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Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

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Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#51

Post by lmm »

sly_foxx wrote: post #12

Can you think outside of the communist box? Competition is in part due to the fact there are more humans alive today fighting for the same resources. It's kinda similar to dating, where things are not getting easier(except for those who inherited good genes). Today with dating you have to do more to get the same result people use to get with less effort. Lack of social safety net? Why do you care about that? You don'…

> You don't have a safety net when you get dumped. You know, if your girlfriend dumps you, you don't get another girl to give you blowjobs, because otherwise you might get depressed and suicidal. You're expected to figure it out on your own and you might not do it - you might end up lonely, without dates and maybe even commit suicide because of that.

So maybe think outside your own box and figure out if there's any cheap social policy that would improve the lot of such people? I come up with: legalize prostitution, shorten copyright terms for pornography. Maybe lower emphasis on marriage and greater acceptance of polyamory, though that could go both ways. Try to culturally de-emphasize sex, and provide more life paths where singledom is accepted or expected (e.g. I've heard it argued that monasteries used to serve this function).

> So, why not hold wage earners to the same standard?

Huh? That's backwards. If giving everyone a decent dating partner was as easy as raising taxes a little bit and subsidising a few government-run services, of course we'd do it.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#52

Post by adrianN »

sly_foxx wrote: post #12

Can you think outside of the communist box? Competition is in part due to the fact there are more humans alive today fighting for the same resources. It's kinda similar to dating, where things are not getting easier(except for those who inherited good genes). Today with dating you have to do more to get the same result people use to get with less effort. Lack of social safety net? Why do you care about that? You don'…

Your comment is basically flame bait, but I'll bite.

Comparing a paying job with a girlfriend doesn't work. People can live perfectly well without a girlfriend, but it's hard to eat and pay rent if you don't have a stable income. This gives a lot of leverage to employers because employees can't just quit their job.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#53

Post by sde »

ScottBurson wrote: post #8

One answer is that the market forces tend to funnel all increases in income to landowners as rent. I was not familiar with this theory until a few days ago, when someone here on HN linked to an online version (edited and abridged) of Henry George's Progress and Poverty [0]. I've been reading it since; its clarity is stunning: I feel as if a great veil has been lifted from my eyes. Whether I'll still feel that way in…

The focus on rent is a good legacy of George's theory. However, I was quickly disappointed by the book that was linked. George was doing well critiquing previous economic theory that had separate theories of wages, rent, and profit. He showed instead that it must be that production = wages + rent + interest, as a formula that relates them and can be rearranged. Then in the next chapter, 12, he falls into a sort of absurdity about the nature of interest, where he claims interest exists because of natural increase, such as of bees or ageing wine, and wouldn't exist otherwise.

That's not an advanced enough theory of why there's interest on capital and the rate of it. It doesn't even seem quite sane, in comparison with the example of reasoning that he was setting and teaching up to that point. There should be some school of economics that promotes a George-like view of rent, but that isn't embarrassing when it comes to explaining capital and interest.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#54

Post by sly_foxx »

adrianN wrote: post #52
sly_foxx wrote: post #12

Can you think outside of the communist box? Competition is in part due to the fact there are more humans alive today fighting for the same resources. It's kinda similar to dating, where things are not getting easier(except for those who inherited good genes). Today with dating you have to do more to get the same result people use to get with less effort. Lack of social safety net? Why do you care about that? You don'…

Your comment is basically flame bait, but I'll bite. Comparing a paying job with a girlfriend doesn't work. People can live perfectly well without a girlfriend, but it's hard to eat and pay rent if you don't have a stable income. This gives a lot of leverage to employers because employees can't just quit their job.

Yes, comparison works and is spot on.

You can survive without stable income - humans and many other animal species have been doing it for hundreds of millions of years. Yes, it's hard, but so what? Why would that be a reason to create a safety net(by taking from productive people and giving it to parasites)?

'People can live perfectly well without a girlfriend' This is false. Some people who are asexual can do it. But, most will be frustrated, maybe even depressed. Are you familiar with Elliot Rodgers? A mass shooter who over a year ago killed/injured a bunch of people(students) in California. Why? He tells us - because women didn't want him. If you read some comments online, a lot of guys are sympathetic to his feelings, even though they wouldn't go as far as he did.

Also, because straight men have a strong sexual desire + desire for reproduction, women can be like employers. What if you quit relationship with your girlfriend/wife? Will you able to find another one? It would be like you're a low-skilled employee. Women have a lot of leverage.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#55

Post by dgreensp »

When a company buys a 2x faster copy machine, they don't double the salary of the human operator. If a department is able to lay off half its staff thanks to automation, they don't double the salaries of the remaining staff.

There's little in the way of forces that push wages up. Unions, basically, acting on the idea that rich companies should share the wealth. The market value of a human butt-in-chair operator remains low. Unskilled labor is a commodity, and it can be found increasingly cheaply on the global market.

Keynes died before the first computer was invented. Probably his concepts of "technological innovation" and "worker productivity" do not apply today.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#56

Post by deelowe »

ScottBurson wrote: post #8

One answer is that the market forces tend to funnel all increases in income to landowners as rent. I was not familiar with this theory until a few days ago, when someone here on HN linked to an online version (edited and abridged) of Henry George's Progress and Poverty [0]. I've been reading it since; its clarity is stunning: I feel as if a great veil has been lifted from my eyes. Whether I'll still feel that way in…

I'd be careful to apply what's happening in the bay area globally. It's a bit of a unique set of circumstances. On the east coast, where suburban sprawl is much more common, we don't have the rent issues of SF even in places like the triangle where there's a fair amount of technical development going on.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#57

Post by djhn »

sde wrote: post #53
ScottBurson wrote: post #8

One answer is that the market forces tend to funnel all increases in income to landowners as rent. I was not familiar with this theory until a few days ago, when someone here on HN linked to an online version (edited and abridged) of Henry George's Progress and Poverty [0]. I've been reading it since; its clarity is stunning: I feel as if a great veil has been lifted from my eyes. Whether I'll still feel that way in…

The focus on rent is a good legacy of George's theory. However, I was quickly disappointed by the book that was linked. George was doing well critiquing previous economic theory that had separate theories of wages, rent, and profit. He showed instead that it must be that production = wages + rent + interest, as a formula that relates them and can be rearranged. Then in the next chapter, 12, he falls into a sort of ab…

George is also fairly "antique" as far as macroeconomists go. It's not too much of an exaggeration that anything from before the ~1950's is consider little more than curiosities that illustrate progress of economics thought.

For the most comprehensive book on the subject, see http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Macroeconomics-Origins-Developm...

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#58

Post by crzwdjk »

ScottBurson wrote: post #8

One answer is that the market forces tend to funnel all increases in income to landowners as rent. I was not familiar with this theory until a few days ago, when someone here on HN linked to an online version (edited and abridged) of Henry George's Progress and Poverty [0]. I've been reading it since; its clarity is stunning: I feel as if a great veil has been lifted from my eyes. Whether I'll still feel that way in…

Fortunately, there's an easy workaround for the ever-increasing land rents, which should work even in places like the SF Bay Area: you can just have a group of people pool their resources to pay for a given plot of land, usually in the form of an "apartment building". Unfortunately, those are illegal in almost all of the Bay Area, and in SF itself, even in the few places where you can build a new one, the process takes forever and costs a lot of money. As a result, housing becomes a rare and collectible good, and people have to either crowd into the existing units, pay a lot of money, or have punishingly long commutes.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#59

Post by unprepare »

sly_foxx wrote: post #54
adrianN wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is basically flame bait, but I'll bite. Comparing a paying job with a girlfriend doesn't work. People can live perfectly well without a girlfriend, but it's hard to eat and pay rent if you don't have a stable income. This gives a lot of leverage to employers because employees can't just quit their job.

Yes, comparison works and is spot on. You can survive without stable income - humans and many other animal species have been doing it for hundreds of millions of years. Yes, it's hard, but so what? Why would that be a reason to create a safety net(by taking from productive people and giving it to parasites)? 'People can live perfectly well without a girlfriend' This is false. Some people who are asexual can do it. Bu…

>You can survive without stable income - humans and many other animal species have been doing it for hundreds of millions of years. Yes, it's hard, but so what?

Oh, you mean removing yourself from society and illegally living in the wilderness?

How do you pay for your hunting and camping licenses?

>But, most will be frustrated, maybe even depressed

This is obviously very different from being dead due to lack of food, water or shelter.

Re: Why Americans Work So Much Despite Keynes's Prediction

#60

Post by dawnbreez »

crzwdjk wrote: post #58
ScottBurson wrote: post #8

One answer is that the market forces tend to funnel all increases in income to landowners as rent. I was not familiar with this theory until a few days ago, when someone here on HN linked to an online version (edited and abridged) of Henry George's Progress and Poverty [0]. I've been reading it since; its clarity is stunning: I feel as if a great veil has been lifted from my eyes. Whether I'll still feel that way in…

Fortunately, there's an easy workaround for the ever-increasing land rents, which should work even in places like the SF Bay Area: you can just have a group of people pool their resources to pay for a given plot of land, usually in the form of an "apartment building". Unfortunately, those are illegal in almost all of the Bay Area, and in SF itself, even in the few places where you can build a new one, the process tak…

>apartment buildings are illegal

Well, I guess they don't want tall buildings falling over due to a quake...

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