thepete’s posterous

My wife is second from the left :)

WHEN you call Grandma on her farm in Iowa, your long-distance phone company pays her local phone company an access fee. That’s fine. It’s much higher than elsewhere but few calls go to her and her neighbors, so the fees don’t add up quickly. And it’s a business-to-business transaction. You, the caller, aren’t even aware of the fees paid on your behalf.

But Google is aware. It has entered the long-distance phone business, having introduced this year a service, Google Voice, that includes the ability to make free long-distance calls anywhere in the United States. It knows that access fees are a part of the phone business. But it quickly noticed that a few numbers in sparsely populated areas were accounting for a disproportionate percentage of Google Voice’s total costs.

In a company blog post last month, Google said some rural phone companies partner with “sex chat lines and ‘free’ conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic” in what is called “traffic pumping” in the telecom industry.

“People are on the phone for hours — Grandma wouldn’t be on all day,” said Richard Whitt, the Washington telecom and media counsel for Google, in a recent interview.

So, Google is annoyed that some businesses are using legal tactics to make LOADS of money. Seems to me that Google is annoyed with the whole "free market" thing. As a mega-corporation they should understand the drive to make as much money as possible. Too bad you're trying to "innovate" and actually improve the world, kinda.

I love Google Voice and have used it since it was not owned by Google (or at least since it was still called "GrandCentral"). However, we live in a free-market world, where companies are allowed to do, largely, what ever they want to make as much money as they can. They can use chemicals in their products banned in other countries or territories. They can sell you a product that may give you cancer or possibly induce diabetes. If it saves the corporation money or (even better) makes them money, they (in most cases) can do it.

As such, all other companies must understand this and if other companies are getting gouged, they should change their business model--in other words, shut down Google Voice because it's a money-loser.

OR we could all grow up and realize that unbridled capitalism and devotion to the free market system MIGHT not be a good thing.

If not that, Google can stop being a whiny bitch, grow up and realize that this is a corporation-eat-corporation world.

What about us little people? What do we measly consumers get to say about any of this? Nothin'. We're just grist for the mill. Beans for the hummus. Yeast for the beer. We're not important.

Consequently many employers are turning to alternative dispute resolution methods that cost far less. Many contracts require employers and employees to take legal disputes to arbitration. There an outside arbitrator evaluates the claims and imposes remedies. Arbitrators award employees fair damages in cases of actual injustice while quickly dispensing with merit-less nuisance suits. Instead of legal bills running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, however, arbitration usually costs only a few thousand dollars. That saves employers the money they need to create jobs while giving rogue employees no leverage to win undeserved settlements. Arbitration protects employees’ legal rights while keeping the economy moving. Everybody wins. Except the trial lawyers.

So, I'm doing some research on HR 3326 and come across this really quite amusing opinion piece on Heritage.org. The above quote refers to the cost-cutting decision to contractually-force lawsuit-seeking employees to agree to a much cheaper "arbitration," rather than going to actual trial where said corporation would have to spend tens of thousands in court and lawyer fees even if the case is thrown out. According to James Sherk, the author of the blog post at Heritage.org, arbitration is a win-win for both sides.

Except that it isn't. Arbitration is not a legal proceeding. If your employer has broken the law, arbitration keeps things off the legal record. So, saying "Everybody wins. Except the trial lawyers." is a fallacy. The loser is the plaintiff and justice, itself.

The real truth is that the corporations win because they can keep this stuff out of the court system, save buckets of money and without a judge on the plaintiff's side, no chance for real justice should a crime actually have taken place.

This kind of apologism is despicable.

The opinion piece goes on to talk about how letting "unscrupulous employees" take their employers to court means job creation is hampered--as though all employers o is sit around thinking of new ways to hire people. Also, Sherk forgets the part where employers (executives) can take pay-cuts. OH NO, NOT PAY CUTS!!

You'll never see anyone talk about executive pay-cuts. No, no! But job cuts--no problem!

So, because we need to protect the almighty job-creators of America, we must ban the ability of employee/victims of fellow-employee crime from suing.

Forget that the company may very well be responsible for creating an unsafe workplace--no, the company's right to make as much money as possible MUST BE PROTECTED!!

Why slow the economy down for just one person?

Assholes.

Why do corporations even exist? To make money. So, why the hell should I give a crap about their rights?

Job creation, huh? HIRE ME. Where's my job?

GIMME.

NOW.

Yeah, didn't think so....

And don't forget the Franken Amendment in HR 3326 doesn't ban anything but the USG hiring companies that put clauses like this in their contracts with employees. It does not stop non-government contracted companies from leaving these clauses in. So these amoral "conservative" pretenders are getting hyper about losing a piece of their pie, rather than just thanking "God" that they live in such a great country as America.

;)

Check out the official announcement of the first performances of MARQUEE FIVE, @siskita's vocal group!! Shows in December here in NYC!! Live in the Big Apple? COME SEE 'EM!! Click the link for the deets!