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How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

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Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#191

Post by _y5hn »

esotericn wrote: post #184
_y5hn wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK half-assed the lockdown response since March. So when a country lose control, their hands get forced. This leads to even worse outcomes. Witness consequences in US too. It's a leadership problem, and hard to fix for regular Joe.

No-one was forced to enact laws against me visiting my family. It leads me to my original post: > They will throw you under the bus immediately and comprehensively as soon as there's even the slightest microscopic threat to their wellbeing. > And they'll cast the blame on you. They'll say it's your failing. They'll say - never mind our responsibilities to you - you need to do your bit regardless.

This leads you to circular reasoning to justify your own outrage that healthcare crisis laws exist for a reason.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#192

Post by username90 »

wutbrodo wrote: post #146
naebother wrote: post #56

Are the workers that are getting paid in advance 6.2% more productive or are the workers not getting paid in advance 6.2% less productive because of that? Both scenarios make sense to me. I can envision working better if I don't have to constantly worry about my financial situation. But I can also envision working less if I know some people are getting paid in advance, but not me. Either way, boss makes a dollar, I m…

> Are the workers that are getting paid in advance 6.2% more productive or are the workers not getting paid in advance 6.2% less productive because of that? This question isn't meaningful. "Less" and "more" are relative terms. There's no way to choose which one is occurring in the absolute.

It does matter a lot, changing things usually creates a short term improvement but over time that improvement goes away. This is a very common problem when evaluating teaching methods etc, basically any change at all will make teachers and kids excited and improve learning, but once those changes becomes standard the improvements go away and sometimes even reverse.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#193

Post by chordalkeyboard »

readflaggedcomm wrote: post #189
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then hand over the computer you're typing this on. It doesn't belong to you, and I've got some people who want to use it. That is, I'm pretty sure that on some level you operate as if private property is both normal and right, no matter what your theory says...

That is personal property, not private property.

What’s the difference? Who appointed you the arbiter of property classes?

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#194

Post by esotericn »

_y5hn wrote: post #191
esotericn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one was forced to enact laws against me visiting my family. It leads me to my original post: > They will throw you under the bus immediately and comprehensively as soon as there's even the slightest microscopic threat to their wellbeing. > And they'll cast the blame on you. They'll say it's your failing. They'll say - never mind our responsibilities to you - you need to do your bit regardless.

This leads you to circular reasoning to justify your own outrage that healthcare crisis laws exist for a reason.

There's a distinction between "healthcare crisis laws" (such as the initial lockdown for a few weeks in the UK), and making it illegal to visit friends and family indefinitely.

I'm just repeating myself now though.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#195

Post by TeMPOraL »

ajmadesc wrote: post #106
ericmcer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I mean, economic systems that attempt to leverage human benevolence have all failed. Capitalism at its root leverages our base qualities (greed, fear, desire, etc.) to motivate members to be productive. It has been the most successful system thus far, despite its many, many faults.

Don't understand why this is down voted, it's being one paycheck away from poverty that keep 70% of Americans from telling off their bosses

It's funny how this goes. Capitalism is great because it promises individual freedom and giving everyone what they wants, while also holding 70% of Americans at economical gunpoint, justifying that with "well if everyone truly got what they want, nobody would produce and civilization would collapse".

Perhaps the capitalists should drop the talk about freedom and voluntary trade. Or we need a new word for "freedom" that doesn't classify structurally coerced choices as "free".

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#196

Post by imtringued »

pasquinelli wrote: post #138
treeman79 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Focusing on “us” ends in ruling class and endless poverty everywhere. Alternatives to capitalism have been tried and it always fails. Venezuela is the most recent example.

Venezuela is struggling because of a focus on the collective, not because of sactions, blockades, and coup attepts... none of that has any real effect.

A common point in Bitcoin submissions on HN is that a deflationary cryptocurrency would help with the inflationary currency (e.g. in Venezuela) and make it possible for the average person to build wealth.

I just looked up Venezuela's situation. Well, food prices are going up because diesel sanctions prevent farmers from running their tractors. That's definitively not a currency problem.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#197

Post by TeMPOraL »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #122
chillfox wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the UK, It has been interesting to watch your "circus" from the other side of the planet. IMO, the UK handled Covid exceptionally poorly by repeatedly being afraid to act until it was too late. Here in Australia (Specifically the Northern Territory) we locked down hard early on while we had around 20 cases, I think it was for 2 months, after which no further lock downs have been required. Quarantine for travelers…

You have more chance of dying from car accidents than Covid if you're under 55 years old. By locking down hard on age groups who aren't vulnerable to the virus you're enabling the clown world that OP is referring to. Sure lock down the elderly that's fine but making national health policy based on one demographic is full on straight clown world stuff.

Car accident rate doesn't grow exponentially, with doubling time measured in days.

With an infectious disease like this, what you want is to curb its ability to spread. That means disrupting the entire social network, because while the virus is most dangerous to the elderly, it spreads best through the young. Also lung damage, the fact that small chance of disability or death multiplied by whole country getting infected equals to more harm than inconveniencing everyone a bit and nipping the problem in the bud, yadda yadda. These are all tired points.

The main way UK (and US, and a chunk of EU) response was a "clown world" was pretending there's no problem until it was too late, and then doing too little, and then doing stupid things that nullified the effect of previous interventions.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#198

Post by imtringued »

hezag wrote: post #103
ericmcer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I mean, economic systems that attempt to leverage human benevolence have all failed. Capitalism at its root leverages our base qualities (greed, fear, desire, etc.) to motivate members to be productive. It has been the most successful system thus far, despite its many, many faults.

These attempts haven't failed because they are intrinsically worse, but because they were systematically threatened and sabotaged by the greed-driven players.

Greed doesn't go away in a non capitalist system.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#199

Post by imtringued »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #195
ajmadesc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't understand why this is down voted, it's being one paycheck away from poverty that keep 70% of Americans from telling off their bosses

It's funny how this goes. Capitalism is great because it promises individual freedom and giving everyone what they wants, while also holding 70% of Americans at economical gunpoint, justifying that with "well if everyone truly got what they want, nobody would produce and civilization would collapse". Perhaps the capitalists should drop the talk about freedom and voluntary trade. Or we need a new word for "freedom" th…

>Capitalism is great because it promises individual freedom and giving everyone what they wants, while also holding 70% of Americans at economical gunpoint

If government policies are set in a way that encourages this outcome then that's what you get. It doesn't have to be that way.

Re: How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

#200

Post by imtringued »

esotericn wrote: post #194
_y5hn wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This leads you to circular reasoning to justify your own outrage that healthcare crisis laws exist for a reason.

There's a distinction between "healthcare crisis laws" (such as the initial lockdown for a few weeks in the UK), and making it illegal to visit friends and family indefinitely. I'm just repeating myself now though.

You know, the problem is that nobody goes and thinks "Oh we have messed up, now we need stronger lockdown measures, if only we had done a weaker lockdown sooner we could have avoided this" instead everyone thinks "The government is subverting democracy. We must fight back." x months later "The government is getting worse. We must fight back even harder"
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