Full Employment • Hacker News Board

Re: Full Employment

#141

Post by wGeF7H8Z59y985y » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

montereynack wrote: post #100

wGeF7H8Z59y985y wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In our (western civilization) societies, everyone wants to be a manager or a scrum master or at least a programmer, have a nice white collar job in the home office. That’s a very coastal city attitude which in most parts of the US would seem utterly provincial. The man who owns the roofing company that’s redoing my roof shakes his head when he hears me talk about staring at a computer screen all day. The HVAC repai…

Sorry, I know you wanted to communicate a lot with that paragraph but I gotta ask - what keyboard do you use? I want to avoid carpal tunnel myself but haven’t been able to find any recommendations online.

I use the ErgoDox EZ (https://ergodox-ez.com/) with those sculpted caps that come without letters printed on them. I love this keyboard: it's one of my most prized possessions. I only wish they'd made one where the sculpted caps do have letters printed on them. This would make it possible for other persons in my household to use my keyboard.

Re: Full Employment

#142

Post by take_a_breath » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #134

justin66 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more obligations a state takes to its population (not limited to citizens), the harder it is to enact an open-borders policy while keeping these obligations. The opposite is true. Immigrants generally work very hard and accept minimal wages. (This is one reason why many citizens would prefer not to compete with them in the labor market.) Their labor can be highly effective in supporting an economy with strong,…

The opposite is true. Social programs are funded by tax dollars, not cheap labor that may or may not be reported for taxes at all. If you want to make an argument that immigrants are good for these programs you need to limit immigration to higher economic output (and thus tax revenue) individuals like many other countries do.

==If you want to make an argument that immigrants are good for these programs you need to limit immigration to higher economic output (and thus tax revenue) individuals==

Do you have any sources on this claim? I'd be interested to read.

Re: Full Employment

#143

Post by JackFr » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

truculent wrote: post #136

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #77

Reading the economic and tech-fix discussion here, it strikes me again that we're trapped in a system that doesn't provide workable means to solve our pressing problems. Yet we continue to treat it (economics, the global financial system) as some kind of inevitable force of nature, rather than as something that we invented and (to some degree) chose. I wish I knew why that is. I don't know how we get from here to a p…

> Yet we continue to treat it (economics, the global financial system) as some kind of inevitable force of nature, rather than as something that we invented and (to some degree) chose. I wish I knew why that is. This is well said, and I have been very frustrated by this in recent years, too. The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective, and what means they have to spread this idea in the…

> The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective

Start with the billions of people lifted out of poverty. Never in history have so many people enjoyed such a high standard of living.

The market isn't perfect and it isn't magic, and I don't mean to minimize climate change and other tragedies-of-the-commons, but in practice it's been very successful at improving peoples lives.

Re: Full Employment

#144

Post by leetcrew » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #39

zumachase wrote: post #4

> Should that day come to pass, the money-issuer – the central bank – can procure all that idle labor, without creating inflation. If the private sector doesn’t want labor, then there’s no bidding war between companies and a federal jobs program or a universal basic income, so creating money to buy people’s labor won’t drive up the price of that labor. I had to stop reading after this. This is not how inflation works…

> I had to stop reading after this. This is not how inflation works and it borders on the preposterous to surmise that CBs can monetize deficits without creating inflation because there is excess supply in one market. I think the government doesn't have to run deficits, it can always tax the money back out of the economy. (The only problem is nobody likes that, for some reason. People seem to prefer inflation to taxa…

> (The only problem is nobody likes that, for some reason. People seem to prefer inflation to taxation.)

the reason for this is fairly obvious. if you have a positive net worth, cash is probably a small fraction of your total assets, which limits the direct harm you face from inflation. if you have a negative net worth (ie, you have debt), inflation erodes the real value of your obligations over time. in general, this is already priced into the interest, but you certainly wouldn't want to see inflation decrease while you're repaying a loan, and you might be happy to see it increase.

Re: Full Employment

#145

Post by setgree » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #135

setgree wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bryan Caplan addresses this as one of his "keyhole solutions" to various perceived negative externalities: [0] > For instance, if the problem lies with migrant welfare use, the most keyhole solution-like approach is to change the rules, or enforcement of rules, surrounding migrant welfare use. Another option is open borders with a migration tax [1]. At the end of the day, I think that once someone adopts the mindset…

this raises more questions than it answers for me. the migration tax in particular doesn't make a lot of sense to me. immigrants are either going to a) consume more services than they pay for in "normal" taxes, or b) make enough money that their taxes more than offset the services consumed. in case b), the people probably already have some valuable skills; you don't want to discourage these people from entering with…

These are fair points, all of which I think could be addressed by finding the optimal taxation point.

The keyhole solution I favor would be something like: a US passport for 10 years, with no political rights or access to SS/Medicare/medicaid/etc., costs $10k, if you lived here for 10 years and didn't get arrested or anything then that transitions into full citizenship; maybe if you earned a certain amount of money/paid a certain amount of taxes in that time, you get your 10k back. Something like that, anyway.

(FWIW my first choice would be a much, much lower barrier to entry -- this is what I came up with to try to address concerns like those raised in this thread.)

But, again, if you accept that the default moral position is non-violence -- i.e. people have a prima facie right to move where they want, and if you threaten to hurt them for doing so (by putting them in jail, or making the only available border crossing extremely dangerous), then you are acting wrongly -- then I think it becomes natural to begin looking for solutions to whatever externalities you can think of. That's why I favor arguing the moral case for immigration before anything else: http://www.owl232.net/papers/immigration.htm

Re: Full Employment

#146

Post by poiuytrewqa » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #143

truculent wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet we continue to treat it (economics, the global financial system) as some kind of inevitable force of nature, rather than as something that we invented and (to some degree) chose. I wish I knew why that is. This is well said, and I have been very frustrated by this in recent years, too. The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective, and what means they have to spread this idea in the…

> The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective Start with the billions of people lifted out of poverty. Never in history have so many people enjoyed such a high standard of living. The market isn't perfect and it isn't magic, and I don't mean to minimize climate change and other tragedies-of-the-commons, but in practice it's been very successful at improving peoples lives.

This is the first time I've heard that the financial system has lifted "billions" of people out of poverty.

I thought that the financial system was the consequences of wealth rather than the cause (otherwise this doesn't explain why none of the African stock exchange are fighting with NYSE for the most attractive stock market)

Re: Full Employment

#147

Post by tartoran » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

departure wrote: post #127

wGeF7H8Z59y985y wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In our (western civilization) societies, everyone wants to be a manager or a scrum master or at least a programmer, have a nice white collar job in the home office. That’s a very coastal city attitude which in most parts of the US would seem utterly provincial. The man who owns the roofing company that’s redoing my roof shakes his head when he hears me talk about staring at a computer screen all day. The HVAC repai…

Counterpoint as someone who group around the trades and whose friends parents where mostly in working class trades, they all stressed going to college so we didn't end up working hard like them. My parents knew I could make really good money with welding and masonry like other family members but also knew that we were rough to our body, I had a uncle who lost an eye on the job! To someone working 8-10 hrs in the Texa…

I agree but seems like sitting in a chair in front of a computer and not working out hard to fight the effects of the sedentary lifestyle is as bad on the human body. Some programmers spend so much time in front of the computer that they don’t have enough time, energy or motivation to hit the gym.

Also the skills learned in this field are inflating fast. Compare that to learning a trade and applying that knowledge for a lifetime of work while build solid experience in time is also a bit different.

Also software jobs quite frequently lead mental wear as much as those trade jobs are rough on the body

Re: Full Employment

#148

Post by ustolemyname » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #143

truculent wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet we continue to treat it (economics, the global financial system) as some kind of inevitable force of nature, rather than as something that we invented and (to some degree) chose. I wish I knew why that is. This is well said, and I have been very frustrated by this in recent years, too. The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective, and what means they have to spread this idea in the…

> The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective Start with the billions of people lifted out of poverty. Never in history have so many people enjoyed such a high standard of living. The market isn't perfect and it isn't magic, and I don't mean to minimize climate change and other tragedies-of-the-commons, but in practice it's been very successful at improving peoples lives.

That could equally be a consequence of technological and scientific development than any particular economic structure.

Re: Full Employment

#149

Post by metalliqaz » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #143

truculent wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet we continue to treat it (economics, the global financial system) as some kind of inevitable force of nature, rather than as something that we invented and (to some degree) chose. I wish I knew why that is. This is well said, and I have been very frustrated by this in recent years, too. The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective, and what means they have to spread this idea in the…

> The simplest clue I have is to look at who benefits from this perspective Start with the billions of people lifted out of poverty. Never in history have so many people enjoyed such a high standard of living. The market isn't perfect and it isn't magic, and I don't mean to minimize climate change and other tragedies-of-the-commons, but in practice it's been very successful at improving peoples lives.

This is always attributed to the market, or capitalism, or some other such thing. Why is that? Citation please.

The system not only encourages but requires inequality. Today's billionaires accumulated that wealth off the back of countless toiling workers, many doing so in miserable conditions.

Why is it so clearly capitalism that lifted those people out of poverty, and not modern advances in technology, such as in food production, efficient transportation of goods, sanitation, and medicine?

Re: Full Employment

#150

Post by leetcrew » Thu, Jul 09, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

jusssi wrote: post #7

zumachase wrote: post #4

> Should that day come to pass, the money-issuer – the central bank – can procure all that idle labor, without creating inflation. If the private sector doesn’t want labor, then there’s no bidding war between companies and a federal jobs program or a universal basic income, so creating money to buy people’s labor won’t drive up the price of that labor. I had to stop reading after this. This is not how inflation works…

> All of these people who would otherwise have less/no money are now spending that printed money to purchase goods like food, thus driving inflation higher. This assumes those goods are a scarce resource, so that increased consumption eventually leads to shortage. I can't quote sources, but my understanding is that we have enough food to feed everyone ATM, and any remaining hunger is just a failure of the economy to…

it's not just the distribution of currency; it's the distribution of food itself. a lot of food waste happens because the cost of transporting and storing it would result in a net loss.