The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

Fairly sure housing affordability is a bigger problem for those without tertiary degrees though!

> 15-20 points, at least in the USA

I'd think if there was an era where urbanisation was highest it would be in the 50-60 years prior to the 60s, and I'm not aware of house prices dramatically increasing in that time (happy to be shown otherwise though!). But in that earlier period many quite modest-sized towns grew massively to become the cities they are today (*), so arguably there weren't quite so many people all trying to crowd into the same few cities.

(*) though in Australia at least, something of the opposite has happened in the last ~75 years - many modest-size towns have lost their populations to larger cities.

US data suggests that college graduates have seen the largest decline in homeownership over the past 10 years.

That said, you are right that college filters out those with disabilities and other life challenges, and that means those without degrees are infinitely more likely to have something like a crippling mental disability which would prevent them from owning a home. Which, indeed, makes drawing any aggregate parallels between graduates and non-graduates rather useless.

> I'd think if there was an era where urbanisation was highest it would be in the 50-60 years prior to the 60s

In fact, there was a bit of a counter-urbanization movement during the period. Cities were considered to be for the poor. Anyone with means wanted to live on large estates out in the countryside. There was also that whole "White Flight" thing. All that goes back to the people not wanting the houses.

It's easy to forget now that we've put in incredible effort to make cities more livable, but cities were industrial hell holes during the 50s and 60s. Not to mention that crime was starting to become a big problem by the 60s. They were not desirable places in the slightest. Today's cities are entirely different.

It is true that things are much more affordable when they are considered undesirable.

What? You mean VC backed businesses only? So like 0.0...1% of all businesses? and btw LV is not one of them. You think that successful restaurant owner "haemorrhage money for the first 5-10 years"? He would be out of business 10 times by then.

> He did pay them more. Said workers went on strike last year because they wanted more, and shortly thereafter he responded by paying them more... Ask and you shall receive, as they say.

In France, after strike. What about Asia? where there are no unions and strong labor laws, did he pay them too? No he didn't.

> What are you expecting, exactly? Is it that you are appalled that workers have to make it known how much they expect to be paid? Do you want Bernard to walk the streets and surprise offer $100 bills to random passers-by?

> If so, what about you? Everyone on HN can spare a a few hundred dollars (you couldn't afford to be here otherwise), and more likely, given how much the audience is generally worth, can spare tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars. How many $100 bills did you unsolicitedly hand out today? Or are you one of those people who never pays more than the asking price even though you can afford to pay more?

Sorry but what the hell are you talking about? Do you remember the topic of conversation still? Because I'm replying to what you said "Not having enough revenue to pay the workers a sufficient rate is just a symptom of that.", which I proved is not the case in my specific example (because THERE IS ENOUGH REVENUE to pay workers more, he did it in France where labor laws and unions are the strongest on this planet) and it's also not the case in software industry and you talk about me handing out 100$ to random people on the street??? What?

I don't really know on which world are you living, but the reason most of businesses do not pay workers more is not "not having enough revenue" but because they choose to hoard money to themselves out of greed. I have many business owners in my family and they are driving porsches while paying their staff minimum wage, I assure you that they have enough revenue to pay their workers more. I'm not here to offer solutions, I was writing this to show that the problem exists and that what you wrote is not true in majority of cases.

No they aren't because it's Asia? You don't work then you starve. There is so much poor people there that you can pay whatever and you will find workers, no labor laws, no unions. So he pays them pennies because as you said "THERE IS SHORTAGE OF REVENUE"? That's not the reason and everyone knows that. Just admit that they are not paid because of greed and we can finish this discussion instead of framing it like poor business owner would need to charge higher price or they would be starving. That's NOT the case.

> Here I was convinced you were just going on some mindless "workers are victims" rant, not realizing that workers stop showing up when they are not paid enough

Ye, all of these people without education can choose to do whatever they want.. so they can just quit and then they eat air and pay for rent and their children school etc with air, with almost zero savings (because cost of living eats everything) especially in Asia without labor laws and unions. But ye live in your alternative world where workers can choose whatever they want, but it's not only Asia where its really bad or Africa, lets look at the richest country in the world where 57% of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency, I guess these people with kids can't wait to just quit their jobs and be homeless.

> It was suggested that the guy at the head of Louis Vuitton is too greedy to randomly pay people more. I asked if you randomly pay people more as well. If not, it would be strange for you to expect others to do so. Everyone here has money to spare.

Difference is that these are not random people but people that do work for him, see the difference? It's the fruit of their labor. That's why again, WTH are you talking about?