That's fairly standard, even among banks. I have a bank account and account with their FX desk, when I need to do conversions. They give me a spot rate real close to what you'd "seen on google", but I have to close the offer within the hour or it's not valid anymore. It's a big european bank.
Can you transfer TO the UK? Specifically from Spain and Qatar? I'm literally about to send a huge amount of money home, and it boils me up how much even the reputable money transfer companies take from you on the exchange. It seems scandalous how much money they take for something which is surely, almost entirely automated.
We're starting with offering services to residents of the UK sending GBP outbound to 9 currencies. We're actively working on our EU license, which will allow residents of UK or EU residence to send GBP or EUR to the currencies we support. We're starting with a particular set of currencies as we're building our network from scratch - it's why our fees are so low!
When you say "working on your EU license" is this something that is an extra steo due to Brexit that would have been automatic before? (i.e. you would only need one license for UK and EU)
> "On Monday, the company announced the rollout of a new wage structure, including a minimum wage of $15.25 per hour and increases for its skilled workers, bringing the average salary to $20 per hour."
It seems obvious to me that it is referring it the minimum wage within the company's wage structure, and not a national minimum wage. I don't understand your point, "the company announced the rollout of a new wage structure, including a minimum wage of $15.25 per hour", means exactly that.
That's not the part being taken issue with, this is:
> What Winston Plywood is doing defies almost everything we have been told about wages in Mississippi — that raising the minimum wage would cripple profits, throw company pay structures into chaos, create inflation and ultimately wreck the economy.
The minimum wage of that debate is a government legislated minimum wage, obviously.
They took a story of interest and lied about it to mislead people to put a favorable spin on a political issue. I.e., modern journalism.
It’s not a lie though - the sawmill did indeed raise its minimum wage. The author posits that the experience of this sawmill defies what “we” have been told about wages across the state, because this company raised their wages and didn’t experience the negative effects that were asserted.
The lie is in the conclusion: "because a single company raised its minimum wage and was successful, this implies all companies can raise their minimum wage and be successful".
If you accept the premise that some work is more valuable than others, then you must also accept that having a minimum wage will rule out certain types of work as being not sufficiently valuable to actually be worth paying for. Thus, having a minimum wage law means that some jobs will disappear (or become much more expensive). Whether this trade-off is worth it or not is a political choice with arguments to be made on both sides.
You can’t call a conclusion a lie because you don’t agree with it. A lie implies falsehood, where you’re just saying, “I don’t agree that this situation where raising the minimum wage of a small towns core business didn’t have negative impacts can translate to a larger scope of a whole state, because I don’t believe that’s how it works”. It’s on you to show the opposite.
So a conclusion that uses a false generalisation must be accepted at face value despite its faulty logic? This has nothing to do with opinion, mine or otherwise; the article is pushing a policy on the basis of broken logic. And yes, I can damn well call that a lie.
It is a lie. The company does not "defy" anything about the opposing side of the minimum-wage debate. It is a deliberate and calculated lie about the characterization of the minimum wage debate.
Unless there happens to be a major group I've never heard of in that state which opposes legal minimum wages and also wants legislation to outlaw companies giving pay rises to their lowest paid workers.
You'd be risking an armed response from the Houthis. They have missiles, drones, and heavy munitions. Would only take one of these to get through and we'd be in exactly the kind of situation we're trying to avoid.
I half agree, people with no talent that seek fame, rarely get it - yet some do. But I can't imagine there's many famous people that didn't actively seek fame.
Seeking fame is normal, but fame as the goal was probably not the main goal for most celebs. A good actor wants to make good movies. If he is just in for the fame, he likely never can put the effort behind it, if he does not love acting in the first place.
Agreed. The problem is the word 'influencer', it also connotes that their followers and mindless drones that need influencing, because they can't think for themselves.
Let's just go back to calling them celebrities, or wannabe celebrities.
Are 'influencers' that much different from 'celebrities'? Some are famous purely for their looks, some for their talent, some for both, occasionally some for their lack of both. For me, it feels like we've always had influencers.
> Are 'influencers' that much different from 'celebrities'? Some are famous purely for their looks, some for their talent, some for both, occasionally some for their lack of both
Most people here probably follow and respect some influencers, but we don't like to admit that our own personal favorites are influencers. We only see them as respected authorities on certain topics while we pretend to ignore the ads and product pitches.
Matt Levine of the Money Stuff newsletter is a great example. His articles are widely shared across the internet and here on HN. He also places advertisements in his newsletters, using his reach and influence to promote products. He almost certainly engages with one of these marketing firms that finds and negotiates these influencer deals. Yet few people here would likely consider him an influencer at first brush simply because we like and respect him.
It's easy to be dismissive of influencer when you're only looking for them in distant topics that you don't personally enjoy or understand. But most of us are blind to the presence of influencers that hit close to home. Nobody likes to think that they're engaged with influencers or capable of being influenced. It's viewed as a negative trait, so we only project it on others and make up excuses as to why our influencers aren't actually influencers.
Couldn't agree more, and that is exactly the same story as with celebrities. For me, I'm a big fan of 'The Hoof GP' for reasons I can't adequately explain. As far as I can see he meets the criteria of influencer, I find his videos interesting and engaging, and I believe he makes a nice side-income from his online success. Bravo if you ask me.
Matt Levine is a columnist for Bloomberg. His job is to write his column. Bloomberg employees other people who figure out how to monetize his content. And more to the point, he doesn't engage with or reference the advertisers in his column.
But the whole point is that the reach and scale of social media means it's much easier to become an influencer, and furthermore you don't need to have some other celebrated skill (acting, sports, etc.) to get noticed.
Sure, the reach and scale is much bigger. But I still don't see how that distinguishes an influencer from a celebrity.
We've had celebrities since before electricity. The reach and scale of print was greater than word of mouth, the reach and scale of radio was greater than print, the reach and scale of TV was greater than radio. The internet is just another expansion of scope, but it's the same culture underneath. Never before have we felt the need to come up with a new word for celebrity.
You could have argued at one point that the internet gives everyone an equal chance to become famous and influential. But even that is less true every day as agencies are increasingly required to stand out in an increasingly saturated market.
I strongly dispute that celebrities need talent to get noticed too. That's never been true.
Basically point is that, yes, all celebrities can be influencers, but not all influencers are anything I'd classify as "celebrities". There is a whole section in the article on "nano influencers", e.g. think "popular kid in school", not "rock star". Being able to monetize that level of popularity is a new thing.
I'm still not seeing much of a distinction. Celebrities got famous because they were popular and were then able to monetize that. I kind of get where you're coming from, but if there is a distinction to be made, it's not this.
For me, I need it to actually pay taxes on my US properties from abroad. Many US tax authorities inexplicably block foreign traffic. Several paid services I use don't allow payments unless the card and the IP address are from the same country.
But by and large I agree, most people are duped into believing it's somehow more secure.
If so, can I see it?