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As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

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Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#311

Post by Nasrudith »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #214
fullstackchris wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hearing stuff like this a lot recently, I always think about the often repeated vision that Keynes had, saying that we (his grandchildren) would be working 15 hour work weeks. I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea. Before I'm barraged with "what about people in the servi…

> I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea. Not sure we're duped by the 40 hr / week idea so much as we're slaves to our desire for consumer goods. That and housing is very expensive now which means more work to pay for it.

Job hour and insurance lack of fungibility also make it hard even if you were willing to accept lesser pay it would be harder to find an employer who accepts it. Self-employment doesn't lend itself to fixed smooth workweeks and leaves one uninsulated from all of the demands of running a business.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#312

Post by DarknessFalls »

dougmwne wrote: post #11

5 years ago I hit a burnout point and took a year off work. It was a huge perspective shift. I realized that my day-to-day of a rushed commute to work, a stressful and distracting office, thimble-deep coworker relationships and a life completely orientated around doing the above was an insane waste of my short time on Planet Earth. I reoriented my life around family, remote work, flexibility and balance. My quality o…

I agree with everything you said, but 'orientated'.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#313

Post by YrAz3EGttt »

newfriend wrote: post #269
nickthemagicman wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called the myth of overconsumption. It creates a simple fairy tale that financial success or failure rests solely on the individual. It allows people to ignore wage stagnation, inflation, rising costs of critical goods and services, rising inequality, and fundament structural inequities with society. Here's a more in-depth academic paper that provides data beyond unsourced colloquialisms if you're interested.…

And this is the myth of "The Man is keeping me down". It allows people to ignore that their choices are by far the biggest factor in what happens in their lives, and instead allows them blame society and take no responsibility.

There's a spectrum between the extremes of "over consumption" and "the man is keeping me down". And in the middle there's also "simply playing the hand you're dealt".

Looking at the comments here, it seems like people cherry pick anecdotes or statistics to support their beliefs about the distribution.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#314

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

hda111 wrote: post #289
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope.

In my home country it’s illegal. We have minimum wage.

We have minimum wage, but I’m not working for anyone else. I am partnering with a small startup team, writing software for nonprofits.

It has always been my dream to work for free.

I am fairly good at what I do; largely because I love doing it. I consider it a craft, not just a vocation.

If no one is interested in paying me for my work, I’ll do it anyway; except on my terms; and that makes all the difference.

In fact, I love doing it so much, I don’t really want to go back to working for others.

It’s kind of too bad. I would have been happy to work for a lot less than most, as my retirement was assured some time ago, but that’s all water under the bridge.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#315

Post by themaninthedark »

jedimastert wrote: post #253

You know, I was just at Walmart, where they only had one cashier. I heard a group of people complain about how "no one wanted to work anymore" not one of them moved to the self-checkout line when a bunch of them opened up.

I was at a restaurant that was short staffed and everyone was waiting for tables to be cleaned. People made similar comments about 'how no one wants to work' but noone grabbed a tray and started bussing tables.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#316

Post by YrAz3EGttt »

caseysoftware wrote: post #303
nickthemagicman wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called the myth of overconsumption. It creates a simple fairy tale that financial success or failure rests solely on the individual. It allows people to ignore wage stagnation, inflation, rising costs of critical goods and services, rising inequality, and fundament structural inequities with society. Here's a more in-depth academic paper that provides data beyond unsourced colloquialisms if you're interested.…

Here's some sourced data for my claims to look at the "myth" if you're interested: "65% of Americans are still paying for cable TV." "According to cable cord-cutting subscribers statistics for 2018, the average viewer in the US can save up to $104 per month by taking the plunge." Ref: https://techjury.net/blog/cable-tv-subscribers-statistics/ "According to Zagat, if you are like the average American, you go out for l…

Even if we assume these websites to be accurate, The data and conclusions are wildly speculative and ask more questions than answer. This isn't remotely evidence for your claim.

What are the demographics by age, geography for the people paying for cable tv, going out for dinners 5 times a week and that have $5k of credit card debt. You seem to be assuming they are all the same people, and you are assuming that correlation is causation.

Besides, even I indulge -

The link you shared about cord cutting statistics, if you read through the link, its making the point that cutting the cord was on the rise and in 2018 increased by 32.8% compared to 2017. In 2018 alone 33M people canceled their TV subscription. Seems like your data suggests people are increasingly doing what you want them to do, cutting the cord and saving money.

The link about people going out for lunch and dinner, it actually doesn't have any data in it. It appears to be a blog by a private citizen.

The link you shared about credit card debt, well that actually says that average credit card debt reduced by 14% from 2019 to 2020, while the avg fico across all generations increased. Seems like another trend that you wanted people to do. Surprisingly it also says that while avg credit card debt reduced from 2019 to 2020, student loan debt increased the highest of any debt category, by 9%.

Should I be concluding that people have been cutting the cord and saving money on cable tv, reducing credit card debt and investing in education? Or are we just cherry picking statistics to support a belief without really looking at the data.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#317

Post by fgonzag »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #314
hda111 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my home country it’s illegal. We have minimum wage.

We have minimum wage, but I’m not working for anyone else. I am partnering with a small startup team, writing software for nonprofits. It has always been my dream to work for free. I am fairly good at what I do; largely because I love doing it. I consider it a craft, not just a vocation. If no one is interested in paying me for my work, I’ll do it anyway; except on my terms; and that makes all the difference. In fact…

That's what I'm working towards. Build enough of a nest so that I can spend the rest of my life just contributing to open source software / passion projects.

I'm hoping I'm done by my early 40s (mid thirties ATM). I have a target amount that should afford me a relatively well off life just off interest. The moment I hit that number I'm stepping off the treadmill.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#318

Post by baumy »

Apocryphon wrote: post #242
SavageBeast wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. There is no free lunch. UBI comes on the backs of the value adding class of society. Some people actually LIKE to work, hard as it is for some to believe. The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon them in the form of paying for those young males to hang out and get in fights. Ive had the dubious honor of knowing more than one kid who was never going to have to work a single day in life owing…

> The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon them in the form of paying for those young males to hang out and get in fights. If anything existing basic income experiments have revealed the opposite: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/stockton-ca-gave-residents... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/what-did-... https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/richmond-califo...

Those experiments are worse than useless for predicting what would actually happen in a "true UBI" environment. I say "worse than useless" as opposed to just "useless" since they make people think they have some insight into what a UBI world would look like, but they really don't.

Giving a small number of people an amount of money below what they'd need to actually survive, with them knowing perfectly well it won't last forever has effectively zero in common with UBI. Give an entire contained population of people enough money that they can have all their basic needs met just with that money, and guarantee them it will continue for the rest of their lives, and I'd bet quite a lot that the results would be drastically different.

Also, not a big deal since you also provided two reasonable links, but many people will see that you linked motherjones and likely discount your comment entirely. It's on the same tier as OANN and breitbart.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#319

Post by Apocryphon »

baumy wrote: post #318
Apocryphon wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon them in the form of paying for those young males to hang out and get in fights. If anything existing basic income experiments have revealed the opposite: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/stockton-ca-gave-residents... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/what-did-... https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/richmond-califo...

Those experiments are worse than useless for predicting what would actually happen in a "true UBI" environment. I say "worse than useless" as opposed to just "useless" since they make people think they have some insight into what a UBI world would look like, but they really don't. Giving a small number of people an amount of money below what they'd need to actually survive, with them knowing perfectly well it won't l…

Nah, empiricism is not bad. And attacking a single link in one isolated post that took me two minutes to search up links for hardly discredits an entire field of interest. Thanks for the concern though but this is hardly a thesis.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#320

Post by baumy »

Apocryphon wrote: post #319
baumy wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those experiments are worse than useless for predicting what would actually happen in a "true UBI" environment. I say "worse than useless" as opposed to just "useless" since they make people think they have some insight into what a UBI world would look like, but they really don't. Giving a small number of people an amount of money below what they'd need to actually survive, with them knowing perfectly well it won't l…

Nah, empiricism is not bad. And attacking a single link in one isolated post that took me two minutes to search up links for hardly discredits an entire field of interest. Thanks for the concern though but this is hardly a thesis.

Sure whatever, but the rest of my post is more pertinent. These experiments have no value. Measuring the wavelength of the color of the sky is empirical and offers roughly the same insight into the impact of UBI on society. Empiricism on its own is nothing.
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