Newegg marketplace is a funny place. Not only many items are more expensive than elsewhere, I had my orders delivered literally in Amazon or Walmart packaging. There are genuine merchants that made a choice to work with Newegg but there are many resellers from other stores as well.
In 3rd world countries having children is also a retirement plan because government does not guarantee much for elderly. Not sure if developed countries want to go there though.
Some people have their dryer far away from where they usually are and cannot hear it, like me. Although I do put a timer for N hours to remind myself rather than having a "smart" dryer.
I do like "smart" lights that are based on presence, and various sensors and "smart" automatic irrigation, but don't see much point in home appliances being connected to my phone/network.
I think we tend to forget that many things can be implemented without "smart" features / wifi access / apps. Ie my 20 year old oven has a "start time" feature. It just uses the built in clock.
I don't think I know of any (big) appliance, e.g. dish washer, drier, washing machine with that option but to be honest I didn't dig deep, is it possible?
That tap in and out system causes unexpected issues sometimes. Many subway stations in Tokyo have different extrances for different directions that are not connected underground. Once I entered such station for a train that went in a wrong way and when I tried to exit gates didn't let me. It was unmanned station so it took me a while to find an intercom and explain my issue to a person so they can unblock me.
In Vienna they don't have gates at all or even much indication where gates supposed to be. My first visit I accidentally didn't pay for my ticket - I'm used to ticket machines being near the gates but I couldn't spot any. I also arrived on a train so I thought that since there was no gates or visible ticket machines between train and subway, maybe my train ticket is valid for a subway trip (happens in some places) but it was not the case.
But isn't that how market supposed to work? Company offers to pay x for the job, can't find anyone for x, so it raises salary to x+y.
I would understand logic of bringing people from other countries when there is a shortage of workers but with current market it doesn't seem to be the case.
Of course not, but you seem to miss the point: no company is going to pay $500,000/year for a part-time office assistant, $200,000/year for a bus boy, $2 million/year for a construction worker, $100,000/year for a farm laborer.
There is no developed country on earth where labor shortages are addressed by "just increase the salary until you find a native-born person to take the job."
This is a misnomer is _my_ point. A labor shortage has a trivial solution, "pay more". It's intentionally framed as "labor shortage" by capital who would prefer the labor pool be near-infinite so they can pick the best for the cheapest. No, no company is going to like it. And that's okay, immigration, and government policies more broadly, should not be about "what would maximize private capital profits?" They should serve the broader American public.
If companies can't find a farm laborer at 100k/yr then that sounds like it's an *incredible* situation for the average worker.
> A labor shortage has a trivial solution, "pay more".
Whenever you think a solution to a problem that plagues an entire nation (especially one the size of the US) is "trivial", you should ask the question: if it's so trivial, why hasn't it been fixed after so many years? And if your answer depends on some sort of conspiracy, you know you're wrong.
There are so many problems with "pay more". Let's start with a simple one: it's based on the assumption that the employer's only alternative to paying more is going without the output. In a lot of labor markets, this just isn't the case.
Jobs get mechanized/automated. They get outsourced to a different country. The employer reduces output (reduces staff) and in many cases at the same time increases prices. Sometimes, as has been seen with restaurants and retail, hours get cut or they go out of business.
Another problem with your "solution" is that in many markets, especially those related to healthcare, it's not just pay that limits hiring. It's things like caps on residency slots due to Medicare funding, a lack of clinical placements, a lack of faculty, etc. You can't pay more to hire workers that don't exist because the market structure doesn't allow for those workers to exist in the needed numbers.
> If companies can't find a farm laborer at 100k/yr then that sounds like it's an incredible situation for the average worker.
Except this experiment has been tried. Look up the Bracero program, which was terminated in the 1960s to increase wages for domestic farmworkers. I'll give you a hint: a study comparing states heavily exposed to bracero labor against states that used little found basically no wage or employment gain for domestic farmworkers.
The farm doesn't survive with a bunch of recent university grads who studied CompSci picking fruit at $100,000/year. The farm mechanizes, where possible, and switches to crops that require less labor. And the market fills the demand for the crops that were switched out with imports.
And let's also be honest: the average 20-something native-born American doesn't want to pick fruit in 100+ degree heat in dusty small farming towns where there's nothing to do, the male-to-female ratios are out of whack, etc. This too has been tried: UFW ran a "Take Our Jobs" campaign about a decade ago and...wait for it...literally nobody wanted to.
Migrants don't really depress wages, except by a very marginal amount at the lowest skilled rung.
That's because adding people to the economy creates more demand
In times of recession, things might be different - but immigration tends to take care of itself in that regard. When a country has unfilled labor demand, immigration goes up. When it has no labor demand, immigration goes down.
The cost of accepting cash is not necessarily lower - you have take into account higher theft risk, miscounts and cost of delivering it to the bank. Also there is no incentive for businesses to pass saved fees to customers.
I think it's true for most businesses with single transaction being big enough - car dealerships, child care, rent. On the other hand many of them are not happy with cash either because processing cash also incur fees that are not nesessarily less than credit card fees. Most businesses that prefer to take cash are smaller ones because most likely they won't report it.
There are plenty of credit cards in US with 2% cashback on any transaction and no fees if you pay bills on time (usually 20-30 days after statement closes). Some of them even throw in small sign in bonus.
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