit out of OIL (5%) and basically the other 49 states residents subsidies the state of TX for a natural resource.

they also get 61.81% of their Medicaid cost paid for while CA gets 50%. Why? I thought they were doing so much better than CA? Why get an extra 7.3 billion dollars vs the rate CA pays? Hmm i wonder what their tax rate would be @50% Medicaid funding???

Gee lets bump CA up to 62% and the extra 9-11 billion dollars can directly reduce the gas tax to, oh about..... 20 cents. It would have money left over to lower their sales tax rate too.

NY would be in the same boat as CA if they were not funding the rest of the country.

[GreenJesus]

I just tried ordering an uber yesterday morning in Orange county and it legit took 25 minutes. Normally I would only have to wait 10 minutes MAX.

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Or, NYC could be its own state (hell, it has the population higher than something like 38 states, and numerous European countries), stop having to subsidize failing farmers in upstate NY, and use the massive revenue it generates to.....say, help subsidize housing costs in NYC, help with rent control, maintain and modernize the MTA, etc.

But I guess us city folks will have to continue to prop up the poor rural folks and nevertheless be blamed for their problems.

FWIW, when I lived in NYC, my budget spent on gas was $0, and my commute was shorter than it would take to get there in a car because of midtown traffic.

You do know that rich people can just move to another city/state right? Tax them too much and they will just move to Texas or Florida or something.

[Themius]

I spend less time commuting living outside the metro area driving into than when I lived inside it.
Housing cost= limited supply X high demand.

No it doesn't.... the housing issues often revolve around older boomers NIMBYing new developments that would increase density and reduce cost.

[Zan15]

You do know that rich people can just move to another city right? Tax them too much and they will just move to Texas or Florida or something.

Really hard to move to those places if the reason you are rich is because your job and its not in TX or FL.

Now if you are super rich, then you are never really paying any where near max tax rates since you are wholly compensated in ways that avoid much of the local bullshit

[JohnBrown1917]

You're fighting wrong fight as far as i see. If education will not make life of people better then they might be better off not wasting time on it (at least formal one) and go straight for some trade.

Education for education's sake is sales pitch of education salesmen.

Speaking as someone from country with free education (as long as your SAT equivalent is good enough for that university/faculty).

Does it made poor disappear and everyone magically get middle class? No, it did not.

Learning a trade is i]education[/i]. And before that, you still got primary school, whos quality also depends on where you live.
And last, where did I even say this was the only thing keeping people poor? Because the capitalist class sure has plenty of other ways to keep the poor and desperate to work for them. But one way you can be certain somebody will stay poor will be by denying them any form of eduction.

[Kellhound]

It has more to do with NYC having a comprehensive, complete public transportation system, unlike say, L.A. or Chicago, but much more like Europe (except dirtier).

Yes, but NYC's is actually an interstate system (NJ Transit).