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Unnecessariat

morecrows.wordpress.com

201–210 of 256 posts

Re: Unnecessariat

#201
> In 2011, economist Guy Standing coined the term “precariat”

Not really. It began to appear in German books in 2005 (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Prekariat&year...) and searches took off in the end of 2006 https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=Prekariat%2C%20preca... The German version of the word is still more common.

It actually really surprised me that the word is so young, as I think the word is pretty much common knowledge in German.

Re: Unnecessariat

#202
Fantastic article. Extraction of value by the elite is the problem and a partial solution is a movement for local business and constantly pushing back even with simple things like paying for local goods and services in cash, not credit cards. Why should banks get 3% on all local transactions?

Our system is grounded on the requirement for growth, and somehow that has to change. There is nothing wrong with businesses that don't grow and pay decent wages and serve their communities, but our economic regime heavily discounts companies that are not growing.

Re: Unnecessariat

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Senate is ridiculously undemocratic. Because every state gets two senators regardless of population, a vote by a Wyoming resident is worth 65 Californian votes.

The House is supposed to make up for this. A vote by a California resident is worth 3.6 Wyoming resident votes.

No. Where did you get that number from?

California has 53 representatives for 38.8 million people or 1 per 730,000 people. Wyoming has 1 representative for 584,000 people. So Wyoming is over-represented in the House as well.

Re: Unnecessariat

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Taxation is theft" is true regardless of whether robots are employed or not. The fundamental issue is, simply, that it involves the use of force (or threat of use of force). As long as men with guns will come and arrest you if you don't "pay your taxes" then it is theft. No rhetorical flourishes or byzantine logic can alter that.

Matt Bruenig (yes, the guy who was recently hounded out of his job for calling a powerful Hillary supporter a scumbag) had an interesting description of this argument, or rather this series of arguments. First, he says, libertarians defend inequality through desert: * People should keep their money, they worked hard for it! Then Bruenig points out that there is capital income, which does not come from work. Capital w…

I just want to add that tragedy of the commons is NOT most certainly true. It is if 'people could just take as they please', but that is not what people are asking for, and not what happens in practice.

I will refer the following article to show how tragedy of the commons did not happen in common land in the last couple of centuries:

http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enc...

Re: Unnecessariat

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're working a lot more than 40 hours per week if you don't have an hour a day to spend on advocacy.

The problem being that if you're in a job with standard hours, the hour a day you have to spend on advocacy happens during the time your representatives and their staffers are not available.

I have trouble imagining a realistic job (in the USA, anyway) that wouldn't allow you to take 20 minutes for a phone call during business hours or get a free afternoon every month or two.

And at least half of your advocacy will consist of writing and research and recruiting other citizens to your cause - all of which can be done just as easily outside of normal business hours.

Re: Unnecessariat

#206
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No economic use is not oblivion. Being useless needs to somehow be destigmatized while not being encouraged. It's not the end of the world, there are happy monks who live in seclusion off the generosity of others, there are some happy people with special needs who we don't try to make work and retired people who still enjoy life. There's no reason we can't have people being happy doing hobbies some day if we can get…

> there are happy monks who live in seclusion off the generosity of others Monks choose to live that way. Most people need more than money to survive. They need challenge and creativity, too. > Some country is going to implement basic income and force us to talk about these ideas that successful people feel we can keep pushing away because it doesn't affect us yet. Scandinavian countries have had better social progra…

There are countless ways to find challenge and creativity that don't involve working for money. In fact, most paying jobs are pretty bad at satisfying that need.

Re: Unnecessariat

#207
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AIDS epidemic affected a community. The suicide and drug problem doesn't affect a community, which is why the community banded together to create change and the non-community hasn't. It's a contrast, not a comparison.

Well, the contrast lost me because population size wasn't contrasted.

If you still think that population size is relevant to the point, the contrast is still lost on you.

Re: Unnecessariat

#208
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the contrast lost me because population size wasn't contrasted.

If you still think that population size is relevant to the point, the contrast is still lost on you.

Imagine 10% of your community dies a year. Now imagine 0.1% does. Do these differing percentages make any difference to your sense of urgency and willingness to fight the problems causing those deaths? No? Well ok then.

Re: Unnecessariat

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're really putting yourself in their shoes. For most people, things are were better for them before required, high-cost health plans. Most people don't get seriously sick in a given year; that's why health insurance works at all. And for those with required health insurance, it doesn't really help. Take me as an example: I'm 29 in NY and the healthcare plans I have available to me basically fall into…

At 15000, you are making https://aspe.hhs.gov/computations-2015-annual-update-hhs-pov... ), and are eligible for medicaid, or large subsidies in other states. The details really matter here, and my sense (though I'm very open to correction) is that the people who the ACA is most burdensome for are high enough income that they qualify for smaller subsidies, but still can't afford healthcare.

This is true, but subsidies are only useful if they are discoverable and truly available.

I grew up in a poor neighborhood, and the only reason I'm not poor is my parents were both educated and made sure I was too. But I know a lot of people who were poor and uneducated.

You might be able to take time off between the hours of 9AM and 5PM to apply for programs in person, or have time to fill out a lot of forms, or know what programs are available, or speak/read the language that's on the forms fluently, but a lot of people don't.

Re: Unnecessariat

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem being that if you're in a job with standard hours, the hour a day you have to spend on advocacy happens during the time your representatives and their staffers are not available.

I have trouble imagining a realistic job (in the USA, anyway) that wouldn't allow you to take 20 minutes for a phone call during business hours or get a free afternoon every month or two. And at least half of your advocacy will consist of writing and research and recruiting other citizens to your cause - all of which can be done just as easily outside of normal business hours.

Uh, I used to be a cashier at McDonald's (reasonable job? you decide), I can tell you that they would never have let me wander off to use the phone for 20 minutes randomly, other than at my lunch break, which I needed to use to, y'know, eat lunch.
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