at last, i've found time to listen to the end ofl the conversation an' can answer
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So, everybody welcome 'cos i made some notes.
Let’s get it started.
The first one is some discussion of the minimum wage.
Now we are talking about minimum wage or the minimum amount of money company can legally pay their workers in the US.
Wages refers to how much money someone earns.
Wages are different from salaries.
Salary means u receive a certain amount of money each month or each year.
An’ it doesn’t matter now many hours u work. Lawyers, teachers, some professionals work on salary
They may work from 40 to 100 hors for week an', anyway, they get the same amount of money.
Wages refers to getting paid for each hour u work. Jobs are to get wages required less skills or less education.
We usually talk about wages as some amount of money per hour. (that is more commonly ‘an hour’).
Minimum wage is the smallest amount of money that company can legally pay.
The first national minimum wage was set up in 1933 in the US. There was the time of the great depression in the US that year.
The economical activity was at a low point. Many people were unemployed. They did not have enough money for a living.
The US Congress passed or approved a law according to the minimum wages.
It was named the national industrial recovery act. 'Act' is just another name for the law.
The national industrial recovery act established the first wage in the US, however.
In the US a law has to be considered constitutionally in order to go to a fact/ in order to actually have any impact.
The Court, which is the highest legal court in the US, said that this inational industrial recovery act was unconstitutional.
It was against the country legal documents It didn’t let companies negotiate wages with their employees. It said u must pay them at least this much.
However, a few years later, in 1938 there was another law considered. That did establish a minimum wage was not unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court change its political views in the period of time.
The first minimum wage was 25 cent an hour but since then it increased many times.
Currently, in the US as it recorded in the episode 2010 the federal or national minimum wage is $7,25/hour.
Many states, however have their own minimum. Depending on the place of livin’ one can be subject to federal an’ state laws.
That means some rules or some laws control u, apply to u.
An’ u can ask accordin’ to the rules which minimum wage applyes to u.
In the case of California we have a minimum wage law at $8/h even though the federal law says $7,25.
That means I have to pay $8 as an employer or be paid $8 as an employee because that is the state law.
Some cities even have their own minimum wage law. An’ what u have the city law that u’re subject. A city law = a municipal law, in fact.
In San-Francisko the city law is $9,79/h which is more than $2 hire federal law an’ $1, 79 hire than the state minimum.
So, living in S-F u must pay or must be paid $9,79/h. That’s the highest minimum wage in the country, by the way.
Some state an’ local minimum wages are indexed to inflation.
Inflation’s when prices start going up all the time. If u have high inflation, this is often bad for your economy. Basically, that means that things get more expensive.
So, the minimum wages are increases when inflation increases. If inflation is 3% the minimum index is also 3%.
Consumer price index – average price of thing bought by typical American household or typical American family. It is another way to measure consumer price Index (CPI).
U should be asked why do we have a minimum wage?
The idea is if we did not have it, companies-employers would not pay the employees enough money for them to survive. Workers need a certain amount of money to pay for rent, to buy food, to buy clothing. The Government has a minimum wage law that companies have to follow.
There’re, however, people who are opponents to minimum wage laws, people who are against the minimum wage laws
The reason is as follows: if a company has a minimum wage law, they cannot hire, they cannot employ, they cannot give jobs to many low-skilled people.
Another point of view is that the laws create problems for teenages, for young people who want to work, and for those who have low education or law skill levels., an' who are not experienced yet.
Any company has thr only reason of paying that concider any person who must be paid $10/h have to make a profit up to it, some income that is more than $10/h. Sure, according the wage law any employer prefers to hire a more skilled worker.
So, there’s an opinion that the wage law influence to unemployment.
There’s an interesting book: ‘ nickel an’ dime’
‘Nickel’ is 5 cent coin in the US an’ ‘dime’ is 10 cent coin.
The book is about how people survive
The second subj of the conversation:
Cyber crime where people use the Internet or computer to break the law.
‘Cyber’ refers to computer or especially to the Internet an'refers to everything people do on-line.
It's used to describe how people steal money through the Int. Also, it's used when people hack (means ‘ break into one’s computer’ to get the access to secret private information).
Some hackers do this because it’s fun an’ interesting. But mahy hackers are criminal hakers, they want your information, so they can use it, for example, to steal money from u. Criminals may also hack into government’s computers to get secret info.
One of the cyber crime is iIdentity theft when someone steal your personal info to use it for themselves.
Copyright infringement’s another cyber-crime (‘infringe’ means to break, to not respect). So, copywriter infringer is someone who does not respect one’s ownership.
The third kind of cyber crime is child pornography. It’s very difficult to catch internet-crimers because there’re lots of way to hide in the Internet. Cyber crimes are very difficult sometimes to solve. This is because of people who are hackers always use false names.
There’s a special internet complaint center in the US.
Expressions:
I will want to means I don’t want to right now but in the future I probably will. It means i/am sure that will happen
I would want to means I can imagine a possible future in which I might want to do something even if I don’t want to do it now. This is an exa of the conditional.
If certain things come true then I will want to. It means you are not certain or certain things have to happen for you want to do that.
an’ the similar to the above-mentioned ones:
I’d like to means I do definitely what to do something in the future, perhaps very soon or perhaps, long time from now.
Except can mean ‘not including’
Except for can also mean ‘not including’ an’ is typically used when the sentence begins with the word ‘except’. Actually u can put it in the beginning as well in the end of a sentence.
U can also use ‘except on’ (icy road, e.g.)
Conversely statement that is opposite to something u’ve just talked about.
Actually, it means ‘on the other hand’.
fuf.
I'm not sure someone's keen to read so lots of letters. But reading of the post can help make some progress in learning English, specially, if u listen to the conversation.
