The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore(mstdn.ca)
mstdn.ca
The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
https://mstdn.ca/@paulisci/110798058470040619
501 comments
In a similar vein, this poem by Pedro Pietri:
Telephone Booth (number 905 1/2)
woke up this morning feeling excellent, picked up the telephone dialed the number of my equal opportunity employer to inform him I will not be into work today Are you feeling sick? the boss asked me No Sir I replied: I am feeling too good to report to work today, if I feel sick tomorrow I will come in early
woke up this morning feeling excellent, picked up the telephone dialed the number of my equal opportunity employer to inform him I will not be into work today Are you feeling sick? the boss asked me No Sir I replied: I am feeling too good to report to work today, if I feel sick tomorrow I will come in early
My company would call that taking a mental health day, which is considered a legitimate reason for not coming into work.
Easy to do as a knowledge worker, but I've had plenty of jobs where you get in trouble for resting.
calendar store -- one of the pop-ups in the mall during the holiday season.
literally just an empty storefront they were able to rent on the cheap. few shoddy racks of calendars.
we had to keep walking and chatting to the customers when they came in. In December. For calendars. No chairs, no cell phones. Couple of the HS kids no called/no showed so I was often the only person there for 8 hours. Exhausting.
literally just an empty storefront they were able to rent on the cheap. few shoddy racks of calendars.
we had to keep walking and chatting to the customers when they came in. In December. For calendars. No chairs, no cell phones. Couple of the HS kids no called/no showed so I was often the only person there for 8 hours. Exhausting.
That’s called sales
I've had sales jobs. I worked 3 hours a day, make a lot of phonecalls, and did power lunches twice a month.
This was retail, and for calendars. I was a seasonal hire and had no more information about the product than the customer did, nor did I get any commission or incentive if I sold or didn't sell.
This was retail, and for calendars. I was a seasonal hire and had no more information about the product than the customer did, nor did I get any commission or incentive if I sold or didn't sell.
I had a coworker who would say that they were having eye problems -- as in "I just can see coming in today".
Once or twice, I've used "car trouble," as in "trouble is, I ain't gettin' in the car to go to work today."
Mine too, but I’ve not always had the pleasure of working for the enlightened
I read that in Mitch Hedberg‘s voice.
IF I CANNOT
DICTATE
THE CONDITIONS OF MY LABOR
I WILL
HENCEFORTH
CEASE
TO WORK
Yes, thank you! That's the related one I could not think of : )
> agreeable terms may actually be needed in order to attract people to work
aka the Law of Supply & Demand.
aka the Law of Supply & Demand.
This Utah Phillips quote sounds like it came right out of Atlas Shrugged.
My goodness what an insulting thing to say about the man
I mean, like it or not Atlas Shrugged remains one of the most influential novels of all time
I didn't say it wasn't. I'm saying calling an anarchist someone out of the "objectivist" manifesto is especially insulting.
It wouldn't be considered an insult from those many who liked the book, is my meaning. Just that the parent didn't seem to me to be especially insulting
This is going to sound insulting and it is not meant to be insulting.
Your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchism and Rand. Her philosophy is particularly odious to people on the left and is especially incompatible with anarchist political philosophy. The idea that there are special super intelligent humans who should be placed at the top of society's hierarchy and be given free range to make any and all decisions for those lower on the hierarchy is outright rejected as baseline anarchist political thought.
Your comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of anarchism and Rand. Her philosophy is particularly odious to people on the left and is especially incompatible with anarchist political philosophy. The idea that there are special super intelligent humans who should be placed at the top of society's hierarchy and be given free range to make any and all decisions for those lower on the hierarchy is outright rejected as baseline anarchist political thought.
okay yeah, i see your point. I've only read The Fountainhead, which seemed in many regards to be pro "labour" and opposed to bureaucracy and corruption. so I'm not sure yet that rand was opposed to the purported function of unions or the manifestation of them. But indeed anarchy is completely out the window
It's pretty simple really.
If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets.
And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have made that clear by now.
People want perspective. In the past, a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably.
Today people, despite burning themselves out in their job, struggle to pay rent in a flat shared with other working people, after loading themselves up with 100k in students debt, and no chance in hell to ever own property of their own.
If the powers that be want people to be willing to work, that work has to pay off.
If it doesn't, well...we're at the beginning of a retirement wave unprecedented in human history. 2 low-birthrate generations to follow. And our entire economic system is designed around constant growth.
I leave doing the math on that as an exercise for the reader.
If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets.
And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have made that clear by now.
People want perspective. In the past, a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably.
Today people, despite burning themselves out in their job, struggle to pay rent in a flat shared with other working people, after loading themselves up with 100k in students debt, and no chance in hell to ever own property of their own.
If the powers that be want people to be willing to work, that work has to pay off.
If it doesn't, well...we're at the beginning of a retirement wave unprecedented in human history. 2 low-birthrate generations to follow. And our entire economic system is designed around constant growth.
I leave doing the math on that as an exercise for the reader.
I think it's important to note that the good old days of a working man being able to support a family of five was only true for a brief period of history in a handful of elite countries. In most of the world, and for most of human history, it hasn't been the case that any single person working 40 hours a week could provide a luxurious lifestyle for a large family. While some lament the loss of this golden age their grandparents experienced, a much greater number of people around the world have seen their living conditions improve markedly since the time of their grandparents.
That doesn't take away from the point that ideally no one should have to work themselves to the bone just to afford a humble lifestyle, but if middle class people in developed countries are really asking for perspective, I think it's worth bearing their relative privilege in mind.
That doesn't take away from the point that ideally no one should have to work themselves to the bone just to afford a humble lifestyle, but if middle class people in developed countries are really asking for perspective, I think it's worth bearing their relative privilege in mind.
It is funny, people somehow think that a momentary episode of utter economic dominance after all other economic powers had been bombed into dust should be the norm.
And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either.
And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either.
Gimme a good argument why good conditions should diminish, or deteriorate, despite the fact that workforce productivity, as well as corporate margins, have been growing steadily ever since.
Good conditions didn't diminish. People now buy vastly bigger and more things. Want to live on one salary like a 1950 person, with 1950 level goods, you can.
Also more classes of people now have much better things: women, minorities.
Labor is not the only input to productivity, so there is zero reason labor rewards should match productivity. As capital expenses increased to obtain modern productivity gains, the reward should go towards capital, which enabled purchase of upgrading tooling. Also as people demanded more rights and benefits, some is taken from wages. When you track total cost to employ, which is what an employer pays to have an employee, you can see all the gains. BLS tracks this and many other related variables (like wages, total remuneration, and a host of other costs and benefits employees have gained over the decades.)
And corporate margins are pretty much the same as ever, net profit ~10% of revenue, since time immemorial. That 10% is what provides cushion so businesses don't implode every hiccup, leaving lots unemployed. [1] has some 1950-now data. There's plenty more places to find more. Fairly constant profit is why stock returns have averaged what they did over 100+ years. If now had vastly more profitable companies, it would have vastly increased returns.
[1] https://cdn.pficdn.com/cms/pgim-fixed-income/sites/default/f...
Also more classes of people now have much better things: women, minorities.
Labor is not the only input to productivity, so there is zero reason labor rewards should match productivity. As capital expenses increased to obtain modern productivity gains, the reward should go towards capital, which enabled purchase of upgrading tooling. Also as people demanded more rights and benefits, some is taken from wages. When you track total cost to employ, which is what an employer pays to have an employee, you can see all the gains. BLS tracks this and many other related variables (like wages, total remuneration, and a host of other costs and benefits employees have gained over the decades.)
And corporate margins are pretty much the same as ever, net profit ~10% of revenue, since time immemorial. That 10% is what provides cushion so businesses don't implode every hiccup, leaving lots unemployed. [1] has some 1950-now data. There's plenty more places to find more. Fairly constant profit is why stock returns have averaged what they did over 100+ years. If now had vastly more profitable companies, it would have vastly increased returns.
[1] https://cdn.pficdn.com/cms/pgim-fixed-income/sites/default/f...
>Want to live on one salary like a 1950 person, with 1950 level goods, you can.
No, you can't.
People lived in smaller houses, but the vast majority of the increase of property values is _land_. If you want a house that's anywhere near as cheap as the average was 50 years ago, you get to live somewhere with no jobs. That is not equivalent.
As for everything else, the majority of the modern day luxuries we enjoy amounts to a rounding error next to the actual necessities that people also had back then. Consumer electronics are _cheap_, not having them will not meaningfully increase anyones wealth.
No, you can't.
People lived in smaller houses, but the vast majority of the increase of property values is _land_. If you want a house that's anywhere near as cheap as the average was 50 years ago, you get to live somewhere with no jobs. That is not equivalent.
As for everything else, the majority of the modern day luxuries we enjoy amounts to a rounding error next to the actual necessities that people also had back then. Consumer electronics are _cheap_, not having them will not meaningfully increase anyones wealth.
The vast majority is not land. Here's [1] inflation adjusted land cost per acre over the last 50 years. Pick a piece of land at median 1950 sizes and the increase is around $500 in today's dollars. Now please cite why you claim the vast majority of the increase is land.
Want to read what did increase? Houses got bigger as I stated [2].
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/55910/farmrealestate...
[2] https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/
Want to read what did increase? Houses got bigger as I stated [2].
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/charts/55910/farmrealestate...
[2] https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/
And where can you buy a small house?
EDIT: worth noting as well that the source you cited was specifically for farm real estate, not residential.
Here is a source for land price: https://www.aei.org/housing/land-price-indicators/
On the last chart, change the indicator to Change in Land price (standardised). Note that this is only for 2012 to 2021, not even 10 years, and the _smallest_ increase is 44%, while the highest is 807%!
EDIT: worth noting as well that the source you cited was specifically for farm real estate, not residential.
Here is a source for land price: https://www.aei.org/housing/land-price-indicators/
On the last chart, change the indicator to Change in Land price (standardised). Note that this is only for 2012 to 2021, not even 10 years, and the _smallest_ increase is 44%, while the highest is 807%!
First, you conveniently ignore my second link which points out that housing prices, across all houses, not the cherry picked most expensive subset you picked, when adjusted correctly, have been pretty flat. Care to address that? It's been well known that housing prices, per sq ft, inflation adjusted, has not risen according to the pop belief that you share. Here's another easy way to see it - median home prices since 1950, inflation adjusted, have not even doubled since 1950 [1]. Median home sizes each decade since 1920 [2] show that house size have far more than doubled. 1950 was 980 sq ft. 1970 was 1500. 2014 was 2657 (latest on their chart). It sure look like if you picked a 1950 house you'd be paying, well, 1950 rates, doesn't it?
Some numbers from each: Feb 1954 house price $206,717 inflation adjusted. April 2023, $392,780 (the largest value). House sizes: 1950 was 983 ft^2. 2014 was 2657 ft^2 (feel free to chase down sizes for now if you like). 1950 was ~$210/ft^2. 2023 likely ~$147/ft^2.
Care to check the math? Sure seems like housing has not increased (well, it actually decreased significantly by this check) when correctly measured.
Houses cost more now because people want more, and also because they make more than in 1950, inflation adjusted.
Next, new houses in most of the country are built on new residential land as cities expand. Where do you think that land comes from? Farmland. Farmland provides a price floor on new housing, as developers buy it up and add subdivisions.
As to your oddly chosen subset of land: your list is not inflation adjusted. It's also the top 100 metro areas, not the median of house prices in the US. Of course you can pick smaller and smaller subsets to get the answer you want.
The median house in 1950 was under 1/4 acre. From the table below on price per acre, it sure would seem land is not the major factor in house costs.
So, can you provide the correct stat or not? Don't pick the highest cost subset of land. Don't pick non inflation adjusted values. And make it the median of all housing.
Here, I'll help. Here is median price per acre of land with housing on it in the US, by state [3]. It also has the median price per acre, including farmland. Use Excel, check the correlation. If you are to do it, you can also population weight these, add median house cost per state (easy to find), etc.
It's pretty clear the cost of a house is not majority the land, except perhaps in a few really dense, extreme outliers like NYC and SF.
No wonder you believe the highest component of house cost is land. You have not presented actual numbers, only picked the subsets that you like.
Try again. Also, please address the now 3 links I presented about housing costs when size adjusted.
[1] https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/
[2] https://www.newser.com/story/225645/average-size-of-us-homes...
[3] https://www.inmyarea.com/moving/buying-land-analysis
Some numbers from each: Feb 1954 house price $206,717 inflation adjusted. April 2023, $392,780 (the largest value). House sizes: 1950 was 983 ft^2. 2014 was 2657 ft^2 (feel free to chase down sizes for now if you like). 1950 was ~$210/ft^2. 2023 likely ~$147/ft^2.
Care to check the math? Sure seems like housing has not increased (well, it actually decreased significantly by this check) when correctly measured.
Houses cost more now because people want more, and also because they make more than in 1950, inflation adjusted.
Next, new houses in most of the country are built on new residential land as cities expand. Where do you think that land comes from? Farmland. Farmland provides a price floor on new housing, as developers buy it up and add subdivisions.
As to your oddly chosen subset of land: your list is not inflation adjusted. It's also the top 100 metro areas, not the median of house prices in the US. Of course you can pick smaller and smaller subsets to get the answer you want.
The median house in 1950 was under 1/4 acre. From the table below on price per acre, it sure would seem land is not the major factor in house costs.
So, can you provide the correct stat or not? Don't pick the highest cost subset of land. Don't pick non inflation adjusted values. And make it the median of all housing.
Here, I'll help. Here is median price per acre of land with housing on it in the US, by state [3]. It also has the median price per acre, including farmland. Use Excel, check the correlation. If you are to do it, you can also population weight these, add median house cost per state (easy to find), etc.
It's pretty clear the cost of a house is not majority the land, except perhaps in a few really dense, extreme outliers like NYC and SF.
No wonder you believe the highest component of house cost is land. You have not presented actual numbers, only picked the subsets that you like.
Try again. Also, please address the now 3 links I presented about housing costs when size adjusted.
[1] https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/
[2] https://www.newser.com/story/225645/average-size-of-us-homes...
[3] https://www.inmyarea.com/moving/buying-land-analysis
>housing prices, across all houses, not the cherry picked most expensive subset you picked, when adjusted correctly, have been pretty flat. Care to address that?
>median home prices since 1950, inflation adjusted, have not even doubled since 1950
"Not even doubled" = basically flat.
Sure buddy. The single biggest purchase most people will ever make, let's call an 80% increase a rounding error.
>No wonder you believe the highest component of house cost is land. You have not presented actual numbers, only picked the subsets that you like.
If you're going to put all this effort into finding stats then you should first work on your reading comprehension. Here's what I actually said:
>the vast majority of the *increase* of property values is _land_.
>median home prices since 1950, inflation adjusted, have not even doubled since 1950
"Not even doubled" = basically flat.
Sure buddy. The single biggest purchase most people will ever make, let's call an 80% increase a rounding error.
>No wonder you believe the highest component of house cost is land. You have not presented actual numbers, only picked the subsets that you like.
If you're going to put all this effort into finding stats then you should first work on your reading comprehension. Here's what I actually said:
>the vast majority of the *increase* of property values is _land_.
> Sure buddy. The single biggest purchase most people will ever make, let's call an 80% increase a rounding error.
They're now choosing to buy a > 200% size home. And this is because inflation adjusted median household income has gone up, tada! you guessed it! Over 200%!
And here's some real number voodoo for you - put inflation adjusted median income and median house size over time into Excel and look at the correlation. What do you think happens there?
So, here's the facts, which you don't care to address: 1) House cost is around flat per inflation adjusted sq foot for decades. 2) The main component of median house prices in the US is NOT land, as you claim 3) The reason houses now cost more is because they are bigger (and looks like a slight lower amount per sq foot than 1950), and.... 4) the reason houses are bigger is because household wages are equivalently bigger, correlating quite well for at least 70 years, so people choose bigger houses because they can afford them, as well as 2 cars, many TVs, more trips, relative food cost has declined, and on and on.
Now, I cited good data for all of these. Do you still dispute any of them?
Go ahead and cite some good data - median, complete US market, any time period, that supports any of your claims otherwise.
> Here's what I actually said:
>>the vast majority of the increase of property values is _land_.
The link where I gave you average per acre cost for housing completely blows that out of the water. Did you not look at it? Here are the steps: 1. Look at the per state average acre for housing price. 2. Look up median house acres (< 0.25). 3. Look up median house prices. 4. Multiply the acres per house (0.25) by the acre cost to get the amount of land cost per house. 5. Subtract 4 from 3. 6. Note how large 5 is compared to 4. 7. Note that it's mathematically impossible that the small amount in 3 can contribute to the inflation adjusted increase in house prices from 1950.
Here, I'll even do a decent estimate for you: from the list Florida has the median land price of around $35000 per acre for housing. Average house land is still under 0.25 (one site said it's now 0.19). So land per house in Florida is around say $8500. Zillow says average Florida house price is ~390,000. This likely has doubled in price and size since 1950 (and if it's an outlier, then some other place in the US counters it, thanks to the magic of medians).
Tell me again that the current cost of $8500 land in a $390,000 house is the cause of the near doubling in price? Did the land cost negative $400,000 in 1950?
So, keep claiming your claim. It's so mathematically impossible as to be ludicrous at this point. If you want to continue to make that claim, show me the numbers broken down just like gave you.
Or are we done since you keep ignoring facts you dislike, and misrepresent the double prices ~ basically flat by completely ignoring that the doubling in price is also a doubling in size which was my very first point (and a doubling of incomes which is why it all fits).
[1] https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-pos...
They're now choosing to buy a > 200% size home. And this is because inflation adjusted median household income has gone up, tada! you guessed it! Over 200%!
And here's some real number voodoo for you - put inflation adjusted median income and median house size over time into Excel and look at the correlation. What do you think happens there?
So, here's the facts, which you don't care to address: 1) House cost is around flat per inflation adjusted sq foot for decades. 2) The main component of median house prices in the US is NOT land, as you claim 3) The reason houses now cost more is because they are bigger (and looks like a slight lower amount per sq foot than 1950), and.... 4) the reason houses are bigger is because household wages are equivalently bigger, correlating quite well for at least 70 years, so people choose bigger houses because they can afford them, as well as 2 cars, many TVs, more trips, relative food cost has declined, and on and on.
Now, I cited good data for all of these. Do you still dispute any of them?
Go ahead and cite some good data - median, complete US market, any time period, that supports any of your claims otherwise.
> Here's what I actually said:
>>the vast majority of the increase of property values is _land_.
The link where I gave you average per acre cost for housing completely blows that out of the water. Did you not look at it? Here are the steps: 1. Look at the per state average acre for housing price. 2. Look up median house acres (< 0.25). 3. Look up median house prices. 4. Multiply the acres per house (0.25) by the acre cost to get the amount of land cost per house. 5. Subtract 4 from 3. 6. Note how large 5 is compared to 4. 7. Note that it's mathematically impossible that the small amount in 3 can contribute to the inflation adjusted increase in house prices from 1950.
Here, I'll even do a decent estimate for you: from the list Florida has the median land price of around $35000 per acre for housing. Average house land is still under 0.25 (one site said it's now 0.19). So land per house in Florida is around say $8500. Zillow says average Florida house price is ~390,000. This likely has doubled in price and size since 1950 (and if it's an outlier, then some other place in the US counters it, thanks to the magic of medians).
Tell me again that the current cost of $8500 land in a $390,000 house is the cause of the near doubling in price? Did the land cost negative $400,000 in 1950?
So, keep claiming your claim. It's so mathematically impossible as to be ludicrous at this point. If you want to continue to make that claim, show me the numbers broken down just like gave you.
Or are we done since you keep ignoring facts you dislike, and misrepresent the double prices ~ basically flat by completely ignoring that the doubling in price is also a doubling in size which was my very first point (and a doubling of incomes which is why it all fits).
[1] https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-pos...
>And this is because inflation adjusted median household income has gone up, tada! you guessed it! Over 200%!
Inflation adjusted median income has gone up over 200%... what do you think inflation is?
Inflation adjusted median income has gone up over 200%... what do you think inflation is?
[deleted]
Can you elaborate on what "labor rewards" means in the context of
```
Labor is not the only input to productivity, so there is zero reason labor rewards should match productivity.
```
That sounds like they're saying, "if you get a tool that makes you twice as productive, you didn't double the production, the tool did, so the tool owner should get the additional proceeds".
Total braindead understanding of how productivity and labor works, but it sounds great if you own the tools.
Total braindead understanding of how productivity and labor works, but it sounds great if you own the tools.
If you look at average living conditions across the world, they did actually increase dramatically!
This is what people miss about the conversation: That temporary period of brief prosperity was partially due to some of the relative differences across the world. Raising living standards across the world came at a small price of popping that bubble.
Although median disposable income of Americans is still significantly higher than the rest of the world.
This is what people miss about the conversation: That temporary period of brief prosperity was partially due to some of the relative differences across the world. Raising living standards across the world came at a small price of popping that bubble.
Although median disposable income of Americans is still significantly higher than the rest of the world.
It's odd that this is the conversation when there was an extremely high top end tax and the government was taking that money and turning it into infrastructure and jobs.
We saw this dream start to disappear as we un did those things in the name of freedom.
Now, we produce more per capita than we ever did before and we get less of that pie as wages have stagnated and taxes go to corporate hand outs and entitlements (healthcare and social security), which are more or less a corporate hand out since they no longer provide pensions for people that work a life time for them.
It's unclear to me why the conversation is centering better standards of living elsewhere as if we haven't added a couple billion people/consumers to the world in that time.
We saw this dream start to disappear as we un did those things in the name of freedom.
Now, we produce more per capita than we ever did before and we get less of that pie as wages have stagnated and taxes go to corporate hand outs and entitlements (healthcare and social security), which are more or less a corporate hand out since they no longer provide pensions for people that work a life time for them.
It's unclear to me why the conversation is centering better standards of living elsewhere as if we haven't added a couple billion people/consumers to the world in that time.
I don't know whether they should or not, but it's clear that there was a very unusual set of conditions and it is unsurprising it didn't last forever, right or wrong.
On the contrary, it is VERY surprising these conditions didn't last, given that productivity only ever increased since then.
If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce.
How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So did worker productivity, aka. the amount of resources produced per worker. So if people are worse off now, that leads to the very easy deduction that the fault lies in how these resources are distributed, not with a scarcity of the resources themselves.
Or to put this another way:
If the previously better conditions were just a fluke that couldn't be expected to last, how come that corporations seem to rake in ever more money as time goes on?
If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce.
How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So did worker productivity, aka. the amount of resources produced per worker. So if people are worse off now, that leads to the very easy deduction that the fault lies in how these resources are distributed, not with a scarcity of the resources themselves.
Or to put this another way:
If the previously better conditions were just a fluke that couldn't be expected to last, how come that corporations seem to rake in ever more money as time goes on?
> How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased.
This is a very US-centric view.
Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased.
The situation isn’t going to make sense if you continue to ignore the rest of the world and try to understand the United States as if we lived in a perfectly isolated bubble.
This is a very US-centric view.
Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased.
The situation isn’t going to make sense if you continue to ignore the rest of the world and try to understand the United States as if we lived in a perfectly isolated bubble.
> Demand for resources across the world has increased dramatically as everyone’s living standard increased.
As has productivity.
As has productivity.
Increasing productivity brought is more complex goods, and they take longer to build. Hence, the throughput didn’t increase as much.
Also some industries can barely keep up. We have seen this during the pandemic. “Chip crisis” is a great example.
Also some industries can barely keep up. We have seen this during the pandemic. “Chip crisis” is a great example.
The Roman Empire's prosperity as the spoils of war are evident even to newest student of history. Why then is it surprising that the US also had some prosperity thanks to winning wars, and that there is none of that to be had if there aren't wars being won? Why is it expected that prosperity should last?
It was only ever good conditions for some. If wealth redistributes faster than wealth grows, those some will experience loss while society at large experiences net gain.
> If wealth redistributes faster than wealth grows
And can we see this in any dataset, that the post-WW2 boom eventually gave more away in charity than it produced?
And can we see this in any dataset, that the post-WW2 boom eventually gave more away in charity than it produced?
>And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either.
This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the former?
This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the former?
There are enormous amounts of study on the concept that the above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history by white men was built on the exploitation of other groups. Frequently, people who name that specific point in time as the model for how they would like the world to be are simply unaware of this tradeoff and have no idea that simply reverting society to that point would make it worse for some groups - this is why it gets mentioned when someone says "let's go back to those good times", to educate these people. Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities.
The "above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history" came in the US because Europe was destroyed in WWII, and they got to easily be the world's producer and exporter and dictator of terms for decades. That plus strong unions and growing economy. And the tide also lifted black people with it, that's the era when the civil rights progress was made, for example.
Oh, and Europe also ended up enjoying a similar stability and uplifting economy a few decades later, as the economy recovered there too, without having those other groups to exploit, and even for countries which lost their colonies the decades prior.
The economic rise since the 60s though (in productivity, GDP etc) hasn't translated to similar stability, because the unions were left to die, and neoliberal politics and attitudes became the norm, while the banks and capitalists got a free pass to anything they wanted.
>Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities.
I think it's more that people making your argument are with the side of capitalists, and you want to make a bogus argument as if livable wages and job prospects are racist and only feasible when combined with exploitation, to absolve the current neoliberal order as "the best possible world". So they weaselly mark anybody pointing to those things as pinning for the rasist aspects of 1950s/60s too.
Oh, and Europe also ended up enjoying a similar stability and uplifting economy a few decades later, as the economy recovered there too, without having those other groups to exploit, and even for countries which lost their colonies the decades prior.
The economic rise since the 60s though (in productivity, GDP etc) hasn't translated to similar stability, because the unions were left to die, and neoliberal politics and attitudes became the norm, while the banks and capitalists got a free pass to anything they wanted.
>Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities.
I think it's more that people making your argument are with the side of capitalists, and you want to make a bogus argument as if livable wages and job prospects are racist and only feasible when combined with exploitation, to absolve the current neoliberal order as "the best possible world". So they weaselly mark anybody pointing to those things as pinning for the rasist aspects of 1950s/60s too.
Hear, hear!
This point of view is simply not true. The return on labour was massively much higher for previous generations outside of the US as well, including in countries bombed into dust.
Educate yourself on history, there is a world outside the United States. There are struggles that have nothing to do with race relations in the United States.
Educate yourself on history, there is a world outside the United States. There are struggles that have nothing to do with race relations in the United States.
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There were a lot of people working very hard in the 50s and 60s, not having luxurious lifestyles. My grandparents had 6 kids on a farm because they all had to work to make ends meet, and lived in a modest farm house. They grew their own food, and didn't have what some would describe as 'luxury'. My other grandparents had a 1000 square foot home with 5 boys in it. Both parents worked and a vacation consisted of driving 4 hours to a nearby big city once a year, not going to Machu Picchu or the Amalfi Coast.
You talk about the "relative privilege" of middle class people in developed countries as though the cause for their declining standard of living was other people having more, as if their "slice of pie" was being cut in pieces and given away. That's not how economic growth works. When China and India grow, the total productive power of the world economy grows. So now the world ought to be able to support "luxurious" standards of living for more people, but in fact we see fewer people enjoying such lives. So where's the output of all our work going, eh?
In China alone, hundreds of millions of people now have a middle class lifestyle that 50 years ago did not. I suspect that far outweighs the number of people in countries that were already developed 50 years ago who fell from a middle class lifestyle back to subsistence farming.
All of that is true, even in the US. It is a false narrative that the "middle class is collapsing" in the US
There is a very narrow band, and very specific regions in the US where that is true unfortunately for the the rest of us the people and regions where this is the reality those people hold outsized control over the media, and government so it gives the appearance it is a universal reality. The World Is Becoming a Better Place[1]
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg
There is a very narrow band, and very specific regions in the US where that is true unfortunately for the the rest of us the people and regions where this is the reality those people hold outsized control over the media, and government so it gives the appearance it is a universal reality. The World Is Becoming a Better Place[1]
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg
What Antony Davies fails to account for is the rising cost of housing, and a college education, and he compares us to 100 years ago, which is a nice round number, but the living standard I want to revisit is the 1950's, minus the out-of-control racism and sexism and abuse. By that time electricity was ubiquitous, washing machines were prevalent, people had cars, and college and housing was still affordable for the middle class. By the 1960's, central air condition was being designed into homes.
This is my experience in Brazil.
Also, wasn't this golden age in the US fueled by concentrated demand for industrial goods after the second world war? Without an unprecedented imbalance in the economy I cannot see this happening.
Some people that hate imperialism also demand it's spoils back (?).
Also, wasn't this golden age in the US fueled by concentrated demand for industrial goods after the second world war? Without an unprecedented imbalance in the economy I cannot see this happening.
Some people that hate imperialism also demand it's spoils back (?).
First it was "support a family of five", then "luxurious lifestyle" then "humble lifestyle". Except for the "luxurious" one, it was possible pretty much at any time in human history, including now.
The post I am responding to mentioned providing a family of five with a self-owned house, a car, a couple of vacations per year and a comfortable retirement. To many people around the world - still today - that would be considered a luxurious lifestyle.
You are right that it's possible for one person to support a family. For most people working in the tech industry here on HN they could probably figure out a way to do it. But is it realistic for all families everywhere to be able to support themselves with just a single worker? If it were so simple to achieve, we would not see child labor. We would not see any poverty at all. Clearly we are not yet at the point as a species where we can enjoy a post-scarcity or job-free utopia. We could certainly be doing a lot more to work towards that than we are, though, and I think that's a more interesting point of discussion than looking back through rose-tinted glasses on a few decades of post-WW2 America.
You are right that it's possible for one person to support a family. For most people working in the tech industry here on HN they could probably figure out a way to do it. But is it realistic for all families everywhere to be able to support themselves with just a single worker? If it were so simple to achieve, we would not see child labor. We would not see any poverty at all. Clearly we are not yet at the point as a species where we can enjoy a post-scarcity or job-free utopia. We could certainly be doing a lot more to work towards that than we are, though, and I think that's a more interesting point of discussion than looking back through rose-tinted glasses on a few decades of post-WW2 America.
If it were so simple to achieve, we would not see child labor.
You have it backwards. We wouldn't see any child labor if employers weren't trying to cut corners on wages while the people at the top of the economic pyramid rake in billions. Ownership is way overcompensated in this society, most owners/CEOs do not provide that much value and are just collecting economic rents because they occupy a position in social/economic networks with high bridging centrality coefficients. It may involve some work to get there, but culture, luck, and marketing also have a lot to do with it too.
https://cse.buffalo.edu/tech-reports/2006-05.pdf
You have it backwards. We wouldn't see any child labor if employers weren't trying to cut corners on wages while the people at the top of the economic pyramid rake in billions. Ownership is way overcompensated in this society, most owners/CEOs do not provide that much value and are just collecting economic rents because they occupy a position in social/economic networks with high bridging centrality coefficients. It may involve some work to get there, but culture, luck, and marketing also have a lot to do with it too.
https://cse.buffalo.edu/tech-reports/2006-05.pdf
I agree that wealth inequality is a problem, and I fully support billionaire taxes and wealth caps. If we were to take all that stored wealth and redistribute it equally amongst the rest of the world, each person might get around US$10000. That would provide enough to take everyone currently living in absolute poverty out of it for a decade or so. Would that solve child labor? Perhaps. Would it allow Americans to afford a house and car and freedom from work for 4 out of every 5 people? I don't think so. So I think the problem is bigger than just the inequality between the fantastically wealthy and everyone else, if the goal is for everyone to have the "golden age" lifestyle.
Are you a CEO? If not when are you becoming a CEO to rake in billions then? It ought to be easy since they don’t do much according to you. They get compensated a lot because it is a lot of responsibility and stress.
Why doesn't the prime minister of UK become the king of Britain, even though it's less work for way more luxury?
(In case you can't reason your way into it, some positions are gained through nonzero amount of luck rather than pure "hard work and grit" or whatever boomer nonsense.)
(In case you can't reason your way into it, some positions are gained through nonzero amount of luck rather than pure "hard work and grit" or whatever boomer nonsense.)
The post you are responding to didn't have Starbucks coffee every day, did have internet, cable tv, subscriptions to streaming services, a computer with a monthly subscription in every pocket. They didn't even have that option.
The above is just a short list. Live like 1955 and you can support a family of 5 with, a car, vacations every year and a nice retirement. You won't have many of the other luxuries people enjoy today. If you don't want to that us fine, but don't say it can't be done.
The above is just a short list. Live like 1955 and you can support a family of 5 with, a car, vacations every year and a nice retirement. You won't have many of the other luxuries people enjoy today. If you don't want to that us fine, but don't say it can't be done.
No you can't. What does Internet and a computer cost next to rent and going college? Let's say $2,000 for a really nice laptop and another $1,800 for 3 years of Internet access (@ $50/month), round to $4k? Vs $40k, easy, for college?
Before there was starbucks there was a local cafe and coffee shop, before the Internet there were newspapers and magazines to pay for.
It can't be done. We've lost something. We have also gained things. don't get me wrong, I like having the Internet.
If only I could give up Hulu and Netflix, I could afford to go back to college and go on vacation every year? Let me guess, I also just need to eat less avocado toast and I'll be able to afford the downpayment on a house.
Before there was starbucks there was a local cafe and coffee shop, before the Internet there were newspapers and magazines to pay for.
It can't be done. We've lost something. We have also gained things. don't get me wrong, I like having the Internet.
If only I could give up Hulu and Netflix, I could afford to go back to college and go on vacation every year? Let me guess, I also just need to eat less avocado toast and I'll be able to afford the downpayment on a house.
Is that actually true?
Subscriptions £30 pm
Starbucks £40 pm
Phone contract £20 pm
ISP £30 pm
That’s £120 pm, or £1440 annually. Doesn’t seem like it would make that much of a dent. Probably the number one thing you’d need to do is cut down on food costs, which is doable, to be fair, as it’s quite easy to spend 10x or 100x more than what you need to stay fed.
That’s £120 pm, or £1440 annually. Doesn’t seem like it would make that much of a dent. Probably the number one thing you’d need to do is cut down on food costs, which is doable, to be fair, as it’s quite easy to spend 10x or 100x more than what you need to stay fed.
It all adds up. If you only have a Starbucks on special occasions it isn't much, but some people have daily habits. Likewise a lot of people have the most expensive cable plan which is a lot more money. Phone plans can also get a lot more expensive if you but top of the line phones every couple years.
Ok, could you do the math then? Try to see how many Starbucks coffees you have to forgo to afford a down payment at a median house in the US.
The current median home sale price in the US is $416100[0], so with 3% down for a first time homebuyer ($12500), and assuming a Starbucks coffee costs $3.50 including tax, it'd take ~3570 coffees, or a little under 10 years of a daily habit.
That ignores any interest on the savings. So yeah it seems like "small" regular spending in your 20s (e.g. $100/mo total) can add up to an entire down payment in your early 30s.
Alternatively, assuming your rent would be at least $1000/month, you might live with your parents for an extra 13 months (or fewer for higher rents) before moving out on your own.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
That ignores any interest on the savings. So yeah it seems like "small" regular spending in your 20s (e.g. $100/mo total) can add up to an entire down payment in your early 30s.
Alternatively, assuming your rent would be at least $1000/month, you might live with your parents for an extra 13 months (or fewer for higher rents) before moving out on your own.
[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
Now, could you add on the housing price inflation over the last 10 years? Your calculation assumes housing prices stay flat for the next 10 years, which is a tall order.
Also, what would happen to people with not so well off parents?
Also, what would happen to people with not so well off parents?
The avocado toast meme is six years old now, and people said the same thing at the time (hence it becoming a meme). It's fair to say "actually I don't have any subscriptions and don't buy daily coffee or go to restaurants/bars (including fast food or pickup) or drink alcohol or smoke or use any other drugs" but complaining that $3/day doesn't add up to a down payment was wrong then and it's still wrong now even after the housing balloon of the last few years. Simple math demonstrates this.
If someone's parents were able to provide a place to live until 18, why is 19 suddenly impossible? You don't need to be well off to let your kids stay with you a little bit past legal adulthood. Surely there's room for a couch or a bean bag or something to give them a huge leg up right out of the gate, assuming you were in a marginal position where you otherwise needed to immediately kick them out and downsize.
Some people are going to have rough situations and can't rely on a family at all. Some will need to emancipate before reaching 18. How common is that? If it is common, that seems like the real problem to address.
If someone's parents were able to provide a place to live until 18, why is 19 suddenly impossible? You don't need to be well off to let your kids stay with you a little bit past legal adulthood. Surely there's room for a couch or a bean bag or something to give them a huge leg up right out of the gate, assuming you were in a marginal position where you otherwise needed to immediately kick them out and downsize.
Some people are going to have rough situations and can't rely on a family at all. Some will need to emancipate before reaching 18. How common is that? If it is common, that seems like the real problem to address.
Well, as the parent poster mentioned, interest on the savings are not taken into account. Furthermore, the inflation in the price of the Starbucks coffee is also not taken into account. So, seems like the logic/reasoning still stands.
Okay, so do the math. How many Starbucks coffees should I abstain from to afford a home?
I wouldn't worry too much about the coffee, everyone knows it's avocado toast that really destroys your chance of affording housing.
> But is it realistic for all families everywhere to be able to support themselves with just a single worker?
Yes, because a single worker today is maybe fifty or a hundred times more productive than a worker in the past, thanks to modern equipment.
Yes, because a single worker today is maybe fifty or a hundred times more productive than a worker in the past, thanks to modern equipment.
I gather average productivity growth in most developed countries has been around 2 or 2.5% for the past 60 or so years, working out to at best 3.5 times what it was in the 50s or 60s.
Which still makes it reasonable to ask why it's not feasible today for a single income to be sufficient to support a mortgage on a typical family home in the way it was in those times. What I'd like to know is in what cities around the world has housing not become so unaffordable in that period...
Both the urbanization rate and the homeownership rate were considerably lower in the 1950s and 1960s. Said city housing may have been cheaper, but that is because it wasn't wanted.
Your question is much like asking why we can't afford to feed lobster to prisoners anymore.
Your question is much like asking why we can't afford to feed lobster to prisoners anymore.
Home ownership rates for those under 30 at least have fallen considerably in many Western countries (certainly in Australia). And yes urbanisation has increased but not that dramatically. What hasn't really happened though is any significant new cities forming, meaning more and more competition for being located in desirable areas of existing cities, which is surely one of the bigger drivers of decreased affordability.
> Home ownership rates for those under 30 at least have fallen considerably in many Western countries
Yes, it seems the under 30 crowd would rather go to college/university instead these days. A degree can cost about as much as a modest home. Almost nobody attended college in the 1950s. Hobbies always come with tradeoffs.
> And yes urbanisation has increased but not that dramatically.
15-20 points, at least in the USA. That is quite dramatic. If today's cities saw 15-20% of their population leave for rural areas, prices in those cities would drop like a rock.
> What hasn't really happened though is any significant new cities forming
Very true, and fantastically increased farm profitability since the 2007 time period has driven farmland values through the roof, which has made it much more cost prohibitive for cities to expand like they used it do.
Yes, it seems the under 30 crowd would rather go to college/university instead these days. A degree can cost about as much as a modest home. Almost nobody attended college in the 1950s. Hobbies always come with tradeoffs.
> And yes urbanisation has increased but not that dramatically.
15-20 points, at least in the USA. That is quite dramatic. If today's cities saw 15-20% of their population leave for rural areas, prices in those cities would drop like a rock.
> What hasn't really happened though is any significant new cities forming
Very true, and fantastically increased farm profitability since the 2007 time period has driven farmland values through the roof, which has made it much more cost prohibitive for cities to expand like they used it do.
> Yes, it seems the under 30 crowd would rather go to college/university instead these days.
Fairly sure housing affordability is a bigger problem for those without tertiary degrees though!
> 15-20 points, at least in the USA
I'd think if there was an era where urbanisation was highest it would be in the 50-60 years prior to the 60s, and I'm not aware of house prices dramatically increasing in that time (happy to be shown otherwise though!). But in that earlier period many quite modest-sized towns grew massively to become the cities they are today (*), so arguably there weren't quite so many people all trying to crowd into the same few cities.
(*) though in Australia at least, something of the opposite has happened in the last ~75 years - many modest-size towns have lost their populations to larger cities.
Fairly sure housing affordability is a bigger problem for those without tertiary degrees though!
> 15-20 points, at least in the USA
I'd think if there was an era where urbanisation was highest it would be in the 50-60 years prior to the 60s, and I'm not aware of house prices dramatically increasing in that time (happy to be shown otherwise though!). But in that earlier period many quite modest-sized towns grew massively to become the cities they are today (*), so arguably there weren't quite so many people all trying to crowd into the same few cities.
(*) though in Australia at least, something of the opposite has happened in the last ~75 years - many modest-size towns have lost their populations to larger cities.
> Fairly sure housing affordability is a bigger problem for those without tertiary degrees though!
US data suggests that college graduates have seen the largest decline in homeownership over the past 10 years.
That said, you are right that college filters out those with disabilities and other life challenges, and that means those without degrees are infinitely more likely to have something like a crippling mental disability which would prevent them from owning a home. Which, indeed, makes drawing any aggregate parallels between graduates and non-graduates rather useless.
> I'd think if there was an era where urbanisation was highest it would be in the 50-60 years prior to the 60s
In fact, there was a bit of a counter-urbanization movement during the period. Cities were considered to be for the poor. Anyone with means wanted to live on large estates out in the countryside. There was also that whole "White Flight" thing. All that goes back to the people not wanting the houses.
It's easy to forget now that we've put in incredible effort to make cities more livable, but cities were industrial hell holes during the 50s and 60s. Not to mention that crime was starting to become a big problem by the 60s. They were not desirable places in the slightest. Today's cities are entirely different.
It is true that things are much more affordable when they are considered undesirable.
US data suggests that college graduates have seen the largest decline in homeownership over the past 10 years.
That said, you are right that college filters out those with disabilities and other life challenges, and that means those without degrees are infinitely more likely to have something like a crippling mental disability which would prevent them from owning a home. Which, indeed, makes drawing any aggregate parallels between graduates and non-graduates rather useless.
> I'd think if there was an era where urbanisation was highest it would be in the 50-60 years prior to the 60s
In fact, there was a bit of a counter-urbanization movement during the period. Cities were considered to be for the poor. Anyone with means wanted to live on large estates out in the countryside. There was also that whole "White Flight" thing. All that goes back to the people not wanting the houses.
It's easy to forget now that we've put in incredible effort to make cities more livable, but cities were industrial hell holes during the 50s and 60s. Not to mention that crime was starting to become a big problem by the 60s. They were not desirable places in the slightest. Today's cities are entirely different.
It is true that things are much more affordable when they are considered undesirable.
That's actually now perhaps getting closer to a better (if harder to demonstrate) theory - that housing has become unaffordable largely because we've made cities (and their surrounding suburbs) so much more desirable places to be in than they were 60 or 70 years ago.
>I think it's important to note that the good old days of a working man being able to support a family of five was only true for a brief period of history in a handful of elite countries. In most of the world, and for most of human history, it hasn't been the case that any single person working 40 hours a week could provide a luxurious lifestyle for a large family.
Keyword "luxurious".
People first and foremost want to be able to have a roof, food, some leisure time, and so on, not luxury.
And people could have a lot of that for more than "a brief period of history in a handful of elite countries". Between common wrong tropes, movies, and ignorance of history, the past is hugely downplayed as to these aspects.
The "industrial revolution" era of Marx and Dickens time, actually worsened (for the first 2 centuries or so) the working conditions and increased the working hours for huge swaths of the population. People had to be forced (via law, violence, and destruction of their prior livelihood) to go work in factories (and many fought hard for keeping their rural way of life).
Keyword "luxurious".
People first and foremost want to be able to have a roof, food, some leisure time, and so on, not luxury.
And people could have a lot of that for more than "a brief period of history in a handful of elite countries". Between common wrong tropes, movies, and ignorance of history, the past is hugely downplayed as to these aspects.
The "industrial revolution" era of Marx and Dickens time, actually worsened (for the first 2 centuries or so) the working conditions and increased the working hours for huge swaths of the population. People had to be forced (via law, violence, and destruction of their prior livelihood) to go work in factories (and many fought hard for keeping their rural way of life).
Roof, food, clothes, furniture, mobile phone with internet plan, flat TV, streaming subscription...
How many streaming subscriptions do you need to forgo to have a down payment on a house? Could you please do the math?
"Roof" != "house". Houses are closer to luxury, we previously defined that.
A roof, food and leisure time are historically luxurious. Poverty is the natural default. Anything more than that requires a lot of hard work as a society, and has only been realized in the tiny sliver of humanity that is recent (last ~200 years) western society. Everywhere else and at all other times has been starvation, strife and constant work to subsist. And you die by 40 on average.
Studies of how remaining hunter/gatherer tribes around the world have/had been living suggests that's not really true - shelter, food and leisure time were almost always readily available. What wasn't was modern medical technology, which has been almost solely responsible for massively reducing deaths in childbirth and early infancy and giving us the average lifespans we enjoy today.
Even among civilizations that founded around agriculture, there's little evidence that homelessness, starvation or lack of free time were the constant reality for the masses, even if there's no question what life they did have would be considered incredibly basic by modern developed-world standards.
its also the case that people want different things. Even if all work could be remote, there will still be people that will pay most of their income to live in NYC or SF, because when you are living in those places you are not just paying for a roof over your head. You are getting opportunities professionally and culturally that do not exist elsewhere
Honestly that's a valid criticism
BUT
I would point out the wealth distribution in our economy.
If it was more equable would this luxurious lifestyle for all still be possible ?
BUT
I would point out the wealth distribution in our economy.
If it was more equable would this luxurious lifestyle for all still be possible ?
Let’s take a look at income (not wealth)
The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K. Since in reality the distribution is very skewed a lot of people would earn more.
Of course, that’s if we artificially constrain this to the US. The world-wide GDP per capita is only $12K. So if we’d be really equitable with the whole world, we’d all have to make do with a lot less.
The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K. Since in reality the distribution is very skewed a lot of people would earn more.
Of course, that’s if we artificially constrain this to the US. The world-wide GDP per capita is only $12K. So if we’d be really equitable with the whole world, we’d all have to make do with a lot less.
That is just math and does not account of what this would cause to the economy.
Is the same old discourse, if poor people get more money they will put it back in the economy and consume it generating a bigger economy and better life quality for everyone.
And gdp is kindaaaa useless as wealth pays an important role.
Economic inequality in income grew since the 80' and that's simply a fact
Is the same old discourse, if poor people get more money they will put it back in the economy and consume it generating a bigger economy and better life quality for everyone.
And gdp is kindaaaa useless as wealth pays an important role.
Economic inequality in income grew since the 80' and that's simply a fact
Of course. Afaik there are no numbers we could use to estimate the effect on GDP of such redistribution.
We could indeed hypothesize that GDP would increase due to poorer people having more to spend. On the other hand, in this scenario the successful business owners no longer earn outsized reward for their risk, so perhaps entrepreneurship and innovation is stumped. It’s very hard to predict the effect on GDP
We could indeed hypothesize that GDP would increase due to poorer people having more to spend. On the other hand, in this scenario the successful business owners no longer earn outsized reward for their risk, so perhaps entrepreneurship and innovation is stumped. It’s very hard to predict the effect on GDP
> The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K
Pedantically, you actually want GNI, not GDP, here. (But they are close enough in practice for the US–and identical on a worldwide basis since there is no foreign income—that it doesn’t materially change anything else in your comment.)
Pedantically, you actually want GNI, not GDP, here. (But they are close enough in practice for the US–and identical on a worldwide basis since there is no foreign income—that it doesn’t materially change anything else in your comment.)
> In the past, a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably.
I think this is a bit of a rose-colored rear-view mirror, and to the extent it's true it's a pretty brief period of time historically. Most people in most times had to work pretty hard. If you were a farmer, you worked pretty much all the daylight hours every day. Immigrants in the early part of the 20th century worked very hard, often the man running a small business or doing factory work and the woman cleaning, sewing, cooking, bookkeeping, etc. for hire. And all of that is when the men weren't off fighting a war as a conscripted soldier.
The "working man" who could support a family on his income alone was a product of the post-WWII economy. And he didn't really have to save for retirement, he had a defined-benefit pension (the kind that bankrupted many of their employers in subsequent years).
The fact that today, people can feel pretty picky about the terms of the work they do is a sign that times are pretty good, despite what people may think and say.
I think this is a bit of a rose-colored rear-view mirror, and to the extent it's true it's a pretty brief period of time historically. Most people in most times had to work pretty hard. If you were a farmer, you worked pretty much all the daylight hours every day. Immigrants in the early part of the 20th century worked very hard, often the man running a small business or doing factory work and the woman cleaning, sewing, cooking, bookkeeping, etc. for hire. And all of that is when the men weren't off fighting a war as a conscripted soldier.
The "working man" who could support a family on his income alone was a product of the post-WWII economy. And he didn't really have to save for retirement, he had a defined-benefit pension (the kind that bankrupted many of their employers in subsequent years).
The fact that today, people can feel pretty picky about the terms of the work they do is a sign that times are pretty good, despite what people may think and say.
> and to the extent it's true it's a pretty brief period of time historically.
That is true, but understandably, people are not thrilled about the prospect of their conditions being worse than those their predecessors experienced.
Especially not if, at the same time, they experience an uninterrupted period of economic growth and ever growing profit margins for the corporations they work for.
That is true, but understandably, people are not thrilled about the prospect of their conditions being worse than those their predecessors experienced.
Especially not if, at the same time, they experience an uninterrupted period of economic growth and ever growing profit margins for the corporations they work for.
It's not worse than their predecessors. That belief is a combination of looking at the past with rose colored glasses and extrapolating the issues of a handful of cities to the entire country.
By objective standards, it isn't worse. Unfortunately, people don't care about objective standards, once they're not hungry cold and in pain they mostly derive their happiness from how well off they are compared to other people they encounter. By that metric more are worse off now.
This is what we should be discussing - the blatant taking-for-granted of how good things objectively are in favor of a cultural delusion that we are oppressed.
We are living in the best of times as measured by infant mortality, lifespans, literacy, poverty, and technology.
We are living in the best of times as measured by infant mortality, lifespans, literacy, poverty, and technology.
Depends on your frame of reference. In America, things have gotten worse in terms of lifespans, maternal health/mortality, and generally healthcare - when compared to 5 years ago. Partially due to the pandemic, but it remains to be seen if this is the start of a downward spiral or if things will recover soon.
Psychologically, people seem to experience less hope and optimism that the future will be better. That is an important concept as well - regardless of whether you think people are delusional - their subjective perceptions still matter.
Psychologically, people seem to experience less hope and optimism that the future will be better. That is an important concept as well - regardless of whether you think people are delusional - their subjective perceptions still matter.
They robbed Peter to pay Paul and now they complain that they're facing the penalties....
The ones who get to complain are the "Peters" whose futures were stolen so their parents could live high on the hog, no?
The ones who get to complain are the "Peters" whose futures were stolen so their parents could live high on the hog, no?
this is the problem of believing things are "better".
it's better in terms of people not having to do brutal physical labor.
but it's worse it's ever been in terms of mental labor and mental health. For older folks they may not understand, and we as a society as a whole not understand, how much mental impact growing up with social media and endless amounts of stimulation has an affect on the entire generation. Social media is still incredibly new only several decades old, with every year getting more and more stimulating. We have no idea the consequences of such over a long term impact on mental health.
You may think "just don't go on it" but it's a whole different story for younger kids, when everyone in your peer group is on social media. If your entire social network is dependent on social media, "just don't use social media" becomes incredibly difficult, and you become exposed to algorithms designed to ceaselessly deliver dopamine to your brain.
On top of that work, has become a lot more and more mentally draining vs physically draining, making it way harder to factor how tiring it is. As someone who studied Neuroscience in undergrad, the biggest takeaway for me learning it was Neuroscience is still an extremely new science, and our understanding of the brain is very very limited, funnily enough despite how much advancements we made with ai. So understanding people's mental exhaustion is very difficult to measure.
Endless mental dopamine delivery, combined with rapid technological pace requiring younger individuals to learn more and more, faster and faster,
I argue, that "times are not as good" as people think they say. There is a different kind of pain involved from working long hours in more natural/stable but physically arduous tasks in the fields or whatnot, vs 8 hours in some confined space indoors of having to constantly learn something new of an ever-changing landscape of new technology without stability where you can be rendered useless in a span of a couple years (ie artists and ai image generation). The pain of being in some confined space is not new to the older generation, but it certainly is getting worse because of how faster automation is rendering certain knowledge and jobs useless much faster than it ever did.
it's better in terms of people not having to do brutal physical labor.
but it's worse it's ever been in terms of mental labor and mental health. For older folks they may not understand, and we as a society as a whole not understand, how much mental impact growing up with social media and endless amounts of stimulation has an affect on the entire generation. Social media is still incredibly new only several decades old, with every year getting more and more stimulating. We have no idea the consequences of such over a long term impact on mental health.
You may think "just don't go on it" but it's a whole different story for younger kids, when everyone in your peer group is on social media. If your entire social network is dependent on social media, "just don't use social media" becomes incredibly difficult, and you become exposed to algorithms designed to ceaselessly deliver dopamine to your brain.
On top of that work, has become a lot more and more mentally draining vs physically draining, making it way harder to factor how tiring it is. As someone who studied Neuroscience in undergrad, the biggest takeaway for me learning it was Neuroscience is still an extremely new science, and our understanding of the brain is very very limited, funnily enough despite how much advancements we made with ai. So understanding people's mental exhaustion is very difficult to measure.
Endless mental dopamine delivery, combined with rapid technological pace requiring younger individuals to learn more and more, faster and faster,
I argue, that "times are not as good" as people think they say. There is a different kind of pain involved from working long hours in more natural/stable but physically arduous tasks in the fields or whatnot, vs 8 hours in some confined space indoors of having to constantly learn something new of an ever-changing landscape of new technology without stability where you can be rendered useless in a span of a couple years (ie artists and ai image generation). The pain of being in some confined space is not new to the older generation, but it certainly is getting worse because of how faster automation is rendering certain knowledge and jobs useless much faster than it ever did.
How much time have you personally spent doing physically arduous tasks in the fields? Most soft and pampered Americans have no concept of how difficult that life is. Many agricultural workers end up with crippling injuries that cause chronic pain; look how many of them seek relief from alcohol and opioids.
Social media may cause some problems but it won't leave me with a slipped vertebrae from bending over pulling weeds all day.
Social media may cause some problems but it won't leave me with a slipped vertebrae from bending over pulling weeds all day.
I have heard the argument that a negative effect of the post WW2 "feminist" movement (by that I mean women in the work force) has had the long term effect of causing prices to simply adjust to the dual income household, to the point that now it is a necessity. It is a privileged family today that can afford to live comfortably on only one salary.
I think piketty would disagree. Productivity per worker has gone up but the share of profits going to workers has gone down. This is not some kind of inflation driven by scarcity.
The ultra wealthy hired the best to win a game of financial manipulation that the rest of us didn’t even know was being played.
The median salary would be six figure if the share of productivity gains was distributed like it was in 1970.
The median salary would be six figure if the share of productivity gains was distributed like it was in 1970.
I think focussing on salary alone isn't a great strategy.
If you doubled everyone's salary, the gain would almost certainly be absorbed by real estate or some other necessity.
Regulations on maximum working hours, access to fair housing, education, healthcare etc might work better.
If you doubled everyone's salary, the gain would almost certainly be absorbed by real estate or some other necessity.
Regulations on maximum working hours, access to fair housing, education, healthcare etc might work better.
I agree with you that gains in income will be absorbed.
Providers of necessities can demand large portions of people’s income due to lack of supply. It’s a basic monopoly. We see that in real estate, health care, education, elderly and child care.
They can’t charge endlessly because at some point people are priced out. Homelessness, lack of education, delaying medical care until an emergency and relying on laws that non-payers cannot be denied treatment.
But they can travel up the supply demand curve and take from everybody that can still afford it, because the supply is constrained. TVs are cheap, because of competition from overseas. Land or health care prices are not.
Providers of necessities can demand large portions of people’s income due to lack of supply. It’s a basic monopoly. We see that in real estate, health care, education, elderly and child care.
They can’t charge endlessly because at some point people are priced out. Homelessness, lack of education, delaying medical care until an emergency and relying on laws that non-payers cannot be denied treatment.
But they can travel up the supply demand curve and take from everybody that can still afford it, because the supply is constrained. TVs are cheap, because of competition from overseas. Land or health care prices are not.
GDP per capita is $80K in the US.
I suspect this includes people of all ages, so if we distribute this only to working age, that’s probably close to $100K (six figures)
I suspect this includes people of all ages, so if we distribute this only to working age, that’s probably close to $100K (six figures)
GDP != salary.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/average-salary-by-ag...
median wage at 45yo (the peak) is $64k.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/average-salary-by-ag...
median wage at 45yo (the peak) is $64k.
I know. I’m an economist. The post was talking hypothetical if the gains were better distributed.
GDP/capita is that maximum hypothetical number where the full gross domestic production is evenly distributed to all people.
GDP/capita is that maximum hypothetical number where the full gross domestic production is evenly distributed to all people.
gotcha. that makes sense
Is the average salary six figures?
That's sort of a tricky question since most of the income and wealth of the upper crust of modern society is not expressed as a salary. The simple answer is no, but the fact that it's such a complex answer is itself indicative of a systemic problem.
GDP per capita in the US is $80K [wikipedia]
I assume it includes everyone regardless of age, so the average salary when only considering people working if probably $100K or above
I assume it includes everyone regardless of age, so the average salary when only considering people working if probably $100K or above
Salary != Wealth.
There are billionaires that don’t make a single penny a year, and broke folks pulling in 6-7 figures.
Looking at some type of combination of income + net worth is probably better in most cases.
That being said, most folks in the US make less than $100,000/year and have less than a $100,000 net worth.
There are billionaires that don’t make a single penny a year, and broke folks pulling in 6-7 figures.
Looking at some type of combination of income + net worth is probably better in most cases.
That being said, most folks in the US make less than $100,000/year and have less than a $100,000 net worth.
No
Of course not, it's driven by ability to pay.
And while I'm not a professional economist it does seem that you are correct in that demand-pull based inflation (cost of goods) tends to only happen in periods of economic expansion, while cost-push inflation (size of money supply) tends to be the driver in slower times.
And while I'm not a professional economist it does seem that you are correct in that demand-pull based inflation (cost of goods) tends to only happen in periods of economic expansion, while cost-push inflation (size of money supply) tends to be the driver in slower times.
Except that with machines doing more of the on the job labor at the same time that women are entering the work force en-mass, there was more competition for fewer jobs which depressed wages.
There is always an infinite amount of jobs. Whenever too few people hoard too much wealth is when economic activity slows down and some jobs are no longer worth doing.
Theres another level to this going on in certain places too. Its not enough to have both partners working. Now in places like the bay area if you want to be competitive in the housing market, both partners have to be working high income jobs not just working at all. Even if you have a great title, if your partner doesnt, you will be lapped by people who have vastly more buying power than either of you can ever muster together.
I wonder if this creates some serious perverse incentives in the dating scene in these parts of the country. Like people who understand this economic situation and unfortunately write off what might have been great partners because their line of work will never afford the standards of living their dual high income peers are able to achieve.
I wonder if this creates some serious perverse incentives in the dating scene in these parts of the country. Like people who understand this economic situation and unfortunately write off what might have been great partners because their line of work will never afford the standards of living their dual high income peers are able to achieve.
The best thing that most younger people in the Bay Area can do to improve their quality of life is to move somewhere else. Decades of bad government and an influx of grifters have eroded the advantages it once had. You might take a temporary income hit by leaving but most regular workers will end up better off in the long run.
We can argue about what should be done to improve the situation in the Bay Area, but realistically any major changes will take decades to work through the political process. That's going to be too slow to matter for any younger people who are trying to build a decent life right now.
As for dating, the skewed gender ratio in "Man Jose" also makes things difficult in a way that transcends economics.
We can argue about what should be done to improve the situation in the Bay Area, but realistically any major changes will take decades to work through the political process. That's going to be too slow to matter for any younger people who are trying to build a decent life right now.
As for dating, the skewed gender ratio in "Man Jose" also makes things difficult in a way that transcends economics.
> makes things difficult
for who?
for who?
People have been choosing partners for money since forever, that's certainly not a new thing
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That argument, like all arguments that somehow equate wages with inflation, would hold water if the productivity of the workforce was constant.
We know that it isn't. Productivity of the workforce is ever increasing. The generated wealth simply doesn't make it to the workforce.
We know that it isn't. Productivity of the workforce is ever increasing. The generated wealth simply doesn't make it to the workforce.
> The generated wealth simply doesn't make it to the workforce.
Some of it does - real wages in the US are higher than in the past: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Some of it does - real wages in the US are higher than in the past: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Let me contextualize that "some" for you:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17rEg
Real wages have effectively flat-lined over the past 50+ years.
Real wages have effectively flat-lined over the past 50+ years.
Doesn't it?
And I don't, by any measure, mean that all of it does, but nowadays we have luxuries we simply didn't have before, are these not fruits of that increased productivity?
And I don't, by any measure, mean that all of it does, but nowadays we have luxuries we simply didn't have before, are these not fruits of that increased productivity?
> but nowadays we have luxuries
Who's we?
I know I am living a privileged comfortable life, yes. I am certain many people in my chosen profession as a software dev do.
But I also know that there are alot more people struggling to provide basic necessities for their families, despite working 40+h per week. And I am not talking about cellphones here. I am talking about a roof over ones head, clothes on ones back, food on the table and medical services.
Who's we?
I know I am living a privileged comfortable life, yes. I am certain many people in my chosen profession as a software dev do.
But I also know that there are alot more people struggling to provide basic necessities for their families, despite working 40+h per week. And I am not talking about cellphones here. I am talking about a roof over ones head, clothes on ones back, food on the table and medical services.
Women entering the formal workplace and gradually more and more jobs becoming available to both genders has also inflated traditionally “female” occupations like teachers, nurses, and childcare. When someone who could have trained as a lawyer had to instead become a teacher that kept teacher salaries lower. Nuns serving as teachers made Catholic schools affordable. Now many Catholic schools have a one two punch of the economic opportunity cost of becoming a nun being higher than ever and declining enrollment.
Privileged? I worked very hard to get that point of "privileged" to have had two single-job families. In the beginning I worked at different jobs out of necessity and in part, to see what suited me and what suited the work. I learned many different skills that helped me in my personal life - construction, housebuilding, coding (since 1978), electronics, welding, machining, technical diving, industrial rope access, organizational risk management, and leading large teams on world-class, one-of-a-kind projects. I was raised just below or at the poverty level.
I believe the level of lifestyle you may want precludes you from making a single-income household. I am very content with few things even when the times are good. A hike or walk with the family outside doesn't cost much unless you're shopping and eating out all the time while sipping $5 lattes. Plus childcare would cost a pretty significant chunk of rhe second household income, so why not let one parent be with the kids fulltime?
I believe the level of lifestyle you may want precludes you from making a single-income household. I am very content with few things even when the times are good. A hike or walk with the family outside doesn't cost much unless you're shopping and eating out all the time while sipping $5 lattes. Plus childcare would cost a pretty significant chunk of rhe second household income, so why not let one parent be with the kids fulltime?
That would only make sense if productivity divided by half.
On the other hand, people's requirements have simply inflated to much higher standards, while technology semi-automated some of the housekeeping stuff - washing clothes, dishes, making food, heating, cleaning.
On the other hand, people's requirements have simply inflated to much higher standards, while technology semi-automated some of the housekeeping stuff - washing clothes, dishes, making food, heating, cleaning.
For this theory to be correct you’d need the total work hours being provided to employers to have doubled accordingly.
Elizabeth Warren made that exact argument.
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-...
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-...
Why put feminist between quotes?
Because I don't think it's particularly feminist to force both parents to work.
I recall a Twitter thread where a lawyer mentions she couldn’t afford the apartment she rented as a law student now that she was an actual lawyer 10-15 years later.
A working man can still support a family of five, buy a house, a car and a vacation once or twice a year. He just needs to be realistic.
House: you can still find houses with plenty of room for ~$100k. It just needs to be in an affordable area: think McKeesport, not San Francisco.
Car: for $5k you can get a 2005 Ford Focus or Honda Civic. They're reliable cars that will get you from A to B perfectly fine, easy to repair and fuel efficient.
Education: a Computer Science degree from WGU costs $18k for the average student, and can be as low as $4k if you accelerate.
Career: plenty of remote software jobs paying above $100k, which can fund a good life in most of the US.
I get it though, the average person wants a nice house in a wealthy area with good schools and low crime and two new cars and gets a degree from a school they can't afford in a field without high paying jobs, and they cannot even code. That's completely their fault, no sympathy from me.
For those people, there's an easy solution: just don't have kids. Kids are crazy expensive, and not required for a good life.
I hope what you say is true- mass retirements followed by a plummeting birthrate. We surely do not need so many people, when the overwhelming majority are useless. Robots will be here soon anyway to replace most of the workforce
House: you can still find houses with plenty of room for ~$100k. It just needs to be in an affordable area: think McKeesport, not San Francisco.
Car: for $5k you can get a 2005 Ford Focus or Honda Civic. They're reliable cars that will get you from A to B perfectly fine, easy to repair and fuel efficient.
Education: a Computer Science degree from WGU costs $18k for the average student, and can be as low as $4k if you accelerate.
Career: plenty of remote software jobs paying above $100k, which can fund a good life in most of the US.
I get it though, the average person wants a nice house in a wealthy area with good schools and low crime and two new cars and gets a degree from a school they can't afford in a field without high paying jobs, and they cannot even code. That's completely their fault, no sympathy from me.
For those people, there's an easy solution: just don't have kids. Kids are crazy expensive, and not required for a good life.
I hope what you say is true- mass retirements followed by a plummeting birthrate. We surely do not need so many people, when the overwhelming majority are useless. Robots will be here soon anyway to replace most of the workforce
> For those people, there's an easy solution: just don't have kids
I think most people have started to notice that this is the actual purpose of all these insane policies against workers in the industrialized world. Every vise imaginable is being used to squeeze young people. From rent and real estate extortion, taxes and tributes, to inflation. Then the solution given to them is "Oh just don't have children. You don't deserve to procreate since you have to keep working for us to be comfortable."
There is another word for the kind of policy being supported by you.
I think most people have started to notice that this is the actual purpose of all these insane policies against workers in the industrialized world. Every vise imaginable is being used to squeeze young people. From rent and real estate extortion, taxes and tributes, to inflation. Then the solution given to them is "Oh just don't have children. You don't deserve to procreate since you have to keep working for us to be comfortable."
There is another word for the kind of policy being supported by you.
A society that views children as cost has things very backwards. They are the prize and the whole point of this game.
Progress on robotics has been extremely slow. I doubt that we will see a robot that can repair a broken air conditioner in our lifetimes.
But I agree that a lot of the whining is due to expectations that are decoupled from reality. A recent survey of college students showed that they expected to earn an average starting salary of $103K. Most are in for a rude awakening.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2022/05...
But I agree that a lot of the whining is due to expectations that are decoupled from reality. A recent survey of college students showed that they expected to earn an average starting salary of $103K. Most are in for a rude awakening.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2022/05...
You forgot those damn avocado toasts
Now this is some “folksy wisdom”
>>a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably.
I would say my family history is that of a "working man" that closly fits that narraive..
My grandfather was a WWII vet, after military service was a factory worker that raised 4 kids, in their own home.
Let me eliminate some of that illusory rose tint from your worldview. That home with 2 adults and 4 kids was a 950 square foot 1 bathroom box on .25 acres of land, with no garage, basement, or luxury of any type. my family still owns this property.
In comparison me a single man, lives in a 1300 sqft home.. by myself, with 2 car garage, full basement, etc. My home is considered "basic" by modern standards, some would even consider it below minimum standards for a family of 4...(I bought this home from such a family because they felt it was too small for them)
No builder would ever consider building either my home (which was built in the 60's, nor my grandparents home (built in the early 50's) as today home sizes need to be 1500-2000 square foot, each bedroom needs it own bath, kitchens need to be near professional quality, etc etc etc etc etc.
In short home prices are sky high because buyers would never consider, and probally could not legally, raise 4 kids in a 1 bath 950 sqaure foot home.
We often to not actualy compare apples to apple when we look at the conditions of the past. Sure a man could buy a home for his family in 1950... That home was about 1/2 the size of todays home, and had FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR less amenities and comforts of the modern home
I would say my family history is that of a "working man" that closly fits that narraive..
My grandfather was a WWII vet, after military service was a factory worker that raised 4 kids, in their own home.
Let me eliminate some of that illusory rose tint from your worldview. That home with 2 adults and 4 kids was a 950 square foot 1 bathroom box on .25 acres of land, with no garage, basement, or luxury of any type. my family still owns this property.
In comparison me a single man, lives in a 1300 sqft home.. by myself, with 2 car garage, full basement, etc. My home is considered "basic" by modern standards, some would even consider it below minimum standards for a family of 4...(I bought this home from such a family because they felt it was too small for them)
No builder would ever consider building either my home (which was built in the 60's, nor my grandparents home (built in the early 50's) as today home sizes need to be 1500-2000 square foot, each bedroom needs it own bath, kitchens need to be near professional quality, etc etc etc etc etc.
In short home prices are sky high because buyers would never consider, and probally could not legally, raise 4 kids in a 1 bath 950 sqaure foot home.
We often to not actualy compare apples to apple when we look at the conditions of the past. Sure a man could buy a home for his family in 1950... That home was about 1/2 the size of todays home, and had FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR less amenities and comforts of the modern home
> In short home prices are sky high because buyers would never consider, and probally could not legally, raise 4 kids in a 1 bath 950 sqaure foot home.
I live in a place the same size as you, minus the garage and the land, as a family of 3 so far.
There are plenty of potential homebuyers who would kill for this, and I know of nowhere in the USA that it would be illegal. The problem is that cities limit the number of homes that can be built to ludicrous low density setups like "one house on 2 square acres", and there are enough homebuyers who will pay for the house three times that size with a bathroom per bedroom that the builder doesn't bother to worry about the potential buyers who are not being served and have to move out beyond the edges of public transit to afford anything. And these density limits remain because old people swan around moaning that it's inhumane to build studio apartments when everybody wants a 12 sq acre bathroom, and why are there people in tents on the street?
I live in a place the same size as you, minus the garage and the land, as a family of 3 so far.
There are plenty of potential homebuyers who would kill for this, and I know of nowhere in the USA that it would be illegal. The problem is that cities limit the number of homes that can be built to ludicrous low density setups like "one house on 2 square acres", and there are enough homebuyers who will pay for the house three times that size with a bathroom per bedroom that the builder doesn't bother to worry about the potential buyers who are not being served and have to move out beyond the edges of public transit to afford anything. And these density limits remain because old people swan around moaning that it's inhumane to build studio apartments when everybody wants a 12 sq acre bathroom, and why are there people in tents on the street?
> And these density limits remain because old people swan around moaning that it's inhumane to build studio apartments when everybody wants a 12 sq acre bathroom, and why are there people in tents on the street?
Also Prop 13 in California that transfers wealth from new buyers to boomers who bought a home when it was cheap, and to wealthy buyers who can afford to buy a teardown and rebuild it around a single remaining wall.
But really, almost all of society’s current problems are pushed onto the public by the political power wielded by elderly boomers and retirees. The rest of us would like to do something about climate change and LGBT issues and cost of education but none of that affects boomers either. The elderly are fundamentally disconnected from the future of society because they will not participate in it, and unfortunate most people are not actually mature enough to demand sacrifices without an expectation they will share in the benefits. The meme about “old men planting trees in whose shade they know they will never sit” is not true, and it’s unfair to punish the living and their future from the hand of the dead. To use the term a bit differently than usual, the constitution is not a suicide pact.
We have a lower age limit on voting and there is perpetual talk about raising it to try and curb the political influence of the younger cohort (much like class war, one side is playing hardball, while the other side doesn’t even know they’re playing). Instead, we should keep it the same and add a cap at the age at which you can first draw early social security benefits.
I have heard all the retorts, what about the good boomers etc. But it’s just not good policy to have what are effectively transient participants (similar to how immigrants don’t get to vote) without a long-term stake in society being the ones in political control, even if some of them are well-intentioned.
Again, boomers keep trying to push exactly this change in reverse by trying to raise the voting age. They know there’s a class battle being fought here, but as usual the other side has talked themselves out of even playing the game, like if you don’t acknowledge it then it goes away.
Also Prop 13 in California that transfers wealth from new buyers to boomers who bought a home when it was cheap, and to wealthy buyers who can afford to buy a teardown and rebuild it around a single remaining wall.
But really, almost all of society’s current problems are pushed onto the public by the political power wielded by elderly boomers and retirees. The rest of us would like to do something about climate change and LGBT issues and cost of education but none of that affects boomers either. The elderly are fundamentally disconnected from the future of society because they will not participate in it, and unfortunate most people are not actually mature enough to demand sacrifices without an expectation they will share in the benefits. The meme about “old men planting trees in whose shade they know they will never sit” is not true, and it’s unfair to punish the living and their future from the hand of the dead. To use the term a bit differently than usual, the constitution is not a suicide pact.
We have a lower age limit on voting and there is perpetual talk about raising it to try and curb the political influence of the younger cohort (much like class war, one side is playing hardball, while the other side doesn’t even know they’re playing). Instead, we should keep it the same and add a cap at the age at which you can first draw early social security benefits.
I have heard all the retorts, what about the good boomers etc. But it’s just not good policy to have what are effectively transient participants (similar to how immigrants don’t get to vote) without a long-term stake in society being the ones in political control, even if some of them are well-intentioned.
Again, boomers keep trying to push exactly this change in reverse by trying to raise the voting age. They know there’s a class battle being fought here, but as usual the other side has talked themselves out of even playing the game, like if you don’t acknowledge it then it goes away.
Obviously this depends entirely on the country and region.
My grandfather immigrated to Australia in 1948, got a job assembling cars at the Ford plant, and worked there until he retired.
My Grandmother never worked. They bought a very nice house, had two boys, never really had any debt, plenty of money in retirement.
A generation later my Dad was earning $10k/year as a teacher, and my mum and dad bought their first very nice home for $30k.
So today how many people earning $100k/year can buy a home for $300k?
(As reference, my partner earns $78k/year and bought a modest home for $480k the month before covid. Now there is not a single home in this small town for less than $600k.)
My grandfather immigrated to Australia in 1948, got a job assembling cars at the Ford plant, and worked there until he retired.
My Grandmother never worked. They bought a very nice house, had two boys, never really had any debt, plenty of money in retirement.
A generation later my Dad was earning $10k/year as a teacher, and my mum and dad bought their first very nice home for $30k.
So today how many people earning $100k/year can buy a home for $300k?
(As reference, my partner earns $78k/year and bought a modest home for $480k the month before covid. Now there is not a single home in this small town for less than $600k.)
>>entirely on the country and region.
Very true...
My home when I bought it was about 2x my annual income, my home today is worth on the market about 2x my current annual income.
The average factory worker (or teacher) in my area could easily afford to buy my home in a standard 2 person income situation.
Now if you go into the new construction area's of this city, the houses there start at 2x the price of my home. I am a relatively high income earner though that is offsite by the fact I live alone so no dual income. On paper I could afford one of those homes, but I would never go that far into debt, which is why I own the home I do. I bought in a modest neighborhood and a modest home.
Currently average home prices in my area are 3.5x median household incomes, which is up from 2.25x in 2016... This is largely drive by the new construction of these high end homes fueled by low interest rates.
Very true...
My home when I bought it was about 2x my annual income, my home today is worth on the market about 2x my current annual income.
The average factory worker (or teacher) in my area could easily afford to buy my home in a standard 2 person income situation.
Now if you go into the new construction area's of this city, the houses there start at 2x the price of my home. I am a relatively high income earner though that is offsite by the fact I live alone so no dual income. On paper I could afford one of those homes, but I would never go that far into debt, which is why I own the home I do. I bought in a modest neighborhood and a modest home.
Currently average home prices in my area are 3.5x median household incomes, which is up from 2.25x in 2016... This is largely drive by the new construction of these high end homes fueled by low interest rates.
> This is largely drive by the new construction of these high end homes fueled by low interest rates.
I doubt it.
How many such modest houses in your modest neighborhood are available now? How much has the housing supply in your town grown, and how much has the population grown? Are all these buyers actually making a direct choice between these two kinds of houses, or is only one of those choices actually available to buy?
I doubt it.
How many such modest houses in your modest neighborhood are available now? How much has the housing supply in your town grown, and how much has the population grown? Are all these buyers actually making a direct choice between these two kinds of houses, or is only one of those choices actually available to buy?
>How many such modest houses in your modest neighborhood are available now?
In my zipcode +/- 10% of my home value... 30 or so....
>How much has the housing supply in your town grown, and how much has the population grown?
No idea on supply... We average about 1% population growth per year. Slight decrease during the pandemic, slight increase in the last couple of years.
In the same zip code there are 18 New Construction properties for sale, all 2 - 3x my home price. Which would not include the homes being built for buyers under contract.
In my zipcode +/- 10% of my home value... 30 or so....
>How much has the housing supply in your town grown, and how much has the population grown?
No idea on supply... We average about 1% population growth per year. Slight decrease during the pandemic, slight increase in the last couple of years.
In the same zip code there are 18 New Construction properties for sale, all 2 - 3x my home price. Which would not include the homes being built for buyers under contract.
As a percentage of income that 78/480 is probably less in the monthly payment than the 10/30 or at least in the same ballpark, since interest rates back then were probably much higher for the 10/30 loan, assuming equal percentage down payments and same terms and what not.
Back in the day when Dad earned $10k/year and saved 30% he had the full house price in ten years ($30k), so it was much easier to have a much larger percentage as a downpayment, or in fact, not get a loan at all.
Now saving 30% a year of a $78k income means you have to save for 20 years to have the full price of the house. ($480k), so you're forced to get a loan, and likely a much bigger loan
Now saving 30% a year of a $78k income means you have to save for 20 years to have the full price of the house. ($480k), so you're forced to get a loan, and likely a much bigger loan
Here's some perspective. In lower cost areas of the country it's still totally possible for a single worker to support a family of five, buy a house, a car, and afford a vacation. But in that idealized version of the past that you're describing the normal standards of living were much lower. The typical worker's house was small with everyone sharing one bathroom. The car was unreliable and dangerous. The vacation was a road trip to go camping. Now it seems everyone's expectations have risen.
I do agree that demographic changes are going to cause economic problems. That is basically unavoidable now.
I do agree that demographic changes are going to cause economic problems. That is basically unavoidable now.
A big part of this seems to be the idea that a highly-educated urban professional ought to have a better life than a journeyman plumber in a rural area. The reality is that there is a lot more supply of educated professionals and a lot more demand for city life, so it should not be surprising that wages in formerly-elite jobs are being depressed and cost of living is shooting up. In the meantime, the plumber's economic situation has largely improved with the booming economy and the dwindling supply of plumbers.
If you want a high quality of life today and aren't worth $10+ million, the best way to get it is to get out of a city.
If you want a high quality of life today and aren't worth $10+ million, the best way to get it is to get out of a city.
"then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant"
A common fallacy. There are light-years of difference. An indentured servant is bound to serve a particular master. A free worker, even earning only enough for necessities, is still free to decide how to meet those necessities, and who to work for under what terms. That's a lot of freedom. No, of course they will not have as many choices as a rich person. But they are very far from indentured servitude.
A common fallacy. There are light-years of difference. An indentured servant is bound to serve a particular master. A free worker, even earning only enough for necessities, is still free to decide how to meet those necessities, and who to work for under what terms. That's a lot of freedom. No, of course they will not have as many choices as a rich person. But they are very far from indentured servitude.
>And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have made that clear by now.
History has also made it clear that people can be made to endure living conditions they don't like or a very long time.
I submit that, historically, life for the common people was far, far more often barely tolerable or even intolerable, than agreeable.
We like to hear about peasant and slave revolts in history classes, but overall those were few and far between.
History has also made it clear that people can be made to endure living conditions they don't like or a very long time.
I submit that, historically, life for the common people was far, far more often barely tolerable or even intolerable, than agreeable.
We like to hear about peasant and slave revolts in history classes, but overall those were few and far between.
A lot of people echoing each other online isn’t much of a revolt, either.
For most jobs real wages haven't gone up at all adjusted with inflation. Others have mostly gone down in wages, most specifically service type jobs which are critical for basic needs. When you can't afford to live why bother?
This. I don't understand why this is up for debate. Working hard does not buy a house, a convenient apartment, a promotion to higher income, equity at low prices, a lifestyle where one can find partners and settle down, kids, kids education.
We are talking about the basics, not avocado toast or international vacations.
The juice just ain't worth the squeeze in America any longer.
We are talking about the basics, not avocado toast or international vacations.
The juice just ain't worth the squeeze in America any longer.
I would make two observations here. First, costs are up. Not just housing and school, but also cars. Additionally, people are required to have smart phones. Most clothing is of poor quality and will need to be repurchased. Food is of poor quality if it’s cheap and therefore health costs get higher.
Second, in a low interest rate environment, any crazy idea gets funding. This squanders time and resources as many bad ideas get funded which would otherwise be laughed away. The low interest rates also encourage monetary inflation which first pushes up asset class prices, and later filters into retail prices. Wages are always the last segment to see price rises as pressure must be put on businesses to raise the price of labor. Essentially, when a company cannot get employees they will begin raising pay for open positions or they will go out of business. This pressure takes time to build. We see it now in fast food and groceries, and we saw it some time ago in the blue collar trades.
The major fix for this is higher interest rates… significantly higher. People would need to be willing to accept a slower growth rate in exchange for more predictable and more stable long term growth.
Second, in a low interest rate environment, any crazy idea gets funding. This squanders time and resources as many bad ideas get funded which would otherwise be laughed away. The low interest rates also encourage monetary inflation which first pushes up asset class prices, and later filters into retail prices. Wages are always the last segment to see price rises as pressure must be put on businesses to raise the price of labor. Essentially, when a company cannot get employees they will begin raising pay for open positions or they will go out of business. This pressure takes time to build. We see it now in fast food and groceries, and we saw it some time ago in the blue collar trades.
The major fix for this is higher interest rates… significantly higher. People would need to be willing to accept a slower growth rate in exchange for more predictable and more stable long term growth.
> The major fix for this is higher interest rates… significantly higher. People would need to be willing to accept a slower growth rate in exchange for more predictable and more stable long term growth.
And the upper rungs of corporations will have to accept lower compensation.
And the upper rungs of corporations will have to accept lower compensation.
It's not up for debate. The ruling class is making it a valid point without offering a solution to the problem. It's a lot easier to whine and complain versus actually tackling the issues at hand.
"If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets."
What an incredibly privileged perspective. Do you think that actual indentured servants would agree with you on this?
What an incredibly privileged perspective. Do you think that actual indentured servants would agree with you on this?
> If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets.
Slave/indentured servant -> live-in servant -> servant -> service worker -> self-employed service worker (contractor)
At each step along this 'evolution', the beneficiaries of the labour have freed themselves from the burden of supplying some of the resources needed by the worker (shelter, food, holidays, sick pay, health insurance, safety and other equipment, education/training, etc). In theory this has been balanced by increased monetary compensation. When that compensation isn't enough for the worker to meet these needs, what should we expect? That they become indebted?
Slave/indentured servant -> live-in servant -> servant -> service worker -> self-employed service worker (contractor)
At each step along this 'evolution', the beneficiaries of the labour have freed themselves from the burden of supplying some of the resources needed by the worker (shelter, food, holidays, sick pay, health insurance, safety and other equipment, education/training, etc). In theory this has been balanced by increased monetary compensation. When that compensation isn't enough for the worker to meet these needs, what should we expect? That they become indebted?
Consider the share of the GDP sucked up and dissipated by the government. That inevitably results in a general lower standard of living.
The government has grown enormously in my lifetime, sucking up much (most?) of the productivity increases.
The government has grown enormously in my lifetime, sucking up much (most?) of the productivity increases.
Likely true. But there are plenty of large businesses that are effectively the same. Larger than a lot of government departments, holding a monopoly-like position in some good/service, can't be killed. These orgs are just as good as government at overpaying people.
IMO the productivity loss is misidentified as a government issue, it's actually a large org issue.
IMO the productivity loss is misidentified as a government issue, it's actually a large org issue.
> People want perspective. In the past, a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably.
Maybe during the 1950s, when two (2) World Wars had blasted multiple empires to dust and essentially gutted a generation of workers aka males between the ages of 18-40.
Sure enough the US, still standing after entering the wars late and not seeing huge casualties or direct combat in-country, was positioned to lead a post-war economic boom.
Now it's back to pre-war conditions, which curiously enough, resemble the Guilded Age, and its associated strikes
Maybe during the 1950s, when two (2) World Wars had blasted multiple empires to dust and essentially gutted a generation of workers aka males between the ages of 18-40.
Sure enough the US, still standing after entering the wars late and not seeing huge casualties or direct combat in-country, was positioned to lead a post-war economic boom.
Now it's back to pre-war conditions, which curiously enough, resemble the Guilded Age, and its associated strikes
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Was that for a particular "kind" ot man?
Because I can't help but note that in North America that there were plenty of people who couldn't do so but were of the "undesirable classes"....
And the reason those who could afford such were able was because they were effectively standing on the backs of those "less privileged".
Afaict, even when it's not racial such things still existed in most places at the time.
Because I can't help but note that in North America that there were plenty of people who couldn't do so but were of the "undesirable classes"....
And the reason those who could afford such were able was because they were effectively standing on the backs of those "less privileged".
Afaict, even when it's not racial such things still existed in most places at the time.
You’re going to get a bunch of static because of the objectivist leanings of all the “temporarily impoverished tech billionaires” on HN and pg’s rare miss of an essay about the scarce reagents of the United States manufacturing economy during the Cold War.
But you’re fundamentally right. It’s really easy to manipulate indices like the CPI (and oh boy do they have some interesting ideas about what people need in life), and it’s really easy to exploit summary statistics like the arithmetic mean to drag “average standard of living” metrics around with a few categories of goods (mostly consumer electronics) to push the absurd notion that anyone outside the investor class is doing as well as they were 10, 20, 30, 40, … years ago.
The United States burns 45% of its corn and smaller but still ridiculous percentages of its other big agricultural outputs as ethanol at a net disaster on carbon emissions. We let poor and homeless people interact with courts and ERs in vast numbers who need housing assistance, basic medical care, and sometimes substance abuse treatment at (people debate this exact number) somewhere in the hand-wave 10-100x range of a markup. Cops and judges and the amortized cost of lawsuits against police departments and ER doctors and ER nurses and ER equipment have a cost structure closer to a military than cheap, tax-subsidized housing and registered nurses.
The United States has absurd surpluses of arable land, exploitable energy, deep-water harbor capacity, riverine transport capacity, exploitable mineral resources, highly desirable and massively under exploited coastal real estate, you name it, it’s easier to list things that are in any way intrinsically scarce here…Coltan maybe?
The United States is in a position unique in history in which its sovereign debt is denominated in its own currency and that currency is the world’s reserve currency and that sovereign debt is the “risk-free return” r-nought embraced by modern global finance. This means that we can tailor the money supply exactly to the level of productivity that it’s used to represent, which means that being a politician or economic regulator is as easy of a job (if your goal is the public welfare) as it definitionally can be.
The United States is basically the only developed nation with no intrinsic demographic challenges (the ones that are ravaging all the other developed nations) because there is a seeming boundless supply of (statistically) young, law-abiding, productive people who still have kids wanting to immigrate here across a porous land border.
Scarcity or want of really any kind is a very, very, very expensive “luxury” (it’s not quite a Veblen good but it’s certainly conspicuous consumption) that we as a society seem prepared to spend whatever it takes to get.
Once you strip the paint jobs off of either Foucault-style postmodernism or Randian objectivism (a challenge that Noam Chomsky describes as a real feat of linguistic manipulation) you’re left with effectively the same actionable value system of there being 2 kinds of people in this world: for the lefty kleptocrats the individual is robbed of agency and identity because they are the product of constructed forces external to them (I mean, except for us of course), for the righty kleptocrats the individual is robbed of agency and identity because they aren’t smart or motivated enough to invent Reardon Metal and therefore insignificant (I mean, except for us, of course).
The action item that falls out is the same in both cases: drive capture to keep the “right people” running things.
The result is the same in both cases: if you do a halfway honest plot of productivity and genuine standard of living against the decades, you get divergent lines that seem to be training for an Olympic gymnastics qualification.
The most dangerous man in the world isn’t a Navy SEAL or a Zeta, the most dangerous man in the world is a man with nothing to lose, which is why we’re up to 4 mass shootings a day (by Mother Jones’s definition but pick one), which is per-capita more than Syria.
This little brochure is a bit hand-wavy on the math and takes a bit of poetic license, it’s not meant to be the book that someone needs to write about this. So it’ll be a trivial exercise to pick it apart in that god-awful “>”-prefixed bad-faith style, but it’s not going to be a fundamental intellectual or epistemological or ethical error that’s going to motivate people to do so, it’s that this is not a comfortable thing to see in the mirror.
But you’re fundamentally right. It’s really easy to manipulate indices like the CPI (and oh boy do they have some interesting ideas about what people need in life), and it’s really easy to exploit summary statistics like the arithmetic mean to drag “average standard of living” metrics around with a few categories of goods (mostly consumer electronics) to push the absurd notion that anyone outside the investor class is doing as well as they were 10, 20, 30, 40, … years ago.
The United States burns 45% of its corn and smaller but still ridiculous percentages of its other big agricultural outputs as ethanol at a net disaster on carbon emissions. We let poor and homeless people interact with courts and ERs in vast numbers who need housing assistance, basic medical care, and sometimes substance abuse treatment at (people debate this exact number) somewhere in the hand-wave 10-100x range of a markup. Cops and judges and the amortized cost of lawsuits against police departments and ER doctors and ER nurses and ER equipment have a cost structure closer to a military than cheap, tax-subsidized housing and registered nurses.
The United States has absurd surpluses of arable land, exploitable energy, deep-water harbor capacity, riverine transport capacity, exploitable mineral resources, highly desirable and massively under exploited coastal real estate, you name it, it’s easier to list things that are in any way intrinsically scarce here…Coltan maybe?
The United States is in a position unique in history in which its sovereign debt is denominated in its own currency and that currency is the world’s reserve currency and that sovereign debt is the “risk-free return” r-nought embraced by modern global finance. This means that we can tailor the money supply exactly to the level of productivity that it’s used to represent, which means that being a politician or economic regulator is as easy of a job (if your goal is the public welfare) as it definitionally can be.
The United States is basically the only developed nation with no intrinsic demographic challenges (the ones that are ravaging all the other developed nations) because there is a seeming boundless supply of (statistically) young, law-abiding, productive people who still have kids wanting to immigrate here across a porous land border.
Scarcity or want of really any kind is a very, very, very expensive “luxury” (it’s not quite a Veblen good but it’s certainly conspicuous consumption) that we as a society seem prepared to spend whatever it takes to get.
Once you strip the paint jobs off of either Foucault-style postmodernism or Randian objectivism (a challenge that Noam Chomsky describes as a real feat of linguistic manipulation) you’re left with effectively the same actionable value system of there being 2 kinds of people in this world: for the lefty kleptocrats the individual is robbed of agency and identity because they are the product of constructed forces external to them (I mean, except for us of course), for the righty kleptocrats the individual is robbed of agency and identity because they aren’t smart or motivated enough to invent Reardon Metal and therefore insignificant (I mean, except for us, of course).
The action item that falls out is the same in both cases: drive capture to keep the “right people” running things.
The result is the same in both cases: if you do a halfway honest plot of productivity and genuine standard of living against the decades, you get divergent lines that seem to be training for an Olympic gymnastics qualification.
The most dangerous man in the world isn’t a Navy SEAL or a Zeta, the most dangerous man in the world is a man with nothing to lose, which is why we’re up to 4 mass shootings a day (by Mother Jones’s definition but pick one), which is per-capita more than Syria.
This little brochure is a bit hand-wavy on the math and takes a bit of poetic license, it’s not meant to be the book that someone needs to write about this. So it’ll be a trivial exercise to pick it apart in that god-awful “>”-prefixed bad-faith style, but it’s not going to be a fundamental intellectual or epistemological or ethical error that’s going to motivate people to do so, it’s that this is not a comfortable thing to see in the mirror.
I'll bite:
> The action item that falls out is the same in both cases: drive capture to keep the “right people” running things.
This rings true, and seems an insightful point. But I lost the plot in the following:
> The result is the same in both cases: if you do a halfway honest plot of productivity and genuine standard of living against the decades, you get divergent lines that seem to be training for an Olympic gymnastics qualification.
I don't really get how this "result" follows, or what prescription you're hinting at. Are you just saying we're very productive but fail to distribute among the citizens? That seems like a garden variety left talking point, which is a bit.. anti-climactic. Not that I even agree or disagree overmuch, but the tone of your post made me think you were building towards a more heterodox take. Am I missing something?
> The action item that falls out is the same in both cases: drive capture to keep the “right people” running things.
This rings true, and seems an insightful point. But I lost the plot in the following:
> The result is the same in both cases: if you do a halfway honest plot of productivity and genuine standard of living against the decades, you get divergent lines that seem to be training for an Olympic gymnastics qualification.
I don't really get how this "result" follows, or what prescription you're hinting at. Are you just saying we're very productive but fail to distribute among the citizens? That seems like a garden variety left talking point, which is a bit.. anti-climactic. Not that I even agree or disagree overmuch, but the tone of your post made me think you were building towards a more heterodox take. Am I missing something?
Yeah, that’s a fair point I suppose. It’s kind of a limitation of it bot being the aforementioned book someone needs to write.
Establishing the financial economics of productivity and its relationship to the Western Liberal Enlightenment conceptualization of the public good along a non-differentiable surface of capture from WWII to the present is a masters thesis alone.
The level of ambient violence in a surveillance kleptocracy with a nascent domestic security apparatus breaking through that of a country in the grips of a 7-sided civil war, this being the tip of the iceberg because the non-violent people with no hope are suiciding with fentanyl at some staggering multiple of that, and this being caused by capture is hard to prove but easy to see absent an agenda.
I don’t want to see a climax more intense than how far we’ve already traveled down that road.
Establishing the financial economics of productivity and its relationship to the Western Liberal Enlightenment conceptualization of the public good along a non-differentiable surface of capture from WWII to the present is a masters thesis alone.
The level of ambient violence in a surveillance kleptocracy with a nascent domestic security apparatus breaking through that of a country in the grips of a 7-sided civil war, this being the tip of the iceberg because the non-violent people with no hope are suiciding with fentanyl at some staggering multiple of that, and this being caused by capture is hard to prove but easy to see absent an agenda.
I don’t want to see a climax more intense than how far we’ve already traveled down that road.
What is freedom if you are working for a top down authoritarian hierarchy ? Be it legal person or a real one. Do we get to enjoy any democracy at work ?
I mean maybe I have work ethic or am lucky. But I don’t struggle to pay mortgage, buy cars, or go on vacations and I am the sole breadwinner for my family… but I also started programming in 3rd grade in the 90s, didn’t go to college so have no debt, and live a pretty non materialistic punk rock life.
And you happen to be in a field that boomed (several times) during your career and was (and to some degree still is) a quite dynamic environment.
I'm glad it worked out for you (and me) but we must acknowledge that luck is indeed a significant contributor.
Let's imagine that instead of getting into programming you began working odd jobs in a field that is generally low income. Some would make it to the top but most will not move forward despite working hard.
From a personal anecdote I have a close relative who is an incredible hard worker in a job adjecant to elder care. As far as I can tell their work ethic is higher than my own (no time for water cooler talks or "code is compiling") but unless things change drastically they will never make more than minimum wage.
It's fair to say that natural skill plays a big role. Despite best effort they wouldn't be abel to get a programming or othe office job because just finishing their apprenticeship took increadible effort and diligence.
In their mid twenties their parents still support them (a little bit) and being anything close to a sole bread winner is highly unrealistic.
There are economic reasons why some people are paid better but I'd say "pure luck" is a larger portion then most of us would like to admit.
Some people get a yacht and a nice holiday home for their 12 hours shifts and some get to pay their rent.
I'm glad it worked out for you (and me) but we must acknowledge that luck is indeed a significant contributor.
Let's imagine that instead of getting into programming you began working odd jobs in a field that is generally low income. Some would make it to the top but most will not move forward despite working hard.
From a personal anecdote I have a close relative who is an incredible hard worker in a job adjecant to elder care. As far as I can tell their work ethic is higher than my own (no time for water cooler talks or "code is compiling") but unless things change drastically they will never make more than minimum wage.
It's fair to say that natural skill plays a big role. Despite best effort they wouldn't be abel to get a programming or othe office job because just finishing their apprenticeship took increadible effort and diligence.
In their mid twenties their parents still support them (a little bit) and being anything close to a sole bread winner is highly unrealistic.
There are economic reasons why some people are paid better but I'd say "pure luck" is a larger portion then most of us would like to admit.
Some people get a yacht and a nice holiday home for their 12 hours shifts and some get to pay their rent.
That's part of it. But yeah, say you got massively unlucky, like a ministroke or a really bad car crash, affecting your ability to bring in cash and that took much of your savings.
Safety nets are needed, and typically are underfunded. With one in place, most people can rebound to their most able.
Safety nets are needed, and typically are underfunded. With one in place, most people can rebound to their most able.
> but I also started programming in 3rd grade in the 90s, didn’t go to college so have no debt, and live a pretty non materialistic punk rock life.
Likely luck then; would you be in the same place if you didn't happen to be interested in a field that makes big money with no formal education needed?
Likely luck then; would you be in the same place if you didn't happen to be interested in a field that makes big money with no formal education needed?
i agree 100% , but what is the solution to that ? just raising wages en masse erodes the power of money and leads to inflation.
You could remove all the arcane laws, regulations, and zoning which make constructing new houses ludicrously expensive. Most people would be perfectly happy to live even in a shoddy log cabin built by them and their family if it meant they would could save those hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars they would've spent otherwise to improve their lives in other ways. This alone could be enough to shave decades off the career of the average person.
You could disallow corporate ownership of dwellings of any sort, and heavily tax ownership of more than two homes per family unit.
You could provide significant tax benefits to lifestyles that approach self-sufficiency, such as people in rural areas that grow their own food.
You could mandate a quota of completely remote workers for many industries, encouraging the diffusion of people and opportunities across the country, instead of everyone rushing to expensive cities in hopes of finding work.
You could disallow corporate ownership of dwellings of any sort, and heavily tax ownership of more than two homes per family unit.
You could provide significant tax benefits to lifestyles that approach self-sufficiency, such as people in rural areas that grow their own food.
You could mandate a quota of completely remote workers for many industries, encouraging the diffusion of people and opportunities across the country, instead of everyone rushing to expensive cities in hopes of finding work.
> You could disallow corporate ownership of dwellings of any sort
Does that mean no high density residential? I can’t see how individuals build apartment buildings.
Does that mean no high density residential? I can’t see how individuals build apartment buildings.
How do individuals end up owning apartments today?
They mostly don’t? I’m sure there are a few, but the vast majority are financed, built, and operated by corporations.
I don't know enough about the US market to speak too strongly here, but I'd have to imagine based on my experience elsewhere that if you wanted to buy a flat from a property developer right now you could.
I would have thought that "build to let" would be the rarer case, but like I said I might be blind to the idiosyncrasies of the US here
I would have thought that "build to let" would be the rarer case, but like I said I might be blind to the idiosyncrasies of the US here
It seems like the primary consumer of our money is the artificial lack of housing inventory brought upon by the ability of folks to own more than one property.
I suggest (and have suggested numerous times) that we disallow ownership of property for profit. Create a system that allows people to “buy” property short term through government loan structures that have very low interest rates and allows them to create an equity building mechanism early on. On paper it would have all the benefits of purchase with all of the benefits of leasing as well.
The flood of new available property would absolutely crash our current economy, since it’s so extended on property ownership, but we did it wrong and we need to correct.
I suggest (and have suggested numerous times) that we disallow ownership of property for profit. Create a system that allows people to “buy” property short term through government loan structures that have very low interest rates and allows them to create an equity building mechanism early on. On paper it would have all the benefits of purchase with all of the benefits of leasing as well.
The flood of new available property would absolutely crash our current economy, since it’s so extended on property ownership, but we did it wrong and we need to correct.
I thought it was the influx of new money printed, which we've done in the form of Quantitative Easing, multiple bail outs, etc.
Which mostly trickles up.
It didn’t even need to trickle up, it was exclusively handed out to the top on the assumption of “trickle down economy” being a real thing.
You print more money because you have to give out more money, whether if it's in the form of handouts or in the form of extra wages.
Employers aren't printing up more money. Yes, labor costs going up impact profits but what about labor costs of management? That has gone up significantly:
"From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay based on realized compensation grew by 1,460%, far outstripping S&P stock market growth (1,063%) and top 0.1% earnings growth (which was 385% between 1978 and 2020, according to the latest data available). In contrast, compensation of the typical worker grew by just 18.1% from 1978 to 2021"
Source: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/#:~:text=Fro....
"From 1978 to 2021, CEO pay based on realized compensation grew by 1,460%, far outstripping S&P stock market growth (1,063%) and top 0.1% earnings growth (which was 385% between 1978 and 2020, according to the latest data available). In contrast, compensation of the typical worker grew by just 18.1% from 1978 to 2021"
Source: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/#:~:text=Fro....
The housing market is probably permanently ruined for individual family buyers as long as they are competing with businesses/individuals buying multiple residential properties as investments.
Subsidies or government backed contributions won't be the answer. Universities have a societal function and could conceivable operate without profit in mind, but they still chose to be greedy and act like for-profit businesses once government backed loans became a thing. The government tried to fix access to education by directly injecting cash via students instead of fixing it through the universities. Taking the same approach with home buyers would be a mistake because real estate obviously is meant to be for-profit and acts that way, so they will obviously raise prices as well.
So you'll probably need to fuck over a lot of banks, investors, construction and real estate companies to get housing prices accessible to the wider population and change economic interactions in that market. I wouldn't count on that though - the government will probably choose to fix it through backed loans or subsidies again, if they do anything.
Subsidies or government backed contributions won't be the answer. Universities have a societal function and could conceivable operate without profit in mind, but they still chose to be greedy and act like for-profit businesses once government backed loans became a thing. The government tried to fix access to education by directly injecting cash via students instead of fixing it through the universities. Taking the same approach with home buyers would be a mistake because real estate obviously is meant to be for-profit and acts that way, so they will obviously raise prices as well.
So you'll probably need to fuck over a lot of banks, investors, construction and real estate companies to get housing prices accessible to the wider population and change economic interactions in that market. I wouldn't count on that though - the government will probably choose to fix it through backed loans or subsidies again, if they do anything.
It wouldn't be Hacker News without the constant stream economically-illiterate ideas for "improving" our lives in the comments!
Wouldn't be Hacker News without a constant stream of worthless single-sentence dismissals from insufferably smug self-professed Economics 101 graduates
I'm not sure what you mean? Could you explain?
Does it really bother you someone could be ignorant of something here?
Does it really bother you someone could be ignorant of something here?
>Could you explain?
Someone who understood basic economics wouldn't assert that investors are ruining the housing market for individual family buyers without explaining how the housing market or one particular housing market is different from all the other markets were investors are helpful for bringing products and services to individuals and families. I am sympathetic for example to the argument that the housing market in Vancouver and perhaps other parts of Canada is being distorted to the detriment of families by wealthy Chinese wishing to establish a safe trove of assets outside the reach of the Chinese government. But there are more barriers to Chinese investors (and Chinese visitors) in the US than in Canada, and the US is 9 times more populous than Canada, so that makes any particular severity of distortion cause by Chinese investors at least 9 times less likely in the US than in China. Non-Chinese investors who have an accurate understanding of the other investments available to them, on the other hand, will tend to invest in housing only when they seriously expect the demand for housing to increase--"expect" as in actually willing to put money on the outcome, not merely to opine on the outcome in internet forums--so their investment helps out families on net by helping to increase the supply of housing to meet the increase in demand.
>Does it really bother you someone could be ignorant of something here?
I'm not sure I understand the question. If you'd phrase your comment as a question about economics, I wouldn't've replied like I did (with a complaint in the form of sarcasm). Most humans are vulnerable to misinformation if it is repeated sufficiently often by a sufficiently diverse set of writers or speakers, and certain economically-impossible or -implausible arguments are repeated often enough on HN that I consider it worth my time to try to counter.
Someone who understood basic economics wouldn't assert that investors are ruining the housing market for individual family buyers without explaining how the housing market or one particular housing market is different from all the other markets were investors are helpful for bringing products and services to individuals and families. I am sympathetic for example to the argument that the housing market in Vancouver and perhaps other parts of Canada is being distorted to the detriment of families by wealthy Chinese wishing to establish a safe trove of assets outside the reach of the Chinese government. But there are more barriers to Chinese investors (and Chinese visitors) in the US than in Canada, and the US is 9 times more populous than Canada, so that makes any particular severity of distortion cause by Chinese investors at least 9 times less likely in the US than in China. Non-Chinese investors who have an accurate understanding of the other investments available to them, on the other hand, will tend to invest in housing only when they seriously expect the demand for housing to increase--"expect" as in actually willing to put money on the outcome, not merely to opine on the outcome in internet forums--so their investment helps out families on net by helping to increase the supply of housing to meet the increase in demand.
>Does it really bother you someone could be ignorant of something here?
I'm not sure I understand the question. If you'd phrase your comment as a question about economics, I wouldn't've replied like I did (with a complaint in the form of sarcasm). Most humans are vulnerable to misinformation if it is repeated sufficiently often by a sufficiently diverse set of writers or speakers, and certain economically-impossible or -implausible arguments are repeated often enough on HN that I consider it worth my time to try to counter.
>Someone who understood basic economics wouldn't assert that investors are ruining the housing market for individual family buyers without explaining how the housing market or one particular housing market is different from all the other markets were investors are helpful for bringing products and services to individuals and families.
So the housing market is different because housing serves as shelter. Investors owning multiple properties are eschewing the actual utility of the asset and only focused on its value. From the perspective of a society wanting to house its citizens and improve quality of living, it's a very inefficient use of the asset and the land that its on.
Because investors often have more cash than ordinary family buyers, they are able to outbid family buyers. This happens regularly and is one of the core reasons for the argument made initially.
Because investors might buy and sell housing more often than a family who actually inhabits a home, this increases the money velocity in the market and drives prices upwards as more sales are made. Canada is a good example of this: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-25.2/page-1.html
All of this means that some portion of the house's price is only based on speculation (other parts being land, construction quality, location, amenities, etc.). This means that investors that buy houses to speculate are simply increasing prices with no material improvement to the asset.
If we were talking about stocks or assets-that-aren't-also-necessities, these reasons wouldn't be a problem.
So the housing market is different because housing serves as shelter. Investors owning multiple properties are eschewing the actual utility of the asset and only focused on its value. From the perspective of a society wanting to house its citizens and improve quality of living, it's a very inefficient use of the asset and the land that its on.
Because investors often have more cash than ordinary family buyers, they are able to outbid family buyers. This happens regularly and is one of the core reasons for the argument made initially.
Because investors might buy and sell housing more often than a family who actually inhabits a home, this increases the money velocity in the market and drives prices upwards as more sales are made. Canada is a good example of this: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-25.2/page-1.html
All of this means that some portion of the house's price is only based on speculation (other parts being land, construction quality, location, amenities, etc.). This means that investors that buy houses to speculate are simply increasing prices with no material improvement to the asset.
If we were talking about stocks or assets-that-aren't-also-necessities, these reasons wouldn't be a problem.
I'd argue that housing's being a necessity makes it even more important for there to be a reliable and predictable supply--something investors help with, IMO, except for unusual pathological cases.
Chinese home buyers IIRC have a cultural aversion to having strangers living in any home they might want to live in themselves in the future. But with the except of the Chinese investors (which IMO cannot be numerous enough to distort the huge US housing market) investors either rent out or sell the housing they own, so I don't understand in what sense you think investors are "eschewing the actual utility of the asset": someone still gets to live in the house, even if it is not the owner of the house.
>All of this means that some portion of the house's price is only based on speculation (other parts being land, construction quality, location, amenities, etc.).
I concede that that can be an accurate statement (though it is not how I would put it) on a temporary basis, but I point out that when an investment causes current housing prices to increase, there will invariably be a time in the future when the same investment causes housing prices to be lower than they otherwise would be by approximately the same amount. And the I ask you, Why do you care more about situation of families now than about their situation in the future?
Chinese home buyers IIRC have a cultural aversion to having strangers living in any home they might want to live in themselves in the future. But with the except of the Chinese investors (which IMO cannot be numerous enough to distort the huge US housing market) investors either rent out or sell the housing they own, so I don't understand in what sense you think investors are "eschewing the actual utility of the asset": someone still gets to live in the house, even if it is not the owner of the house.
>All of this means that some portion of the house's price is only based on speculation (other parts being land, construction quality, location, amenities, etc.).
I concede that that can be an accurate statement (though it is not how I would put it) on a temporary basis, but I point out that when an investment causes current housing prices to increase, there will invariably be a time in the future when the same investment causes housing prices to be lower than they otherwise would be by approximately the same amount. And the I ask you, Why do you care more about situation of families now than about their situation in the future?
Those investors could move to starting or investing in companies that produce housing and material for them, but get out of owning houses themselves. This keeps them close to the market they want to invest in.
A common sentiment is that wages haven't kept up relative to costs of living, so we have problems now that need to be solved because we are already 'behind'. If that's true, it will further mean that families in the future will have less equity due to delays in purchasing a home relative to previous generations who could more easily afford necessities and luxuries.
So ideally we should give a break to home buyers now to help compensate for that at the expense of larger investors and organizations who can frankly afford the loss (collectively). The alternative is to keep investors happy and rich with profits at the expense of the population's needs and financial trajectory.
A common sentiment is that wages haven't kept up relative to costs of living, so we have problems now that need to be solved because we are already 'behind'. If that's true, it will further mean that families in the future will have less equity due to delays in purchasing a home relative to previous generations who could more easily afford necessities and luxuries.
So ideally we should give a break to home buyers now to help compensate for that at the expense of larger investors and organizations who can frankly afford the loss (collectively). The alternative is to keep investors happy and rich with profits at the expense of the population's needs and financial trajectory.
So by "basic economics" you mean the evil-is-magically-good school of economics. I disagree with you that HN is lacking in that area.
> Someone who understood basic economics wouldn't assert that investors are ruining the housing market for individual family buyers
So you don't think that adding demand without adding supply makes prices go up?
Or you disagree that prices going up makes it harder for a family to buy a house?
Edit: I see you added to your comment...
> so their investment helps out families on net by helping to increase the supply of housing to meet the increase in demand
And I still disagree, because this isn't what we see happening.
So you don't think that adding demand without adding supply makes prices go up?
Or you disagree that prices going up makes it harder for a family to buy a house?
Edit: I see you added to your comment...
> so their investment helps out families on net by helping to increase the supply of housing to meet the increase in demand
And I still disagree, because this isn't what we see happening.
The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future (either or renters or buyers, depending on how to investor chooses to recover his investment). Investment in housing in past decades has reduced the price families need to pay now. There a zero investors in housing who are not out to either provide housing for rent or to eventually sell housing.
>because this isn't what we see happening.
What we see happening has alternative explanations, for example: there are millions of very-high-paying jobs in the Bay Area, which is course is generally a good thing, but it has the undesirable effect of making it hard or impossible for families that do not have one of these very-high-paying jobs to live here because there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing, which forces the people with the high-paying jobs to spend more than want to spend on housing, which (happily for them) they are able to do (because of their high income) but which sadly makes it impossible or very onerous for lower-income families to live in the Bay Area. Most of these barriers are in the form of regulations imposed by local governments. Where I live for example in Marin County, growth is controlled (kept below the level investors as a group would prefer to have it at) in part by denying new housing projects the ability to connect to the Marin Municipal Water District, I have heard.
>because this isn't what we see happening.
What we see happening has alternative explanations, for example: there are millions of very-high-paying jobs in the Bay Area, which is course is generally a good thing, but it has the undesirable effect of making it hard or impossible for families that do not have one of these very-high-paying jobs to live here because there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing, which forces the people with the high-paying jobs to spend more than want to spend on housing, which (happily for them) they are able to do (because of their high income) but which sadly makes it impossible or very onerous for lower-income families to live in the Bay Area. Most of these barriers are in the form of regulations imposed by local governments. Where I live for example in Marin County, growth is controlled (kept below the level investors as a group would prefer to have it at) in part by denying new housing projects the ability to connect to the Marin Municipal Water District, I have heard.
> The investors entering the market today will make prices go up today, but have the effect of reducing prices in the future
The flaw in this argument is that it assumes markets are perfectly efficient, when in reality they are affected by several factors.
> there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing
Right, this is one of those factors.
Others include land limitations, interest rates, government incentives and backstops.
Plus even if you're right that decades from now housing will be more affordable that's of little use today.
The flaw in this argument is that it assumes markets are perfectly efficient, when in reality they are affected by several factors.
> there are strong barriers to the creation of new housing
Right, this is one of those factors.
Others include land limitations, interest rates, government incentives and backstops.
Plus even if you're right that decades from now housing will be more affordable that's of little use today.
I've been talking about the helpfulness or harmfulness of investors' buying housing, which your comment does not address AFAICT.
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Inflation can be combatted by taxing it out of the economy - the issue is who do we tax. One should always tax the rich first - like robbing banks that's where the money is
The money is in the middle class though. Sure the rich have a bunch, but the middle class has far more. In real terms taxing the rich won't bring in enough money to count unless you redefine rich to cover most middle class.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...
So if i am reading the very first graph right, the top 10% wealthy in USA in 2023 held about 96Trn out of 140 Trn.
The top 10 % is not usually middle class
So if i am reading the very first graph right, the top 10% wealthy in USA in 2023 held about 96Trn out of 140 Trn.
The top 10 % is not usually middle class
True, taxing and inflation hit the middle class the hardest.
The upper classes don't have "income", they borrow funds based on their assets and have tax specialists that can launder any income. They don't have mortgages either.
The economic system seem to be more than capable of plunging itself into an inflation with stagnating wages already...and still rake in money left right and center.
qaq(2)
>plus save enough to retire comfortably
Individual saving for retirement was cooked up in the 80s. You used to get your pension and be set.
Individual saving for retirement was cooked up in the 80s. You used to get your pension and be set.
If you were lucky. Many did not get a pension at all though. And many others had a pension that went bankrupt so they go nothing. The 1980s (starting before then) were reforms on a system that wasn't working well for many.
Time will tell whether the individual solution works better. I suspect 401k saving will not provide many people a stable retirement.
Unfortunately only about a third if Americans have a 401k, if we subtract those young it gets a little better (the young can pay off student loans then redirect that money to retirement, at least in theory), but still almost half of Americans don't have one.
I don't know how to find numbers, but I think that is better than pensions every were. It still isn't very good though.
I don't know how to find numbers, but I think that is better than pensions every were. It still isn't very good though.
Why not?
At 35 i’ve already got ~500K in my 401K.
I guess it won’t work for people not saving enough into it and not actively managing their fund allocations over the years.
At 35 i’ve already got ~500K in my 401K.
I guess it won’t work for people not saving enough into it and not actively managing their fund allocations over the years.
> Why not?
You are relatively well paid. Most people in the US received total less than $500k cumulative post-tax income by 35. Median incomes don't reach that level. Here are median personal income figures over the last 17 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
Those are aggregated across age, and younger people tend to earn less, so the median total income working 18 to 35 will be lower than if you add up the age-independent figures. But even if that weren't true, and if people could miraculously save 100% of everything for 17 years, live on nothing but air and get totally free housing, most people still wouldn't have seen 500k by 35.
As well, necessary expenses (housing, food, transport etc) take up a higher proportion of their income than yours, because of lower income while necessary expenses don't decrease proportionately. So the proportion they can realistically save is lower than yours. For many it's a struggle to save anything, but even for those who can and are willing to sacrifice a lot, $500k by 35 is dream money.
Active fund management are not enough to make up the difference. Most people if they want $500k in a 401k by 35, have to earn significantly more than they actually do. Of course if everyone did that, prices would rise to compensate and $500k in the 401k wouldn't be worth as much.
You are relatively well paid. Most people in the US received total less than $500k cumulative post-tax income by 35. Median incomes don't reach that level. Here are median personal income figures over the last 17 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
Those are aggregated across age, and younger people tend to earn less, so the median total income working 18 to 35 will be lower than if you add up the age-independent figures. But even if that weren't true, and if people could miraculously save 100% of everything for 17 years, live on nothing but air and get totally free housing, most people still wouldn't have seen 500k by 35.
As well, necessary expenses (housing, food, transport etc) take up a higher proportion of their income than yours, because of lower income while necessary expenses don't decrease proportionately. So the proportion they can realistically save is lower than yours. For many it's a struggle to save anything, but even for those who can and are willing to sacrifice a lot, $500k by 35 is dream money.
Active fund management are not enough to make up the difference. Most people if they want $500k in a 401k by 35, have to earn significantly more than they actually do. Of course if everyone did that, prices would rise to compensate and $500k in the 401k wouldn't be worth as much.
I'm not sure I am necessarily paid all that well honestly.
I started at 50K out of college and am still not quite to 100K a year yet.
All I have done is maxed out my 401K every year since 2010, and put the money into low-cost index funds.
~60% of the balance is from principal alone and the ther 40% is from the stock growth.
I started at 50K out of college and am still not quite to 100K a year yet.
All I have done is maxed out my 401K every year since 2010, and put the money into low-cost index funds.
~60% of the balance is from principal alone and the ther 40% is from the stock growth.
The gig economy has worn many out... The promise of services like social media, Uber, Political Parties, and airBnB that promised to create wealthy entrepreneurs fell flat on it's face after making the people at the top of the pyramids very wealthy.
I think that social media really tipped the balance of fairness in the working world... With social media, suddenly Trust fund Babies could fake success, and promote schemes that helped them to profit. The Social Media model was set up to raise Trust Funders and Popular individuals far above everyone else, and it killed hopes of upward mobility for people who didn't fall into any fame or wealth category unless they became famous for negative reasons or for ridicule.
It's not that no one wants to work anymore, it's that people are tired of weak work schemes, and being used and then thrown away in order to elevate others. It's not until real opportunity for growth, entrepreneurship, and excellence returns that things will begin to get back to normal.
Talking about is as "Nobody wants to work anymore" is an injustice... Millions of people are working very hard every day on content creation that rivals TV programming and others are regularly posting their best and fully composed and edited work on Internet sites daily, most without any pay in HOPES of being discovered for their work, as proof of that.
I think that social media really tipped the balance of fairness in the working world... With social media, suddenly Trust fund Babies could fake success, and promote schemes that helped them to profit. The Social Media model was set up to raise Trust Funders and Popular individuals far above everyone else, and it killed hopes of upward mobility for people who didn't fall into any fame or wealth category unless they became famous for negative reasons or for ridicule.
It's not that no one wants to work anymore, it's that people are tired of weak work schemes, and being used and then thrown away in order to elevate others. It's not until real opportunity for growth, entrepreneurship, and excellence returns that things will begin to get back to normal.
Talking about is as "Nobody wants to work anymore" is an injustice... Millions of people are working very hard every day on content creation that rivals TV programming and others are regularly posting their best and fully composed and edited work on Internet sites daily, most without any pay in HOPES of being discovered for their work, as proof of that.
I think you've really hit the nail on the head there. People are absolutely happy to work dog hours on something they're passionate about, or something that is meaningful (to the world, or to a company, or anything higher than themselves).
But to take those same people, use them up, and then discard them... it makes them lose hope that their work is meaningful. Why try, when the world tells you repeatedly that it does not need or value you?
The only people I can see being happy with this arrangement might be more libertarian minded, where the goal was never outside the scope of their own self betterment.
But to take those same people, use them up, and then discard them... it makes them lose hope that their work is meaningful. Why try, when the world tells you repeatedly that it does not need or value you?
The only people I can see being happy with this arrangement might be more libertarian minded, where the goal was never outside the scope of their own self betterment.
If someone isn’t successful in making money on that work, though, it means it isn’t very good. I know it’s not a 1:1 result, but in reality, if you put in the hours and you make things people want, you will be successful.
The problem is everyone who works on something they’re passionate about (even if they suck at it) thinks they ought to be compensated, even if their contributions amount to exactly Jack shit.
Meanwhile, I do decent carpentry on the side and am hit up _regularly_ for it, simply because I’m willing to show up. And I make as much per hour as I do in my day job.
The work is out there to be passionate and make things and be successful, but you 1) have to show up and work and 2) have to not suck at it.
The problem is everyone who works on something they’re passionate about (even if they suck at it) thinks they ought to be compensated, even if their contributions amount to exactly Jack shit.
Meanwhile, I do decent carpentry on the side and am hit up _regularly_ for it, simply because I’m willing to show up. And I make as much per hour as I do in my day job.
The work is out there to be passionate and make things and be successful, but you 1) have to show up and work and 2) have to not suck at it.
You can be a baker and make the best cakes in the world, but if your shop is located in the wrong place (like a dark alley with no foot traffic) where no one knows it exists, your business can fail if you don't also learn marketing, and possibly move to a better positioned (but more expensive of course) spot. A better spot, and marketing lessons though, are hinged on having the money to make that happen... Many people can't pay for advancement because they aren't profiting off of their work to fund expansion and growth.
The ideal that people don't succeed because of the quality of their work is a fallacy... Many people who do succeed who have a shoddy/marginal history of work is also yet another example of why that ideal is not accurate.
The ideal that people don't succeed because of the quality of their work is a fallacy... Many people who do succeed who have a shoddy/marginal history of work is also yet another example of why that ideal is not accurate.
> You can be a baker and make the best cakes in the world, but if your shop is located in the wrong place (like a dark alley with no foot traffic) where no one knows it exists, your business can fail
Who's responsible for deciding where it's located? Maybe that person didn't work hard enough at thinking through the ramifications of their location. You can come up with a 1000 excuses but I guarantee the person more likely to succeed has answers for every one of them.
Not to say that luck doesn't come into play, but it's not the dominant factor and in a lot of cases can be worked around with hard work or extreme talent.
Who's responsible for deciding where it's located? Maybe that person didn't work hard enough at thinking through the ramifications of their location. You can come up with a 1000 excuses but I guarantee the person more likely to succeed has answers for every one of them.
Not to say that luck doesn't come into play, but it's not the dominant factor and in a lot of cases can be worked around with hard work or extreme talent.
I think you’re putting far too much stake on location. These days, folks will happily travel out of the way to find a unique or extraordinary experience. There has never been a time where people were more mobile.
I can site a personal experience example. In Portland, for a while, nobody would visit anywhere north of Alberta on the east side of the river. Around this time, a young person by the name of Matt was selling barbecue out of his little truck up near Ainsworth and MLK. In some dirt lot with no support beyond folks like myself writing Yelp reviews, he was selling the best barbecue in the city.
Now, they have multiple locations there and are sure to grow.
Location doesn’t fucking matter. Talent matters. People will show up and buy and fill their limited stomach space. Not for 3rd best or 2nd best but for the best. And blaming them for not wanting the best is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
I can site a personal experience example. In Portland, for a while, nobody would visit anywhere north of Alberta on the east side of the river. Around this time, a young person by the name of Matt was selling barbecue out of his little truck up near Ainsworth and MLK. In some dirt lot with no support beyond folks like myself writing Yelp reviews, he was selling the best barbecue in the city.
Now, they have multiple locations there and are sure to grow.
Location doesn’t fucking matter. Talent matters. People will show up and buy and fill their limited stomach space. Not for 3rd best or 2nd best but for the best. And blaming them for not wanting the best is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
>if you put in the hours and you make things people want, you will be successful.
What thing does a landlord make? What are the hours on the job of owning dividend-paying securities? Being successful in this economy has literally nothing to do with "making things people want" and "putting in the hours".
What thing does a landlord make? What are the hours on the job of owning dividend-paying securities? Being successful in this economy has literally nothing to do with "making things people want" and "putting in the hours".
There are plenty of unsuccessful landlords who bought property hoping to renovate it and then found they couldn't, and for everyone who made money on the stock market there is someone who lost it.
In the comment above yours someone made the opposite example of a Baker who works all day making fantastic cakes but nobody buys them because his shop is in the wrong place, and the reply was that it's still his fault because he didn't spend enough time figuring out where and how to sell his wares. Making a good decision is just as much making a "thing" as making a physical object.
I think you are also mixing up wealth and success. A very rich man whose stock portfolio does not keep up with inflation is still very rich, but he is not successful.
In the comment above yours someone made the opposite example of a Baker who works all day making fantastic cakes but nobody buys them because his shop is in the wrong place, and the reply was that it's still his fault because he didn't spend enough time figuring out where and how to sell his wares. Making a good decision is just as much making a "thing" as making a physical object.
I think you are also mixing up wealth and success. A very rich man whose stock portfolio does not keep up with inflation is still very rich, but he is not successful.
Who here is defending land lords? They are useless.
I don't think that's true. Think about musicians -- someone can create incredible music and never make enough to support themselves, it happens all the time. Same with visual art. It has much less to do with quality and more to do with social trends, having a certain "look" or identity, etc. Sure, hard work and not sucking are the prerequisites, but they aren't enough on their own.
Is it really incredible if no one thinks it’s incredible?
I disagree with your premise - just because someone doesn’t make money on their work doesn’t mean it’s not good. We live in a capitalistic society, where the laws of supply and demand rule.
You’re able to make good money in carpentry by simply showing up, because there aren’t many carpenters left. Just like my cousin is able to do the same with landscaping. It’s all work fewer people are doing.
Other friends of mine, some of the most talented and hardworking people I know, have tried their stints on broadway, television, journalism, etc. and are struggling massively. Is it because they aren’t good? Of course not. It’s because there are 1,000 people lined up behind them who are just as good. And there’s another 1,000 behind that group who aren’t quite as good but are willing to do it for poverty wages.
You’re able to make good money in carpentry by simply showing up, because there aren’t many carpenters left. Just like my cousin is able to do the same with landscaping. It’s all work fewer people are doing.
Other friends of mine, some of the most talented and hardworking people I know, have tried their stints on broadway, television, journalism, etc. and are struggling massively. Is it because they aren’t good? Of course not. It’s because there are 1,000 people lined up behind them who are just as good. And there’s another 1,000 behind that group who aren’t quite as good but are willing to do it for poverty wages.
But you see, you’re kind of making my point for me. Being good isn’t the same as being good enough. And this is only a problem if every industry is saturated with people who are good enough.
This isn’t the case, and if I’m not good enough at playing guitar to make a living at it, I go elsewhere. I don’t ask the world to make me a spot.
We need more carpenters and plumbers and a whole host of other industries. It feels very strange to me that people look at the world and say “it’s so unfair that society doesn’t value the thing that I do that isn’t particularly unique or contributive.” Why should that ever be the case?
Even in some perfect utopian society where everyone gets everything for free, am I supposed to read some mediocre book just because the person who made it wishes they were important? Even in such a society, people would still want notoriety, but they wouldn’t get it because they’re not good enough. For this reason I don’t see capitalism as the problem, I see them as the problem.
This isn’t the case, and if I’m not good enough at playing guitar to make a living at it, I go elsewhere. I don’t ask the world to make me a spot.
We need more carpenters and plumbers and a whole host of other industries. It feels very strange to me that people look at the world and say “it’s so unfair that society doesn’t value the thing that I do that isn’t particularly unique or contributive.” Why should that ever be the case?
Even in some perfect utopian society where everyone gets everything for free, am I supposed to read some mediocre book just because the person who made it wishes they were important? Even in such a society, people would still want notoriety, but they wouldn’t get it because they’re not good enough. For this reason I don’t see capitalism as the problem, I see them as the problem.
Ok let me rephrase this - the people I referenced aren’t good - they’re amazing. They have the credentials (Juilliard, S.I. Newhouse, etc.) and the work experience (lead role on broadway, ESPN and sports illustrated) and it’s still a massive struggle in their industries.
Compare that to being a warm body at a landscaping job, where the bar is “I showed up to work today” and it’s not even a comparison.
It’s the laws of supply and demand. Simple as that. Everyone wants to be a movie star.
Compare that to being a warm body at a landscaping job, where the bar is “I showed up to work today” and it’s not even a comparison.
It’s the laws of supply and demand. Simple as that. Everyone wants to be a movie star.
And let me rephrase as well: be a Julliard, SI Newhouse. It doesn’t matter: if nobody fucking cares about what you do… they don’t fucking care about what you do. You aren’t going to change that.
One of the smartest people I know was a Julliard instructor. I love hearing their stories about their experiences in that world, but I can easily see why their “talent” didn’t translate into real world success. Despite their genius in musical interpretation, there taste is completely non-normative. Are you really arguing that the world is wrong and they aren’t?
It doesn’t fucking matter what you think matters. It only matters what _everyone else_ thinks matters. Feel free to downvote that opinion — I might be cynical but you’re wrong.
One of the smartest people I know was a Julliard instructor. I love hearing their stories about their experiences in that world, but I can easily see why their “talent” didn’t translate into real world success. Despite their genius in musical interpretation, there taste is completely non-normative. Are you really arguing that the world is wrong and they aren’t?
It doesn’t fucking matter what you think matters. It only matters what _everyone else_ thinks matters. Feel free to downvote that opinion — I might be cynical but you’re wrong.
Similarly …
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
400BC
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
400BC
Always wondered if it was an actual Ancient Time quote.
Doesn't seem like it :
> It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1
Doesn't seem like it :
> It was crafted by a student, Kenneth John Freeman, for his Cambridge dissertation published in 1907. Freeman did not claim that the passage under analysis was a direct quotation of anyone; instead, he was presenting his own summary of the complaints directed against young people in ancient times.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/?amp=1
What is "Ancient Time"? Is that capitalization intentional?
Edit: Oh, maybe you meant "Ancient Rome"?
Edit: Oh, maybe you meant "Ancient Rome"?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history
"Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500."
"Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BC – AD 500."
This is of course the famous quote from Socrates, and I absolutely hate this "argument". "Socrates was wrong in 400BC and it's wrong today" is one possible scenario, but it's also entirely possible that:
- Socrates was right in 400BC.
- at multiple points in 2,400 years there was a problem with "kids these days".
- Socrates was wrong in 400BC, but it's fair today or at other points in history.
It's just a complete non-argument.
Edit: and according to a sibling comment it's not even a genuine quote, but that doesn't matter: it's a non-argument whether it's a genuine quote or not.
The same applies to this "list", which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years from random people. Maybe some had a point and some didn't? Maybe none did? Maybe all did? That 19 people about of several hundred million complained about something (fairly or unfairly) in the last 19 years is just a non-argument.
- Socrates was right in 400BC.
- at multiple points in 2,400 years there was a problem with "kids these days".
- Socrates was wrong in 400BC, but it's fair today or at other points in history.
It's just a complete non-argument.
Edit: and according to a sibling comment it's not even a genuine quote, but that doesn't matter: it's a non-argument whether it's a genuine quote or not.
The same applies to this "list", which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years from random people. Maybe some had a point and some didn't? Maybe none did? Maybe all did? That 19 people about of several hundred million complained about something (fairly or unfairly) in the last 19 years is just a non-argument.
You missed the big one:
If you can find reliable evidence across time, space and cultures that humans have complained about the same X, then complaining about X is part of human nature in, at least, cultures that leave durable evidence.
If you can find reliable evidence across time, space and cultures that humans have complained about the same X, then complaining about X is part of human nature in, at least, cultures that leave durable evidence.
Two datapoints is hardly enough for that, and out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing, so "any and all arguments that touch on this must be invalid" seems just as much of an invalid non-argument to me.
You can pick almost any topic and find people unfairly whinging about it "across time, space, and cultures" because if there is something that's part of human nature then it's that some people will unfairly whinge about stuff. That on its own says exactly nothing about any specific argument that's presented: it's just vague heuristic pattern matching at best, and bad faith dismissal at worst.
You can pick almost any topic and find people unfairly whinging about it "across time, space, and cultures" because if there is something that's part of human nature then it's that some people will unfairly whinge about stuff. That on its own says exactly nothing about any specific argument that's presented: it's just vague heuristic pattern matching at best, and bad faith dismissal at worst.
It’s specifically dismissing the idea that the problem is new. That this is the first time kids have been different, that workers wanted better conditions. Nobody wants to work “anymore”… The kids “these days”
"Any more" and "these days" only imply an arbitrary amount of novelty. They are correct phrases whether we're observing a problem this year that wasn't present last year, or this millennia that wasn't present last millennia.
Regardless, novelty is a straw man. The implication that it's wrong to complain about something because it's not new is fallacious.
Yes, a person may compare younger people unfavorably to their own generation at the same age on some property they observe to be different when in fact it's only their perspective/memory that is different. But demonstrating that a complaint is not new is not evidence of that.
Regardless, novelty is a straw man. The implication that it's wrong to complain about something because it's not new is fallacious.
Yes, a person may compare younger people unfavorably to their own generation at the same age on some property they observe to be different when in fact it's only their perspective/memory that is different. But demonstrating that a complaint is not new is not evidence of that.
> out of the billions of people who have lived in the last 2,500 years an infinitesimal small percentage have complained about roughly the same thing
I'm willing to bet that the majority of people have complained about being hungry, at some point in their lives. I would guess this practice began some time before the invention of language. Some things really are universal.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of people have complained about being hungry, at some point in their lives. I would guess this practice began some time before the invention of language. Some things really are universal.
It's a non-argument in response to a stupid assertion generally made with zero meaningful evidence...
> which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years
Maybe you’re not seeing them all, but there’s one quote per year from 2023 to (at least) 1940. 83 years.
Maybe you’re not seeing them all, but there’s one quote per year from 2023 to (at least) 1940. 83 years.
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Definitely not a non-argument. Its a circumstancial argument, that does not prove a whole lot, but its perfect against a unsubstantiated claim like the one its used against. It doesnt even have to have happened to be a good argument, because the counterparty does not give any facts either. Just a hollow statement. I love the Monty Python sketch on this subject:
https://youtu.be/VKHFZBUTA4k
"No, it's always been the children that are wrong." - Skinnecrates.
The perennial nature of “kids these days” being insolent and otherwise generally poorly disciplined is that discipline is something to be cultivated within and not imposed from without. As a result, children who lack years of practice in discipline are not particularly well behaved. Adults tend to forget their childhoods, remembering only bits and pieces. In truth, every child was scolded for his/her bad behavior, and each generation tends to have the same bad behavior as the one before it. If each generation of kids were perfectly well behaved there’d be no need for raising, and there’d be no statements from old people such as “children are to be seen and not heard” or as “do not speak unless spoken to” or even as “get your elbows off the table”. That such statements are uttered and remembered by multiple generations proves that kids have made roughly the same “mistakes” over the course of those selfsame generations.
No, the adults remember. They get angry if you point out how they behaved when they were young.
The real complaint is "young people won't let me boss them around".
The real complaint is "young people won't let me boss them around".
As a father of three empathetic geniuses, I promise you that bossing them around is counterproductive
What if people have always been complaining about this because it was always a problem that popped up and neede to be handled. Maybe any change in society meant parents can't use the same techniques to raise their children, and neede to evolve.
Overall, not sure how a complain popping up all the time means it's invalid. People have always complained about injustice, and it's not like that's ever gone away entirely.
Overall, not sure how a complain popping up all the time means it's invalid. People have always complained about injustice, and it's not like that's ever gone away entirely.
Here I am just wondering why crossing of legs was inappropriate.
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My theory is that this is all true, and it’s fantastic. Generally, over the last century, in year X, nobody wants to work anymore compared to year Y (Y < X).
This is a success of social democracy and it is a success of technology. We can afford to have people work less hard and still be richer than we ever were. It’s the success story of western progress and the rest of the world is going through the same steps as we speak. That a few old-fashioned managers are surprised they can’t get people at the same bad terms as before is just a symptom of a very positive development.
This is a success of social democracy and it is a success of technology. We can afford to have people work less hard and still be richer than we ever were. It’s the success story of western progress and the rest of the world is going through the same steps as we speak. That a few old-fashioned managers are surprised they can’t get people at the same bad terms as before is just a symptom of a very positive development.
It might also be due to demographics in Western countries. If the ratio of workers to total population decreases while the demand for work remains the same, there will be less competition for jobs and workers will be able to demand higher pay. It also depends on how many can be replaced by machines.
Look at @paulsci's post history including on X-Twitter. He's done dozens of these tours through the newspapers on many similar subjects.
Interesting opinion. I’ll need to think on that for a bit. Thanks for offering it.
Correction: It's the success story of western progress at the expense of the rest of the world, which must find its own way because we've ripped up the steps.
FWIW, we haven't just ripped up the steps, we're actively standing at the top pointing a gun down.
Do you know why Switzerland exports the 2nd most processed coffee of any country in the world [1] while Ethiopia (where coffee was "invented" remains extremely poor, only exporting raw beans? Because the IMF and World Bank would send them back to the dark ages if they attempted to do anything different.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096413/main-export-coun...
Do you know why Switzerland exports the 2nd most processed coffee of any country in the world [1] while Ethiopia (where coffee was "invented" remains extremely poor, only exporting raw beans? Because the IMF and World Bank would send them back to the dark ages if they attempted to do anything different.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096413/main-export-coun...
Working in most jobs sucks. Some people are lucky to have jobs they love, but that's the minority. I know that to be the prevalent sentiment even in top notch, AAA, "I can't believe they pay me to do this" companies such as Google, Apple etc.
If people had, for the sake of a thought experiment, a guaranteed 20K/month income and free healthcare no matter what they do with their life, it's very unlikely they will choose to work on regular jobs. They will instead generally pursue arts/crafts (including the craft of building computer programs in areas they are interested in), learning, exercise etc.
If people had, for the sake of a thought experiment, a guaranteed 20K/month income and free healthcare no matter what they do with their life, it's very unlikely they will choose to work on regular jobs. They will instead generally pursue arts/crafts (including the craft of building computer programs in areas they are interested in), learning, exercise etc.
> They will instead generally pursue arts/crafts (including the craft of building computer programs in areas they are interested in), learning, exercise etc.
I always hear this argument about UBI and it almost sounds too good to be true. Like utopian. And I wonder what segment of population will actually become artists and craftsmen with renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment vs. the folks that will accelerate even further into melancholy and feelings of deep meaninglessness.
I always hear this argument about UBI and it almost sounds too good to be true. Like utopian. And I wonder what segment of population will actually become artists and craftsmen with renewed sense of purpose and fulfillment vs. the folks that will accelerate even further into melancholy and feelings of deep meaninglessness.
Some might. Most would watch TV, hang out with friends/family, scroll TikTok, workout, and play videogames
They would rather gamble away all money or and use it on drugs.
> They will instead generally pursue arts/crafts
Didn’t we have this experiment during Covid where many people found themselves being paid, sometimes for 2 years, to just wait till their job comes back? I don’t think many became artists (surely, some did). But there were also a lot of stories of increased depression, addiction, and despair.
I’m not saying it’s better to do a bullshit job that getting paid to do nothing. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem to be as simple.
Didn’t we have this experiment during Covid where many people found themselves being paid, sometimes for 2 years, to just wait till their job comes back? I don’t think many became artists (surely, some did). But there were also a lot of stories of increased depression, addiction, and despair.
I’m not saying it’s better to do a bullshit job that getting paid to do nothing. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem to be as simple.
As a long-time software engineer and related positions. When covid started it felt as if the world said "We worked enough we need a collective time off"
More like, people realized how nice their life's were if they spent less time at work.
I did not understand how much my 45min x 2 commute was draining my stamina before I stopped commuting, e.g.
I did not understand how much my 45min x 2 commute was draining my stamina before I stopped commuting, e.g.
Agreed. I will never work a job with a >10 minute commute another day in my life. On top of the time lost, you don’t even get paid for it. It costs you time and money to go to work.
I wonder if workers, at some point, will be able to start demanding compensation for commute to work, when there it is perfectly possible to work from home? E.g. these tech companies that are starting to require employees to return to office.
On the other hand, we don’t get compensated (fully [1]) for the utilities cost from working from home.
[1] Some reimburse things like internet, but that’s about it. We can’t even claim taxes on expenses from WFH unless we’re independent.
On the other hand, we don’t get compensated (fully [1]) for the utilities cost from working from home.
[1] Some reimburse things like internet, but that’s about it. We can’t even claim taxes on expenses from WFH unless we’re independent.
Dude really? The cost of working from home is absolutly minimal.
You gain much more than you loss.
You do NOT waste time and money commuting. You can eat healtier food. You can take break when you really need it. People who say that they need to get compesation for WFH cant do basic math...
You do NOT waste time and money commuting. You can eat healtier food. You can take break when you really need it. People who say that they need to get compesation for WFH cant do basic math...
Work from home is literally an employee subsidized office. Who pays for the internet? You do. Who pays for the electicity? You do. Who pays for water? You do. Who pays for the ac during the heat of the day? You do. Who pays for square footage dedicated to a desk? You do. Who fixes networking it related issues? You do. Who is the custodian and building maintainer? Also you.
Companies save money hand over fist by shoveling all the above costs that they previously paid for onto your lap. If you think this is all free then you need to reevaluate what your employer is really asking of you in a work from home situation.
Companies save money hand over fist by shoveling all the above costs that they previously paid for onto your lap. If you think this is all free then you need to reevaluate what your employer is really asking of you in a work from home situation.
You already have those things. Network rarely like maybe once a year goes down at home, if your company doesn't provide food then you either order and the cost is the same or you can cook and it's cheaper.
You are right, companies save money and you save commute time. It's win/win.
That's if you like working from home which I don't.
You are right, companies save money and you save commute time. It's win/win.
That's if you like working from home which I don't.
> You already have those things.
That depends. Many people, especially those who live in cities, do not have the square footage in their home for a home office, or even a desk.
When you think about it, having a dedicated office building is likely to be a more efficient use of space than everyone dedicating a portion of their home to office space.
I wouldn't give up WFH, but let's not pretend it doesn't add costs to the employee. Sure, it can also remove costs, but the result isn't always a net positive.
That depends. Many people, especially those who live in cities, do not have the square footage in their home for a home office, or even a desk.
When you think about it, having a dedicated office building is likely to be a more efficient use of space than everyone dedicating a portion of their home to office space.
I wouldn't give up WFH, but let's not pretend it doesn't add costs to the employee. Sure, it can also remove costs, but the result isn't always a net positive.
> You already have those things.
i don’t even know where to begin with this… so many people absolutely do not have an in home office, do not understand networking, don’t cool their homes/turn their heat down when at the office, don’t use home electricity while at work, etc…
i don’t even know where to begin with this… so many people absolutely do not have an in home office, do not understand networking, don’t cool their homes/turn their heat down when at the office, don’t use home electricity while at work, etc…
Then dont work in home, go to office instead. Whats the problem?
I think WFH is an option, not something that is enforced?
I think WFH is an option, not something that is enforced?
Yes, this was my point, but not articulated as well.
I think it would be hard to expect compensation for the expenses when coming to the office, when the savings (for them) by working from home aren’t also passed onto us.
I think it would be hard to expect compensation for the expenses when coming to the office, when the savings (for them) by working from home aren’t also passed onto us.
Did you get paid for your commute?
by law, in israel we get compensated each month for travel costs
its called "The Right to a Travel Allowance"
Yes, the commute removal definitely added a new perspective to many people who have been working in offices for many years.
I ended up renting a small office near my house because working and being in the same place without any change felt dismal.
The mental and financial toll of long commutes was (and still is, to a reduced extent) consistently underestimated. Doubly so if that commute is driven, where one must remain focused on driving and deal with associated frustrations the whole time.
I don't mind my 75 minutes x 2 commute, but 55 minutes are spent on a half empty train and the rest on bikes (mostly on bike lanes or empty roads), so I get to eat a snack, use my laptop and do some mild cardio. I've done the same commute a couple of times by car and it was much more stressful.
> More like, people realized how nice their life's were if they spent less time at work...
... but still got paid.
... but still got paid.
School, homework, part-time job, college, study, full-time job... it never ends.
For many of us, covid is the first taste of freedom we ever got. It was eye-opening and delivered some serious perspective.
This "not working" could be called a sane response based on good information.
For many of us, covid is the first taste of freedom we ever got. It was eye-opening and delivered some serious perspective.
This "not working" could be called a sane response based on good information.
> School, homework, part-time job, college, study, full-time job... it never ends. For many of us, covid is the first taste of freedom we ever got. It was eye-opening and delivered some serious perspective.
Don't you have vacations? A whole month away from work or school every year should have given people that same perspective.
Don't you have vacations? A whole month away from work or school every year should have given people that same perspective.
To be honest, people generally don't want to work. In what way is this surprising?
I think people do want to work when they can enjoy and feel pride for the fruits of their labor. But often the fruits of labor in our economic system either don't pay the bills, aren't worthy of pride, or are almost entirely enjoyed by someone else in exchange for a small wage.
I think the spirit of the original comment is people don't want to do enforced work at someone else's behest in order to live. I agree a lot of people would choose to do some kind of work voluntarily even if they didn't have to. Many people on here are probably coders. They may grudgingly drag themselves out of bed to go and code whatever their boss says in their day job, but then go home and code whatever they want to code purely for the joy of building something. It's not that people don't want to do work, they just don't want to do work someone else prescribes. Sometimes prescribed work and work you want to do intersect, then great, but often that is not the case.
I think most jobs just aren’t the sort that elicit pride in their worker. They still need to be done though.
It comes down to how you define "work". People seem to want to put a lot of energy into doing stuff, sometimes stuff which is very hard labor or mentally challenging. The key is that they are most happy and willing to do this when they have a passion or a goal.
But when the "work" you are being asked to do seems pointless, or it seems like the vast majority of the benefit of your work is going to people who are already wealthy and powerful, there's much less motivation.
One of the most demotivating things is seeing your work thrown away. In the software world, we experience this often. Sometimes you can even finish a big project, really being proud at having built something great, but then something will change and render that product pointless (at least based on the current business plan).
After a few situations like that, one becomes more cautious. Performing heavy tasks on the whim of leader is less attractive.
But when the "work" you are being asked to do seems pointless, or it seems like the vast majority of the benefit of your work is going to people who are already wealthy and powerful, there's much less motivation.
One of the most demotivating things is seeing your work thrown away. In the software world, we experience this often. Sometimes you can even finish a big project, really being proud at having built something great, but then something will change and render that product pointless (at least based on the current business plan).
After a few situations like that, one becomes more cautious. Performing heavy tasks on the whim of leader is less attractive.
im likely being too pedantic here so apologies up front if this is the case. if by “work” you mean, sacrificing your own dreams to make a boss’ dreams come true, then we’re probably on the same page. but if by “work” you mean, doing yard work, passion projects, etc… i’m not sure i agree. my parents are heading into retirement in a few years and i’m deeply concerned they won’t know what to do with themselves without work keeping them occupied. they’re both extremely lucky in that they immensely enjoy and are passionate about their work, tho.
even in my free time i have so many projects that take work but i absolutely love them.
i just wanted to chime in that people feel genuinely energized by work if it’s something they care about, something that matters to them, feeds their soul or whatever phrase you prefer. again, sorry to be the obnoxious pedant.
even in my free time i have so many projects that take work but i absolutely love them.
i just wanted to chime in that people feel genuinely energized by work if it’s something they care about, something that matters to them, feeds their soul or whatever phrase you prefer. again, sorry to be the obnoxious pedant.
Source? I don't find this true at all. People simply don't want to do meaningless, consuming or alienating work.
Unfortunately unless you are doing something like working on your property or helping a neighbor, thats most work in this country.
The term "work" may not be sufficiently precise. And that's how "Nobody wants to work" can be both simultaneously true and false at the same time, depending on what is meant by "work".
To say "Nobody wants to to engage in drudgery anymore" is true and always has been. To say "Nobody wants to be employed at a job that's meaningful and rewarding" is false (for most people at least; there may be exceptions).
To say "Nobody wants to to engage in drudgery anymore" is true and always has been. To say "Nobody wants to be employed at a job that's meaningful and rewarding" is false (for most people at least; there may be exceptions).
I think this depends on what your definition of “work” is. I’m going to assume the poster you’re replying to means your typical office, service, or labor job - most of which are as you said, meaningless, consuming or alienating.
Beyond the usual rationale of I don't want to work for pennies, I think hard work as a cultural vibe has fallen out of the times. It's also what we have designed our reward systems around.
Today's reward systems are tuned not around hard work, but around being smart. The disintermediation of media makes it feel like we are all in a celebrity lottery and we just need a lucky break. We don't need to compound our skills or put in the grind.
Today's reward systems are tuned not around hard work, but around being smart. The disintermediation of media makes it feel like we are all in a celebrity lottery and we just need a lucky break. We don't need to compound our skills or put in the grind.
Why would anybody want to work as a default? Work is a trade of your time for some financial security. It's a sacrifice that doesn't need to be glorified.
I do understand that a functioning society needs to good work ethic where this transactional aspect is not in the mind of the worker while he's actually doing the work, since it's a hinderance. When we're discussing work as a topic though it needs to be considered as a core truth.
Conflating salary work and personal activities (cooking, cleaning, fixing something around the house) is part of the definition of work as well.
I do understand that a functioning society needs to good work ethic where this transactional aspect is not in the mind of the worker while he's actually doing the work, since it's a hinderance. When we're discussing work as a topic though it needs to be considered as a core truth.
Conflating salary work and personal activities (cooking, cleaning, fixing something around the house) is part of the definition of work as well.
One thing that's funny to think about is in the distant past, one of the big selling points of automation and industrialization was that we could have the same things but work much less. That didn't quite work out. Now we work more, for more things. The tragedy though is there isn't a great option for trading luxuries for time. You're either 40+ hours a week invested in a career, or you're barely scraping by on a bunch of part time gigs with no health insurance or retirement plan.
Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion.
So you invest your remaining time in entertainments, drugs and shopping. Frantically groping for a scrap of joy.
My friends in carpentry call it "feeding the monkey". The monkey must be fed, one way or another.
So you invest your remaining time in entertainments, drugs and shopping. Frantically groping for a scrap of joy.
My friends in carpentry call it "feeding the monkey". The monkey must be fed, one way or another.
>>But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction.
If that's the case then you need to find a different job. Plenty of people are really satisfied with what they do at work. I've accepted lower salary for years because the job I did was really satisfying and I'm still glad I was part of it.
If that's the case then you need to find a different job. Plenty of people are really satisfied with what they do at work. I've accepted lower salary for years because the job I did was really satisfying and I'm still glad I was part of it.
Sure but these can be hard to find.
Let's suppose the factors that make people like their jobs are a sense of ownership, applying skills, having friends, a high level of trust, and a sense that they're contributing something useful (the classic example is the construction worker isn't laying bricks, he's building a house).
The hyper-financialized economy we find ourselves in loves meaningless Goals and OKRs, then does mass layoffs for no apparent reason besides investors like it.
This is a pretty stark misalignment in values and incentives. Of course people are unhappy with it.
Let's suppose the factors that make people like their jobs are a sense of ownership, applying skills, having friends, a high level of trust, and a sense that they're contributing something useful (the classic example is the construction worker isn't laying bricks, he's building a house).
The hyper-financialized economy we find ourselves in loves meaningless Goals and OKRs, then does mass layoffs for no apparent reason besides investors like it.
This is a pretty stark misalignment in values and incentives. Of course people are unhappy with it.
This is why I roll my eyes internally when business leaders talk about wanting employees who are passionate about their role. When forced to choose decision makers will size up an individual contributor’s performance KPIs not their passion. e.g. Did you close enough sales? Was your butt planted in seat on schedule? Did you generally resolve problems for them or create them? Saying anything to suggest otherwise is a trick to distract you from keeping your eye on the ball.
Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state?
Why don't we have a law that says "if the boss is disrespectful to the worker, they pay the worker the average of their hourly wage for every such incident" while being rude to your superior would be considered a breach of conduct that, when repeated, would be grounds for dismissal?
Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
Why don't we have a law that says "if the boss is disrespectful to the worker, they pay the worker the average of their hourly wage for every such incident" while being rude to your superior would be considered a breach of conduct that, when repeated, would be grounds for dismissal?
Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
>>Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state?
What makes you think that my arguments precludes the latter? Equally, do you think that you as an employee have no agency in your own choice of employment? I understand there is a lot(probably even a majority) of people in the world who don't have that - but my comment isn't addressed to those. It's addressed to the specific HN comment.
>>Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
...what? I think you've constructed in your own head what my position is and are arguing against that, and not against what I actually said or believe.
What makes you think that my arguments precludes the latter? Equally, do you think that you as an employee have no agency in your own choice of employment? I understand there is a lot(probably even a majority) of people in the world who don't have that - but my comment isn't addressed to those. It's addressed to the specific HN comment.
>>Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
...what? I think you've constructed in your own head what my position is and are arguing against that, and not against what I actually said or believe.
Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice. There are not “good jobs” available for all or most. Your cushy PMC role is contingent on miserable labor supporting it. See the contractor/full time divide at Google or Meta for instance
>>Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice
I literally don't see where I said such a thing.
I literally don't see where I said such a thing.
You literally told the worker that his misery is his own fault for having chosen the wrong job.
There’s a difference between blame and prudence. It’s not blaming him to suggest he is empowered to change his conditions. If someone eschews prudence once aware of it, then they do bear some accountability for their outcomes, but even accountability is not blame. The confusion of the two has become commonplace as our society tries to avoid any conception of accountability.
I said if there is no satisfaction then you need to find a different job. The misery part was added by you.
> I said if there is no satisfaction then you need to find a different job.
In this is the implicit assumption that there are enough jobs to give everyone satisfaction - that is what people are taking issue with. Do you believe that assumption is true?
In this is the implicit assumption that there are enough jobs to give everyone satisfaction - that is what people are taking issue with. Do you believe that assumption is true?
I think people are coming up with this assumption just to have an argument for no reason - I'm replying to an individual comment on HN, not giving advice to every single worker out there
Assuming good faith, we can easily determine that OP was suggesting the working a job that provides no satisfaction would be misery. Considering satisfaction and misery are subjective, quibbling over the word choice is pedantic at best.
If you're incapable of seeing how someone might describe working in a job that provides no satisfaction as misery, I suggest taking time to understand how that can be the case, as your ignorance in this area does you harm.
If you're incapable of seeing how someone might describe working in a job that provides no satisfaction as misery, I suggest taking time to understand how that can be the case, as your ignorance in this area does you harm.
All of that is reaching some conclusions and arguments that I didn't make and didn't use. All I said is that if your job doesn't bring you satisfaction then find another one. Everything beyond that is your own interpretation - I can of course see how you reached that interpretation, but I don't agree with it. There can be a job without satisfaction that isn't "misery". But that's not really relevant to my original point.
Speak for yourself, I know many people who derive a lot of joy from their work and find it energizing, myself included.
I think those people are typically called the "clueless":
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
“Losers” according to that, I think, as it calls “losers” “happiness seekers.” But still taking joy in one’s work seems orthogonal to the link presented, which is more about corporate lifecycles.
To expand slightly on my situation (and the anecdotal others I’m talking about): I’m happy with my job because it gives me an opportunity to have a real impact on the world, helping real people, and seeing the direct results of my labor. It’s energizing.
To expand slightly on my situation (and the anecdotal others I’m talking about): I’m happy with my job because it gives me an opportunity to have a real impact on the world, helping real people, and seeing the direct results of my labor. It’s energizing.
> opportunity to have a real impact on the world, helping real people, and seeing the direct results of my labor
What do you do for a living?
What do you do for a living?
No, those are the losers. The clueless are clueless that the pychopaths are using them as a shield against the losers.
I've enjoyed my work before (especially working on games I enjoyed), but I've never found it energizing.
Any mentally challenging work at the end of the day has alays left me feeling pretty low energy afterwards.
Also physically challenging (I remember working 10 hour days in a warehouse and then going home and having a quick bite to eat and then immediately sleeping for 10 hours, I didn't even have the energy to watch tv).
Also not physically or mentally challenging jobs either (as if just having to be present and 'on' during that time is enough to drain the energy).
The only times I usually still have energy to do something are in the mornings before work or on weekends, and that's pretty much when all the chores and errands and personal project work has to happen.
Any mentally challenging work at the end of the day has alays left me feeling pretty low energy afterwards.
Also physically challenging (I remember working 10 hour days in a warehouse and then going home and having a quick bite to eat and then immediately sleeping for 10 hours, I didn't even have the energy to watch tv).
Also not physically or mentally challenging jobs either (as if just having to be present and 'on' during that time is enough to drain the energy).
The only times I usually still have energy to do something are in the mornings before work or on weekends, and that's pretty much when all the chores and errands and personal project work has to happen.
Taking too much joy in anything that can be ripped from you is hazardous to your mental well being. A well rounded individual is much more resilient than someone who lives for work.
I don't think that's relevant unless you state your age and it is well above 30. Until then you are inevitably clueless and usually sought after by the employers because you are full of energy and cheap to rent, chow and spit out when you burn out.
“Not all men” type argument
Obviously rich people provide inspiration to many miserable workers to improve their conditions, doesn’t mean it’s achievable for most
Obviously rich people provide inspiration to many miserable workers to improve their conditions, doesn’t mean it’s achievable for most
Not really. First, it’s unfair to extrapolate one persons toxic mindset to work in general. But aside from that, what I’m saying is that there are plenty of examples of people who are happy at their jobs and if one wants to be happy at their jobs they can follow those examples or use them as inspiration.
I’m sure there were some happy servants in the past as well.
Your weird strawman aside, servants rarely or never had the same career and life mobility as hacker news posters.
Are you an AVN winner then?
> Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion.
As opposed to what? Works was always like that.
As opposed to what? Works was always like that.
Karl Marx insisted people need to relate to the product of their labor.
To be fair, I've never wanted to "work".
This. When I started my career it wasn’t just “work”, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. That passion seems to be fading, and it was put into overdrive by the lockdowns. I can see a day in the very near future of giving up in this whole “work” thing.
You clearly lack "passion".
I think there's a drug for that.
I think there's a drug for that.
Passion fruit?
Adderal
The easiest way for leaders to mitigate the problem of 'not wanting to work' is to make work a more desirable place to be. It's not even hard to do. Some simple rules for managers and leaders:
1. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Remember all the shitty bosses you had, and be the first to break the cycle.
2. Pay people slightly above market rate. Make that your #1 hiring message: "We pay above market rate" and watch the referrals flow. Turn your employees into evangelists and you won't need a platoon's-worth of recruiters.
3. Be very loud and very public about commonsense balance of work and just 'life'. No emails after 5, prioritize social-family events like PTA meetings, or dates, or "Hey I'm gonna take my team bowling Friday afternoon, can I expense the chicken tendies?"
4. You can't build culture; it's created from within. Embrace what your employees bring culture-wise and make THAT your work culture.
1. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Remember all the shitty bosses you had, and be the first to break the cycle.
2. Pay people slightly above market rate. Make that your #1 hiring message: "We pay above market rate" and watch the referrals flow. Turn your employees into evangelists and you won't need a platoon's-worth of recruiters.
3. Be very loud and very public about commonsense balance of work and just 'life'. No emails after 5, prioritize social-family events like PTA meetings, or dates, or "Hey I'm gonna take my team bowling Friday afternoon, can I expense the chicken tendies?"
4. You can't build culture; it's created from within. Embrace what your employees bring culture-wise and make THAT your work culture.
I disagree on #2. I think if you want to build culture you need to find people who value culture over money, and that if you don't live up to your end they can complain about the deal. If you over pay and offer better culture when the culture inevitably falters people are stuck because you over pay.
What does "value culture over money even mean?" I'd rather get paid more and work with people who are clock punching professionals than somewhere where "we're all a family".
Yeah I wasn't sure how to read that comment either.
I think it's fine to have a familial/friendly culture at work, but not in lieu of fair pay – and not in any way made mandatory. Nothing worse than 'mandatory fun time' barf.
I think it's fine to have a familial/friendly culture at work, but not in lieu of fair pay – and not in any way made mandatory. Nothing worse than 'mandatory fun time' barf.
Pay is a part of culture.
Not that I totally disagree, but what happens if everybody pays above market rate?
To be called ”Long History” i think it should to extend beyond the current generation.
Scroll down slightly and someone else has posted an image with quotes that go back to the 1800s.
EDIT: Not sure how to link the direct link to the reply, but you can see it on this article on Snopes too: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymo...
EDIT: Not sure how to link the direct link to the reply, but you can see it on this article on Snopes too: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymo...
His Twitter version of this thread goes back to 1912, I think the Mastodon one just got cut off somehow? https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1682459194589433857?s=20
From the 'long' in the title I was expecing this to be more like 200 years not 20 years. There's good form for this kind of literature.
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/28169/what-is-th...
https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/28169/what-is-th...
2 Thessalonians 3:10
The odd suggestion that “nobody wants to work anymore” somehow just appeared this generation.
It’s in the bible dude, and undoubtedly has sentiments dating back millennia.
The odd suggestion that “nobody wants to work anymore” somehow just appeared this generation.
It’s in the bible dude, and undoubtedly has sentiments dating back millennia.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Socrates 400BC
Socrates 400BC
I was expecting lots of outraged Victorians lamenting the decline of modern work ethics
I dunno, he goes back to 1940. That seems far enough back to make the point with newspaper clippings. Definitely more than a single generation.
Kids these days.
...are great! I employ a number of teenagers and they are absolutely wonderful. The future is bright.
It's really just the late 20/early-to-mid 30-somethings who don't want to work. We have assumed it is because they are the "everyone gets a trophy" generation, but whatever it is there is a markable difference among the hires within that group as compared to those younger and older.
It's really just the late 20/early-to-mid 30-somethings who don't want to work. We have assumed it is because they are the "everyone gets a trophy" generation, but whatever it is there is a markable difference among the hires within that group as compared to those younger and older.
One of my favorite old songs: Big Rock Candy Mountain (https://genius.com/Harry-mcclintock-big-rock-candy-mountain-...) covers it well. The last verse ends in:
There ain't no short-handle shovels No axes, saws or picks I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the jerk that invented work In The Big Rock Candy Mountains
There ain't no short-handle shovels No axes, saws or picks I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the jerk that invented work In The Big Rock Candy Mountains
I really like the Restarts’ version of this song.
"I wanna be rich, rich, rich. WHY won't anyone give me half of their waking life to help?"
Found this quotation on Wiki earlier today, attributed to Jonathan Sudholt:
"In the Jacksonian era of antebellum America, class inequality was a major concern as fiscal downturns and the economy's transition from guild-based artisanship to private business sharpened socioeconomic disparity."
Found this quotation on Wiki earlier today, attributed to Jonathan Sudholt:
"In the Jacksonian era of antebellum America, class inequality was a major concern as fiscal downturns and the economy's transition from guild-based artisanship to private business sharpened socioeconomic disparity."
This pairs nicely with “they don’t make them like they used to” and “kids these days don’t know how good they have it”
I do enjoy things like this, but from a statistical standpoint, I don't think this really tells us all that much? I'm sure if you search hard enough through news archives, you can find at least one person saying something every year that validates your position.
But it does matter if only one person is saying that thing in a particular year, or thousands of people.
As an aside, I also find the idea that work is somehow virtuous to be pretty gross. That's something humanity has invented, not some natural truth. Sure, basic survival does require some amount of work, but beyond that, it's all unnecessary. Some people may want to continue to work more and more, in order to make it possible (in today's capitalist system) to do more than just survive, but we shouldn't look down on people because they've found a particular lifestyle or quality of living that works for them (as long as doing so isn't negatively impacting others).
Beyond that, I think choices like working toward financial independence early are fantastic, and I wish more people could have the opportunity to achieve that. The idea of working for even the old-school expectation of around 45 years (starting work after high school or college, and then retiring in the mid-60s) sounds awful to me... and these days people Not only are there plenty of ambitious people who want to work and build new things (to compensate for those who don't want to), but there are so many bullshit jobs that just don't need to be done, but exist mainly just to feed the self-imposed fiction that work is a virtue.
But it does matter if only one person is saying that thing in a particular year, or thousands of people.
As an aside, I also find the idea that work is somehow virtuous to be pretty gross. That's something humanity has invented, not some natural truth. Sure, basic survival does require some amount of work, but beyond that, it's all unnecessary. Some people may want to continue to work more and more, in order to make it possible (in today's capitalist system) to do more than just survive, but we shouldn't look down on people because they've found a particular lifestyle or quality of living that works for them (as long as doing so isn't negatively impacting others).
Beyond that, I think choices like working toward financial independence early are fantastic, and I wish more people could have the opportunity to achieve that. The idea of working for even the old-school expectation of around 45 years (starting work after high school or college, and then retiring in the mid-60s) sounds awful to me... and these days people Not only are there plenty of ambitious people who want to work and build new things (to compensate for those who don't want to), but there are so many bullshit jobs that just don't need to be done, but exist mainly just to feed the self-imposed fiction that work is a virtue.
For me, the issue is there's work, but nobody wants to hire me because I:
* Have been off the job market for a while because nobody would interview me let alone consider me
* The last job I had was a month long, and it ended with my termination for performance in a setting where I arguably could not succeed.
And my run of bad luck has led to difficulty keeping work for the past two years. Its not fair, and I can't blame anyone for not wanting to do it anymore. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
* Have been off the job market for a while because nobody would interview me let alone consider me
* The last job I had was a month long, and it ended with my termination for performance in a setting where I arguably could not succeed.
And my run of bad luck has led to difficulty keeping work for the past two years. Its not fair, and I can't blame anyone for not wanting to do it anymore. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.
It's always nobody wants to work anymore at the wages you are presently offering.
It's like concluding we've run out of oil because the price of gasoline went up.
It's like concluding we've run out of oil because the price of gasoline went up.
Of course, when you get down to the heart of the matter, it is really: The customer doesn't want what you have to offer anymore.
Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.
Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.
Or not wanting to pay more to your workers because of greed? I mean Louis Vuitton bag costs to produce probably 5-10% of the price that customer pays.
Luckily Louis Vuitton is a publicly traded company, so we can see that its average profit margin is actually only 12%.
Rule of thumb says that a company needs a 10% margin to be considered healthy. This suggests that while they are in a good place at current wages, there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room.
People will take anything if you give it away for free, but it is doubtful that their products would still remain desired by the customers if wages went up and they retained a healthy margin. Fashion products aren't exactly inelastic.
Rule of thumb says that a company needs a 10% margin to be considered healthy. This suggests that while they are in a good place at current wages, there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room.
People will take anything if you give it away for free, but it is doubtful that their products would still remain desired by the customers if wages went up and they retained a healthy margin. Fashion products aren't exactly inelastic.
> Luckily Louis Vuitton is a publicly traded company, so we can see that its average profit margin is actually only 12%.
It's not 12%, it's 18% as a whole company. 12% is 20 year average.
Louis Vuitton owns many companies, I'm specifically talking about bags but you also have things like:
> LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton Société Européenne's operated at median gross profit margin of 66.6% from fiscal years ending December 2018 to 2022. Looking back at the last 5 years, LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton Société Européenne's gross profit margin peaked in June 2023 at 68.7%.
68.7%...
> LVMH doesn't break out individual brands' financial results, but analysts say Vuitton's profit margin came in at around 50% last year[1]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/louis-vuitton-bernard-arnault-a...
It's not 12%, it's 18% as a whole company. 12% is 20 year average.
Louis Vuitton owns many companies, I'm specifically talking about bags but you also have things like:
> LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton Société Européenne's operated at median gross profit margin of 66.6% from fiscal years ending December 2018 to 2022. Looking back at the last 5 years, LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton Société Européenne's gross profit margin peaked in June 2023 at 68.7%.
68.7%...
> LVMH doesn't break out individual brands' financial results, but analysts say Vuitton's profit margin came in at around 50% last year[1]
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/louis-vuitton-bernard-arnault-a...
> It's not 12%, it's 18% as a whole company. 12% is 20 year average.
So, 12%. Got it. One successful year doesn't paint much of a picture. Especially when you remember that employees don't usually take pay cuts when business is not doing so well. In many jurisdictions, it is even illegal to see employee pay cuts.
> I'm specifically talking about bags
General coffers. Even if the margins really are 90% on bags, they're losing money elsewhere. That money is gone no matter how you slice it. They don't magically still have it to offer the workers. Business is hard.
> but analysts say Vuitton's profit margin came in at around 50% last year
Gross margin, yes. There is more to running a business than COGS, however. Especially a business of their nature.
So, 12%. Got it. One successful year doesn't paint much of a picture. Especially when you remember that employees don't usually take pay cuts when business is not doing so well. In many jurisdictions, it is even illegal to see employee pay cuts.
> I'm specifically talking about bags
General coffers. Even if the margins really are 90% on bags, they're losing money elsewhere. That money is gone no matter how you slice it. They don't magically still have it to offer the workers. Business is hard.
> but analysts say Vuitton's profit margin came in at around 50% last year
Gross margin, yes. There is more to running a business than COGS, however. Especially a business of their nature.
> So, 12%. Got it.
It's 50% more compared to that number. And for last 5 years it was only going up, it's not one successful year. So it's not 12%. Got it? I don't know of anyone talking about margins and talking about 20 years average, they had 0% in 2001, it's counted in that ~20 years, don't you see how stupid this is to include that into discussion? profit margins from 20 years ago.
Labor and material are the lowest costs on bags, highest is marketing. Why I need to pay more to workers if I can build new corporate HQ? When I can pay for bonuses of people at the top? or get ~20% profit. I have 50% of the company profits anyway and I make all the decisions[1]. You want me to tell that he (Bernard Arnault) can't pay people that make these bags more because he don't have money? come on, this is such a naive view. Some products/industries indeed can't but this is not one of them, software also with average of 25-30% NET profit margins.
1. At the end of 2017, the only declared major shareholder in LVMH was the Arnault Family Group, the holding company of Bernard Arnault. The group's control amounted to 46.84% of LVMH's stock and 63.13% of its voting rights.
It's 50% more compared to that number. And for last 5 years it was only going up, it's not one successful year. So it's not 12%. Got it? I don't know of anyone talking about margins and talking about 20 years average, they had 0% in 2001, it's counted in that ~20 years, don't you see how stupid this is to include that into discussion? profit margins from 20 years ago.
Labor and material are the lowest costs on bags, highest is marketing. Why I need to pay more to workers if I can build new corporate HQ? When I can pay for bonuses of people at the top? or get ~20% profit. I have 50% of the company profits anyway and I make all the decisions[1]. You want me to tell that he (Bernard Arnault) can't pay people that make these bags more because he don't have money? come on, this is such a naive view. Some products/industries indeed can't but this is not one of them, software also with average of 25-30% NET profit margins.
1. At the end of 2017, the only declared major shareholder in LVMH was the Arnault Family Group, the holding company of Bernard Arnault. The group's control amounted to 46.84% of LVMH's stock and 63.13% of its voting rights.
> I don't know of anyone talking about margins and talking about 20 years average
You can't forget the past. Louis Vuitton aside, it is well understood that even wildly successful businesses haemorrhage money for the first 5-10 years before reaching profitability. You're saying that as soon as a business does reach profitability, all the excess profit should go to the workers, even when they haven't asked for it, and not pay back the lost opportunity? If so, why would anyone take the risk?
> Labor and material are the lowest costs on bags, highest is marketing.
Indeed. As you recognize this, and as marketing is not included in COGS, I find it strange that you pointed to their gross profit margin earlier. What was meant to be the significance of that?
> You want me to tell that he (Bernard Arnault) can't pay people that make these bags more because he don't have money?
He did pay them more. Said workers went on strike last year because they wanted more, and shortly thereafter he responded by paying them more... Ask and you shall receive, as they say.
What are you expecting, exactly? Is it that you are appalled that workers have to make it known how much they expect to be paid? Do you want Bernard to walk the streets and surprise offer $100 bills to random passers-by?
If so, what about you? Everyone on HN can spare a a few hundred dollars (you couldn't afford to be here otherwise), and more likely, given how much the audience is generally worth, can spare tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars. How many $100 bills did you unsolicitedly hand out today? Or are you one of those people who never pays more than the asking price even though you can afford to pay more?
You can't forget the past. Louis Vuitton aside, it is well understood that even wildly successful businesses haemorrhage money for the first 5-10 years before reaching profitability. You're saying that as soon as a business does reach profitability, all the excess profit should go to the workers, even when they haven't asked for it, and not pay back the lost opportunity? If so, why would anyone take the risk?
> Labor and material are the lowest costs on bags, highest is marketing.
Indeed. As you recognize this, and as marketing is not included in COGS, I find it strange that you pointed to their gross profit margin earlier. What was meant to be the significance of that?
> You want me to tell that he (Bernard Arnault) can't pay people that make these bags more because he don't have money?
He did pay them more. Said workers went on strike last year because they wanted more, and shortly thereafter he responded by paying them more... Ask and you shall receive, as they say.
What are you expecting, exactly? Is it that you are appalled that workers have to make it known how much they expect to be paid? Do you want Bernard to walk the streets and surprise offer $100 bills to random passers-by?
If so, what about you? Everyone on HN can spare a a few hundred dollars (you couldn't afford to be here otherwise), and more likely, given how much the audience is generally worth, can spare tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars. How many $100 bills did you unsolicitedly hand out today? Or are you one of those people who never pays more than the asking price even though you can afford to pay more?
> Louis Vuitton aside, it is well understood that even wildly successful businesses haemorrhage money for the first 5-10 years before reaching profitability.
What? You mean VC backed businesses only? So like 0.0...1% of all businesses? and btw LV is not one of them. You think that successful restaurant owner "haemorrhage money for the first 5-10 years"? He would be out of business 10 times by then.
> He did pay them more. Said workers went on strike last year because they wanted more, and shortly thereafter he responded by paying them more... Ask and you shall receive, as they say.
In France, after strike. What about Asia? where there are no unions and strong labor laws, did he pay them too? No he didn't.
> What are you expecting, exactly? Is it that you are appalled that workers have to make it known how much they expect to be paid? Do you want Bernard to walk the streets and surprise offer $100 bills to random passers-by?
> If so, what about you? Everyone on HN can spare a a few hundred dollars (you couldn't afford to be here otherwise), and more likely, given how much the audience is generally worth, can spare tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars. How many $100 bills did you unsolicitedly hand out today? Or are you one of those people who never pays more than the asking price even though you can afford to pay more?
Sorry but what the hell are you talking about? Do you remember the topic of conversation still? Because I'm replying to what you said "Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.", which I proved is not the case in my specific example (because THERE IS ENOUGH REVENUE to pay workers more, he did it in France where labor laws and unions are the strongest on this planet) and it's also not the case in software industry and you talk about me handing out 100$ to random people on the street??? What?
I don't really know on which world are you living, but the reason most of businesses do not pay workers more is not "not having enough revenue" but because they choose to hoard money to themselves out of greed. I have many business owners in my family and they are driving porsches while paying their staff minimum wage, I assure you that they have enough revenue to pay their workers more. I'm not here to offer solutions, I was writing this to show that the problem exists and that what you wrote is not true in majority of cases.
What? You mean VC backed businesses only? So like 0.0...1% of all businesses? and btw LV is not one of them. You think that successful restaurant owner "haemorrhage money for the first 5-10 years"? He would be out of business 10 times by then.
> He did pay them more. Said workers went on strike last year because they wanted more, and shortly thereafter he responded by paying them more... Ask and you shall receive, as they say.
In France, after strike. What about Asia? where there are no unions and strong labor laws, did he pay them too? No he didn't.
> What are you expecting, exactly? Is it that you are appalled that workers have to make it known how much they expect to be paid? Do you want Bernard to walk the streets and surprise offer $100 bills to random passers-by?
> If so, what about you? Everyone on HN can spare a a few hundred dollars (you couldn't afford to be here otherwise), and more likely, given how much the audience is generally worth, can spare tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars. How many $100 bills did you unsolicitedly hand out today? Or are you one of those people who never pays more than the asking price even though you can afford to pay more?
Sorry but what the hell are you talking about? Do you remember the topic of conversation still? Because I'm replying to what you said "Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.", which I proved is not the case in my specific example (because THERE IS ENOUGH REVENUE to pay workers more, he did it in France where labor laws and unions are the strongest on this planet) and it's also not the case in software industry and you talk about me handing out 100$ to random people on the street??? What?
I don't really know on which world are you living, but the reason most of businesses do not pay workers more is not "not having enough revenue" but because they choose to hoard money to themselves out of greed. I have many business owners in my family and they are driving porsches while paying their staff minimum wage, I assure you that they have enough revenue to pay their workers more. I'm not here to offer solutions, I was writing this to show that the problem exists and that what you wrote is not true in majority of cases.
> What about Asia?
What about it? Are the workers there currently off the job while they wait for more money?
> Because I'm replying to what you said "Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that."
Oh? Are you sure? You have offered nothing to suggest Louis Vuitton is struggling to find workers. The closest we got was me mentioning that their workers were on strike last year, which was followed with more pay to compel the workers back. That shows that Louis Vuitton is, in fact, quite prepared to pay more when they can't find the workers they need.
Here I was convinced you were just going on some mindless "workers are victims" rant, not realizing that workers don't show up when they are not paid enough. If you don't believe in that, you need to go back to the original comment in this thread – the one before my first – and reply to it instead. As you know, as you surely read all the words before replying (haha), my comment merely followed the premise established there.
> Sorry but what the hell are you talking about?
It was suggested that head of Louis Vuitton is too greedy to randomly pay people more than what they asked for. I then asked if you go around randomly paying people more than they ask of you. If not, it would be strange for you to expect others to do so. Everyone here has money to spare.
What about it? Are the workers there currently off the job while they wait for more money?
> Because I'm replying to what you said "Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that."
Oh? Are you sure? You have offered nothing to suggest Louis Vuitton is struggling to find workers. The closest we got was me mentioning that their workers were on strike last year, which was followed with more pay to compel the workers back. That shows that Louis Vuitton is, in fact, quite prepared to pay more when they can't find the workers they need.
Here I was convinced you were just going on some mindless "workers are victims" rant, not realizing that workers don't show up when they are not paid enough. If you don't believe in that, you need to go back to the original comment in this thread – the one before my first – and reply to it instead. As you know, as you surely read all the words before replying (haha), my comment merely followed the premise established there.
> Sorry but what the hell are you talking about?
It was suggested that head of Louis Vuitton is too greedy to randomly pay people more than what they asked for. I then asked if you go around randomly paying people more than they ask of you. If not, it would be strange for you to expect others to do so. Everyone here has money to spare.
> What about it? Are the workers there currently off the job while they wait for more money?
No they aren't because it's Asia? You don't work then you starve. There is so much poor people there that you can pay whatever and you will find workers, no labor laws, no unions. So he pays them pennies because as you said "THERE IS SHORTAGE OF REVENUE"? That's not the reason and everyone knows that. Just admit that they are not paid because of greed and we can finish this discussion instead of framing it like poor business owner would need to charge higher price or they would be starving. That's NOT the case.
> Here I was convinced you were just going on some mindless "workers are victims" rant, not realizing that workers stop showing up when they are not paid enough
Ye, all of these people without education can choose to do whatever they want.. so they can just quit and then they eat air and pay for rent and their children school etc with air, with almost zero savings (because cost of living eats everything) especially in Asia without labor laws and unions. But ye live in your alternative world where workers can choose whatever they want, but it's not only Asia where its really bad or Africa, lets look at the richest country in the world where 57% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency, I guess these people with kids can't wait to just quit their jobs and be homeless.
> It was suggested that the guy at the head of Louis Vuitton is too greedy to randomly pay people more. I asked if you randomly pay people more as well. If not, it would be strange for you to expect others to do so. Everyone here has money to spare.
Difference is that these are not random people but people that do work for him, see the difference? It's the fruit of their labor. That's why again, WTH are you talking about?
No they aren't because it's Asia? You don't work then you starve. There is so much poor people there that you can pay whatever and you will find workers, no labor laws, no unions. So he pays them pennies because as you said "THERE IS SHORTAGE OF REVENUE"? That's not the reason and everyone knows that. Just admit that they are not paid because of greed and we can finish this discussion instead of framing it like poor business owner would need to charge higher price or they would be starving. That's NOT the case.
> Here I was convinced you were just going on some mindless "workers are victims" rant, not realizing that workers stop showing up when they are not paid enough
Ye, all of these people without education can choose to do whatever they want.. so they can just quit and then they eat air and pay for rent and their children school etc with air, with almost zero savings (because cost of living eats everything) especially in Asia without labor laws and unions. But ye live in your alternative world where workers can choose whatever they want, but it's not only Asia where its really bad or Africa, lets look at the richest country in the world where 57% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency, I guess these people with kids can't wait to just quit their jobs and be homeless.
> It was suggested that the guy at the head of Louis Vuitton is too greedy to randomly pay people more. I asked if you randomly pay people more as well. If not, it would be strange for you to expect others to do so. Everyone here has money to spare.
Difference is that these are not random people but people that do work for him, see the difference? It's the fruit of their labor. That's why again, WTH are you talking about?
> as you said "THERE IS SHORTAGE OF REVENUE"
I would never say such a thing as "shortage of revenue" is completely nonsensical. A shortage occurs when an external mechanism, such as government regulation, prevents price from rising. Revenue may be impacted by a shortage, but revenue fundamentally cannot be in shortage itself.
The original comment that set the stage for the thread stated that certain businesses are struggling to find workers because they don't pay enough to attract workers. That is true, but the reason they aren't able to pay enough to attract the workers they need to keep going is because the customers aren't interested enough in their product to want them to keep going. Not everything is worth doing.
It is not clear how you think Louis Vuitton fits into that. They seemingly have no trouble hiring workers, and when the workers do leave over concern of not being paid enough they demonstrably offer more to win them back. They have sufficient customer interest.
> Difference is that these are not random people but people that do work for him, see the difference?
No. You also have people working for you. Everyone, save those who have gone completely off grid (which you clearly have not), does. That is how an economy functions. The question stands: How often do you pay your workers more than they have asked of you?
I would never say such a thing as "shortage of revenue" is completely nonsensical. A shortage occurs when an external mechanism, such as government regulation, prevents price from rising. Revenue may be impacted by a shortage, but revenue fundamentally cannot be in shortage itself.
The original comment that set the stage for the thread stated that certain businesses are struggling to find workers because they don't pay enough to attract workers. That is true, but the reason they aren't able to pay enough to attract the workers they need to keep going is because the customers aren't interested enough in their product to want them to keep going. Not everything is worth doing.
It is not clear how you think Louis Vuitton fits into that. They seemingly have no trouble hiring workers, and when the workers do leave over concern of not being paid enough they demonstrably offer more to win them back. They have sufficient customer interest.
> Difference is that these are not random people but people that do work for him, see the difference?
No. You also have people working for you. Everyone, save those who have gone completely off grid (which you clearly have not), does. That is how an economy functions. The question stands: How often do you pay your workers more than they have asked of you?
Great analogy.
Yes, nobody wants to work at poor wages. And these employers usually offer poor wages, but they'll often complain about unqualified people too.
Sometimes it's rephrased from "Nobody wants to work" to "Nobody wants to work... for you"
Yes, nobody wants to work at poor wages. And these employers usually offer poor wages, but they'll often complain about unqualified people too.
Sometimes it's rephrased from "Nobody wants to work" to "Nobody wants to work... for you"
> It's always nobody wants to work anymore at the wages you are presently offering.
> It's like concluding we've run out of oil because the price of gasoline went up.
I don't think that these are really perfectly analogous—there really is probably the same, if not greater, supply of workers as there ever was if the wages were right; but, no matter how much we're willing to pay, there's less oil available now than there used to be.
> It's like concluding we've run out of oil because the price of gasoline went up.
I don't think that these are really perfectly analogous—there really is probably the same, if not greater, supply of workers as there ever was if the wages were right; but, no matter how much we're willing to pay, there's less oil available now than there used to be.
We're very close to record highs.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...
If you're talking about oil in the ground, it's pedantic and not relevant to market pricing.
If you're talking about oil in the ground, it's pedantic and not relevant to market pricing.
This post on Twitter (pardon, X) [1] by the same author goes back for longer (at least 1912). I guess he crossposted on both and somehow the Mastodon version got truncated.
[1] https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1681790405615173632
[1] https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1681790405615173632
Finding historical quotes seems like a gotcha, but stating the actual conclusion that's implied makes it appear much less plausible:
> The level or kind of work ethic in the population has been about the same over time.
Or
> Children have been about as well behaved over time.
Can anyone justify why these things should remain identical? That would suggest that environment is not an input into that equation.
> The level or kind of work ethic in the population has been about the same over time.
Or
> Children have been about as well behaved over time.
Can anyone justify why these things should remain identical? That would suggest that environment is not an input into that equation.
Nobody wants to work anymore [at terms that are only beneficial to me]. The worst jobs pay the lowest salary. Employment rate is low enough many don't have to put up with it. So we now have immigration, legal and otherwise. Jobs have to be done, so either raise pay, hire desperate immigrants or go out of business.
Brilliant.
It should be memorialized forever somewhere easily accessible by everyone.
That way, when silly people complain that "nobody wants to work anymore," they can quickly be shown how uninformed and unoriginal they are.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Or, as The Who succinctly put it: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
It should be memorialized forever somewhere easily accessible by everyone.
That way, when silly people complain that "nobody wants to work anymore," they can quickly be shown how uninformed and unoriginal they are.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Or, as The Who succinctly put it: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
This reminds me of the romanticism of the Medieval Peasant I’ve sometimes seen online. The thinking is yes they worked hard, but at least they got guaranteed housing and a wife, etc.
America really is the land of opportunity, but if you don’t end up in a higher bracket, life is really really difficult.
America really is the land of opportunity, but if you don’t end up in a higher bracket, life is really really difficult.
Noam Chomsky:
"For two millennia the idea of getting a job was regarded as a fundamental attack against basic human rights and human dignity. Why? Because getting a job means accepting servitude to a master. It means saying, 'Okay, I'll rent myself to you for most of my waking life and I will follow your orders during this period.' That was considered an utter abomination. By now it's sort of taken for granted. But should we take it for granted? Or should we go back to the ideals of working people, classical liberals, Cicero, all the way to Abraham Lincoln, saying that this is not a decent way for human beings to live, that people should be in control of their own work and their own destiny. One of the founders of classical liberalism, Wilhelm von Humboldt, captured the point very lucidly. He said, suppose an artisan creates a beautiful object on command, in a job. We may admire what he did, but we despise what he is: a tool in the hands of others. That was common belief right through the nineteenth century. We now accept that renting yourself into servitude is one of the highest goals in life – an idea that would have been an abomination for 2000 years."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6MU5zQwtT4&t=3540s
"For two millennia the idea of getting a job was regarded as a fundamental attack against basic human rights and human dignity. Why? Because getting a job means accepting servitude to a master. It means saying, 'Okay, I'll rent myself to you for most of my waking life and I will follow your orders during this period.' That was considered an utter abomination. By now it's sort of taken for granted. But should we take it for granted? Or should we go back to the ideals of working people, classical liberals, Cicero, all the way to Abraham Lincoln, saying that this is not a decent way for human beings to live, that people should be in control of their own work and their own destiny. One of the founders of classical liberalism, Wilhelm von Humboldt, captured the point very lucidly. He said, suppose an artisan creates a beautiful object on command, in a job. We may admire what he did, but we despise what he is: a tool in the hands of others. That was common belief right through the nineteenth century. We now accept that renting yourself into servitude is one of the highest goals in life – an idea that would have been an abomination for 2000 years."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6MU5zQwtT4&t=3540s
What evidence is there of people 2000 years ago claiming that having a "job" was a "fundamental attack against basic human rights and human dignity."?
We may admire what he did, but we despise what he is: a tool in the hands of others.
Chomsky can be so full of shit at times. I’d like one piece of writing from before the 19th century, perhaps just a morsel of evidence that this was a “common belief” among anyone but the elite that have time to sit and write things all day.
Chomsky can be so full of shit at times. I’d like one piece of writing from before the 19th century, perhaps just a morsel of evidence that this was a “common belief” among anyone but the elite that have time to sit and write things all day.
Difficult to prove, but I suspect this complaint is one business owners make when they realize their business is going to fail. They know they could get more workers if they paid more, but they also know they can't afford that.
It's always easier to blame the people below you.
It's always easier to blame the people below you.
It’s the fundamental attribution error in action. When other people fail they can point out some individual flaw. When they themselves fail it was external forces.
We will see what statistics say and what the trend will be in a few years, but if labor goes up for the same output then mathematically productivity has to go down, which has a variety of consequences, but I can think of 1) less capital market yields; 2) less tax income from governments. Both 1 and 2 have nasty impacts on pensions. I am not saying one way of thinking is better, I am just pointing out the obvious fact that there is no free lunch. Workers might get a better deal now, to be handed a bad one when they retire. Unless technology comes to the rescue and helps us keep increasing productivity, but it’s not realistic to rely only on tech.
I really think we are modern slaves in a pseudo-liberal capitalistic wrapper. It's going to become clearer to future generations looking back, similar to how we are now able to detect and understand mistakes of the past. Male toxicity and patriarchy for example only recently began to surface as a mistake.
While we still jobs and offer our services to society there are a number of things that need to fix and delete from our collective consciousness. All these stem from the same root of evil: the office. Similar to plants, we, the workers are gathering there, under some occult organizational umbrella which sometimes resembles a "family". We need to be there on a specific time, do specific things, we are being monitored and controlled. We need to behave in a certain way and leave our true self at home. We need to blindly obey a person called "the boss" or "the manager" and act under some military discipline executing commands. We need to climb some ladder of promises, most of which fail to deliver. This is a dark place full of lack of trust, insecurity and control.
Diversity, flexible working, remote working, shared vision and mission are some of the things that we have realized and applied. I am glad that we did but there is still a lot of work to be done. Working needs to be more like the freelancer/consultant type where possible: get the job done and you're paid attitude, rather than a weird let's have you around stand-by just in case. Similar to how an electrician comes to your place fixes the damage and immediately leaves, where possible workers need to do the same. Can you imagine your electrician spending her day at your place, 9-5? Sitting there just in case? And you will get to threaten, trash talk, be the boss and give orders.
We are still in the Palaeolithic era when it comes to how we work, with some improvements indeed but with also the heaviest pressure from the most powerful people globally.
While we still jobs and offer our services to society there are a number of things that need to fix and delete from our collective consciousness. All these stem from the same root of evil: the office. Similar to plants, we, the workers are gathering there, under some occult organizational umbrella which sometimes resembles a "family". We need to be there on a specific time, do specific things, we are being monitored and controlled. We need to behave in a certain way and leave our true self at home. We need to blindly obey a person called "the boss" or "the manager" and act under some military discipline executing commands. We need to climb some ladder of promises, most of which fail to deliver. This is a dark place full of lack of trust, insecurity and control.
Diversity, flexible working, remote working, shared vision and mission are some of the things that we have realized and applied. I am glad that we did but there is still a lot of work to be done. Working needs to be more like the freelancer/consultant type where possible: get the job done and you're paid attitude, rather than a weird let's have you around stand-by just in case. Similar to how an electrician comes to your place fixes the damage and immediately leaves, where possible workers need to do the same. Can you imagine your electrician spending her day at your place, 9-5? Sitting there just in case? And you will get to threaten, trash talk, be the boss and give orders.
We are still in the Palaeolithic era when it comes to how we work, with some improvements indeed but with also the heaviest pressure from the most powerful people globally.
On this, the communists and paleo-conservatives can agree:
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. Preamble, The Communist Manifesto
(Of course, Marx had no love for ancien regime, while the conservatives did.)
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. Preamble, The Communist Manifesto
(Of course, Marx had no love for ancien regime, while the conservatives did.)
Not sure if anyone will see this but here is my advice if you really don't want to work and are smart: get a high paying job like programming or data science, work for 6 years, save up a ton of money by being frugal, then quit and go live somewhere cheap while working part time for 2-3 hours a week.
There are plenty of places where you can get a cheap house or a cheap apartment and work on passion projects to pay the bills.
There are plenty of places where you can get a cheap house or a cheap apartment and work on passion projects to pay the bills.
To be fair, employers never stopped extracting surplus.
From a small business perspective, turnover is a lot higher, and a lot more of it is because the employees are simply not doing their jobs and have to be let go. I think this is the tight labor market at work, actually. Good workers are being retained because there is enough demand for them. If they move, they are not on the market, they're recruited and cherry picked. The available ones responding to ads have usually been let go before for cause.
A single example of people complaining each year does no more to debunk the observation than the complaints do to affirm it.
This forum frequently talks about the 10x performer, the 1x performer, the 0.1x performer and the negative performer. In other industries, maybe you won't have a 10x, but you can definitely get ranges from impressive performance to destructive interference in your employees.
What we really need is to study engagement and effectiveness in various industries to determine whether there's trends of more hard work or more slack, but in lieu of that we will find journalists interviewing the guy at the diner for the story, and that will become the zeitgeist.
I personally feel like things are more hectic and busy than ever before, and I don't know how much of that is due to the increased distraction power of all of our "tools". Or whether it's a symptom of aging or long COVID or whatever.
A single example of people complaining each year does no more to debunk the observation than the complaints do to affirm it.
This forum frequently talks about the 10x performer, the 1x performer, the 0.1x performer and the negative performer. In other industries, maybe you won't have a 10x, but you can definitely get ranges from impressive performance to destructive interference in your employees.
What we really need is to study engagement and effectiveness in various industries to determine whether there's trends of more hard work or more slack, but in lieu of that we will find journalists interviewing the guy at the diner for the story, and that will become the zeitgeist.
I personally feel like things are more hectic and busy than ever before, and I don't know how much of that is due to the increased distraction power of all of our "tools". Or whether it's a symptom of aging or long COVID or whatever.
> From a small business perspective, turnover is a lot higher, and a lot more of it is because the employees are simply not doing their jobs and have to be let go.
Many of these small businesses were tying up a ton of talent. During COVID, their workers left to go work for larger companies and (in the case of the service industry) took office jobs.
To add to this, a number of these small businesses engaged in PPP fraud by taking out loans to designed to keep payrolls going but ended up "spending" it on an owner's draw. This was not the intention of the program: It was to stabilize the workforce. But by shedding headcount, these businesses handed over a ton of labor to white collar employers. They're likely never getting those workers back.
And I will also say, especially among younger people, small business owners have earned a reputation for being difficult to work for. So you're right, in a sense, but the other factor at play is that small businesses scare away good workers.
Many of these small businesses were tying up a ton of talent. During COVID, their workers left to go work for larger companies and (in the case of the service industry) took office jobs.
To add to this, a number of these small businesses engaged in PPP fraud by taking out loans to designed to keep payrolls going but ended up "spending" it on an owner's draw. This was not the intention of the program: It was to stabilize the workforce. But by shedding headcount, these businesses handed over a ton of labor to white collar employers. They're likely never getting those workers back.
And I will also say, especially among younger people, small business owners have earned a reputation for being difficult to work for. So you're right, in a sense, but the other factor at play is that small businesses scare away good workers.
Maybe, so it kind of sucks to be the business that reduced hours (=revenue) during COVID and used the PPP loan to keep paying full time employees while they're working part time. Being an essential business, we didn't close. Now that things are back, it's hard to find employees, even with increased wages.
> a lot more of it is because the employees are simply not doing their jobs and have to be let go
You are trying to find a cheap and good employee at the same time. Those tend to be scarce. Yet you keep scrapping the bottom of the barrel, and finding low quality.
Have you considered a change of other parameters of your search? For example, the budget or the availability required.
You are trying to find a cheap and good employee at the same time. Those tend to be scarce. Yet you keep scrapping the bottom of the barrel, and finding low quality.
Have you considered a change of other parameters of your search? For example, the budget or the availability required.
Yes, the only way to hire is to ask people who have jobs to come work for you. And to raise prices to keep the lights on.
I wonder what this dude does for a living. It is definitely not running around ten hours a day – not self-determined, but externally determined – and in the evening the feet literally bleed. And that for 8.50 net an hour. That is what I did and since then, I admit, I do not want to work anymore.
Basic needs seemingly get more expensive over time. Luxuries get cheaper over time. If basic needs become affordable they turn into perceived luxuries (food, clothes). At once point a good quality handbag was a piece of equipment.
This is not a simple issue of wage inadequacy.
There is work for survival, work for wealth and work for satisfaction.
Worker availability varies greatly in different cities and regions.
The drug epidemic today impacts the workforce to a greater extent then decades ago.
The kinds of low-skill jobs that compete favorably against welfare (eg. manufacturing) were mostly exported to Asia; though this trend may be easing if not slightly reversing.
A rush to college for liberal arts and social science degrees has produced several generations of workers whose skills are highly sensitive to economic & political; cycles, and to an impending AI replacement. The same may soon be true for several tiers of web and software engineers.
Small business in America, the largest employer, faces costs and challenges that leave little room for investment in new workers. I'm talking small business - not Verizon, Costco or Yellow Freight.
Government has grown substantially at the federal, state, county and municipal levels in many parts of America - competing with business for workers.
Boomer retirement.
Etc., etc.
As tempting as it may be to sloganize the issue and blame employers - the reality is nuanced and complex.
There is work for survival, work for wealth and work for satisfaction.
Worker availability varies greatly in different cities and regions.
The drug epidemic today impacts the workforce to a greater extent then decades ago.
The kinds of low-skill jobs that compete favorably against welfare (eg. manufacturing) were mostly exported to Asia; though this trend may be easing if not slightly reversing.
A rush to college for liberal arts and social science degrees has produced several generations of workers whose skills are highly sensitive to economic & political; cycles, and to an impending AI replacement. The same may soon be true for several tiers of web and software engineers.
Small business in America, the largest employer, faces costs and challenges that leave little room for investment in new workers. I'm talking small business - not Verizon, Costco or Yellow Freight.
Government has grown substantially at the federal, state, county and municipal levels in many parts of America - competing with business for workers.
Boomer retirement.
Etc., etc.
As tempting as it may be to sloganize the issue and blame employers - the reality is nuanced and complex.
If we only take the title without a context and that and this HN thread we can go far from the employer and employee relationships. There are political and cultural systems where lazyness exist even at a high pay.
In general, people want money, they've never wanted to work.
as the current economic situation accelerates,
the resource owners do not need consumers,
that is why the workers are increasingly devalued
Some quotes appear to be from agriculture sector. A sector known for hiring immigrants because of the long hours, low pay, abusive environments (threats of ICE detention, …)
Some quotes appear to be from the service industry and during the pandemic. In the US, the minimum wage is STILL $7.25/hour. If you are a server the minimum wage is $2.13/hour. No shit, nobody wants to work. No way I am risking dying because a Karen does not want to mask up or get vaccinated for minimum wage, no benefits, no prospects.
All in all, when a business owner or hiring manager says “people don’t want to work anymore”. That’s really code for: we abuse our employees, pay is shit, hours are probably long.
Some quotes appear to be from the service industry and during the pandemic. In the US, the minimum wage is STILL $7.25/hour. If you are a server the minimum wage is $2.13/hour. No shit, nobody wants to work. No way I am risking dying because a Karen does not want to mask up or get vaccinated for minimum wage, no benefits, no prospects.
All in all, when a business owner or hiring manager says “people don’t want to work anymore”. That’s really code for: we abuse our employees, pay is shit, hours are probably long.
Guarantee you will earn more begging on a street corner in any liberal city.
Cherry-pick the data to prove a point? There are better ways to prove a point than this.
I often think about the stark difference in outcomes between American[0] and immigrant kids that I went to high school with, 20+ years post graduation.
A big differentiating factor is that the immigrant kids - I am sure with a lot of influence from their parents - were willing to take on just a bit more work than their American peers. Try for the harder classes, try for the more selective college, try for the more rigorous major, etc. Nothing seemingly extraordinary but just a series of choices, at each step being willing to put in a bit more work than one could superficially get away with.
Consequently, the immigrant kids "fell into" careers in law, medicine, engineering, etc. at much higher rates than our American friends and their lives resemble the classic American dream: good job, nice house, bunch of kids. To be fair, a bunch of the Americans I grew up with achieved the same thing - still impressive although they started with a ton of advantage over us immigrants. But the rate of immigrant kids' success dwarfed this.
In retrospect, the immigrant belief in the connection between input and output - and perhaps this being less clear to our American friends - made a tremendous amount of difference. Our American pals had the same opportunities and could even go after them much easier, but they just didn't have the same motivation to kick their own ass to launch themselves a few rungs higher.
The culture of cultivating talent and being willing to put in work was a "secret" weapon of these immigrant families, and itself was a cultural attribute of the countries we had come from. And of course it's also very much the historic American ethos although in 2023 it seems gauche to speak to the virtue of working harder - I am sure this post is going to be controversial, for example.
The inability of the culture to sing the virtues of work openly has got to be a net negative, at least for those who take it seriously. The more traditional families are still teaching these values to their kids behind closed doors. And I am pretty sure that while there has always been a large group of folks not interested in working and certainly not in excellence through work, I suspect this group has a greater share of the public "voice" than ever before.
There's a classic Futurama quote: "no one drove in NY, too much traffic" and I think of it often when someone says that you can't get ahead or afford a life nowadays. While that message is popular, it kinda misses the question of: who do you think is bidding up these houses? Why do you think there's a waiting list for the pre-schools? etc. Who do you think is buying these family sedans and minivans? People don't often talk about "actually, I worked hard and it paid off" but it's kinda all around us if you look.
To be fair, there's no guarantee of success in life. You can work your ass off and get nowhere, especially if you work on the wrong thing. But there's definitely a guarantee of failure if you don't work, and it's sad to see people locking themselves into that.
[0] when I say American, I mean kids of Italian, Irish, and black ancestry who were born in the US. The immigrant kids were Russians and Asians primarily.
A big differentiating factor is that the immigrant kids - I am sure with a lot of influence from their parents - were willing to take on just a bit more work than their American peers. Try for the harder classes, try for the more selective college, try for the more rigorous major, etc. Nothing seemingly extraordinary but just a series of choices, at each step being willing to put in a bit more work than one could superficially get away with.
Consequently, the immigrant kids "fell into" careers in law, medicine, engineering, etc. at much higher rates than our American friends and their lives resemble the classic American dream: good job, nice house, bunch of kids. To be fair, a bunch of the Americans I grew up with achieved the same thing - still impressive although they started with a ton of advantage over us immigrants. But the rate of immigrant kids' success dwarfed this.
In retrospect, the immigrant belief in the connection between input and output - and perhaps this being less clear to our American friends - made a tremendous amount of difference. Our American pals had the same opportunities and could even go after them much easier, but they just didn't have the same motivation to kick their own ass to launch themselves a few rungs higher.
The culture of cultivating talent and being willing to put in work was a "secret" weapon of these immigrant families, and itself was a cultural attribute of the countries we had come from. And of course it's also very much the historic American ethos although in 2023 it seems gauche to speak to the virtue of working harder - I am sure this post is going to be controversial, for example.
The inability of the culture to sing the virtues of work openly has got to be a net negative, at least for those who take it seriously. The more traditional families are still teaching these values to their kids behind closed doors. And I am pretty sure that while there has always been a large group of folks not interested in working and certainly not in excellence through work, I suspect this group has a greater share of the public "voice" than ever before.
There's a classic Futurama quote: "no one drove in NY, too much traffic" and I think of it often when someone says that you can't get ahead or afford a life nowadays. While that message is popular, it kinda misses the question of: who do you think is bidding up these houses? Why do you think there's a waiting list for the pre-schools? etc. Who do you think is buying these family sedans and minivans? People don't often talk about "actually, I worked hard and it paid off" but it's kinda all around us if you look.
To be fair, there's no guarantee of success in life. You can work your ass off and get nowhere, especially if you work on the wrong thing. But there's definitely a guarantee of failure if you don't work, and it's sad to see people locking themselves into that.
[0] when I say American, I mean kids of Italian, Irish, and black ancestry who were born in the US. The immigrant kids were Russians and Asians primarily.
The problem is cultural rot as much as it is economic. If your only objective in life is to advance your career, buy things, eat takeout, and watch Netflix, then why bother? It’s just a slow suicide while you keep capitalism going.
The collapse of family formation and any sense of duty, community, or really any human relationship beyond a transactional one has made it mostly not worth succeeding.
And it probably doesn’t help that basically everyone is placed into 1 of 2 categories and told that either their merit shouldn’t count because they have an advantage due to being an “oppressor” or that they’ll never get ahead because everyone is out to get them and discriminating against them.
Working people are becoming increasingly demoralized, and letting them spend half their time pretending to work from home and giving them a raise isn’t going to change any of that.
The collapse of family formation and any sense of duty, community, or really any human relationship beyond a transactional one has made it mostly not worth succeeding.
And it probably doesn’t help that basically everyone is placed into 1 of 2 categories and told that either their merit shouldn’t count because they have an advantage due to being an “oppressor” or that they’ll never get ahead because everyone is out to get them and discriminating against them.
Working people are becoming increasingly demoralized, and letting them spend half their time pretending to work from home and giving them a raise isn’t going to change any of that.
I think this post and some of the comments confuses work with job. Work is a means to a kind of satisfaction that cannot be achieved via leisure. And people need that and need work. Job on the other hand is everything most of the comments is talking about. Job is what you end up with when you working in a capitalistic system where profit is the sole motive (competition is what drives the need to keep costs down and labor is part of cost. We need capitalism to evolve so that practices are more sustainable call it capitalism 2.0 or whatever). So unless you are the job creator which very few of us are we are resorted to having a job. This is the case generally unless you are part of the smaller segment of people who have been lucky enough to call their job also their work.
There is such a thing as a longterm trend.
I want to live in a world, where no one have to work in order to live a decent life, but I dont want to live in a world that has forgotten how fulfilling work can be.
I live for my work because it is engaging, challenging, and is my way of contributing to society. I want to live a life that contributes more to the world then it consumes. The Anti-work movement has a lot of good criticism of our capitalist society, but also throws the idea of work as way of contributing to society under the buss. People who work long hours arent suckers.
I live for my work because it is engaging, challenging, and is my way of contributing to society. I want to live a life that contributes more to the world then it consumes. The Anti-work movement has a lot of good criticism of our capitalist society, but also throws the idea of work as way of contributing to society under the buss. People who work long hours arent suckers.
I found something from 1936. heh
When did anyone want to actually work? Everybody strives for as much as possible of money at at least possible work needed to get that money.
But the question has edge cases where some reforms should be done.
1) On one hand you have businesses that want people to do a lot of work for not enough money and then complain... in my country, that means that either the right government gives them foreign workers, because they "care" about the business, or the left government giving them foreign workers, because they "care" about the people (even if foreign).
There are many ways to solve that (eg. minimum wage for foreigners should be higher than the average for local workers in the same field, so if local workers doing job X get paid on average Y amount of money every month, you shouldn't be able to get a foreigner unless you pay that foreigner eg. 10% above average Y.. so you first have to try to get a local at above average local pay to do it, and if there are really no locals available, even at above average pay, only then you get someone from abroad.
2) The second problem is, that in some countries (eg. mine), you still have a relatively large percentage of people not working and getting social benefits... on one hand, social benefits are needed to help people when there is no work available, on the other, with all the benefits possible, some abuse of the system and maybe some under the table work, you're better off than someone actually work 8h per day.
Forcing someone to get a job at a company is impossible, since they intentionally act incompetent and no company wants someone who doesn't want to work and just wants to get fired, but community service could still be an option. Depending on the physical capabilities (if you're a paraplegic, you can't be picking up trash by the highway) some community service tasks would be given out, people who should be job-seeking (without that, you can't get the benefits) would calculate that an actual job pays more, and the taxpayers would get something back for the money they pay for "lazy bums", who suddenly wouldn't be as lazy as before, since they'd be keeping the streets clean. Sure, it's not a perfect system, some nuances between the ideal and realistic have to be solved, but social benefits abuse has been rampant in many many countries, not just mine (former socialist one), but even large and "organized" ones, such as germany ( https://www.dw.com/en/duisburg-police-make-arrests-impound-l... )
But the question has edge cases where some reforms should be done.
1) On one hand you have businesses that want people to do a lot of work for not enough money and then complain... in my country, that means that either the right government gives them foreign workers, because they "care" about the business, or the left government giving them foreign workers, because they "care" about the people (even if foreign).
There are many ways to solve that (eg. minimum wage for foreigners should be higher than the average for local workers in the same field, so if local workers doing job X get paid on average Y amount of money every month, you shouldn't be able to get a foreigner unless you pay that foreigner eg. 10% above average Y.. so you first have to try to get a local at above average local pay to do it, and if there are really no locals available, even at above average pay, only then you get someone from abroad.
2) The second problem is, that in some countries (eg. mine), you still have a relatively large percentage of people not working and getting social benefits... on one hand, social benefits are needed to help people when there is no work available, on the other, with all the benefits possible, some abuse of the system and maybe some under the table work, you're better off than someone actually work 8h per day.
Forcing someone to get a job at a company is impossible, since they intentionally act incompetent and no company wants someone who doesn't want to work and just wants to get fired, but community service could still be an option. Depending on the physical capabilities (if you're a paraplegic, you can't be picking up trash by the highway) some community service tasks would be given out, people who should be job-seeking (without that, you can't get the benefits) would calculate that an actual job pays more, and the taxpayers would get something back for the money they pay for "lazy bums", who suddenly wouldn't be as lazy as before, since they'd be keeping the streets clean. Sure, it's not a perfect system, some nuances between the ideal and realistic have to be solved, but social benefits abuse has been rampant in many many countries, not just mine (former socialist one), but even large and "organized" ones, such as germany ( https://www.dw.com/en/duisburg-police-make-arrests-impound-l... )
Historically, the working class movement, did see work as honourable, and the capital as less so, because they lived of the work of others. There was a lot of pride associated with doing a good job and to provide for your family.
One problem with such disprovings is that they don't get into the actual case of what's happening, just stay on what people say.
People could say the same thing for 200 years, but they might not say it at the same numbers or with the same intensity over those 200 years - and of course even if those were stable, the thing might or might not be actually happening during some of those years.
As an example (not making a X-to-Nazi comparison, so Godwin has no power here): People have been complaining about fascism from 1920 all the way to 2023. But there are still periods with hugely more actual fascism, say 1993-1945.
People could say the same thing for 200 years, but they might not say it at the same numbers or with the same intensity over those 200 years - and of course even if those were stable, the thing might or might not be actually happening during some of those years.
As an example (not making a X-to-Nazi comparison, so Godwin has no power here): People have been complaining about fascism from 1920 all the way to 2023. But there are still periods with hugely more actual fascism, say 1993-1945.
[deleted]
The corollary is, of course, no one wants to pay anymore (-:
And here we have a thread that made the rounds on Twitter a few weeks back, being plagiarized on Mastodon for clicks.
This is the equivalent of content farming on the web, and absolutely sucks, how do we stop it?
This is the equivalent of content farming on the web, and absolutely sucks, how do we stop it?
As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it.
One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
Good for her, it takes confidence to do this.
Overworking engineers into burnout isn’t a healthy career path.
Good for her, it takes confidence to do this.
Overworking engineers into burnout isn’t a healthy career path.
I was going to say, she sounds like someone I'd want in management. Confidently putting life before work in the work/life balance is the way to avoid burnout, maximize creativity and hire amazing people.
Whoa, is this why The Bobs wanted to promote Peter?
> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it.
Because they see management not pulling their weight for the pay they get. Why should lowly paid junior engineers work harder than management who are just sitting back, dumping poor decisions on them?
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
Wow, blame someone for having a healthy life.
Because they see management not pulling their weight for the pay they get. Why should lowly paid junior engineers work harder than management who are just sitting back, dumping poor decisions on them?
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
Wow, blame someone for having a healthy life.
What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day?
> What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day
No good lead assumes hours per day is equal to quality of output.
No good lead assumes hours per day is equal to quality of output.
I think the distinction being drawn here is that there is a disconnect between hiring managers and workers.
A hiring manager has an expectation that 200k will incentivize someone to work for 8 hours a day consistently and constantly where work is the point, not the tasks themselves. They expect the worker to figure out what additional tasks are to be done for that price and work at the upper limit of the time expectations (8 hour a day).
Whereas the average worker is coming to the workplace to complete a set of tasks defined by the manager, not to figure out more tasks to do in their free time. They expect the manager to know what tasks needs to be done and understand that their results need to be tracked.
As jobs become more and more compartmentalized it becomes less of an advantage for an employee to be hungry for more work, when their chance for promotion diminishes the better they are at their job, as in my anecdotal experience, management is loathe to lose that efficient cog in the system in that specific point. Which then reinforces the employees becoming jaded and resorting to the least amount of work possible.
I believe it’s because in todays corporate world more often than not, most employees have no skin in the game. That is, they are not privy to the more long term planning for their companies and are not usually compensated based on performance (outside of sales anyway).
A hiring manager has an expectation that 200k will incentivize someone to work for 8 hours a day consistently and constantly where work is the point, not the tasks themselves. They expect the worker to figure out what additional tasks are to be done for that price and work at the upper limit of the time expectations (8 hour a day).
Whereas the average worker is coming to the workplace to complete a set of tasks defined by the manager, not to figure out more tasks to do in their free time. They expect the manager to know what tasks needs to be done and understand that their results need to be tracked.
As jobs become more and more compartmentalized it becomes less of an advantage for an employee to be hungry for more work, when their chance for promotion diminishes the better they are at their job, as in my anecdotal experience, management is loathe to lose that efficient cog in the system in that specific point. Which then reinforces the employees becoming jaded and resorting to the least amount of work possible.
I believe it’s because in todays corporate world more often than not, most employees have no skin in the game. That is, they are not privy to the more long term planning for their companies and are not usually compensated based on performance (outside of sales anyway).
This is on point for me. I don't come into work to "invent" my own work. Management is expected to know what workers should work on, make sure it has the right ROI for the company, and that the rewards of that work flow to the workers.
At many FAANG-like companies, engineers are supposed to find "scope" themselves to keep their own job? Are you crazy? What the fuck is management doing in these companies?
At many FAANG-like companies, engineers are supposed to find "scope" themselves to keep their own job? Are you crazy? What the fuck is management doing in these companies?
I believe management has in many cases lost focus on strategy because they are either not driven as well since they also are not fully invested in the company’s overall vision or are so overwhelmed with meetings that they simply don’t have time to even understand what their subordinates actually do in technical terms, much less strategize.
But they are overwhelmed because they are spending too much time on performance evaluations than on project management. If they actually cut down performance evaluations by 80%, time will reappear magically.
I would dare to say that the person your consider your best engineer probably only had ass on chair 4 hours a day and your don't even realize it.
Well then I guess you should offer me a 400k salary bc I can run circles around your junior engineers, and get paid less than 200k
> What do you consider a fair pay for junior engineers in order for them to contribute at the capacity they're expected to? Our fresh college grads are paid a total compensation higher than $200K. Is that not enough to expect working, at minimum, 8 hours a day?
I consider fair pay = $200k + a management that makes $600k pulling their weight by solving cross-team problems instead of pushing everything down to engineers.
Juniors want "leadership" to act like leaders and take responsibility. Get laid off first for your own poor decision-making.
I consider fair pay = $200k + a management that makes $600k pulling their weight by solving cross-team problems instead of pushing everything down to engineers.
Juniors want "leadership" to act like leaders and take responsibility. Get laid off first for your own poor decision-making.
Software engineering isn’t like manual labor. Only results should be measured. A programmer in a flow state who is completely focused will get more accomplished in 2 hours than they would in 8 if they were feeling uninspired and disengaged.
Our job is foremost to think and solve problems. She might very well be thinking about solutions to her coding issues while walking the dog. You are not a very deep thinker if you think butt-in-seat time = results.
Our job is foremost to think and solve problems. She might very well be thinking about solutions to her coding issues while walking the dog. You are not a very deep thinker if you think butt-in-seat time = results.
I wonder why those managers who think butts in seats == productivity aren't fired first. They literally don't understand the business of managing Software.
Pay = hour expectations isn't reality, and we only pretend it is when we want to abuse juniors. Effort and time are not strongly connected to pay, in office jobs. It's not even clear that they should be (but if so, and we made effective reform that direction, oh boy, it's not the juniors who are gonna feel the most pain).
These juniors are savvy if they've realized this without having to experience work getting easier, more pleasant, and more laid-back the more money they make, directly.
[EDIT] Oh, your pay may actually be connected to this, now that I think about it. If you're leetcoding and such (guessing, based on $200k+ for juniors) you're selecting for a certain culture and set of expectations. "Play the game, get the fat paycheck". Effort not connected to playing said game is just wasted, with the way rewards are dolled out in that world. Not laziness, just rational behavior based on hiring & such being batshit crazy and favoring a rather "prep for the test, the most efficient way possible—the score is all that matters" mindset—which isn't the fault of these folks, they're looking at the system and doing exactly what it demands they do for maximum reward. If they're coming up through prestigious universities, they may well have lived their whole life like that. Check the box, get the reward, prep for checking the next box, and you'll go absolutely nuts from over-work if you don't optimize each step (if you try to do it all in the spirit of the thing, rather than the minimum required by the rules, explicit or implicit). Results focused, just not the results you want... but the ones you're accidentally asking for!
If they're smart, they're doing as much as they need to keep the job, while planning their next, career- and comp-advancing move. Try framing things in terms of the "impact" they'll get to claim if they complete steps X, Y, and Z, and see what happens, LOL. I bet they'll jump at it—that's exactly what they want to be able to talk about when they're looking for the next job in 18-24 months. May be hard to frame, say, maintenance work and minor bugfixes and such that way, though. You probably need to change how you're hiring, if you want people who'll be happy to do those things.
If you're seeing these folks leave for better (higher paid, if nothing else) roles, after a short time, and shaking your head in confusion because you thought they were bad at their jobs—I'd say the above is exactly what's happening. You're getting what you're selecting for. Worth considering, perhaps.
[EDIT EDIT] Above section most-relevant if they're also underperforming according to what you expect. If they're actually getting stuff done but just taking walks... then there's no real problem.
These juniors are savvy if they've realized this without having to experience work getting easier, more pleasant, and more laid-back the more money they make, directly.
[EDIT] Oh, your pay may actually be connected to this, now that I think about it. If you're leetcoding and such (guessing, based on $200k+ for juniors) you're selecting for a certain culture and set of expectations. "Play the game, get the fat paycheck". Effort not connected to playing said game is just wasted, with the way rewards are dolled out in that world. Not laziness, just rational behavior based on hiring & such being batshit crazy and favoring a rather "prep for the test, the most efficient way possible—the score is all that matters" mindset—which isn't the fault of these folks, they're looking at the system and doing exactly what it demands they do for maximum reward. If they're coming up through prestigious universities, they may well have lived their whole life like that. Check the box, get the reward, prep for checking the next box, and you'll go absolutely nuts from over-work if you don't optimize each step (if you try to do it all in the spirit of the thing, rather than the minimum required by the rules, explicit or implicit). Results focused, just not the results you want... but the ones you're accidentally asking for!
If they're smart, they're doing as much as they need to keep the job, while planning their next, career- and comp-advancing move. Try framing things in terms of the "impact" they'll get to claim if they complete steps X, Y, and Z, and see what happens, LOL. I bet they'll jump at it—that's exactly what they want to be able to talk about when they're looking for the next job in 18-24 months. May be hard to frame, say, maintenance work and minor bugfixes and such that way, though. You probably need to change how you're hiring, if you want people who'll be happy to do those things.
If you're seeing these folks leave for better (higher paid, if nothing else) roles, after a short time, and shaking your head in confusion because you thought they were bad at their jobs—I'd say the above is exactly what's happening. You're getting what you're selecting for. Worth considering, perhaps.
[EDIT EDIT] Above section most-relevant if they're also underperforming according to what you expect. If they're actually getting stuff done but just taking walks... then there's no real problem.
I work for a pretty successful company (by any measure), and have had multiple startup exits before that, and I would know it was time to retire immediately if I started thinking like you.
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog."
I once came up with the idea for a product which has generated several hundred million dollars in revenue on a dog walk in the middle of the day. This morning while on a dog walk (on Sunday), I came up with the solution to a problem which has been vexing a team of 8-9 people for many months and will unblock millions of dollars of potential.
The very notion that someone is not working because they are not in front of their computer screen marks you as someone who is wholly unfit to be a manager of people. 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking.
> Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by
The entire industry would be better off if people just DID LESS. Complexity abounds because people want to be seen to "be doing something" to impress people like you. Again, 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking.
> Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.
If you think people don't work at home, you should see what they do at an office when they can make small talk with other incapables.
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog."
I once came up with the idea for a product which has generated several hundred million dollars in revenue on a dog walk in the middle of the day. This morning while on a dog walk (on Sunday), I came up with the solution to a problem which has been vexing a team of 8-9 people for many months and will unblock millions of dollars of potential.
The very notion that someone is not working because they are not in front of their computer screen marks you as someone who is wholly unfit to be a manager of people. 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking.
> Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by
The entire industry would be better off if people just DID LESS. Complexity abounds because people want to be seen to "be doing something" to impress people like you. Again, 80% of the job of a software engineer is thinking.
> Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.
If you think people don't work at home, you should see what they do at an office when they can make small talk with other incapables.
A low of people get jealous when you work smarter. They think that results don’t matter as much as self inflicted sacrifices. Many of them work in the C suites
Yeah... I used to go for walks to think. There is much evidence that it helps people in general, but I know it does for me.
I got dinged on my performance review for being away from my desk. Didn't stay long at that company.
I got dinged on my performance review for being away from my desk. Didn't stay long at that company.
> got dinged on my performance review
I thought performance reviews were supposed to focus on performance, that is on whether you got the job done on time!
I thought performance reviews were supposed to focus on performance, that is on whether you got the job done on time!
Maybe I'm cynical, but in my experience, performance reviews have very little to do with managing employee performance. They are a bureacratic ritual that lets the company demonstrate they have been managing your performance.
This is useful to the company if they want to let people go, to mitigate any legal risks. They have a record that your performance was being managed. Even though 9 times out of 10 there was no actual management throughout the year.
This is useful to the company if they want to let people go, to mitigate any legal risks. They have a record that your performance was being managed. Even though 9 times out of 10 there was no actual management throughout the year.
> do the bare minimum
That's doing their job. You are complaining you aren't getting free labor. They are meeting the requirements.
> people are not hungry anymore
People aren't willing to do things for free.
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
Sounds like bad management/leadership. If you are complaining about how she spends 2 hours of her time rather than on the results, and you are complaining about people not giving you free work...
I never had this problem. I had the opposite, encouraging people to work only the hours they should so they don't burn themselves out.
But hey, prove me wrong. Work for free. Let me know, I have stuff I can shovel your way and you can do it for free. Prove to me that you practice what you preach.
That's doing their job. You are complaining you aren't getting free labor. They are meeting the requirements.
> people are not hungry anymore
People aren't willing to do things for free.
> One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I even called this out during a formal performance review and her behavior hasn't changed at all. (Work-from-home abuse is another component of this observation.)
Sounds like bad management/leadership. If you are complaining about how she spends 2 hours of her time rather than on the results, and you are complaining about people not giving you free work...
I never had this problem. I had the opposite, encouraging people to work only the hours they should so they don't burn themselves out.
But hey, prove me wrong. Work for free. Let me know, I have stuff I can shovel your way and you can do it for free. Prove to me that you practice what you preach.
I walk my dog two hours a day.
I just work around my meetings (sometimes can take the meeting whilst walking) and ensure I still work 5-8hrs on tasks.
Is your gripe that you think she should be glued to her desk 9-5?
I don’t know what her role is, but as a software engineer I can’t say I’d ever be interested in a job where someone wanted to micromanage me like that. As long as the work gets done why care?
I just work around my meetings (sometimes can take the meeting whilst walking) and ensure I still work 5-8hrs on tasks.
Is your gripe that you think she should be glued to her desk 9-5?
I don’t know what her role is, but as a software engineer I can’t say I’d ever be interested in a job where someone wanted to micromanage me like that. As long as the work gets done why care?
I'd be willing to bet that the problem is the work isn't getting done. I've seen this many times now. No one is going to care how much you time you spend walking your dog if you're getting your work done - you only draw attention to yourself when you're lacking, and then your manager starts looking for reasons, sees you work 20% less than expected, and then what would you say? You'd call them on the carpet, too. I'd give them a part time job since that's what they seem to be capable of.
I've religiously filled out time-sheets, in various forms) for 30 years, and I don't think they have been looked at more than a few times by my managers since my work gets done, and more. But I know for damn sure the laggards get scrutinized.
I've religiously filled out time-sheets, in various forms) for 30 years, and I don't think they have been looked at more than a few times by my managers since my work gets done, and more. But I know for damn sure the laggards get scrutinized.
Good for her! Taking care of personal well-being and spending time with loved ones while being productive enough - otherwise you'd have left her go, right?
Why the default assumption that everyone wants to participate in a rat race and play office politics to get a chance to be promoted?
Why the default assumption that everyone wants to participate in a rat race and play office politics to get a chance to be promoted?
I've seen the same thing in others and in myself, but I'd put it as pre- and post-Agile/Jira. The industry used to be full of enthusiasm but now it's like Office Space.
Interesting observation, it hadn't occurred to me but I think you're right. My dissatisfaction with software work started right around the time that agile practices became popular. The work changed, and started feeling like less of a craft and more like flipping burgers.
At least flipping burgers you don’t have to have a morning call where you say, “Yesterday I flipped burgers, today I’m going to flip more burgers. No blockers.”
Or a Jira user story titled “As a burger eater, I want to eat a burger that’s been flipped so it’s cooked on both sides.”
Or a Jira user story titled “As a burger eater, I want to eat a burger that’s been flipped so it’s cooked on both sides.”
I think it’s because we’ve realized we’re not building a better future but rather Yet Another Online Ad* System.
* “online ad” can be replaced with “gig economy” if you like
* “online ad” can be replaced with “gig economy” if you like
How do you connect the available rewards to extra effort made? — do your team members trust that you’ll follow through?
In my experience, that behavior happens when rewards aren’t clear and/or don’t happen: when you fail to reward or even punish an animal for putting in effort, they stop. If being “hungry” is exploited by businesses but doesn’t result in rewards, why would sane people continue? — there’s productive areas of their life they could invest that same effort.
In my experience, that behavior happens when rewards aren’t clear and/or don’t happen: when you fail to reward or even punish an animal for putting in effort, they stop. If being “hungry” is exploited by businesses but doesn’t result in rewards, why would sane people continue? — there’s productive areas of their life they could invest that same effort.
What's the point in being "hungry"? To fill the pockets of some soulless corporation and hope they'll pass down some scraps while making record profits?
I have worked at the same place for 5 years; worked hard, continuously received great/exelecent reviews, several promotions, but I have only just kept up with inflation the past few years (and am probably net negative accounting for the timing of the rases), and before that it was 2% effective (for top marks). Plus "post-COVID" forced RTO, with all the costs associated with that.
All in all, I am paid around the market rate (for the area) for my prior role, despite having performed at my current role for 2+ years now (with continued high marks).
I still put in an honest 8 hours of work, but no more (mostly). Sometimes I wish I could be like those who work a little as possible and likely get paid almost as much (or more if they joined after), but that's not who I am.
I have worked at the same place for 5 years; worked hard, continuously received great/exelecent reviews, several promotions, but I have only just kept up with inflation the past few years (and am probably net negative accounting for the timing of the rases), and before that it was 2% effective (for top marks). Plus "post-COVID" forced RTO, with all the costs associated with that.
All in all, I am paid around the market rate (for the area) for my prior role, despite having performed at my current role for 2+ years now (with continued high marks).
I still put in an honest 8 hours of work, but no more (mostly). Sometimes I wish I could be like those who work a little as possible and likely get paid almost as much (or more if they joined after), but that's not who I am.
I see this too, and not just post-COVID. 10+ years ago we used to have "Let's Learn This Now!" where the developers would agree on particular subject and then learn and discuss it on our own time, and occasionally it would lead to improvements in our development. We went through Ruby (on Rails), Angular (nope, not even) to React (meh), queuing (ZeroMQ mostly), Asp.NET MVC, Redis, Docker, Octo, NoSQL dbs - the list goes on (even custom mechanical keyboard building). It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to have all the perspectives and interesting ideas shared.
Now there is only a few of us that still attempt this, as the rest are not interested in anything beyond their job description. Honestly in the last 10 years the phrase "That's not my job" has entered the company's phraseology when previously it was perceived as an opportunity for growth or even just cross training. Hell, that's 90% of how I advanced up the ranks - taking on new responsibilities.
A dev manager we had a while back, who has been managing developers for 20 years, told me that a lot of the problem is passion vs money. Many recent developers are in the industry because they heard that software development is good money, so they got a CS degree. But they're not as interested in the continuing education that is a necessity for the career, and only those with a passion for it thrive. He sees them dev'ing a few years, realizing it's not for them, and then trying management, and then dropping out of industry because they're not interested in the effort to excel.
But if you have a passion for software development, love tech, and the whole 9 yards, work is just doing what you like, and you enjoy it (well, when your company isn't screwing it up - that's a different problem).
Now there is only a few of us that still attempt this, as the rest are not interested in anything beyond their job description. Honestly in the last 10 years the phrase "That's not my job" has entered the company's phraseology when previously it was perceived as an opportunity for growth or even just cross training. Hell, that's 90% of how I advanced up the ranks - taking on new responsibilities.
A dev manager we had a while back, who has been managing developers for 20 years, told me that a lot of the problem is passion vs money. Many recent developers are in the industry because they heard that software development is good money, so they got a CS degree. But they're not as interested in the continuing education that is a necessity for the career, and only those with a passion for it thrive. He sees them dev'ing a few years, realizing it's not for them, and then trying management, and then dropping out of industry because they're not interested in the effort to excel.
But if you have a passion for software development, love tech, and the whole 9 yards, work is just doing what you like, and you enjoy it (well, when your company isn't screwing it up - that's a different problem).
As a kid, when people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said programmer. So that’s what I did.
The money vs. passion thing rings true, but at the same time, I’ve found that channeling passion to my employer doesn’t really reward me in the way I want. When I go “above and beyond” my job description, the reward is actually a punishment: more of the shit I don’t want to be doing.
Instead, I set aside some time to work on open source stuff. I actually feel a sense of ownership then. I’m not working to make somebody else rich, and I can do things my way and in my own time.
The money vs. passion thing rings true, but at the same time, I’ve found that channeling passion to my employer doesn’t really reward me in the way I want. When I go “above and beyond” my job description, the reward is actually a punishment: more of the shit I don’t want to be doing.
Instead, I set aside some time to work on open source stuff. I actually feel a sense of ownership then. I’m not working to make somebody else rich, and I can do things my way and in my own time.
There was a lot more interesting work 10+ years ago. All the interesting bits have been commoditized.
I hate to say it, but I think we (as in, developers) did this to ourselves, or we were at least complicit. People like to think that these massive piles of abstractions we’ve built are for the benefit of future developers, but I’m starting to look at the software landscape more like a landfill with layer upon layer of waste output.
Couldn't have said it better myself!
It’s not “work from home” abuse.
You’re not really paying people to be at a computer working exactly 40 hours a week. You’re paying people to solve problems and create value. There is not a 1:1 correlation between time and results in this field. Most days I only need maybe 3 or 4 hours to take care of work related stuff.
As long as people do what is asked, why should they worry about burning out the extra time that remains?
You’re not really paying people to be at a computer working exactly 40 hours a week. You’re paying people to solve problems and create value. There is not a 1:1 correlation between time and results in this field. Most days I only need maybe 3 or 4 hours to take care of work related stuff.
As long as people do what is asked, why should they worry about burning out the extra time that remains?
> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore.
What incentives need to be aligned and how, to starve them a bit more and make them hungry again?
What incentives need to be aligned and how, to starve them a bit more and make them hungry again?
So what?
> Man, what a weird week. Unless it's on their own terms, it seems nobody wants to work anymore.
It's the only one with any acknowledgement that agreeable terms may actually be needed in order to attract people to work. It doesn't take a PhD to figure this out!
Utah Phillips, one of my favorite storytellers and all-around anarchist and hobo has a line I was reminded of:
That’s when [Fry Pan Jack] told me – you know, he’d been tramping since 1927 -he said, “I told myself in ’27, if I cannot dictate the conditions of my labor, I will henceforth cease to work.” Hah! You don’t have to go to college to figure these things out, no sir! He said, “I learned when I was young that the only true life I had was the life of my brain. But if it’s true the only real life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?” Fat chance!
From the track Bum on the Rod off the album The Past Didn't Go Anywhere with Ani DiFranco https://youtu.be/-rw4sd4AuJE