The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#461

Post by red-iron-pine » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

schwartzworld wrote: post #274

irrational wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company would call that taking a mental health day, which is considered a legitimate reason for not coming into work.

Easy to do as a knowledge worker, but I've had plenty of jobs where you get in trouble for resting.

calendar store -- one of the pop-ups in the mall during the holiday season.

literally just an empty storefront they were able to rent on the cheap. few shoddy racks of calendars.

we had to keep walking and chatting to the customers when they came in. In December. For calendars. No chairs, no cell phones. Couple of the HS kids no called/no showed so I was often the only person there for 8 hours. Exhausting.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#462

Post by red-iron-pine » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 12:47 PM UTC

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…

> People want perspective. In the past, 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.

Maybe during the 1950s, when two (2) World Wars had blasted multiple empires to dust and essentially gutted a generation of workers aka males between the ages of 18-40.

Sure enough the US, still standing after entering the wars late and not seeing huge casualties or direct combat in-country, was positioned to lead a post-war economic boom.

Now it's back to pre-war conditions, which curiously enough, resemble the Guilded Age, and its associated strikes

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#463

Post by nroms » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

wak90 wrote: post #425

Nifty3929 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Utah Phillips quote sounds like it came right out of Atlas Shrugged.

My goodness what an insulting thing to say about the man

I mean, like it or not Atlas Shrugged remains one of the most influential novels of all time

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#464

Post by randomdata » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

wizofaus wrote: post #386

carlosjobim wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But is it realistic for all families everywhere to be able to support themselves with just a single worker? Yes, because a single worker today is maybe fifty or a hundred times more productive than a worker in the past, thanks to modern equipment.

I gather average productivity growth in most developed countries has been around 2 or 2.5% for the past 60 or so years, working out to at best 3.5 times what it was in the 50s or 60s. Which still makes it reasonable to ask why it's not feasible today for a single income to be sufficient to support a mortgage on a typical family home in the way it was in those times. What I'd like to know is in what cities around the…

Both the urbanization rate and the homeownership rate were considerably lower in the 1950s and 1960s. Said city housing may have been cheaper, but that is because it wasn't wanted.

Your question is much like asking why we can't afford to feed lobster to prisoners anymore.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#465

Post by lossolo » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:04 PM UTC

constantly wrote: post #157

bluefishinit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think those people are typically called the "clueless": https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

“Losers” according to that, I think, as it calls “losers” “happiness seekers.” But still taking joy in one’s work seems orthogonal to the link presented, which is more about corporate lifecycles. To expand slightly on my situation (and the anecdotal others I’m talking about): I’m happy with my job because it gives me an opportunity to have a real impact on the world, helping real people, and seeing the direct results…

> opportunity to have a real impact on the world, helping real people, and seeing the direct results of my labor

What do you do for a living?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#466

Post by lossolo » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #39

api wrote: post #2

It's always nobody wants to work anymore at the wages you are presently offering. It's like concluding we've run out of oil because the price of gasoline went up.

Of course, when you get down to the heart of the matter, it is really: The customer doesn't want what you have to offer anymore. Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.

Or not wanting to pay more to your workers because of greed? I mean Louis Vuitton bag costs to produce probably 5-10% of the price that customer pays.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#467

Post by randomdata » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

lossolo wrote: post #466

randomdata wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, when you get down to the heart of the matter, it is really: The customer doesn't want what you have to offer anymore. Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.

Or not wanting to pay more to your workers because of greed? I mean Louis Vuitton bag costs to produce probably 5-10% of the price that customer pays.

Luckily Louis Vuitton is a publicly traded company, so we can see that its average profit margin is actually only 12%.

Rule of thumb says that a company needs a 10% margin to be considered healthy. This suggests that while they are in a good place at current wages, there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room.

People will take anything if you give it away for free, but it is doubtful that their products would still remain desired by the customers if wages went up and they retained a healthy margin. Fashion products aren't exactly inelastic.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#468

Post by brookst » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

jddj wrote: post #276

brookst wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could disallow corporate ownership of dwellings of any sort Does that mean no high density residential? I can’t see how individuals build apartment buildings.

How do individuals end up owning apartments today?

They mostly don’t? I’m sure there are a few, but the vast majority are financed, built, and operated by corporations.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#469

Post by lossolo » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 3:07 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #467

lossolo wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or not wanting to pay more to your workers because of greed? I mean Louis Vuitton bag costs to produce probably 5-10% of the price that customer pays.

Luckily Louis Vuitton is a publicly traded company, so we can see that its average profit margin is actually only 12%. Rule of thumb says that a company needs a 10% margin to be considered healthy. This suggests that while they are in a good place at current wages, there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room. People will take anything if you give it away for free, but it is doubtful that their products would still remain…

> Luckily Louis Vuitton is a publicly traded company, so we can see that its average profit margin is actually only 12%.

It's not 12%, it's 18% as a whole company. 12% is 20 year average.

Louis Vuitton owns many companies, I'm specifically talking about bags but you also have things like:

> LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton Société Européenne's operated at median gross profit margin of 66.6% from fiscal years ending December 2018 to 2022. Looking back at the last 5 years, LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton Société Européenne's gross profit margin peaked in June 2023 at 68.7%.

68.7%...

> LVMH doesn't break out individual brands' financial results, but analysts say Vuitton's profit margin came in at around 50% last year[1]

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/louis-vuitton-bernard-arnault-a...

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#470

Post by DropInIn » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

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…

Was that for a particular "kind" ot man?

Because I can't help but note that in North America that there were plenty of people who couldn't do so but were of the "undesirable classes"....

And the reason those who could afford such were able was because they were effectively standing on the backs of those "less privileged".

Afaict, even when it's not racial such things still existed in most places at the time.