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The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

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Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#401
I am part of this resignation wave, and quit (retired?) last spring with no intention of going back to work. I managed to do this in my 30s, but I do feel slight FOMO of people with high paying tech jobs.

Part of me says, am I missing out on my highest earnings years? I'd like to sit on a beach but with a family, most of my days are getting groceries, doing dishes, folding clothes and driving kids around. It's not glamorous but it feels better than work life.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#402

At least two things happened here: - The pandemic gave most people an unusually-long period of time at home to help them realize all the things they could have been doing (e.g. spending more time with family, not being stuck in a commute), if only their work had not been sucking up all their time and energy. - Income vs. expenses changed to the point where people couldn’t hope to pay off their debts even if they work…

> We all assumed that governments could/would do a lot more to help.

They did. The US gave out trillions in aid, more than any other country except Japan (by GDP). If you were unemployed this was at least $2400/month and more if you had children - the end result is that poverty and child hunger went down in 2020 and 2021, not up like you seem to think, and everyone went shopping so hard while they were home it brought inflation back.

The reason people don't seem to know this is that journalists weren't unemployed and so have spent the last year tweeting "the government only gave us $1400 because they want us to die".

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what are they doing now though? Eventually, the student loan repayment delay expires, the covid unemployment goes away, any eviction moratoriums expire, and on top of it everything is more expensive than it was. I hope people who are leaving their jobs for less stressful or more accommodating jobs are increasing their income levels as well. There's going to be a big bill due when all the covid relief measures and sav…

> what are they doing now though? They are working in the same field, just different companies. > I hope people who are leaving their jobs for less stressful or more accommodating jobs are increasing their income levels as well. Again, sometimes wages are not worth the loss in health.

I understand about wages not worth the loss in health but the bill comes regardless. I guess what you're saying is they were so far above day to day expenses (even adjusted for no pandemic relief and the current inflation) that a the decrease in pay will still put them in the black.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#404

Why is the central bank inflation target typically 2%? Well if you target 0% and any actual result below 0% happens, that's deflation which is a disaster for economies. If inflation is say 10%. Maximum employment is near certainly impossible. Debt will be expensive and the economy crawls to a halt. Who wants to pay 10% interest on their student debt? So where in between do you have a good price stability? It tends to…

> They by mandate should have drastically increased interest rates.

I disagree, we are having inflation because of supply bottlenecks, not because of demand. Raising interest rates would only make it harder for companies to get finances to ensure supply chains meet demand.

That's if you even believe raising interest rates stops inflation. The correlation between interest rates and inflation over the last 40 years is pretty nil.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#405
post #75
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>unless some magical productivity innovation or goods/services advance emerges But there has been the development and deployment of a major productivity innovation over the last two years. It's called Zoom. Or WebEx/Teams/Meet/etc. And while it doesn't work for everybody, the fact that tens of millions of people suddenly have experience working and running their business remotely means that if it does work for someon…

I think about stagnating innovation, and think that Zoom/Webex focus tends to keep things in the status quo. I’ve just got a feeling that there will be some hidden cost to innovation at large companies (less chance encounters) and a hit to culture (building a good remote culture is really hard) over time. These are not easily quantified, and I’m not sure the costs outweigh the benefits of a remote work force (health…

if you switch to Zoom, you don’t need a building. this is an intense and dramatic change to the overhead of a business.

your employees might not need a car any more, either. the number one depreciating “asset” in the average person’s life becomes optional.

this innovation’s been around in tech for decades, and people have started billion-dollar companies this way. (for example, GitHub was profitable for years before it set up its first physical office.) but it’s not just tech now; it’s finally going mainstream.

this is a very big deal.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#406

At least two things happened here: - The pandemic gave most people an unusually-long period of time at home to help them realize all the things they could have been doing (e.g. spending more time with family, not being stuck in a commute), if only their work had not been sucking up all their time and energy. - Income vs. expenses changed to the point where people couldn’t hope to pay off their debts even if they work…

What nobody is addressing is that it got a lot more expensive to live. People are trying to keep up with inflation.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#407

Why is the central bank inflation target typically 2%? Well if you target 0% and any actual result below 0% happens, that's deflation which is a disaster for economies. If inflation is say 10%. Maximum employment is near certainly impossible. Debt will be expensive and the economy crawls to a halt. Who wants to pay 10% interest on their student debt? So where in between do you have a good price stability? It tends to…

Retirees got a 6% Social Security raise this year.

You seem excessively focused on numbers. If you want economic doom and gloom, it's going to be because of what's actually happening, ie there's a pandemic. It's not going to be because a top line number is 7% when it's suffering from composition effects.

Personally, I think everything's going to be OK.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure they're not.

US tax brackets seem to be https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-provides-tax-inflation-adju...

That shows nothing about the amount of the adjustment. Looking up last year's and running a few calculations, it appears to have been adjusted 1%! That's not adjusting for inflation. Not sure what it's adjusting for, but not inflation.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#409

Why is the central bank inflation target typically 2%? Well if you target 0% and any actual result below 0% happens, that's deflation which is a disaster for economies. If inflation is say 10%. Maximum employment is near certainly impossible. Debt will be expensive and the economy crawls to a halt. Who wants to pay 10% interest on their student debt? So where in between do you have a good price stability? It tends to…

I keep hearing that people in debt win when inflation goes up but the problem is you only win if you have assets that already appreciate in value or access to large amounts of capital to purchase assets that are inflation resistant. Simple example Tim is a manager at Lowe's Tim makes $66,000, each year. Tim spends most of that money on the necessities of life, a car payment a house payment if he is lucky, a rent if h…

the good for debtors argument fails to realize its only good for your realized debt. its very bad for all future debt ie: young people, poor, people who want to start businesses

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#410

At least two things happened here: - The pandemic gave most people an unusually-long period of time at home to help them realize all the things they could have been doing (e.g. spending more time with family, not being stuck in a commute), if only their work had not been sucking up all their time and energy. - Income vs. expenses changed to the point where people couldn’t hope to pay off their debts even if they work…

What nobody is addressing is that it got a lot more expensive to live. People are trying to keep up with inflation.

Because everyone was given free money which they spent on things, driving prices up.
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