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The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

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Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#321

Post by eek2121 »

adrianN wrote: post #207
mensetmanusman wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultra wealthy hired the best to win a game of financial manipulation that the rest of us didn’t even know was being played. The median salary would be six figure if the share of productivity gains was distributed like it was in 1970.

Is the average salary six figures?

Salary != Wealth.

There are billionaires that don’t make a single penny a year, and broke folks pulling in 6-7 figures.

Looking at some type of combination of income + net worth is probably better in most cases.

That being said, most folks in the US make less than $100,000/year and have less than a $100,000 net worth.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#322

Post by FactKnower69 »

hollerith wrote: post #201
vsareto wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing market is probably permanently ruined for individual family buyers as long as they are competing with businesses/individuals buying multiple residential properties as investments. Subsidies or government backed contributions won't be the answer. Universities have a societal function and could conceivable operate without profit in mind, but they still chose to be greedy and act like for-profit businesses o…

It wouldn't be Hacker News without the constant stream economically-illiterate ideas for "improving" our lives in the comments!

Wouldn't be Hacker News without a constant stream of worthless single-sentence dismissals from insufferably smug self-professed Economics 101 graduates

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#323

Post by lazyasciiart »

phpisthebest wrote: post #304
usrbinbash wrote: post #53

It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…

>>a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably. I would say my family history is that of a "working man" that closly fits that narraive.. My grandfather was a WWII vet, after military service was a factory worker that raised 4 kids, in their own home. Let me eliminate some of that illusory rose tint from your worldvie…

> In short home prices are sky high because buyers would never consider, and probally could not legally, raise 4 kids in a 1 bath 950 sqaure foot home.

I live in a place the same size as you, minus the garage and the land, as a family of 3 so far.

There are plenty of potential homebuyers who would kill for this, and I know of nowhere in the USA that it would be illegal. The problem is that cities limit the number of homes that can be built to ludicrous low density setups like "one house on 2 square acres", and there are enough homebuyers who will pay for the house three times that size with a bathroom per bedroom that the builder doesn't bother to worry about the potential buyers who are not being served and have to move out beyond the edges of public transit to afford anything. And these density limits remain because old people swan around moaning that it's inhumane to build studio apartments when everybody wants a 12 sq acre bathroom, and why are there people in tents on the street?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#324

Post by FactKnower69 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #161
winternett wrote: post #31

The gig economy has worn many out... The promise of services like social media, Uber, Political Parties, and airBnB that promised to create wealthy entrepreneurs fell flat on it's face after making the people at the top of the pyramids very wealthy. I think that social media really tipped the balance of fairness in the working world... With social media, suddenly Trust fund Babies could fake success, and promote sche…

If someone isn’t successful in making money on that work, though, it means it isn’t very good. I know it’s not a 1:1 result, but in reality, if you put in the hours and you make things people want, you will be successful. The problem is everyone who works on something they’re passionate about (even if they suck at it) thinks they ought to be compensated, even if their contributions amount to exactly Jack shit. Meanwh…

>if you put in the hours and you make things people want, you will be successful.

What thing does a landlord make? What are the hours on the job of owning dividend-paying securities? Being successful in this economy has literally nothing to do with "making things people want" and "putting in the hours".

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#325

Post by SirMaster »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #303
bluGill wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were lucky. Many did not get a pension at all though. And many others had a pension that went bankrupt so they go nothing. The 1980s (starting before then) were reforms on a system that wasn't working well for many.

Time will tell whether the individual solution works better. I suspect 401k saving will not provide many people a stable retirement.

Why not?

At 35 i’ve already got ~500K in my 401K.

I guess it won’t work for people not saving enough into it and not actively managing their fund allocations over the years.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#326

Post by lazyasciiart »

phpisthebest wrote: post #313
grecy wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously this depends entirely on the country and region. My grandfather immigrated to Australia in 1948, got a job assembling cars at the Ford plant, and worked there until he retired. My Grandmother never worked. They bought a very nice house, had two boys, never really had any debt, plenty of money in retirement. A generation later my Dad was earning $10k/year as a teacher, and my mum and dad bought their first v…

>>entirely on the country and region. Very true... My home when I bought it was about 2x my annual income, my home today is worth on the market about 2x my current annual income. The average factory worker (or teacher) in my area could easily afford to buy my home in a standard 2 person income situation. Now if you go into the new construction area's of this city, the houses there start at 2x the price of my home. I…

> This is largely drive by the new construction of these high end homes fueled by low interest rates.

I doubt it.

How many such modest houses in your modest neighborhood are available now? How much has the housing supply in your town grown, and how much has the population grown? Are all these buyers actually making a direct choice between these two kinds of houses, or is only one of those choices actually available to buy?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#327

Post by lordnacho »

WalterBright wrote: post #264
usrbinbash wrote: post #53

It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…

Consider the share of the GDP sucked up and dissipated by the government. That inevitably results in a general lower standard of living. The government has grown enormously in my lifetime, sucking up much (most?) of the productivity increases.

Likely true. But there are plenty of large businesses that are effectively the same. Larger than a lot of government departments, holding a monopoly-like position in some good/service, can't be killed. These orgs are just as good as government at overpaying people.

IMO the productivity loss is misidentified as a government issue, it's actually a large org issue.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#328

Post by andruby »

Iulioh wrote: post #285
alisonatwork wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to note that the good old days of a working man being able to support a family of five was only true for a brief period of history in a handful of elite countries. In most of the world, and for most of human history, it hasn't been the case that any single person working 40 hours a week could provide a luxurious lifestyle for a large family. While some lament the loss of this golden age their g…

Honestly that's a valid criticism BUT I would point out the wealth distribution in our economy. If it was more equable would this luxurious lifestyle for all still be possible ?

Let’s take a look at income (not wealth)

The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K. Since in reality the distribution is very skewed a lot of people would earn more.

Of course, that’s if we artificially constrain this to the US. The world-wide GDP per capita is only $12K. So if we’d be really equitable with the whole world, we’d all have to make do with a lot less.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#329

Post by usrbinbash »

kaashif wrote: post #315
usrbinbash wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gimme a good argument why good conditions should diminish, or deteriorate, despite the fact that workforce productivity, as well as corporate margins, have been growing steadily ever since.

I don't know whether they should or not, but it's clear that there was a very unusual set of conditions and it is unsurprising it didn't last forever, right or wrong.

On the contrary, it is VERY surprising these conditions didn't last, given that productivity only ever increased since then.

If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce.

How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So did worker productivity, aka. the amount of resources produced per worker. So if people are worse off now, that leads to the very easy deduction that the fault lies in how these resources are distributed, not with a scarcity of the resources themselves.

Or to put this another way:

If the previously better conditions were just a fluke that couldn't be expected to last, how come that corporations seem to rake in ever more money as time goes on?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#330

Post by vel0city »

grecy wrote: post #305
phpisthebest wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>a working man could support a family of five, buy a house, a car and afford vacation once or twice a year, plus save enough to retire comfortably. I would say my family history is that of a "working man" that closly fits that narraive.. My grandfather was a WWII vet, after military service was a factory worker that raised 4 kids, in their own home. Let me eliminate some of that illusory rose tint from your worldvie…

Obviously this depends entirely on the country and region. My grandfather immigrated to Australia in 1948, got a job assembling cars at the Ford plant, and worked there until he retired. My Grandmother never worked. They bought a very nice house, had two boys, never really had any debt, plenty of money in retirement. A generation later my Dad was earning $10k/year as a teacher, and my mum and dad bought their first v…

As a percentage of income that 78/480 is probably less in the monthly payment than the 10/30 or at least in the same ballpark, since interest rates back then were probably much higher for the 10/30 loan, assuming equal percentage down payments and same terms and what not.
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