561–570 of 589 posts
Any job right now that is considered ‘essential job’ and exposes the worker to covid is the exact job that needs to be automated.
What is happening right now is a cautionary tale and answers the question, “what jobs should we automate?”
I also read, the nurses that were commuting from other EU countries to work in Germany are now going back to help their home countries.
That sounds a bit hard to believe. Walk away now and you'll probably never be employed in the country ever again. If they were OK with wages in their home country they would not be cross border commuters to begin with.
In the US I expect prime meat to be considerably cheaper than usual. With restaurants not buying there will be a glut and I expect regular stores (instead of just speciality shops and suppliers) will be getting it for awhile. If there’s 1 thing the US has it is food and the supply chain is excellent. If anything this is an opportunity for the US to make a move on trade with Britain and possibly the EU to export our A…
Anecdotal but at Costco the other day all beef was sold out except the prime cuts. I ended up buying some after noticing the price wasn't much higher than what I used to pay. Now, granted, I don't remember what prime meat used to cost, so maybe it was always competitive at Costco?
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At 20 USD/hour I think you would be able to fill these jobs. But if you want to make that salary picking fruit, then we'll have to pay more for it -- or you'll need to have some automation to increase productivity. I doubt we'll want to pay more, consumers would rather buy imports instead.
Migrant labor was $20-25/hour over a decade ago in parts of the rural US where I knew the rough market rate. You are greatly underestimating what a market clearing wage that would entice people to live out there looks like. The $100+k oil companies are required to pay to entice Americans to work in their remote oil fields is much closer to the reality.
Maybe it has to get worse before people understand just how connected the world is and that local actions do actually have an impact on the world.
I severely doubt it though...
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> Guess what? Everyone dies The unpleasant part is not solely people dying, it's the volunteering of other people dying by people who assume they won't die from it, and not for their own survival but to keep a level of personal comfort and luxury. Assume you are in the group who would die, but economic sacrifice keeps you alive. Now, hands up if you are willing to trade that - to definitely die in April 2020, or suic…
Economic conditions have real and immediate health consequences too. For example, in 2010 US unemployment briefly grew about 6% to a total of 10% in the US and there were 40,000 additional deaths from cancer alone[1]. When you consider heart disease, other illness, drug abuse, and suicide, the numbers are much greater. The often cited number of 40k for each percent unemployment may not be far off if these factors are…
Does it have to be "GDP falls and nothing can change to respond to that"?
The UDSA says[1] the United States wastes 30-40% of its food each year - $100+Billion. This ought to mean the food supply could contract 30% and it would be conceivable for nobody to eat less at all, not even go hungry and save money not buying food to throw it in the trash. Most people are overweight, it ought to be possible that the food supply could contract a lot more than 30% for a short period, and not only could it still be enough food to keep everyone alive, many people would get healthier from it happening. Currently the poor would starve and the rich would thrive, but surely that isn't the only way things could be? It's imaginable that a skilled orator could convince people to not spend $100Bn on food to throw in the trash, but to donate it to disease response instead - that's the entire UK NHS budget for many months. That won't apply in developing countries, but plants don't have COVID-19, nor do most humans, and most humans who do, recover. Food scarcity issues are still going to be about resource distribution and logistics, not about actual scarcity of food; not trivial problems which can change with the snap of the fingers, but easier than raising the dead, aren't they?
And even, even, if you don't like being alive in a poorer world, and wish you had died of COVID-19 instead, you can still suicide then, it isn't either-or. But you can't go the other way, regret dying of COVID-19 and then choose to try the alternative problems instead.
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Anecdotal but at Costco the other day all beef was sold out except the prime cuts. I ended up buying some after noticing the price wasn't much higher than what I used to pay. Now, granted, I don't remember what prime meat used to cost, so maybe it was always competitive at Costco?
On the day the President declared a national emergency, all the meat was sold out at the local HEB, even the wagyu stuff -- everything. But that was... two weeks ago, and it was probably the start and peak of food panic buying? Today at the local H-Mart there was plenty of everything.
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Migrants can't make it to harvests because countries/states are locked down. Isn't that literally in the article? There won't be any sources for a while because this is literally just starting. I mean 3billion people are on lockdown of some sort globally right now. Not hard to imagine it may be hard for workers to get to farms across borders, or even within borders. CA alone will probably see a shortage of migrants.…
So, to put it bluntly, people are sitting on ass and their food crops are rotting in the field? Even if you do nothing the market will probably fix it: Less food in the markets > high demand drives up prices > higher salaries > slightly lower prices At some point some people are hungry enough to get a... shall we say... real job? With some regulatory sanity we subsidize it a bit. Perhaps we should test and quarantine…
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I suspect that the groups of people that lament undocumented workers and those that enjoy avocado toast don’t overlap much. The former are conservatives, the latter are generally young, city dwelling liberals.
This may not apply here but you can't have your cake and eat it too. Exploitation doesn't have to be active but can emerge from perverse incentives, ignorance, and malicious opportunism. I imagine a large faction of people espousing more liberal viewpoints are at worst willfully disingenious or at best optimizing for the emotional/time investment of supporting ethical behaviour. My opinion, not taken as fact: young,…
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You can drive out as far as fairfield, about 70 miles outside of the bay area and still see housing communities packed together like slums with nothing but yellow and green for miles in every direction.
The lots in those communities (including Fairfield) look to be reasonably sized - some pools even. That’s plenty to have a few beds of greens. It’s not acre-sized, but that’s hardly a requirement. What do you propose then, Los Altos or Atherton-sized lots?
i'll never understand the CA obsession with keeping so much land undeveloped at the expense of humanity.