We ref'd to that as "labor and burden." We used a multiplier like 2.5 to determine the total. So if an employee was paid 40k a year, labor and burden put their total cost as 100k. The multiplier would change depending on area of operation.

I'm with the very concerned crowd.

However, after seeing three vehicles run red lights in one day last week, I'm starting to reconsider. I mean the lights were clearly red because the cross traffic where I was sitting had a green light. It had been green for at least 2 seconds. Normally I accelerate as soon as the light turns green, but not any more. Now I look both ways before I venture into the intersection.

There seems to be a real breakdown of respect for rules of the highway occurring in my area. It's getting more like anarchy all the time.

What sticks with me is the concept of the "blitvert." The Max Headroom writer(s) showed remarkable prescience by featuring that idea. Look at the commercials broadcast today. A large number of commercials are resorting to using a barrage of images many of which are irrelevant and utterly meaningless. It's not uncommon to see a commercial where they'll run a series of images at around 1 every 0.5 seconds if not faster. Then there's also the method of rapidly cycling the screen between brightness and darkness. This doesn't do anything to make me want to buy their product.

My degree and experience is in management. I did the interviewing and hiring for my dept. I retired about 5 years ago, but I'm skeptical about this "can't find candidates with the right skills" explanation I'm hearing these last several years.

The impression I'm getting, admittedly from anecdotal evidence, is organizations have "streamlined" the interviewing process to make it easier for their HR depts. They appear to be using filtering algorithms based on their job descriptions. Consequently there is a large number of people getting overlooked for tech positions. If this is the case, then that explains the shortage. IOW, they've created a narrowly focused requirement for hiring. And I'm sure they're also limiting the pay which is another limitation for filling a position which allows them to say they "can't find candidates with the right skills."

When I was hiring people, I knew I would never find an exact fit based on the job description. IMO that's just not realistic. However, what was most important to me was how well the individual would fit into the dept. My emphasis was on personality and I had questions that were geared toward understanding that. Also when somebody interviewed for my dept, they had to spend time with several of the more senior people who were working there. Afterwards those people and I would have a discussion to compare impressions.

The point I'm trying to make is the emphasis was on how well the person worked with others. Their technical skills were important too, but I knew if they were clever (usually exposed via the resume and the interview questions) they could pick up whatever they might have lacked. And truth be told, every business has different SOPs, policies, etc. The new employee will have to learn something new no matter what.

The impression I get re today's HR hiring methods is they've chosen a lazy way to do it. I even hear ads on the radio promoting how a service will filter people for the hiring firm. I'm sure that one of the reasons for this approach is management has limited staffing for HR forcing HR to do more with less.

So the "can't find candidates with the right skills" excuse sounds bogus to me.

There are more and more stores repairing old audio equipment. In fact, my nephew does it. I know of at least two other stores in our medium size community that are doing it. And I've replaced a drive belt in my audio component cassette player. It was very easy. Maybe half an hour. I forget the make of the unit, but it's from the late 70's. You might be able to find a Youtube about how to repair your unit, who knows.

First of all, I should apologize for my comment re "too much regulation." That was a sarcastic remark. I'm trying to point out that regulation is necessary. The entities that want us to believe there is too much regulation typically are the ones being regulated and their supporters. The sad fact of the matter is we do need regulation (eg, Wells Fargo, BP, Exxon, the recent recession/depression thanks to reckless behavior in the banking industry, Savings and Loan debacle, big pharma).

However, I don't get the impression from the article that the legislation is striking out large chunks of previous legislation. It may be exchanging one method of regulation for another, but in the linked article it's described as "a new bill" and how it's creating new rules for online political ads. It goes on to describe how companies will be expected to now keep records of who is buying the ads and how much they pay for them. Further, the "companies would be required to keep and release data on anyone spending more than $500 on political ads in a year."

It sounds to me like there will be a lot more research and record keeping required in the area of social media; at least more than they're doing now.

If this legislation is a modification of Citizens Divided (or United, if you prefer), then it might be swapping one set of rules for another and not adding more regulation. But if that is its purpose, I suspect this bill doesn't have a chance of getting passed.

Any legislation called the "Honest Ads Act" is questionable. Just like "Citizens United" really should have been named "Citizens Divided."

And why is this happening? I thought we had too much regulation.

Yes

Because EVERYTHING works better when in it's in the public sector. You know, it's 'cuz of the "Free Market." /clearly sarcastic

Can it remove the noise from a Harley-Davidson running straight pipes?

Yup. That's what I was taught in my high school advanced English class. It means "black beast."

I used to say that.

Last April I was given a MS PPT to convert to LibreOffice. The bullets changed (and not in a good way), the font changed, all the indents changed, all the animations stopped working, and there were problems with some of the images. Essentially I had to recreate the entire presentation.

Then when I tried moving it back, everything fell apart again regardless in which file format I "saved as."

There was a time when I could create PPT presentations and move them between OSes. It doesn't appear to be that way anymore.

BTW, I had all the MS fonts installed on my Linux machine, the most recent kernel, and most recent LibreOffice. My distro uses rolling updates. Didn't matter.

LibreOffice still has work to do. I'll still promote it to people I know. But it still needs work.

Exactly.

Someone please mod this up.

Spot on!!!

Automation will happen regardless of what happens with the minimum wage.

Manufacturers see an opportunity to reduce labor cost AND introduce what is thought to be a more reliable, consistent, predictable labor resource. It does not matter what the minimum wage is.

Machines are there every day, all day. Their output typically is predictable. They don't organize into unions. Their performance isn't affected by personal problems. They don't need rest breaks, bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, healthcare plans, pensions or 401k's. Typically you can turn the overhead lights off while the machines do their work. All the OSHA issues go away. And the equipment is a capital asset and can be depreciated over some period of time whereas an employee has increases in the burden rate.

There probably are more reasons, but I think the list I've given already add up to a tidy profit margin.