It depends on the business, yeah? A restaurant with 5% net margins can’t afford a systemwide increase in labor costs. There’s already nearly no margin in the business, and they have no pricing power over consumers. The business has scale in hiring / firing and it’s easy to replace people. The people on the cusp of being more valuable employees will be bumped up (assistant managers with potential, etc.) and the people doing commodity stuff like cash register work will be managed to 30 hours or less.
I don’t think it’s a sweeping negative for everyone, but it certainly isn’t going to be the pancea of healthcare for all that it was sold as. It’s not an apocalypse. My general point is that the healthcare reform was largely a failure – it didn’t reduce costs and it didn’t gurantee coverage to the people who need it most. Obamacare is a failure.
In terms of the stats, the numbers haven’t rolled through yet. Nobody knows. And even when they do, it will be hard to trace – this doesn’t impact 30% of the work force. Whatever the number is, it’s much lower, but even if it seriously hurts 3-5% of people (totally arbitrary number, I have no idea), it’s working in opposite ways than intended.
BS, I’m not saying employers will cut the hours of highly qualified college educated contractors like yourself
I’m talking about unskilled workers and saying that when I worked in a warehouse and a catering job during summers in high school/ part of college, I worked up to 40 hour weeks depending, making $9/hr. I worked with many adults who were hourly workers without benefits who also worked up to 40 hr weeks.
So if you’re paying me $1440 (160hrsx$9) a month. Paying for my health insurance is a HUGE increase. Why wouldn’t you cut my hours down to 30/week???
Exactly. The white collar value-added guy already had healthcare. The blue collar guy stacking sticks and sheets at the lumber yard making $8 an hour isn’t getting healthcare with or without Obamacare.
A lot of these low skilled workers are employed by businesses running 15-20% gross margins where labor is a large component. If you suddenly increase labor costs by even 5-10%, it destroys the economic viability of the business, and that’s before even considering capital expenditures.
You can’t take a business that’s barely economically viable and then introduce an exigent shock and expect there to be no push back. The business either finds a way around the increased cost or they stop doing business. Obviously, this will have a much less severe impact on a company like Coca Cola than it will on Bob’s Hardware Store or whatever.
i’m still disappointed that Romney did not win. i hate how people feel if Romney had won than only the rich people benefit.
also, people including obama hate on romney for being rich and successful. “my penson isn’t as big as yours mr. romney”-obama on romney pointing out that he also has investments in china in his pension portfolio.
I’m not sure why people working in finance and have their livelihood dependent on this industry will vote Obama. He’s called the industry ‘fat cats’ and described the workers as people who ‘don’t get it’.
voting him is increasing your own chances of getting laid off. regulation effects have already drastically cut margins, and waves of layoffs have already started across firms in multiple divisons. Companies will protect their bottom line first and foremost.
Because some people vote for things besides their career. I think he’s right, a lot of people in this industry “don’t get it.” More importantly, I don’t think he’s really been pushing for any heavy banking legislation.
Most people vote according to their own interests. Higher income people tend to vote for Republicans. Most finance people supported Romney. All this is extremely obvious. I don’t see what the argument is.
First wanted to say I love this thread, some good stuff! I voted Obama, for the main reason is I didn’t hear anything from Romney that made me want to switch. He said he was going to decrease taxes and increase employment but how or where? What Industries or Sectors were going to benefit? How was he going to decrease taxes? How was he going to bring jobs back to the United States from Asia? Was he going to enact new tariffs or quotas on goods that we import? If I heard anything that made plausible sense I might have been inclined to switch my vote. It just seemed to me that he prayed on the ignorant and seemed to say here I have a better car for sale than the one you have, but you can’t drive it, you have to buy it first. In my lifetime things have never been so great where all classes were considered well off so why would I think with Romney things would change? I stand by the theory that you make your own way and no amount of government intervention is going to help you along the way.
I felt Obama’s long term vision of the economy was better for the US. Voting Romney over some industry specific concerns would have been short sighted in my mind. But no, I’m not slave to my finance job and I won’t let my concerns over how many bankers exist in the world impact my broader views. If for some reason I get fired, I don’t think it’ll be Obamas fault, but I’d get another job. Maybe in another industry. I don’t vote based on which president will create jobs for the most bankers simply because I’ve never thought to myself “what this country really needs are more bankers”.
people need to start working like this [video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meo7DZPLWRY] but why would they want to now that they have all these entitlements … still flowing with obama
I don’t know about this election since Obama tried as hard as possible to alienate financial services people, but this is definitely true in past elections. You would think that Wall Street is some kind of bastion of Republican values, but in reality a lot of people on the Street are liberal and vote Democratic.
Like the Hollywood elite, many wealthy “Wall Street” folks vote based purely on social issues, maybe even a single social issue that is important to them. They have enough money that the economy and economic policies don’t really affect their lives. Just look at George Soros - when new regulations took effect that he didn’t like, he reorganized his funds so the regulations no longer applied to him. You really thing Bruce Springsteen cares if his taxes go up? He’ll still be able to afford all the denim vests he wants.
Just because “Wall Street” backed Romney this time doesn’t speak for the majority of folks in finance. This time Obama has alienated many WS elites, hence they sided against him, but the broader population of financiers is firmly socially liberal, and will not vote for a party that is against abortion, gay marriage, and thinks rape is a gift from god. Jon Paulson can contribute millions of dollars but only one vote.
