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Full Employment

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Re: Full Employment

#181

Post by kerkeslager »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #179
kerkeslager wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply and demand are natural consequences of scarcity, but they're also consequences of all sorts of market manipulation, and there are good reasons to believe that the supply and demand created by market manipulation far outweighs the supply and demand created by scarcity. There are approximately 570,000 homeless people in the US[1]. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $188 billion[2]. The median price of a house in the…

>There are approximately 570,000 homeless people in the US[1]. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $188 billion[2]. The median price of a house in the US is $218,000. Jeff Bezos could buy every homeless person in the US a house at that median price, and still have $63.7 billion[3], leaving him the 5th richest person in the world[4]. What about the people living in those homes now? Where do they move? And: Wouldn't the pric…

The post you're responding to addresses your questions in the paragraph immediately after the one you quoted.

Re: Full Employment

#182

Post by poiuytrewqa »

JackFr wrote: post #160
JackFr wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Because of the evidence of India and China is compelling. https://forms.gapminder.org/s3/test-2018

I think I provided the wrong link. To be clear, the Gap Minder tools show the majority of the improvement came to India and China after they opened their economies. https://www.gapminder.org/tools/ And in fairness, 'capitalism' is a very imprecise term which often means different things to different people.

I think that's a good comparison. Indeed while in China living condition of the middle class are good and comparable to what you can get in the west, and the low income class still have a fair access to basic needs (housing, water, toilet) this not exactly the same in India.

So if the open market would be the only reason of the progress we should've seen something similar in the two countries.

The only similarity that they both share is a growing disparity between high income class and low income class

Also Chinese policy is more towards open trade than open market. I feel that complicated topic such as progress can't be condensed into one action that can deliver the expected results. In fact is always a combination of policy that bring the desired effect

Re: Full Employment

#183

Post by noelherrick »

leovailati wrote: post #125
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…

Exactly that! As I read the article, I kept thinking "this guy is not following the money". The author's ultimate assumption is that money supply is somehow decoupled from accumulation. People receiving money from the government and using it to buy their basic needs may not drive inflation because their labor is not being procured by anyone else AND those basic goods they are buying would not be produced otherwise. H…

But think about this: if you're a startup founder, you can get co-founders for so much cheaper and more easily. If your buddy and you both know you have UBI, you can start a business without risking that much. The next hires can be lured with equity - this is a great thing because people have emotional and professional ownership in startups, but the one to three founders generally have all the equity. What if UBI forced those founders to both distribute equity and alongside that, the responsibility for the company? I think it would benefit all parties. Talking to founders, those first months and years are stressful as heck - I would wish that on nobody for any price. We can do better.

Think about startups before financing. Loans with interest used to be considered immoral - it's prohibited in the Bible. If you wanted to start a business, you had to save or find a lender that would let you take money and then just wait for you to give it back. And if you didn't pay it back, the lender could put you in prison. No wonder people didn't do that very often. Even with these new ways to fund a startup, you could lose your job and with it your income and healthcare coverage. What if that risk just went away? Of course some people would waste it, but think of all those folks that would turn their lives into hackathons until they struck gold.

Re: Full Employment

#184

Post by UK-Al05 »

poiuytrewqa wrote: post #146
JackFr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

Private property, law, and markets is what lifts people out of poverty.

Wealth inequality is a side effect as some people do better than others.

Re: Full Employment

#185

Post by purplezooey »

I like the way this guy writes. I wonder if the idea that 30% unemployment cannot exist might be challenged by the ability of right wing authoritarian governments, which are on the rise globally, to tamp down dissent.

Re: Full Employment

#186

Post by take_a_breath »

mdorazio wrote: post #177
take_a_breath wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

==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.

Sure, see pages 35-36 (combined with the previous section on poverty) of [1]. Note that most studies claiming otherwise do not account for income level of immigrants, which is what I am responding to here. Higher income immigrants are generally a net positive for social programs, but lower income immigrants are not. [1] https://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/articles/2001/mexico/mex...

1. I don’t see where your charts show that lower income immigrants leading to a deficit in the safety net.

2. Your study is 20 years old.

3. The Center for Immigration Studies is not un-biased on immigration. The exclusive focus on Mexico might have been a giveaway. The first section of their Wikipedia entry:

“The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham and eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton. The organization was founded in 1985 as a spin-off from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studi...

Re: Full Employment

#187

Post by eru »

082349872349872 wrote: post #72
eru wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which place are you talking about? https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf says that US unemployment rate for June 2020 was 11.1%.

"Ours" being swiss. This unemployment level is still very high, 50+% over June 2019. https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmittei... . (caveat: bei uns gibt's Kurzarbeit.)

Ok, that makes more sense.

It's useful to point out which countries / places you talk about. We only let the Americans get away without it.

Re: Full Employment

#188

Post by leovailati »

noelherrick wrote: post #183
leovailati wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly that! As I read the article, I kept thinking "this guy is not following the money". The author's ultimate assumption is that money supply is somehow decoupled from accumulation. People receiving money from the government and using it to buy their basic needs may not drive inflation because their labor is not being procured by anyone else AND those basic goods they are buying would not be produced otherwise. H…

But think about this: if you're a startup founder, you can get co-founders for so much cheaper and more easily. If your buddy and you both know you have UBI, you can start a business without risking that much. The next hires can be lured with equity - this is a great thing because people have emotional and professional ownership in startups, but the one to three founders generally have all the equity. What if UBI for…

I am actually in favor of a UBI, as long as it is truly universal. That means money every month, no questions asked.

I agree with your point: under a true UBI, workers would be able to seek their passions, do whatever they like to do. Doesn't matter if the position is risky or if the pay is low. Worst case scenario, if anything goes wrong, people can fall back on UBI and have their basic needs covered.

In my comment I meant to talk about the guaranteed government job thing that the article mentioned. In that case workers wouldn't have the kind of mobility or guarantees granted by UBI. Startups would actually be competing with the government for people.

I apologize I misused the term UBI before (which is what caused the confusion.)

Re: Full Employment

#189

Post by ralls_ebfe »

wGeF7H8Z59y985y wrote: post #141
montereynack wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had some wrist pain building up during typing, which stopped since I switched to the ergodox. But it is a bit huge in my opinion.

Re: Full Employment

#190

Post by ralls_ebfe »

climwe wrote: post #6
laluser wrote: post #3

I think the general marketing problem with climate change is that people know it's going to happen, but not exactly when. Are we going to have issues next year, 5 years, 20 years, etc? How will these issues impact me and my neighbors? It's difficult to predict these things, so I think many people become skeptical of the milestones we are supposed to be hitting due to climate change and we just become reactive as a so…

But... we are having issues right now? People aren't acting because there's no economic incentive, it is only in part due to denial or ignorance. Many of the world's leaders who have to power to shift the narrative are not doing so because it would be a short term economic loss and businesses aren't happy about it. I mean, many technologies like carbon scrubbers already exist. Why aren't businesses buying them? This…

I live in a part of Germany, where I thought we would not run out of water. Some hot summers later we already have dying trees and crops because of a lack of water. And this will not get better in the future I fear.
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