Live data from Hacker News

Gen Z does not dream of labor

vox.com

481–490 of 510 posts

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone knows that "free" healthcare means that it's still being paid for via taxes, so points like this aren't exactly insightful. The OP's point was that their care cost them nothing to utilize or receive, not that there aren't costs in the system at all. Nobody actually believes that doctors are working for free, that assumption would be a strawman.

If you don't pay the bill, it doesn't cost you anything either. I'm not sure everyone knows there's a no free healthcare, we may move in different cicles. Having lived with socialized healthcare and still paying private insurance in order to access expedient, competent, comfortable care is especially frustrating.

> If you don't pay the bill, it doesn't cost you anything either.

In the US, you won't get the chance to have a bill, because you will be denied care if you're unable to pay for the care or are uninsured. The one exception to this is that emergency rooms are obligated to stabilize patients in crisis, but that type of care is limited. For example, they'll patch you up if you get stabbed and then send you a bill for it, but nobody is getting treatment for non-acute emergencies, like chronic conditions, or the insulin they need to survive diabetes, or life-saving chemo or radiation therapy for cancer.

Your creditors might feel differently about bills not costing you anything when they take you to court to collect on your debt. Those bills might cost you your savings, income and/or assets.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem like the rest of the world's universal healthcare did any better than ours? You have farfetched dreams that government run anything would somehow be not shit. You'd hardly get any coverage and I doubt the deductible would be anywhere sufficient.

I have family members on Medicaid and help them with their care. Medicaid covers 100% of everything, from doctors visits to specialists, ER care, surgery, dental, vision, medications, etc at no cost to the beneficiary. By law, Medicaid has to pay for everything, so patients don't get pushed around by providers or insurers about billing or additional costs. The headache surrounding billing and paying for care just doe…

> If it was possible, I'd drop my own coverage instantly for Medicaid. Doing so would make my life immeasurably better.

I also care for a family member on Medicaid and, while it’s very far from perfect, I agree that in many every-day scenarios it’s remarkably superior to my employer-provided coverage.

Most of the downsides I’ve experienced are issues with getting specialist appointments in a timely fashion and providers creating unexpected reimbursement loopholes - which are thankfully rare, but remarkably abusive when they have occurred.

Eg: Medicaid will get you booked with an allergy clinic four months out and during the appointment they tell you “Oh by the way, Medicaid only covers ~5 basic allergen tests; if you want the standard regional allergen test that’s $150 up front and if you want the full spectrum test that’ll be $300.”

Meanwhile, half a year prior, I went to the same clinic, got my appointment booked for 2-3 weeks out, and wasn’t even asked about the test type - they hit me with the full spectrum and I just had to toss a minor copay on the way out the door.

I guess the overall moral of the story is that our healthcare system is broken and jammed up with perverse incentives at every rung of the ladder.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#483

As an immigrant, no matter how many times the story about problems of work and wealth inequality and similar theme being brought up, I could never sympathize with it. I think I was raised in the time and place where working just doesn't ever get the luxuries of life. For example, working as a plumber and can afford 2 1/2 kids, a house and a car, that is always impossible. At least in my country. I think America is an…

That's complete nonsense. Feudalism isn't stable otherwise there wouldn't have been so many revolutions that ended it. In fact, feudalism is inherently unstable. We've had peace for a long long time, peace that would be incompatible with feudalism.

The problem with capitalism, is that it didn't get rid of feudalism entirely, it merely turned everyone into a little feudal lord, small enough that we don't hurt each other. Wealth inequality throws a wrench into that so capitalism is guaranteed to break down eventually just like Feudalism.

The step after capitalism would be Freiwirtschaft (land value tax and demurrage currency) and we are not that far away from it. Interest rates are already at 0% as predicted, we just need people to stop saving with cash. Baden Württemberg is adopting a land value tax in Germany. it's just a matter of time until this brutal chapter of humanity is over.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, white American boomers had the easiest economic opportunity in human history for the reasons you stated. That time is now over. Millenials/Gen Z are jealous they never had the opportunity. Boomers and younger people who have been indoctrinated can't comprehend why the vast majority are struggling. The post war capitalist system they enjoyed was a temporary anomaly. It isn't compatible with modern life, yet the…

I'm glad that you shared my view. I did come up with this shower thought myself so I always wonder whether I missed something crucial. I am currently reading this, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine... It is interesting to see that even inequality is the default outcome, the natural order of things, even when we start from equality. It seem the law of physics and the law of this world conver…

>It is interesting to see that even inequality is the default outcome, the natural order of things, even when we start from equality. It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality.

The natural order of things? Is this some kind of joke? Since when are humans golems? A truly natural economic order looks like this: https://www.naturalmoney.org/NaturalEconomicOrder.pdf

>It seem the law of physics and the law of this world converges toward inequality.

No, you are mistaken again, the money and land system converge toward inequality. After all, time does not stand still, humans are faced with a perpetual increase in entropy, but the banker and the saver, with their eternal money and claims to land, do not have to fear the laws of physics, instead, they get to use the laws of physics as weapons, to extract "concessions" from the people around them. The people that do not have money or land end up subsidizing those who do.

>The only way to fight against inequality aggressively is to do the unnatural things, that is, to redistribute wealth aggressively.

That honestly is completely irrelevant. This wealth redistribution nonsense is just another bandaid to subsidize the rich. When I said subsidy I mean it. Negative interest rates make the whole argument about wealth redistribution completely irrelevant. The moment people have to be responsible for the costs that their capital incurs nobody is going to envy them for their wealth. It's only because those costs have been forbidden by law/decree and secretly passed onto the rest of society that we even want to be wealthy ourselves.

Think about how much maintenance a single family home requires. In an economy with no growth, capital depreciation is just a pure loss. If you have idle capacity, you will have to pay to keep the factory well maintained. No, a negative interest rate isn't some kind of financial repression or wealth redistribution scheme. Your house isn't trying to steal your wealth by depreciating. It's recognizing the fact that almost nothing on this planet lasts forever. If physical capital depreciates, then money must represent that depreciation. If it does not, then either abundant capital must be destroyed or the economy must be forced to grow.

Imagine you have a banana. It will spoil within a week or two. Now imagine having a banana coupon that does not spoil. If the super market orders bananas and can't sell them, it will have to take the loss, effectively subsidizing the holder of the banana coupon by letting him avoid the spoilage of bananas. The actual banana is not exploitative, the banana coupon is exploitative. This is because the holder of the banana coupon has no obligation to tell the super market when he is going to buy the banana, so the supermarket must keep guessing when he is going to buy a banana. This is the root of speculation.

Have you ever wondered why permanent inflation is the norm? It's precisely because money must spoil at the rate labor spoils. Capital depreciation is represented by a permanent decline of the unit of account aka inflation.

Welfare in the form of unemployment benefits is quite frankly a direct subsidy to the owners of money. It's so painfully obvious. Our society has an incredibly high degree of the division of labor. You cannot just farm your own food, you must buy it from specialized "dealers" aka supermarkets. To buy food you need to get money from someone else first. During a depression, there is capital abundance, meaning the owners of capital would have to pay for capital depreciation, as I said, they prefer removing or preventing abundant capital which means firing people. This means you cannot get money through employment, forcing you to go into debt. Borrowing would raise the interest rate above 0% again. However, since 2008 banks refuse to lend money to risky borrowers. This means that direct borrowing isn't possible. Instead, the government must borrow on behalf of all those people that were fired. That borrowing then forcibly raises the interest rate back to 0% or higher again. If you were offered a -3% interest rate due to capital depreciation and the government were to step in and give you a 0% interest rate, what else could this be other than a subsidy? Of course, since money cannot represent capital depreciation, we are forced to play this stupid game no matter what.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#485
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge…

> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.

1) 80k/3 is 26.7k, 1.2k*12 = 14.4k. So, yeah, you can save for a downpayment by merely putting away your "comfortable housing spend" income, even before you move to a 1br apartment (1.2k median rent is for all units, even then I can only find 2019 numbers 2) Median house (not a Bay Area house) in 2019 was like 320k. Crazy house valuations are only from the last 1.5-2 years and wouldn't have affected generational norms (and we all know why the suddenly exploded). Even then, the median house is 410k, so all you needed/need you need to save is 65-80k in the /worst/ case.

3) Most people buying houses are/should be dual income, given the size of the median house. And given that you're competing against double income people (don't like it? you'd have to roll back the drive for emancipation/equality :)). If you double the income above you can save for a downpayment in like 3 years. I know families where neither partner probably makes 80k buying houses in boring cities e.g. in Texas - and not a starter house either... How? Dual income + non-coastal prices. And yeah, there are tons of jobs in the area.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rural areas also tend not to be great places for LGBT people, either. That may be true in some areas. I can only speak anecdotally. I brought a couple members of the LGBT community with me to a very rural area that is about as cowboy-midwest as it gets. Everyone has been very civil and even the "Good ol boys" have been very respectful with them to my pleasant surprise. There are plenty of openly LGBT working in the l…

> Everyone has been very civil and even the "Good ol boys" have been very respectful with them to my pleasant surprise. There are plenty of openly LGBT working in the local stores. Speaking from experience, they're going to be on good behavior around you and others. It's what happens when they think no one will notice or no one will hold them to account when real discrimination occurs. I've met plenty of people who c…

but have no problem harassing LGBT people, discriminating against them and calling them slurs when they think no one else is looking.

That's the very reason I suggested staying away from the bars. When people are drunk their inhibitions are gone and judgement is very poor. The LGBT hate crime that I know of happened about 23 years ago outside a bar.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greetings! As promised. >if they have their criteria on what is acceptable pay, won't the natural course of things is to quit on the unacceptable job and just find a better paying jobs, which means business as usual...I was under the impression that the article seem to imply that Gen Z don't have the capability of choosing good jobs because of lack of good job market or marketable skills etc, I'd argue that it isn't…

Thank you for the reply! I really appreciate it. > I'd argue that it isn't business as usual because Gen Z is leveraging this once-in-a-few-decades opportunity where employees have some power into "what can you do for me?" discussions with companies and it's working [1]. Gone are the days of "company loyalty," partially because without pensions there's no incentive to put anything on the line for company. At the end…

>But for Gen-Z ers that work in low paying warehouse jobs, they won't be as fortunate.

Very good example. I have multiple friends in "warehouse jobs" and they hate it. It breaks down their bodies, the breaks are inadequate, the pay is JUST barely enough to keep them from quitting on the spot, etc. They have no energy for anything beyond work. They go home, try to recover, and wake up the next day to do it all again. God forbid they get a night shift.

>a craft-based work like woodworking, plumbing, is still the ticket from poverty to at least middle class.

Carpentry is a solid profession but you need to be good. Very good. It's a lot of work getting the referrals to keep a steady income stream. I have a couple of buddies who do it and it's really feast or famine unless you link up with a general contractor who can give you a ton of work. As for plumbing, it's an apprenticeship situation usually, so breaking in can be hard. The more plumbers there are, the less work there is for plumbers, so some are not too keen to set you up. This varies wildly of course, but you can't just set up shop as a plumber anywhere you want with ease. It can be a tricky road. You're right though, good opportunities there. If you've got the mind to learn it that is. Those aren't exactly easy jobs!

The arts and culture argument is tricky and multi-faceted but I'll try to keep this as concise as I can. Know that this won't have as many citations and is largely opinion-based. That seems appropriate to me though when discussing something as difficult to quantify as "the value of art." I think an example will be the best way to describe this.

In the 1960's and 1970's, there was a lot more investment at the federal level in the arts. While there were different grants out there at different levels, the most noteworthy then - and largely today - is probably the NEH: The National Endowment for the Humanities. If you have a cultural/arts project you think is worthwhile, you can apply for a piece of that pie. During that time these film programs opened up all over the US built on a similar model: Teach kids how to shoot, edit, and generally work with 16mm film. The focus was providing an opportunity in impoverished communities, though it certainly wasn't restricted to that. Apalshop is one of the most famous examples (in Appalachia, which is one of the biggest examples of poverty in the US), and what's so cool is it is still running to this day [1]. These programs sprung up everywhere and produced a staggering amount of documentaries and other 16mm film projects that have contributed richly to American culture, while also paving the way for a whole generation of filmmakers and creating opportunities where there seemingly was none for many. Sadly, the NEH has been systematically defunded over the decades, especially under Ronald Reagan (surprise surprise), and most of these programs shuttered in the early 90's. My home city of New Orleans has one of the only remaining ones from that original era actually, called NOVAC. But that's another story haha.

Anyway this example is sort of designed to hit a lot of points for me. It wasn't just about "hey let's art because art and uhhh yeah that's good right?" This program 1) contributed to American culture, 2) provided opportunities to people who had few, 3) created tons of jobs, and 4) just overall integrated well with their communities. The relative investment compared to, say, yet another tank or fighter jet, was very minimal and created concrete outcomes for communities and enriched the American people. I think the need for tax dollars to go towards those projects is self-evident, though obviously not everyone agrees with that.

Hopefully that makes sense lol

[1] https://appalshop.org/story

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my kid had this mindset I would consider myself a failure as a parent. I grew up edge of starvation poor, my wife is also from low income family. Both of us are multiples of median income now and can provide a stable home for our son in mid 30s. It took 10 years of doing stupid shit and wasting time because I didn't have support or direction in life. Realistically, if I had better role models for success, I could…

"I suffered so my kids have to learn to suffer too" is not a good line of thinking if we want to improve the world and the economy for the next generation

Giving your children unrealistic view of how the world works is a recipe for suffering.

Re: Gen Z does not dream of labor

#490
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your perspective on housing is "just need a place to live", then paying off a mortgage for 20 years is hardly a problem. You are tied down, yes, but if you have friends and family in the area and like where you live, it's hardly a problem - it's just a life. (Of course this is different if the intention is "buy a place, wait until it rises in value, flip it, and repeat") That said, you need to want to put down roo…

honestly, "hey, spending 20 years of your life paying to "own" the roof over your head" sounds sad to me...unless you have dependents and need the stability not everyone has dreams of planting roots

If you don't want to plant roots, then you don't need to own a house, and then the whole debate about housing prices does not apply to you.

Rent, travel and see the world, and be free!

Post reply on HN