Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 520 posts

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#491

Post by shephardjhon »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #428
makecheck wrote: post #329

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…

Don’t forget the hundreds of thousands of deaths. The large number of people retiring. Childcare. I know many families where the lower earning parent has quit their job to parent full time because of how outrageously expensive daycare is. Long COVID. Many people aren’t capable of the work they did before they got COVID and may not ever be capable again. I could go on posting factors to consider but these four should…

Yes. In most discussions I see about the resignation people on both sides seem to forget that those numbers of infections or deaths were actual people who had jobs but now can't work. And many of these were essential workers who made very little.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#492

Post by shephardjhon »

rodgerd wrote: post #412
makecheck wrote: post #329

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…

Close to a million people have died in the US. That is a pretty important point in the labour market, quite aside from the brutal human cost. The people demanding "let 'er rip" got what they wanted - mass death to avoid personal inconvenience - and it turns out that they're getting an economic cost anyway.

Also long covid which can render people unable to work or issues like taking care of people who are sick or immunocompromised people who used to work outside but can't now.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#493

Post by robertlagrant »

MattSayar wrote: post #459
robertlagrant wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Not reduce. Withdraw.

You only withdraw your entire checking account at ATMs?

If I withdraw £10, I get all of that £10s. Just as if troops withdraw, they don't leave some people. Or if my wife and I decide to withdraw from a conversation, one of us doesn't stay.

And yes, if I decide to withdraw all of my checking account from an ATM, I get... all of it.

"Withdraw" doesn't imply partial things. What you choose to withdraw, you withdraw.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#494

Post by shantnutiwari »

iamricks wrote: post #18
softwaredoug wrote: post #3

> spectacles like the immense popularity of the "Anti-Work" thread on Reddit — have gone as far as to suggest this record-breaking trend is a movement of young, able-bodied Americans rejecting work altogether. I don't think this is the point of "anti work". The point is (to me) that people should be treated equitably at work and that work shouldn't be the center of our lives

Most of the posts on that subreddit seem like fake stories, there's no proof required to post. Most of the top posts every month sound almost the same, titles like "My boss said i couldn't leave" for click-bait with a screenshot of what sometimes just looks like a word doc.

Yeah, all the stories there are fake, as they follow the same formula / similar-ish screenshots. And antiwork is always on the front page of reddit, so its attracting more low quality , karma grabbing posters

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#495

Post by nikau »

yobbo wrote: post #455
scythe wrote: 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…

> It's called Zoom Does zoom increase or decrease productivity relative to email and phone calls? I suspect it decreases productivity.

It should really be compared to in person meetings

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#496

Post by astrange »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #486
astrange wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 brough…

Unemployment benefits ended long ago, but working people have continued to suffer. People who were forced to quarantine and miss work due to government mandates don't get unemployment. Unemployment is no replacement for the millions of people who saw their children's schools shuttered for a year (or two!!) and were forced to quit their jobs and stay home to take care of their children. Food, energy, rent, health insu…

> People who were forced to quarantine and miss work due to government mandates don't get unemployment.

Yes they did. PUA made them qualify too. Or if they didn't lose their job, there was PPP and child tax credits.

> Trillions that ended up in the pockets of the country's wealthiest people, who saw their net wealth double or triple during the pandemic and corporate profits soar while working people fell further under water.

No, this didn't actually happen. It looks like their wealth went up if you measure starting from March 2020 when there was a stock market collapse, sure, but poor people's wealth went up and their income has gone up significantly with pay raises since.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#497

Post by curiousllama »

carapace wrote: post #484
rsanek wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? In particular for restaurants and other businesses that rely on service jobs, I've typically read the opposite.

I said "products". Service industries with razor-thin margins like restaurants are more affected by labor costs, sure.

To be fair, service industries are the most likely to pay low wages

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#498

Post by sleepingadmin »

autokad wrote: post #404
sleepingadmin wrote: post #262

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…

>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.

Certainly an interesting take. Not unlike this read from somewhat recent. So you're in good company with your position.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synops...

Mind you, basically everyone and their mother has announced new semiconductor fabs. Intel in Ohio recently for example.

I am curious if these are confounding factors. Maybe they will all play against each other. In terms of the 40% inflation locked in. This has nothing to do with supply chain at all. This is private debt to GDP being 235% in the USA. This is the central bank balance sheet being 8 trillion $ in the negative. This is the money supply being 7 trillion in the negative. Pretty standard Quantity Theory of Money

Supply chain isn't a factor yet, this is ~40% inflation locked in. Now if you consider supply chain struggles. It only exacerbates and makes the situation worse.

>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.

The correlation has been weaker because they are using these other options to affect macroeconomics. The central banks are beyond bankrupt, but there is no bankruptcy system for them. So instead of fixing the debt situation, you run inflation high and technically you reduce your debt at the expense of those who are holding currency. Primarily retirees are those who are harmed.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#499

Post by sleepingadmin »

coryfklein wrote: post #393
sleepingadmin wrote: post #262

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…

Since you seem quite interested in learning economic fundamentals, I highly recommend you check out the Moody's Talks Inside Economics podcast [0]. One topic they have discussed with fair regularity lately is the current inflation rate. They point out that you can tease out what factors contribute to that 7% inflation number, and once you subtract out 2-3 specific components, components that – with some inductive rea…

>Since you seem quite interested in learning economic fundamentals, I highly recommend you check out the Moody's Talks Inside Economics podcast [0].

Sweet thanks or the recommendation!

>One topic they have discussed with fair regularity lately is the current inflation rate. They point out that you can tease out what factors contribute to that 7% inflation number, and once you subtract out 2-3 specific components, components that – with some inductive reasoning – we have good reason to believe are transitory in nature, the inflation number that applies to the broad majority of fundamentals is actually closer to the fed's 2% target.

That's kind of the complicated thing about these metrics. CPI is often criticized because they already ignore beyond important factors. Like Housing isnt included in CPI? That sure makes CPI a much lower value measurement.

Then people continue to cut out of CPI and oh look we're at 2%? No, we're not. The actual 7% is already too low, the actual number is most likely higher.

>I'm not an expert in this area and I don't grok the economics on a deep enough level to be able to reproduce their argument in situ here, but their case that the fed's strategy of holding steady is in fact the most responsible thing to do to achieve that 2% target.

The Fed in the USA is politically handcuffed and they understand what's happening. There's a geopolitical approach going on, there's a boomer retirement going on, pandemic. lots of factors.

Re: The Great Resignation? More Like the Great Renegotiation

#500

Post by luke0016 »

nomel wrote: post #119
luke0016 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually support masks in schools. There's solid scientific evidence backing it as a mechanism to help limit the spread of COVID. Until all ages are able to be vaccinated, it seems like a prudent course of action. It's unfortunate that people are trying to turn such things into political statements.

> limit the spread of COVID I think it can be claimed that it limits the rate of spread, not total spread/infections.

> I think it can be claimed that it limits the rate of spread, not total spread/infections.

Sure. We're probably all getting this thing at some point. But, that's why I said "until all ages are able to be vaccinated."

I really wish the US and other countries would take the Singapore route and require the unvaccinated assholes clogging up our medical system (and exhausting our highly trained/educated/caring physicians and nurses) to pay their own healthcare costs incurred due to COVID.

Having the unvaccinated directly realize some cost for their own ignorance seems highly appropriate here. Although I suppose at least some of them are paying the ultimate price with their life, which is also very unfortunate.

Post reply on HN