SCOTUS decides for Hobby Lobby

[Brazen]

How much does contraception cost? It's free here - not even the fixed £7.50 NHS prescription fee - pills coils, caps, you name it. If you go to a family planning centre, you can even walk out with armfuls of condoms.

[Viking]

How much does contraception cost? It's free here - not even the fixed £7.50 NHS prescription fee - pills coils, caps, you name it. If you go to a family planning centre, you can even walk out with armfuls of condoms.

Thats because the NHS is universal single payer health insurance.

[garbon]

Most Americans are not going to accept a job without knowing about the benefits offered.

Most Americans are going to accept the best job they can get. Fucking dumbass.

Which isn't healthcare coverage part of that of that decision on what is "the best job they can get"?

[CountDeMoney]

Most Americans are not going to accept a job without knowing about the benefits offered.

Most Americans are going to accept the best job they can get. Fucking dumbass.

Which isn't healthcare coverage part of that of that decision on what is "the best job they can get"?

No.  Particularly if it doesn't come with any.  The paycheck is.

[garbon]

Most Americans are not going to accept a job without knowing about the benefits offered.

Most Americans are going to accept the best job they can get. Fucking dumbass.

Which isn't healthcare coverage part of that of that decision on what is "the best job they can get"?

No.  Particularly if it doesn't come with any.  The paycheck is.

I would think healthcare coverage should be considered in some sort of dollar equivalent.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm trying to figure out what the effects of the other ruling will be.  It's being touted as a huge defeat for unions, but everything I'm reading seems to indicate that the scope of the ruling was just for home caregivers.

Yes it is narrow ruling, and in fact it is probably a "victory" for unions.  The petitioners had asked the Court to overturn a prior precedent (called Abood) which authorized public unions to charge agency fees to non-members.  And the Court didn't do that.  Instead it focused on the peculiar status of the Illinois law for the compensation of the home caregivers.  So for most public sector unions, there is no effect and it is business as usual.

However, this is another train wreck of opinion, again by Alito(!), actually even less coherent then Hobby Lobby.  He spends the first 20 pages attacking Abood and it looks like he is going to over-rule it on the grounds that public sector unions - as opposed to private employee unions - shouldn't be able to charge agency fees.  But then he stops short, says Abood still stands but that the Illinois caregivers can't invoke it because they are both public and private employees.  Which makes no sense at all.

It is really kind of embarrassing, Kagan writes a dissent which reads like a law professor trying to nicely dress down an eager but somewhat dim law student for a weak exam answer.

The most charitable explanation is that the majority couldn't get Roberts (and/or maybe Kennedy) to overrule the Abood precedent and so Alito had to muddle through best he could.  But it will not win any prizes for SCt.  Opinion writing.

[CountDeMoney]

I would think healthcare coverage should be considered in some sort of dollar equivalent.

You would think tha if you actually believe that's a common business practice.

[garbon]

I would think healthcare coverage should be considered in some sort of dollar equivalent.

You would think tha if you actually believe that's a common business practice.

Well, of course. When evaluating my current job, I took into consideration the fact that they pay for most of my coverage.

[Maximus]

I would think healthcare coverage should be considered in some sort of dollar equivalent.

It likely depends on the level of the job. I imagine food and rent come before health insurance in the hierarchy of needs. Above a subsistence level income it probably does factor in.

[garbon]

I would think healthcare coverage should be considered in some sort of dollar equivalent.

It likely depends on the level of the job. I imagine food and rent come before health insurance in the hierarchy of needs. Above a subsistence level income it probably does factor in.

Oh certainly.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm sure the owners feel that way, it is always preferable to have your cake (strict separation for liability) and eat it to (no separation for speech rights)

The question is what recognized, neutral principle of law would permit that.  There aren't any.  Corporations are creatures of state law and every state's law provides that the corporation is separate from its owners.   So the owners can jump up and down about their personal views, but their personal views don't get attributed to the corporation anymore than the views of the employees that run it, the customers that sustain it, the creditors that fund it, or the Secretary of State who validates the corporate charter.  The rights of equity owners are clearly set forth in statute and common law and basically amount to the right to elect directors and collect whatever residual profits are left after payment to creditors.  Not included in those rights is the right to treat the abstract corporate entity as some sort of personal political doppelganger.

Really???  Shareholders have no rights to hire or fire staff, to set compensation, to dispose of assets, to contract, to assume debt, to liquidate the company, nothing other than those two you mentioned??

[Zanza]

Really???  Shareholders have no rights to hire or fire staff, to set compensation, to dispose of assets, to contract, to assume debt, to liquidate the company, nothing other than those two you mentioned??

Aren't all of these things what the directors do? Not the shareholders? Except perhaps liquidating the company.

[PJL]

I'm sure the owners feel that way, it is always preferable to have your cake (strict separation for liability) and eat it to (no separation for speech rights)

The question is what recognized, neutral principle of law would permit that.  There aren't any.  Corporations are creatures of state law and every state's law provides that the corporation is separate from its owners.   So the owners can jump up and down about their personal views, but their personal views don't get attributed to the corporation anymore than the views of the employees that run it, the customers that sustain it, the creditors that fund it, or the Secretary of State who validates the corporate charter.  The rights of equity owners are clearly set forth in statute and common law and basically amount to the right to elect directors and collect whatever residual profits are left after payment to creditors.  Not included in those rights is the right to treat the abstract corporate entity as some sort of personal political doppelganger.

Really???  Shareholders have no rights to hire or fire staff, to set compensation, to dispose of assets, to contract, to assume debt, to liquidate the company, nothing other than those two you mentioned??

The problem with big public corporations is that inevitably share ownership and therefore control is inevitably diluted and therefore any one individual shareholder (whether an actual individual or institution) can do very little to affect the company other than ask questions to the board. A possible solution is to consolidate share ownership, but that brings it's own problems. The whole thing isn't quite as bad as the common land problem, but it's not far off.

The fact that companies can create new shares and share rights out of thin air also weakens share ownership control of the company.

[Admiral Yi]

Aren't all of these things what the directors do? Not the shareholders? Except perhaps liquidating the company.

Is that a meaningful distinction?  Directors in theory are supposed to reflect the interests of shareholders.

[CountDeMoney]

I would think healthcare coverage should be considered in some sort of dollar equivalent.

You would think tha if you actually believe that's a common business practice.

Well, of course. When evaluating my current job, I took into consideration the fact that they pay for most of my coverage.

You have that luxury.  "Most Americans", as Dorsey4LyingStankAssSociopath contended, don't always have that ability.

But, as we've seen before, this collection of overeducated, cynical snot-nosed assfucks called Languish doesn't qualify as "most Americans."

Edit--what Max said, only meaner.