This is something that really depends on where you live more than anything. I will say there is no state currently where you can afford an apartment by yourself making minimum wage.
I've seen this claim and associated study pop up a couple of times. The study is done year on year and it's been amusing watching the increasingly long lengths they go to to hide the fact that their comparing _average_ rent for a _two bedroom_ apartment to the _minimum_ wage.
Anecdotally, this is simply not true. I lived in a fairly nice area next to my university for the better part of the past five years at well below the poverty level. (~$10,000) per year so far less than minimum wage.
I'm mostly voicing a much more general confusion here. I think you have to bolt down our [lets be honest] mostly imaginary system to reality in some spots. Rents can simply be adjusted to whatever people can pay. That way there is no technological or economic progress to be had for those at the bottom. The fix is in?
Or let me put it like this: If I want a banana I want to pay for what it costs to grow the banana, the packaging, the logistics of it and for those who perform the miracle of trade. If all the steps involved also involve maximizing wealth extraction from those employed in those steps by [any and all means!] my banana will naturally grow in price to the point where my minimum wage has doubts if it can afford it. Not just now but forever! Regardless of anything.
Regulation cant be like: We will cap the price of bananas at this point since everyone involved in making them happen for me has to pay rent that grows along with the kiwi's. I very much doubt we cant fix rent. There might be a layer or 2 of maximized wealth extraction above it. Those are not impossible to fix. If we had real collective goals we could just be like: It wont happen - forever! and get a really cheap but highly profitable banana in return.
Note: I can stack bricks and run tubes though them. Its not hard and not a lot of work. IOW: I'm not impressed by a concrete box. End of the day my government owns all the land.
You clearly do not understand the economics behind renting. Wealth extraction as you call it, isn't pure profit for the layers above. Your rent pays for the landlord's mortgage, maintenance, inspection and risk being taken on from a tenant. Your landlord pays the bank, who use the money to pay off their own obligations, including your grandparents pension plan. It would never be possible to adjust that system.
The other reason things are so high is there are too many people and not enough houses, so there's little opportunity for competition.
When, if or where people are either poor or primitive enough it works like this: You build a house then you live in it.
There is nothing in this that suggests one needs to spend 1/4 or 2/3 of the productive labor in their lives to maintain the house.
Progress is to reduce the maintenance cost. The lower it is the lower the salaries can be which increase productivity exponentially.
IOW grandpa's pension plan is for a large part to continue to pay for housing. He spend his entire life busting his ass but some how didn't manage to earn a place to live.
It's still possible possible to build a house today and live in it, and there is plenty of land, even some going for cheap. But most people don't want that because they make that trade off for today's luxuries.
I doesn't matter much as long as there is a list. Apple can even publish it's own list, then everybody can debate if this is a good list or bad list. Currently there is no list - no discussion.
It is possible (and in fact, expected) of companies that take these kinds of pledges to have a baseline set of human rights that most people (or at least most people on Apple's board) will agree on, even if there is ambiguity around the edges.
The alternative is saying, "we'll stand for this thing that we refuse to define in even vague terms, and as a result it will be impossible for anyone to evaluate whether or not we're succeeding, or even making progress."
If Apple can't determine even in broad terms what is and isn't a rights violation, then their declaration is meaningless. They don't need to decide for everyone, and not everyone needs to agree with them -- it's fine for other people and companies to come up with their own criteria. But Apple has to at least some internal idea of what they mean when they say they stand for something, otherwise it will be impossible for them to build real policies around the declaration.
And some of this honestly isn't that controversial among scholars. As an analogy, if I commit to avoiding stocking unhealthy products in my store, I don't need to know for certain whether or not coffee is healthy in order to say Cadbury Eggs are not -- pretty much everyone agrees on that. In the same way, we don't really need to debate whether or not healthcare is a human right to understand that forced abortions, forced monitoring and 'reeducation', and concentration camps for Uighurs are violations of their human rights.
Couple of honest questions to you (or anyone else reading this who thinks along the same lines).
Firstly, are you saying anyone who happened to be born in China is complicit in e.g. the crimes committed against Uighur population and thus doesn't deserve to be able to legally buy an Apple phone in their country?
Secondly, if Apple exits a non-free country, do you expect that to improve the situation? Make the country freer?
In China this would leave the population to local tech, which is pretty much owned by CCP and subject to its every whim—as opposed to Apple’s cooperating to the degree required to not break the law.
>Firstly, are you saying anyone who happened to be born in China is complicit in e.g. the crimes committed against Uighur population and thus doesn't deserve to be able to legally buy an Apple phone in their country?
I am not saying everyone in China is complicit in the Chinese government's human rights abuses. Purchasing a specific product from a specific company is not a right.
>Secondly, if Apple exits a non-free country, do you expect that to improve the situation? Make the country freer?
>In China this would leave the population to local tech, which is pretty much owned by CCP and subject to its every whim—as opposed to Apple’s cooperating to the degree required to not break the law.
I don't expect it to improve the situation, nor do I believe it's Apple's job to improve China. Apple's job is to have consistent beliefs about human rights if they're going to pretend to care about them.
>What's the benefit to be had here?
The benefit is Apple puts their money where their mouth is. Saying they care about human rights and then cooperating with a serial abuser renders their policy irrelevant.
Apple doesn't help prop up an authoritarian regime? CCP gonna CCP, but at least Apple's hands are clean. It's not any individual Chinese citizen's fault, but they unfortunately have to deal with the consequences of an illiberal, ruthless regime.
If the CCP believed that Apple's absence would strengthen the regime, then they would get rid of Apple. Clearly they think it's in their best interest to have Apple around. You can disagree with them, but I think the CCP is much better positioned to know what's in their interest than we are.
You are granting CCP omniscience, power and integrity they don't have.
Apple probably came to China to expand their market, had enough lawyers to navigate the muddy bureaucracy, CCP could block them regardless but decided to let them open shops and profit from taxes for now. Many Chinese would buy Apple products overseas in HK or Taiwan anyway; CCP is powerless to stop it and would not mind a share of the sales.
CCP may be blind to Western values brought in by Apple, or discount their influence, or tolerate them for now because it is economically lucrative.
It is definitely a perk. That and cheap housing, paid-for education and years of experience in whatever field you get put in. The army and marines sent recruiters to my high school in a poor area and I got to hear about all these things twice a year. The military is a way out of poverty for a lot of people.
The VA isn't a great thing to compare medicare-for-all to. The VA's entire customer base has afflictions you just don't see in the general public.
I'd compare M4A to Medicare/Medicaid, if you look at patient surveys they are much happier in general than people who have to deal with insurance companies.
Tried to find what you are talking about. Turned up a lot of political meme's basically saying vote for Trump, because democrats tried blocking the VA Mission Act. Looked up the actual vote counts and it passed successfully with strong bipartisan support in both the house and senate [1]. Are you referring to something else?
If you're referring to Veteran's Choice, while Trump repeatedly and falsely claims to have created it, it was passed into law and signed by Obama in 2014.
If I wanted a PS4 game I could go to gamestop or walmart and buy it. I can buy games used. As closed as consoles are there's much more choice in where you get your software than iOS devices.
If Epic somehow takes Apple to court and wins this you can still use the Apple app store. They could just do what android does and have the App store as default and have a toggle for 3rd-party stores if you're interested.
If your legitimate business activity undermines public health it is no longer legitimate until the threat has passed. We fought this out in 1918 as well.
Can your business take precautions to prevent the spread of an active pandemic? Good you get to stay open. Can your business take precautions, but isn't? You get to close. Does the nature of your business make it impossible to function with social distancing/masks? You get to close.
That's how it's been done in my state, and we've done very well compared to the rest of the nation. If we (nationwide) had actually shut down in the beginning instead of half-assing it we wouldn't be where we are now.
