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Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

jasonstanford.substack.com

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Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#451

Post by tcmart14 »

opo wrote: post #365
tcmart14 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is the idea, but it doesn't work in practice because, well people. Really useful electronics are harder to get or have been hard to get, but yet if I wanted to buy my daughter a twerking llama toy, I'd have no issue with acquiring one of those. A little more meaningful example, we grow pistachios (a water intensive crop), in a place with limited access to water (desert areas of California) and have been…

>...Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource. What does preferential treatment by the government have to do with the market? If the farmers didn't get water at a heavily discounted price from the government, they likely wouldn't be able to grow such water intensive crops and the crops would be grown in places that…

Because those who succeed in a market end up with the money to influence policy. That is why that is important. Policy affects markets which then affects policies. It is a concept in capitalism we are not going to get away from.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#452

Post by tcmart14 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #317
tcmart14 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is the idea, but it doesn't work in practice because, well people. Really useful electronics are harder to get or have been hard to get, but yet if I wanted to buy my daughter a twerking llama toy, I'd have no issue with acquiring one of those. A little more meaningful example, we grow pistachios (a water intensive crop), in a place with limited access to water (desert areas of California) and have been…

The electronics part might more showcase what we actually value as a society. In the case of things that need chips it also demonstrates how we are unable to plan. Car makers cancelled their chip orders when the pandemic hit. They have lots of skin in the game and know their own industry better than any politician would. Why would politicians get planning chip production better than they did? The water example is pre…

A comment I put for someone else that answers this.

Because those who succeed in a market end up with the money to influence policy. That is why that is important. Policy affects markets which then affects policies. It is a concept in capitalism we are not going to get away from.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#453

Post by cxr »

vorpalhex wrote: post #450
cxr wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want executives, you need to pay them. I didn't see anyone say anything that conflicted with that, either. You sure you're keeping track of the discussion here?

> I didn't see anyone say anything that conflicted with that, either. Please look up: > > Do the front line labor want securities instead of cash? > > I didn't see anyone say "instead of". The whole of the pie is finite. If one slice is made bigger, the others must be made smaller. The pie, in it's entirety, can be bigger or smaller with securities. That is largely determined by it's executives. Better executives cos…

> Does snark like this work other places you post? Like, I can continue explaining concepts like[...]

No, see, that's the thing; there is no continuous throughline to your comments here. You keep jumping around, and never to a place that actually makes any sense.

Someone said, very simply, that executive pay has "ballooned", and it was suggested that this should probably maybe not be the case. This would mean wealth can increase for both workers and those who are currently extracting most of it from the system, rather than payouts growing disproportionately for the latter. (It was framed as taking a "cut", but that's too generous of a description for a concept that comes down to "stop consolidating wealth to take it for oneself"—a slice of pie that grows by continually taking small bites from elsewhere. It's a "cut" only in the sense of someone backing off their notions of the size of their expected returns.) You didn't engage with this. Instead, you argued against an argument that no one was making—that employees should be paid in securities "instead of" cash. Called out on this, you made another jump to argue against something else that no one was arguing—to pay executives nothing and possibly work through the consequences of having no executives at all.

Dealing with this kind of monkey business is tiresome. To spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy dismissing nonsense arguments that someone keeps peeling off without any care put into them on their end is not economical for me or anyone else.

If you want people to engage with you, you need to knock off the bullshit. (And, please, keep the theatrics to a minimum.)

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#454

Post by grumple »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #140
grumple wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but if you go to a place that provides service in the US, you're signing up for tipping, and you know it. If you don't like it, stay in and cook and make your own drinks.

Did the person that changed my grandmother’s bedpan provide a service? Did the person that poured concrete provide a service? How about the person that helps you find something at the store? We are all providing a service.

Being pedantic isn't necessary, it's obvious from the context that I meant food service.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#455

Post by opo »

tcmart14 wrote: post #451
opo wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...Seems like if the market just naturally achieved efficiency, you'd grow water intensive crops in places that were not constrained on the resource. What does preferential treatment by the government have to do with the market? If the farmers didn't get water at a heavily discounted price from the government, they likely wouldn't be able to grow such water intensive crops and the crops would be grown in places that…

Because those who succeed in a market end up with the money to influence policy. That is why that is important. Policy affects markets which then affects policies. It is a concept in capitalism we are not going to get away from.

>...It is a concept in capitalism

Throughout all recorded history those who have been well connected with those in power have unfairly benefited from that. This isn't something that only came about in modern times. It is only in modern political systems with rule of law, property rights, recognition of inalienable rights, etc. where people feel that this kind of political favoritism is bad and work to limit it by constraining the power of those in power. Constraining the the rulers is done by limiting their power by written constitutions, political transparency, etc. One can certainly argue (and I would agree) that there is more political favoritism than there should be, but at least modern economic systems think it is a bad thing and people work to limit it.

Re: Former Labor Secretary Found What Work Is Like Now

#456

Post by mschuster91 »

watwut wrote: post #109
mschuster91 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, the usual "high school jobs" are not a problem when done by actual high schoolers as side gig to fund phone, beer, weed and gas. They don't need to pay rent, food or health insurance so what would be a non-living wage for an adult is luxury money for high schoolers. The problem is when actual adults who have to take care of adult things (rent, food, health insurance, car payments, ...) have to re…

> retirees follow the "societal contract" and actually go and retire instead of blocking places for the young to rise, Hard no here. If retirees feel strong enough to work, they are 100% entitled to improve their incomes. Especially when they don't have super generous pensions. Retiree struggling to pay pills and doctors is not something super exceptional. There is no social contract for them to stop working.

> Hard no here. If retirees feel strong enough to work, they are 100% entitled to improve their incomes.

Assuming a finite number of places of employment in an economy, when old people cannot ever reasonably retire because multiple governments have either outright stolen from the pension funds or otherwise fucked up the pension system, there is an imbalance: young people are forced to be either unemployed or massively under-employed (i.e. stuck in low-paid, entry level positions), instead of being able to rise through the ranks based on the work they put in.

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