If you don't understand the difference between WW2 and today... Even worse not understanding the difference between Iraq and Ukraine.
Do you not realize we live in a global economy and Russia is being cut off? There was no global economy during WW2. The U.S. was not cut off for invading Iraq. The Russian economy is in shambles they cannot fight a long war in their current state.
I suggest you delete your account and stop posting the dumbest shit ive read on here in the last few weeks over and over again.
Having people rely on some unwritten custom where the rich are expected to give a handout as part of their meal feels much more like treating people as slaves than simply paying people a fair wage and charging what that costs to make workable.
I know it's just a different culture and I try to give a decent tip when I'm in the states as my lack of understanding will not improve the situation but it's still fubar.
But that isn't how it works here. You're effectively saying your principled stand against the "system" (which changes nothing) is more important than making the person who served you get paid non slave wages. You went into an establishment that you knew had cheaper prices because staff works for tips and you didn't tip. That makes you a bad person. Sorry not sorry.
You can't say "you went into an establishment with cheaper prices and knew this was a requirement" when there is no actual choice - it applies everywhere as far as I've seen; it's not like I can pause my business trip to the US and go to another country for lunch.
in that vein, is there a list somewhere of American eateries which pay non-poverty wages and therefore adopt tipping practices which are less morally reprehensible to us foreigners? I'd happily go out of my way when in the US to avoid this particular cultural norm.
Technically, all American restaurants are "an establishment with cheaper prices" for purposes of this discussion.
There are really 3 relevant parties here: the restaurant owner, the restaurant staff, and the customer.
The owners have lobbied for and gotten exceptions to most minimum wage laws, to the effect that they can pay their staff under minimum wage, with tipping making up the difference.
Consequently, if staff receives no tips: the restaurant is required to pay them minimum wage (US$7.25 / hr), or applicable local minimum wage if higher [0].
If staff receives tips, the owner is allowed to pay them a much lower wage (don't remember offhand), with tips making up the difference to meet or exceed minimum wage.
Some of this may be changing due to worker shortages, but restaurant margins are always pretty thin.
Tl;dr - restaurant workers make over minimum wage only if tipped
I understand how it works; I'm trying to find a "vote with your feet" solution as an alternative to screwing over poorly paid employees by not tipping. The most obvious way to do that is to favour restaurants where tipping is discouraged.
> if staff receives no tips: the restaurant is required to pay them minimum wage
> Tl;dr - restaurant workers make over minimum wage only if tipped
Your tl;dr doesn't match. According to you workers make minimum wage irrespective of whether you tip (unless the owner breaks the law), and all your tips do is directly offset owner costs.
It doesn't have cheaper prices, it just has misleading marketing. They should be fined for not showing the real prices. If a tip is mandatory there's no real difference from a bribe: you're supposed to pay someone, without it being clearly documented in the price.
You mean the recent president that signed more peace deals in the Middle East in recent history and was the only president who also hasn’t started a war since probably I’ve been alive? That guy?
...by selling out the Palestinians? And dependent on a fantasy (a demilitarized Israel?!) They were an election-year stunt. Not a real effort at diplomacy.
Yeah of course you don't want that. Because my country will pay to defend your country while the poor people in the U.S. need schools, teachers, and access to healthcare more than Germany does. Thanks for nothing.
He means its the last card the west can play short of war. If they unleash all of their cards now they have no chance at dealing with Putin in the next few days. As small as the hope sounds, its possible Ukraine could resist enough and possibly hold some ground, and Putin could be convinced to stop his advance at some point with the threat of swift being revoked.
Our cards won't change in the next few days. If playing them now or a few days ago wouldn't have stopped Putin, why do you think those same cards would work better once Putin has gone even further and owns Kyiv?
I'd sit in a jail cell before I got drafted into an unjust war. Doesn't seem like a hard decision to me. Now if you're repelling aggressive invaders, that's a different story.
FWIW going abroad has so far always been voluntary for drafted soldiers in most (all?) NATO countries as long as article 5 is not invoked.
I shyed away from education / officer training because I felt the risk of being sent on peace keeping to the middle east, but 20 years later I see I could safely have done it.
The difference is the voters of the U.S. punished the presidents who did those things with huge political defeats that have now made most oversea invasions and hawkishness very unpopular political positions at the moment. Russians have a much tougher road to hoe to do the same thing, but it needs to be done for the moral reasons you lay out here.
It is the job of the Russian people to stand up and refuse to participate in this conflict. Anything that makes their lives harder so they are more likely to do that, as opposed to just sitting around on their ass, is a good thing. The Russians need to band together and topple their dictator state, they are acting unethically and there needs to be a groundswell of support to oust someone like Putin. Simple democracy will not work there to change things like it could in the U.S. (voters were able to get rid of Bush for being a war monger).
Maybe they're giving the US credit for not giving Bush more terms than he was legally allowed to serve, which is more than you can say for Russia/Putin.
Yes. It is. What's your point? If the truckers of Canada try to shut down the country over a vaccine mandate, seems the Russians should consider this a reason to do their best to shut down Russia.
My point is _look how well it went for them in an incredibly non authoritarian regime_. Look how effectively they changed policy! Look how little personal cost it has had!
People like to act as though they'd be the person in the crowd who would rush a lone gunman first. Sure - you'll die, but the group will get the gunman and everything will be better. They definitely love to proclaim that some other bugger in that situation should be willing to take the bullet.
I, personally, hope I never have to make the decision between dying doing the right thing and living doing the easy thing. I've no intention of judging those who do.
Yeah but it was a very small minority that were protesting. Why? Because they were protesting a vaccine mandate which isn't literal evil. Every Russian that isn't a piece of shit should be protesting this and shutting down the entire country.
Please see my other comment in this thread. Either there is some hypocrisy involved or you just called basically everyone here (probably including yourself) a "piece of shit" for not shutting down the USA during its various invasions in the last 20 years.
Just because a country claims to represent you, you don't have the moral obligation to oppose it while risking your personal wellbeing.
Do you not realize we live in a global economy and Russia is being cut off? There was no global economy during WW2. The U.S. was not cut off for invading Iraq. The Russian economy is in shambles they cannot fight a long war in their current state.
I suggest you delete your account and stop posting the dumbest shit ive read on here in the last few weeks over and over again.