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Guaranteed Minimum What?

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Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#261

Post by ethbro »

dredmorbius wrote: post #250
gwright wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be assuming that low-wage workers are all poor and uneducated. That is misleading. From [1]: 50% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 24 25% of minimum wage workers are under the age of 19 Entry level jobs paying minimum wage teach important skills to teens and young adults: * being on time * attention to detail * how to work with others * how to follow instructions ... There is certainly room for…

There are two distinct problems at play: 1. Workers whose contributions are undervalued. 2. Workers who cannot be trained or educated to provide high-value labour. These are both issues. (There are other categories: parents, caregivers, the disabled, sick, or handicapped, etc. But the two classifications above represent a major part of systemic failure of labour markets.)

3. Creating a hellish nightmare society where I am not afforded the opportunity to talk to a single random person in the going about of my average day.

If you think the class gaps and problems of lack of cross-socioeconomic empathy are an issue now, wait until a middle class worker can go 24 hours without ever having to interact with anyone making less than them.

"Raise taxes to fund foodstamps? Crazy! I hear the poor are doing just fine eating their insect protein cubes. I saw a report about it on the TV last night!"

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#262

Post by orthecreedence »

ThatGeoGuy wrote: post #154
rhino369 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founders might looking for a good living and glory, but VC's for example are looking to really capitalize on 100X growth.

To play devil's advocate: you may not need VC's as much in a UBI world. You don't have to worry about income if your startup fails, so you're less likely to play the VC lottery in hopes that you can ride the funding into a successful exit.

Exactly. In a UBI world, the government becomes the investor for innovation. If an idea you tried doesn't work out, you try something else. It becomes much easier to start a business, and you no longer get kicked out on the street for failing.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#263

Post by cbanek »

Eyas wrote: post #217
Taek wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should be working on better ways to get the poor educated and integrated with modern society as opposed to making them dependent on jobs which take all of their time, don't pay nearly enough, and block any and all opportunity for a way out because there's no free time or disposable income.

We should also work on better ways to equip society to have skills that are more "valuable" in the modern high-tech world, absolutely. The incompassioante charge made by the gp is still fair, I think: Saying these workers provide "no value" is too business-focused and incompassioante. Yes, these workers provide little value in terms of profit to the business, but looking at societal value at a larger scales, these jo…

It's not that they don't provide any value, it's that their value isn't competitive anymore.

We could be talking about automation or outsourcing, and it would be the same - labor (especially unskilled) is generally getting cheaper. For outsourcing, there is different labor than us that is benefiting, and that's good. That allows them to prosper and buy food and have a life. We also have robots, which are basically virtual slaves that only benefit their owners.

Overall, you could say that there would be an overabundance of labor then. And we hit this before, with the industrial revolution, and new waves of technology in general. What about all the human telephone operators? Or the candle makers? Maybe it really is different this time. Maybe it's not. Nobody really knows for sure.

It sounds uncompassionate, but these are the same forces that drive down prices so everyone can shop happy at walmart (which I do too). Providing cheaper living is great for everyone as well, and nobody remembers that when talking about fewer people working.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#264

Post by nickpsecurity »

Taek wrote: post #202
justinator wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You write as though you've never held a minimum wage job. Have some compassion for those people who are working hard for almost nothing. Sometimes, it isn't their first choice, or it's their only choice. I would suggest a better experience is had when you give respect to the (say) service industry worker you engage in a transaction with.

Maybe we should be working on better ways to get the poor educated and integrated with modern society as opposed to making them dependent on jobs which take all of their time, don't pay nearly enough, and block any and all opportunity for a way out because there's no free time or disposable income.

Many people I know in low-wage jobs have either trade-skill jobs on the side or degrees in things like business (eg finance). The latter say they're under or overqualified for higher-paying position. I got the same overqualified stuff from all kinds of businesses out here, too. The businesses are systematically blocking talent.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#265

Post by ethbro »

cbanek wrote: post #16
e_d_e_v wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked in the movie box, that was not at all true. People would come in and ask about the movie. How long was it, whether it was any good, should they see another one instead? We gave them real answers. Just because you have a minimum wage job doesn't mean you're a bump on a log. If you've lost sight of the value of basic human interaction with anyone not baked into your caste, I pity you, even if you are in t…

Like I said in my original comment, even if the people are great, they are usually doing a very boring repetitive job. And even if they aren't a "bump on a log," many employers these days honestly want them to be. (liability, efficiency) They really want a robot that is cheaper, not a person. There are so many rules about what an employee can and should do now, especially for lower level jobs. What they can say, how…

I'd argue that those companies that have squeezed the humanity out of their workers are the first ones getting dislocated by the market. E.g. Blockbuster being bankrupt and our local independent video store doing just fine. Or McDonald's vs Waffle House.

If you play was "we can provide a worse service for less" then yes, you're going to get steamrolled by automation. If your business is run around adding value (like informative parent of yore in the ticket booth), then your value is going to increase until strong AI (if that ever happens).

Assuming people like talking to humans. Sometimes I wonder about the HN crowd...

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#266

Post by pyoung »

mjevans wrote: post #171
pyoung wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if we are demand constrained as opposed to supply constrained for most consumer goods, than you will see an increase in 'Q', not 'P'.

Energy, time and space. Distance is effort, both in energy and time. Space is already constrained by historical distributional of 'valuable' lands, and restrictions on new ones. There's nowhere left to go out and just settle that someone else doesn't already claim somehow. (Yes, if you go out of the solar system you might claim that... but that's literally how bad the issue is.) The real solution is increasing supply…

Energy: It's getting cheaper and cheaper thanks to competing technologies. California's wholesale rate went negative (due to solar) for the first time ever in April. If you are unemployed and on UBI, you have more freedom to to take advantage of time-of-use rates. Or better yet, hook up some cheap solar panels and some lead-acid batteries and make your own energy.

Time: If you are unemployed and on UBI, you have more free time. If prices spike for food, then you can always grow your own. If prices spike for gasoline, then ride a bike.

Space: With UBI, you no longer need to cram into a handful of high-growth economic areas. You can move to cheaper areas, grow your own food, and ride a bike everywhere. People with a lot of free time, and not a lot of money, will be a lot more price sensitive than in our current environment (where time = money). If prices rise due to inflation, they will either do without, or find/create a substitute.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#267

Post by ensignavenger »

cbanek wrote: post #4

> Humans are agressively being eliminated from as many business models as possible. Well that's true, where they don't add value. What's the difference between the case of getting movie tickets and your waiter at a fancy restaurant? One of them is practically a useless annoyance, and the other one is part of the experience. Someone in a movie box isn't going to tell you about the movie, or have a conversation about i…

While I agree with your statement on the movie theatre ticket counter, I would say that I enjoy talking to the cashier at walmart. I usually ask how they are doing, I might ask about their name if it is an interesting name, or complement them on something. Some cashiers end up being short and don't seem to want to talk, but I often have great interactions. Granted, Walmart pays more than minimum wage, but I don't think it matters.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#268

Post by dredmorbius »

sparkling wrote: post #39

From Henry Hazlitts 1946 classic "Economics in One Lesson": You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemploy…

Costs are what are given up to obtain something.

Value is what you gain by the use of it.

Price is the common agreement between those who have a thing, and those who want it, net of all other circumstances, to mediate an exchange.

If price exceeds costs, then that trade is equitable and sustainable.

Where a wage is offered that does not meet the provisioning costs of a good or service, that good or service cannot be sustainably provisioned, and the exchange is only sustained by the net transfer of wealth from the seller to the buyer. Such exchanges frequently occur, under a "backwards S-shaped" supply curve.

Here, the short term costs of a good or service may be met, but its long-term costs are not. A paradox is that as wages are pushed down, working hours increase, because the only way a worker can afford sufficient food is to increase the hours worked.

Similar dynamics are seen in oil, e.g., the $0.02/bbl price of oil low hit during the East Texas Oil Boom ~1929 - 1931. (Daniel Yergin, The Prize, chapter 13, generally).

As Adam Smith observed:

A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more, otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.

(Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter 8 https://redd.it/2311mb)

What Hazlitt describes isn't a business. It's either a scam, or a charity, operated for the benefits of the owner, at the cost of the workers.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#269

Post by bcassedy »

sqeaky wrote: post #232
ryandrake wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, the fancy waiter will make recommendations. Will tell you about other things, and is generally part of the ambiance and experience of eating out. I don't see the distinction. With all due respect to waitstaff (it's a tough job), the function is just begging for automation. An order-and-payment-taking tablet embedded into the table would be so much more efficient: 1. No need to wait for staff to c…

What you are describing would be great for chain restaurants like Chile's or Olive Garden, but for something sufficiently high end the people involved really matter. If you shift your view up a few notches there are many places where real intelligence and dynamicness is required that we can't yet automated. Having a wine expert or a unique expert chef as part of the experience is part of high end dining. Consider one…

Chili's is already starting down this path. At the location near me you can order drinks and pay through a device at the table. They haven't jumped in all the way as food orders are still through a server.

Though, as someone who has had a credit card stolen via gas pump several times, I'm really hesitant to use a card at one of these devices. They're probably not very secure to begin with and then you couple that with the fact that anyone can sit with one of them for an hour or so with no scrutiny, it's just ripe for exploit.

Re: Guaranteed Minimum What?

#270

Post by dredmorbius »

drxzcl wrote: post #37
devrandomguy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are real limits to everything, because the universe has a finite mass and volume. But, that doesn't mean that it is not possible to engineer a working UBI.

Productivity is usually value/worker or value/hour worked. There's no indication, as far as I'm aware, that value (inflation adjusted money) is a conserved quantity. In fact, most of the productivity increases are in industries where the value produced is not directly coupled to the resourced consumed. The software industry is a great example.

Not only is value a conserved quantity, but value must decrease on a full accounting, through the process chain.

That's the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Corollary: accounting of costs, prices, and values is badly flawed.

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