The 'Independent Contractor' scam and a return to 19th Century values

For better than 20 years I have been a one-man business.  I have a corporation with one shareholder and one employee, and they are the same person.  I sell my time by the hour and I have done quite well for myself.

My client writes a check to my company for my services.  My company writes me a paycheck with all the appropriate taxes withheld.  My current client has certain stipulations in their standard contract, requiring my company to pay any employees a living wage, to offer health insurance, the sorts of things that responsible companies do for their employees.

But there is a flip side to all this, another side of the 'independent contractor' world.  That is the world where that label is used to absolve a business of any responsibility, pay a sub-minimum wage, and essentially treat the people who work for them, who are generating their income, as disposable pieces of equipment.

A number of years ago, we took in a foster child.  He is 24 years old now, and has recently returned.  He was out of work and we are letting him stay while he gets on his feet.  He took a job for Postmates, a delivery service in San Francisco (and elsewhere).  He delivers stuff all over the city on a bicycle.   Except, it isn't exactly a job, he is considered  and 'Independent Contractor'.

In order to work for them, you have to use their app.  It only runs on the iPhone, so if you don't have one they will lease you one.  They set the prices, not the riders.  In order to get any work, you have to commit to specific times.  If you have not committed to a specific time slot it is unlikely their software will offer you any deliveries.  They, on the other hand make no commitment to you on any particular amount of work.  His best days was a little over $129 working about 12 hours.  His worst was a big zero.

Should you be injured on the job, well that's your problem.  And if you should die at it (cyclists do get killed in the city), I am sure they will say all the right things as they wash their hands of the situation.  You see, they expect loyalty, but that loyalty is one-sided.

Oh, and just to add insult to injury, they pay by EFT only, and then charge their riders for the transfer.  Yes, it is a small charge, but if they were employees that would be illegal.  At least in the state of California it would be, they also operate in a couple of other locations.

As I think about the arrangement, the working conditions of 19th century coal miners comes to mind.  No they were not considered independent contractors, but the mine owners had the same level of concern for their employees, the same attitude, that this business model does.  Management controls the working conditions, while the workers take the risks. Unlike the coal miners, their workers take both the physical risk, and the financial risk

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The other shoe

So now we know that the target was not only terrorism.  It may have started that way in the minds of some., but that NSA data is finding it's way into other hands.

The DEA and the IRS are getting this stuff.  Does anyone care to wager that this is not the last recipient that we will find out about.

To paint a broad brush that everyone is a potential terrorist, and therefore all of their electronic communications are fair game, but only for 'national security' of course, was already a stretch.  But of course it was never going to stop there.

And of course it will not stop with the DEA and the IRS either.  We are all suspects now, and for the moment it is about whether or not we may be committing a crime.  The more people get there hand on this information, it will be used for more and different purposes.

Just the way San Diego Mayor Bob Filner used information he gained as a member of congress to target women who had been victims of sexual harassment and rape, to help select his own targets, so you will find others with access to the NSA data using it for their own purposes.

Got any secrets?  Not anymore!
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Yes, he really is that evil

I just got through watching the Showtime documentary The world according to Dick Cheney.  It reaffirmed every bad thing that I ever thought about him. He really was a Svengali, leading the hapless Bush around by the nose for his entire first term.  But what is worse is, he remains happy in the damage he inflicted upon the United States.

He fundamentally changed this country from one where the rule of law mattered, to one where only expediency matters.  It know longer matters whether we are the good guys or the bad guys, as long as we win, within his warped definition of winning.  That Iran has become the major power in the region as a result of our crippling the only nation strong enough to counter them?  When asked about regrets, he said he would do it all over again.  While that was never addressed in the interviews, I am sure his solution would be still another war.

That he squandered all the sympathy and good will we had acquired after the September 11th attacks, creating a whole new generation of enemies?  Apparently no regrets there either.  He turned the United States from the beacon of hope we have tried to represent to the world to the school bully shaking down the other kids for their lunch money.  The concept that his actions created more danger in the world, not less, is beyond his understanding.

He set a standard, a tone, that still exists.  Laws are for the little people to follow, the lash that keeps them behind the plow, while the powerful may ignore them with impunity.  That is true in this country which has become a Security State, and it is true in how this country behaves in relation to it's international obligations.

He argued with Bush for Scooter Libby to be pardoned, but he would never come clean, that Libby was only trying to protect him.   His loyalty only goes so far.  A Chicken Hawk to the end.

While the program presented some opposing thoughts to a number of Cheney's views, there were very few tough questions asked, and few challenges to his assertions.  Yet despite the kid gloves with which the former vice president was handled, he still came off as an soulless ideologue who was uninterested in any fact which might conflict with what he had made up his mind he wanted to do.

It appears to me that in many ways he accomplished his main goal, which was to mold the United States into his own image.  He removed morality and justice from the equation, making us mirror images of the evil we found ourselves confronted with back on September 11th.  Will we ever recover?

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