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Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

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Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#141

Post by marvin »

walshemj wrote: post #110
cjalmeida wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avg dev salary in Dallas: $93k. Avg dev salary in Berlin: $55k. There's a saying you should be careful with what you wish for, you might as well get it. (I deliberately didn't pick SV/NYC. Dallas and Berlin are very similar cost of living wise.)

want to add the additional annual leave you get in Germany and average cost of the same health care in Dallas into that equation let alone the other benefits?

The $55k are pre-tax, and the "free" healthcare in contries with public health care are mostly paid out of those taxes.

There is probably a point in there about shorter work days and legally mandated overtime pay, but it doesn't add up to 40k per year.

Honestly, the more I look at this, the more it seems like there are hidden mechanisms that keep pay below market value in many European countries. E.g. wage collusion and the like. I am almost certain that this is part of the picture, although there are also other factors at play. (Smaller, less homogenous markets than the US, more restrictive laws around business ownership, fewer gargantous and profitable companies that compete for talent, etc).

The High-Tech Employee Anti-Trust Litigation looks very curious to my Norwegian eyes. Cold-calling employees at competitors for recruiting is widely considered inappropriate behavior. I would not be surprised to find out that there are eerily similar unwritten agreements between large employers here.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#142

Post by surfmike »

sliverstorm wrote: post #59
surfmike wrote: post #5

People's perceived needs grow but that is not the whole story. Many people now are spending almost 50% of their pre-tax income on housing, and most of that is the price of land and goes to landlords. It seems that landlords inevitably capture a big chunk of people's salary increases. Additionally in the US your health insurance is generally tied to your job; even after Obamacare you probably have to work to pay for y…

Many people now are spending almost 50% of their pre-tax income on housing, and most of that is the price of land and goes to landlords. 1) That's really not a countrywide thing 2) It's not specifically the landlords, it's whoever was already there. A landlord who bought in just recently is not rolling in dough. The people who capture the gains are the people who got in fifty years ago and sold & moved, or the landlo…

Not everywhere, but in SF, LA, San Diego, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Oslo, Stockholm, London....

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#143

Post by geezerjay »

consz wrote: post #30
purple-again wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go watch a sitcom from the 50s and compare it your surroundings. Hopefully you come to the conclusion that your standard of living is immensely greater than theirs was. If you are thinking of things like the cost of college don’t forget to factor in how many people go to college today versus back then. If you are thinking about the cost of housing, we still have the same land and a growing population. I’m city center…

He was talking about his parent's quality of life -- go watch sitcoms from the 90s for that. I'm not sure how the 50s are relevant.

Not everyone around here is a 20yo child.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#144

Post by darawk »

Because capitalism optimizes for production and consumption - not welfare. Often welfare and production/consumption are aligned (e.g. producing enough food for everyone). But in the case of labor/life balance, they are not aligned. It's actually kind of odd to me that serious people (e.g. John Maynard Keynes) would ever have thought that work hours would decrease. There is no term in the economic fitness function for 'work-life balance'.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#145

Post by Shivetya »

darawk wrote: post #144

Because capitalism optimizes for production and consumption - not welfare. Often welfare and production/consumption are aligned (e.g. producing enough food for everyone). But in the case of labor/life balance, they are not aligned. It's actually kind of odd to me that serious people (e.g. John Maynard Keynes) would ever have thought that work hours would decrease. There is no term in the economic fitness function for…

well a capitalist society is also a society bombarded by marketing experts who are in every part of a person's daily life working to convince them to spend more which in turn drives them to work more or go into debt pushing retirement further off.

consumption is high because marketing is that good. go read any of the popular brand subs on reddit and you will see people making stupid purchasing decisions daily and many seek justification. Its really scary when people are trying to save fifty or less on a one to two thousand dollar purchase because it then costs too much; the clue that indicates the purchase at the lower amount is too much escapes them

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#146

Post by stephen_g »

digi_owl wrote: post #52
a3n wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, an enlightened society. As a US resident, I hope to live in one of those someday. Here I'm just a resource like any farm animal.

Germany has maintained a strict no wage growth policy for decades now however to push exports, potentially contributing to the stagnation of the euro zone.

The Euro is also a big part of this. It’s undervalued compared to Germany’s economy and inflation rate (meaning cheaper and more competitive exports), but overpriced compared to the countries with trade deficits (PIGS, France, etc). This actually leads to internal devaluation of their economies (and unemployment) to achieve what would normally just be a bit weaker exchange rate.

This isn’t a problem for the US states sharing a currency because they have the federal budget spending balances most of this out.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#147

Post by sametmax »

chillwaves wrote: post #57
sametmax wrote: post #32

It has. 80 years ago your worked more hours, and you could not slack at work. Today, you work not only less, but half of the people in the offices I go to don't work their full shift. They go to facebook, send text messages, take long breaks, do their shopping and watch porno (yep), etc. Also, an hour of work doesn't have the same value. When your work is moving boxes, an hour is an hour. But in an office work, there…

This is just some weird anecdote. I work at an architecture firm where the employees have deliverables and bill to clients, we all work really really hard. I work between 45-50 hours a week of real work. One any given Saturday or Sunday you will find dozens of people in my firm working. They are not just pretending. I have worked at a job you describe where people do not do much, but I would hardly say that is the no…

> That's great for you that your life is so comfortable but do not assume it applies universally.

I'm an independent contractor, I just go from company to company. I just witness it, it doesn't apply to my life.

> I have worked at a job you describe where people do not do much, but I would hardly say that is the norm.

You stay very long at the same company. I don't. My job involve dev and training, and hence I go from company to company. There is a trend in what I see.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#148

Post by thaumasiotes »

anigbrowl wrote: post #140
cjalmeida wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avg dev salary in Dallas: $93k. Avg dev salary in Berlin: $55k. There's a saying you should be careful with what you wish for, you might as well get it. (I deliberately didn't pick SV/NYC. Dallas and Berlin are very similar cost of living wise.)

Odd, because people I talk to from Berlin are horrified at the cost of living here. I'm not sure you're comparing apples with apples.

These can both be true:

1. The cost of living in Dallas is roughly equal to the cost of living in Berlin.

2. The cost of living like you're in Berlin in Dallas is much higher than the cost of living in Berlin.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#149

Post by sametmax »

watwut wrote: post #101
sametmax wrote: post #32

It has. 80 years ago your worked more hours, and you could not slack at work. Today, you work not only less, but half of the people in the offices I go to don't work their full shift. They go to facebook, send text messages, take long breaks, do their shopping and watch porno (yep), etc. Also, an hour of work doesn't have the same value. When your work is moving boxes, an hour is an hour. But in an office work, there…

The stats I read says that Americans now work more hours. And likely, you need a better job.

> And likely, you need a better job.

Hardly. My job consist in dev and training. I go to those companies, and I'm paid because they can't get things done. Then I go to another one, rinse and repeat.

This situation plays very much in my favor.

Re: Why hasn't economic progress lowered work hours more? (2016) [video]

#150

Post by jernfrost »

Anthropologists David Graeber, has addressed this and offered the explanation with the observation that we as a society produce what he calls bullshit jobs. Almost 40% of Brits in a surveyed acknowledged that their job wasn't needed.

People believing in effective markets would of course protest and claim such enormous inefficiency can't possibly exist. Somebody will simply start a company without bullshit jobs.

However I think there is a good explanation why this doesn't happen: https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/why-do-bullshit-jobs-exist-4f5...

In short, in any complex organization bullshit work will start accruing and there is no good mechanism to week out such jobs, because the people doing those jobs will have zero incentive to tell their managers that their job in pointless and not needed.

I've tried researching this on reddit and seen that a lot of work people do could have been automated. The people doing those jobs also frequently see this. However they have no economic incentive to do so.

This has lead me to contemplate that guaranteed minimum income has merits, because it would remove the disincentive to make yourself redundant, to some extent. Of course not in the case where your bullshit jobs is very highly paid, which is frequently the case.

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