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To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

nytimes.com

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Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#661

Post by RealityNow »

WalterBright wrote: post #631
RealityNow wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a stock on the secondary stock market is not investing in the economy. Buy that logic, high-frequency traders are investing in the economy. > If that were true, banks wouldn't need deposits That doesn't follow from what I said. Banks are required by law to back their loans up with reserves. So when they don't have enough reserves, they borrow on the interbank lending market or from the central bank. http://www…

> Buying a stock on the secondary stock market is not investing in the economy. Of course it is. Buying a piece of a company is investing in it. > Buy that logic, high-frequency traders are investing in the economy. And they are - even if they hold a particular stock for a millisecond. The aggregate invested across the market is what matters. It's a bit like calculus. All those infinitesimal bits add up to real amoun…

Yes, technically buying a stock makes you a part owner of that company. But if the stock is already on the secondary market, you're simply purchasing a piece of ownership from someone else that already exists. This is not an investment in the sense of directly enabling something in the real economy to happen that wouldn't have otherwise (eg. venture capital). Sure you're providing liquidity to a current shareholder, but that's a fairly marginal benefit, and selling your shares will involve taking an equivalent amount of liquidity. This is no more an "investment" in the economy than buying a second-hand home.

The original comment was implying that rich people contribute to the economy by investing their spare savings back into it. I'm not claiming that there's no benefit to buying secondary stocks and derivatives on them, just that this is not even remotely the same in terms of creating economic growth as actually investing in creating new business opportunities and such. It's kind of like saying that trust fund kids who don't work contribute to the economy by spending money. And often this "investment" in the stock market is the mere fueling of bubbles.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#662

Post by conanbatt »

dredmorbius wrote: post #659
conanbatt wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that people kill their own children, pretty gross. I wonder if that was accurate: how could he have gotten this kind of information back then? But China is a very extreme case: in general, if you dont have enough money to support a family, you wouldnt have a family, and lower wages would affect the demographic growth of the lowest earning members of society. The logical corollary for this is that you always will…

The British East India Company as a thing by 1776 (its stock collapse, a few years earlier, is highly likely to have cloured Smith's thinking on joint stock companies generally). In 1672, the English East India Company finally secured a trading post in Taiwan - ten years after the Dutch East India Company had been expelled from the island by the Chinese. The Company was soon engaged in direct and regular trade with t…

Ah, I mistook subsistence of Smith with Ricardo? (I finished Ricardo's book a month ago and WoN about 3 months ago, easy to mix up, particularly on Ricardo quoting WoN).

Nice exchange of messages! Glad to be able to talk about things written 250 years ago with random internet strangers.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#663

Post by gremlinsinc »

TheDongIsYou wrote: post #569
gremlinsinc wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I look beyond socialism/capitalism/consumerism to something more like the Venus Project or Resource based economy as something we should attain to, though it's a bit utopian to think we'll ever get their in the current political climate...maybe someday... I voted for Bernie personally -- not a full out socialist... but I do think single payer + ubi + free college makes sense -- take the stress out of living…

I used to be inspired by the Venus Project years ago. Unfortunately I realized it is extremely utopian and things needs to change in a more practical sense if we want a good chance of succeding. I'm currently very impressed by the work of Prof. Richard Wolff, an economist that heavily criticizes Capitalism and tries to make actual practical changes in the lives of people starting from their workplaces. Here is a talk…

I'll take a look... let me rephrase that the Venus project...which I just heard about a few months ago..intrigues me quite a bit... but I don't see it really being feasible till we're an interplanetary species and even then maybe not...But there are good concepts and maybe when general AI hits, who knows what will change...

I do like UBI though along with (the pragmatist in me) believes gov't should work like agile dev teams... push changes up to a github like interface for bills.. the all bills should be VERY succinct and serve 1 goal, and that they should be repealable pretty easily like reverting a change on github... I think we have WAY too much bloat, and omnibuses just don't make sense at all and should be illegal.

Congressmen make very good money and benefits -- and have lots of perks so they should be required to work as hard as the next guy in America - -40 hours per week IN congress discussing bills and voting - -anything to 'market' themselves for future elections is NOT part of their job and outside their 'paid' duties and should be done on their own time.

I think automation, etc will disrupt the entire fabric of society soon, and honestly I hope we can move back to middle-age work days... they worked maybe 20 hours a week, if that and some weeks not at all - if farming the winter was pretty much just don't freeze to death... While their lives weren't long, I have to think they enjoyed life more than we do today.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#664

Post by gremlinsinc »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #587
gremlinsinc wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I look beyond socialism/capitalism/consumerism to something more like the Venus Project or Resource based economy as something we should attain to, though it's a bit utopian to think we'll ever get their in the current political climate...maybe someday... I voted for Bernie personally -- not a full out socialist... but I do think single payer + ubi + free college makes sense -- take the stress out of living…

>take the stress out of living paycheck to paycheck If I could live for free (no rent, free food, free electricity, etc), I probably would quit. I don't have much savings and my quality of life would drop a little, but I would probably take 6-12 months vacation and just dick about, playing video games and concentrating on my hobbies.

I'd definitely take a vacation--but then I'd work on sideprojects--and be my own boss, because that's way more fun than working for someone else and I still want fun toys and things... I'm a jr dev and even at 60k/yr money is tight... when we made $30k, we really struggled..I don't think people should have that kind of pain and struggle, i think life could be easier for most people and as a society we could make it so..sure a small fraction might use drugs or something w/ their money -- but you know if they use up all their rent money and get evicted then they don't GET UBI (stipulation is you have to have a home address to receive the check and must live there..i.e. no vagrancy/etc... that's really the only requirement).

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#665

Post by kakarot »

jaggederest wrote: post #650
kakarot wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as there are old, ugly men who want to have sex with young, beautiful women no matter the cost to either party, economic exploitation will remain at the heart of civilization, stunting our growth to the point of deformity.

Interestingly enough I don't think that's actually the warping factor any more. It used to be, certainly, but I think these days we've gone beyond "I would like to own people as chattel property", and all the way to "I want to be the biggest metaphorical genitalia in my particular subregion of the country"

I see your point, though it does seem like these are both extensions of the same underlying instinctual desires present in males, mainly the need for dominance (expressed in only a small percentage of the population for evolutionary reasons) and the need for sexual gratification / production of offspring. Being the biggest metaphorical genitalia around will lead to fulfillment of both of those things.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#666

Post by dredmorbius »

conanbatt wrote: post #654
dredmorbius wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealth of Nations , Book I, Chapter VIII, generally. Smith doesn'tquite say "allow unions", but he makes all the arguments in favour: As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which 7 the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land....* [I]n every part of Europe, twen…

I remember. That the employers monopolize and combine and have advantages over the worker is established, but not that doing the same on the other side would be beneficial. He mentions in spirit on in parallel that any measure to try to reduce that power of monopolization would be either ineffectual or make it worse. Within the Smithy naivete, one could argue that unionization would mean that by necessity, employers…

My read, again, is that Smith pretty much lays out the full case for unions, but stops short of overtly endorsing them.

But he explains the advantage, the unfairness of circumstance, of law, of practice, and of effect.

Elsewhere he's far more direct in challenging economic power.

And if you read the followers of Smith, particularly Mill, that endorsement is far clearer still.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#667

Post by dredmorbius »

conanbatt wrote: post #662
dredmorbius wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British East India Company as a thing by 1776 (its stock collapse, a few years earlier, is highly likely to have cloured Smith's thinking on joint stock companies generally). In 1672, the English East India Company finally secured a trading post in Taiwan - ten years after the Dutch East India Company had been expelled from the island by the Chinese. The Company was soon engaged in direct and regular trade with t…

Ah, I mistook subsistence of Smith with Ricardo? (I finished Ricardo's book a month ago and WoN about 3 months ago, easy to mix up, particularly on Ricardo quoting WoN). Nice exchange of messages! Glad to be able to talk about things written 250 years ago with random internet strangers.

I've yet to read Ricardo closely, though I'm somewhat familiar with his work. There's less of it, among other things (he died young and kept busy with other matters).

That said, on wages, I get the impression he's not all that far from Smith.

And likewise, appreciate the discussion.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#668

Post by pjmorris »

RealityNow wrote: post #660
pjmorris wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With UBI, the employer now can pay (wage-UBI) for every employee, shifting the wage burden off the employer and onto the state by a factor of UBI x population. With a jobs guarantee, an 'employer of last resort', the government sets the floor on wages through hiring, giving everyone who wants a job but can't find one in the open market at whatever base wage parallels UBI. The government only has to pay for base wage…

This is counteracted by the fact that employees now have the option of walking away from their jobs, and thus employers would have to raise wages to draw them in. Wages might rise in the type of jobs that nobody actually wants to do (eg. janitor), though wages may very well decrease in the jobs that everybody wants. UBI and government job programs aren't mutually exclusive. I do think the government should create mor…

> This is counteracted by the fact that employees now have the option of walking away from their jobs

I don't see how either a UBI or a job guarantee limits employees from walking away from their jobs. The presence of a job, or an income, hasn't stopped many people from starting their own thing.

> But either way, I think a UBI is necessary so that people have the option of working for themselves rather than being forced to answer to someone else.

The option to work for yourself isn't taken away by a jobs guarantee. I can see how the presence of a UBI would permit people to do things no one would pay for otherwise. As idyllic as I really do think that sounds, I suspect that examples of people doing things no one would pay for would be used over time by UBI opponents to drive down the value of the UBI to below a living wage.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#669

Post by Chris2048 »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #325
esarbe wrote: post #321

What strikes me the most when looking at many of the comments here is the blatant disregard for human suffering that extreme inequality and the resulting poverty cause. The current economical status quo is accepted as a given and all the harm it causes is dismissed with the shrug of a shoulder. "It can't be helped, the poor sods should have made better life choices to avoid ending up as janitor" is the attitude by wh…

As long as we accept the need for people to be janitors, we must accept that becoming a janitor is not a "mistake", it's a useful thing that we all want to see happen for some people. We can't on the one hand say, that we need people to do this job and on the other hand say, "tough luck" to those that do it.

Becoming a janitor is not a mistake. Having so few options that janitor is all you can be, along with many other people (competition), is the mistake.

If everyone had better options, fewer would be willing to be janitors, and the need for janitors would cause janitorial wages to increase.

Basically, society is partly competitive.

Re: To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors

#670

Post by Chris2048 »

jaggederest wrote: post #579
jiggunjer wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the fact that she's a single mom with 4 kids is a factor too. I think a janitor with a single dependent would have a more acceptable standard of living.

Are you making a modest proposal that people should go from four kids to one, post facto? I think everyone deserves to be able to have vacation time, especially single parents.

> I think everyone deserves

To live a life free of consequences? As in have more kids, same quality of life?

How will that work?

> everyone deserves..

And who pays?

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