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Why workers just won’t stop quitting

bbc.com

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Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#11

Post by nine_zeros »

labrador wrote: post #10

I think people are overthinking the problem when it is quite simple: Housing prices have put owning your own home out of reach for the vast majority of young people. I worked hard to pay my mortgage, feeling happy that I was on my way to owning a house. With a house, I started a family and life was good. I didn't mind putting up with corporate nonsense. Without a house, I most certainly would not done this. I probabl…

Replace housing with a good QoL, and this is exactly how I think. There is no reward for hard work. stability (housing, family, career, healthcare, transport) is just not achievable with money, in the US at least. I can get a MUCH higher quality of life in SE Asia or Mexico than I ever could in America.

So why would I care about working too hard at my current job? What does working hard and sticking around buy me?

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#12

Post by terryneo3 »

An important factor for people to quit their jobs is to choose a higher income so as not to affect their quality of life in the face of rising prices. At the same time, corporate culture is also an important factor. If they are unhappy in the place where they work, many people will choose to quit. https://www.couponbirds.com/research-center/data/an-unpreced...

In many cases, companies need to consider not only paying their employees, but also providing them with a good working atmosphere and proper care.

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#13

Post by labrador »

nine_zeros wrote: post #11
labrador wrote: post #10

I think people are overthinking the problem when it is quite simple: Housing prices have put owning your own home out of reach for the vast majority of young people. I worked hard to pay my mortgage, feeling happy that I was on my way to owning a house. With a house, I started a family and life was good. I didn't mind putting up with corporate nonsense. Without a house, I most certainly would not done this. I probabl…

Replace housing with a good QoL, and this is exactly how I think. There is no reward for hard work. stability (housing, family, career, healthcare, transport) is just not achievable with money, in the US at least. I can get a MUCH higher quality of life in SE Asia or Mexico than I ever could in America. So why would I care about working too hard at my current job? What does working hard and sticking around buy me?

It used to be common knowledge that home ownership was the bedrock of American civil society. There's nothing like a 30 year mortgage and a couple of kids to keep a person locked in.

My editorial opinion is that rich people got greedy and stopped caring about the middle class and upward mobility. They saw houses as an investment opportunity they could sell as securitized tranches to overseas buyers. So it's grab as much cash as you can and write opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal about how this new generation is lazy and doesn't want to work.

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#14

Post by syntheweave »

labrador wrote: post #13
nine_zeros wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace housing with a good QoL, and this is exactly how I think. There is no reward for hard work. stability (housing, family, career, healthcare, transport) is just not achievable with money, in the US at least. I can get a MUCH higher quality of life in SE Asia or Mexico than I ever could in America. So why would I care about working too hard at my current job? What does working hard and sticking around buy me?

It used to be common knowledge that home ownership was the bedrock of American civil society. There's nothing like a 30 year mortgage and a couple of kids to keep a person locked in. My editorial opinion is that rich people got greedy and stopped caring about the middle class and upward mobility. They saw houses as an investment opportunity they could sell as securitized tranches to overseas buyers. So it's grab as m…

I see it as being connected to the dynamics of empire, more generally. Property ownership - and its enforcement by the state - extends vassalage to the masses, tying them up in the system in a way that rent alone can't: too invested to skip town, too small to have a voice in the legal framework.

If you "drop out" and live modestly, there's much less coercion to be had. That means that as the empire tightens up control over its assets, it foments moments of generational revolution through exclusion. And we have a picture now of that throughout the US, but also globally: no way onto the property ladder, crumbling faith in the enforcers, an older generation exiting and leaving behind institutions in need of a retrofit. It's a good time to quit given that it's not clear what the rat race gets you now.

The cheerleaders of empire, on the other hand, are necessarily going to be the biggest and best-funded media establishments, and because they operate within imperial reality they can only use logic from within the Overton Window, ideas that do not question the system and instead provides a scapegoat for its failings. Hence we are all a bunch of avocado toast quitters now, influenced by "extremists", "radicals" and "fake news".

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#15

Post by labrador »

syntheweave wrote: post #14
labrador wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be common knowledge that home ownership was the bedrock of American civil society. There's nothing like a 30 year mortgage and a couple of kids to keep a person locked in. My editorial opinion is that rich people got greedy and stopped caring about the middle class and upward mobility. They saw houses as an investment opportunity they could sell as securitized tranches to overseas buyers. So it's grab as m…

I see it as being connected to the dynamics of empire, more generally. Property ownership - and its enforcement by the state - extends vassalage to the masses, tying them up in the system in a way that rent alone can't: too invested to skip town, too small to have a voice in the legal framework. If you "drop out" and live modestly, there's much less coercion to be had. That means that as the empire tightens up contro…

Well said. I want to add that owning a house and having a stake in the system naturally turns people towards conservatism. People want to conserve and preserve what they have. When I owned a house and had money I became a Reagan Republican. I lost it all through divorce and other problems, so one day I was watching "Grapes of Wrath" and thought to myself "Why the f am I a Republican?" I became a Democrat.

Republicans know this and have a remedy, which they need because millions of young people are toying with ideas like Solar Punk, Socialism, Fully Automated Luxury Communism and even (gasp!) full old school Communism.

The only way Wall Street Republicans can have it all these days is to make sure elections don't count so young people no longer have a vote or say in the system. I'm a little stunned at the lengths they are willing to go and be so brazen about it. They want to create a two tiered apartheid system of the haves and the have nots. They might succeed in the short term, but unless they give people a stake in the system, those millions of people will tear it down. It won't be pretty when that happens.

There's a problem though. They might be able to convince people they have a stake in the system when they actually don't. You want real estate? How about this plot of "land' in the Metaverse. You want to own things? How about all these NFT's you can buy and feel proud to own.

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#16

Post by aprdm »

labrador wrote: post #13
nine_zeros wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace housing with a good QoL, and this is exactly how I think. There is no reward for hard work. stability (housing, family, career, healthcare, transport) is just not achievable with money, in the US at least. I can get a MUCH higher quality of life in SE Asia or Mexico than I ever could in America. So why would I care about working too hard at my current job? What does working hard and sticking around buy me?

It used to be common knowledge that home ownership was the bedrock of American civil society. There's nothing like a 30 year mortgage and a couple of kids to keep a person locked in. My editorial opinion is that rich people got greedy and stopped caring about the middle class and upward mobility. They saw houses as an investment opportunity they could sell as securitized tranches to overseas buyers. So it's grab as m…

Not just overseas buyers, there are many people with a lot of houses who aren’t foreigners.

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#17

Post by labrador »

aprdm wrote: post #16
labrador wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be common knowledge that home ownership was the bedrock of American civil society. There's nothing like a 30 year mortgage and a couple of kids to keep a person locked in. My editorial opinion is that rich people got greedy and stopped caring about the middle class and upward mobility. They saw houses as an investment opportunity they could sell as securitized tranches to overseas buyers. So it's grab as m…

Not just overseas buyers, there are many people with a lot of houses who aren’t foreigners.

For sure, like Adam Neumann, who is backed by Marc Andreessen of a16z. Marc was recently in the news for not wanting the poors in his neighborhood. They don't even try to hide it anymore.

Adam Neumann, Vibes Landlord

https://www.curbed.com/2022/08/adam-neumann-residential-real...

VC Billionaire Marc Andreessen and Ultra-Wealthy Neighbors Thwart Housing in California Town

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-05/vc-marc-a...

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#18

Post by londons_explore »

I wonder if some of this might be the effects of long covid...

If workers used to work long hours, but then caught long covid that made them feel exhausted and foggy all the time, they might decide to switch to part time, or shift the focus of their life from work towards family life.

It looks pretty similar to 'burn out'... But would be triggered by disease.

Re: Why workers just won’t stop quitting

#19

Post by mikewarot »

I'd be working if it wasn't for Long Covid that ripped me out of the workforce at least a decade before I would have thought possible in 2019. The segregation of society into "essential" and other workers didn't help matters either. We all saw that the essential workers who actually keep the lights on, store stocked, etc... get paid shit wages and are not shown any respect.

We also learned that it's no necessary, and for the most part, a huge counterproductive scheme to have people crammed into offices after hours of commuting. So much wasted life force, money, fuel, all propping up a system that is infested with layers of grift.

On top of this, as mentioned, the demographics are such that a lot of people were about to retire anyway. This just accelerated the timelines a bit. We're going to be in permanent labor shortage in the US for a few decades now, especially as deglobalization hits and we're rebuilding our manufacturing base here at home.

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