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Greece introduces the six day work week

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Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#131

Post by rightbyte »

Boltgolt wrote: post #78
downWidOutaFite wrote: post #52

Greece should have left the EU when the price of membership was revealed to be a generation of ruthless recession and exploitation. Somehow the german bankers convinced them it was worth it even though grexit would've been much more expensive to them then loan forgiveness. I don't see what Greece got out of EU membership other than a brain drain as their ambitious youth is forced to leave their country.

How about others in the EU bailing them out when they found out you actually can't just increase spend forever? Grexit would have been certain bankruptcy

Giving the elite money to continue the charade might not be benefitial for the people.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#132

Post by jq-r »

bluepuma77 wrote: post #122
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the opening text of TFA: > From the construction industry to the tourism sector, Greek employers cannot find the staff they need.

Yes, but what’s the reason behind this? If you have bad working conditions (overtime, weekends) and pay very low salary, who wants those jobs? Greece is in EU, so the workers can just move to better paying places (Germany, France, Nordics). Maybe they rather need to tackle their many times mentioned corruption problems, so the value created can be distributed also among the workers. So that work becomes worthwhile ag…

Exactly the same story over here in Croatia. It's a narrative from political elites blaming "lazy and demanding" workers.

The real truth is that working conditions, salaries and culture suck, and yes, workers are emigrating to other EU countries like never before in history of the country/region.

Politicians are crying their eyes out how people don't want to work so they're "forced" to let immigration being rampant. All the while being corrupted like there is no tomorrow (and probably there isn't).

This is happening everywhere and there are slight differences depending if those are jobs in tourism or not.

In tourism terrible cafe owners are complaining that waiters cost too much (they don't), hotel owners are paying minimum level wages to immigrants (why paying full salary to a local?), local public transit company is complaining that that cannot find drivers (so: immigration). All of this is complete BS. The standard of living is going down the drain, the difference between a tourist and local's buying power is larger and larger, politicians are doing everything in their powers to enrich themselves fuck all, same with judiciary, and public health services works only on paper. We're completely screwed.

And related, this reminds me about 20 years ago I was constantly hearing and reading from the media how domestic IT is sorely missing workers of any kind. Which was bs, they then wanted almost minimum wage experienced workers, just like they still want now.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#133

Post by energy123 »

giantg2 wrote: post #129
energy123 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it seems that this has happened for a select few It's happened for anyone that owns housing without a mortgage in a wealthy country. Everyone else has to work full-time to pay their landlord or bank. Given the housing stock is kept artificially low, all remaining money in the average paycheck will necessarily be eaten up by housing. It doesn't really matter how productive the economy is. If shelter is kept scar…

"Given the housing stock is kept artificially low," I'm not sure I'd call it artificial. There are rational market forces at play. The real issue is that everyone wants to live in the same places, and the people there already want to preserve their lifestyle and investment.

San Francisco approves less than 20 new housing units each year. Nobody is allowed to build where people want to live. That's artificial.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#134

Post by bryanlarsen »

rvense wrote: post #115
bryanlarsen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an inflation adjusted number

But the cost of housing has inflated more than the cost of potatoes.

Exactly. If incomes increased at the same rate as housing did, then people would be much richer today than they were back then. It's why inflation uses a basket rather than just cherry picking a single component of the basket. If you want things to look bad you use housing. If you want things to look good you use potatoes. If you try and be fair you use a basket.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#135

Post by aaomidi »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #134
rvense wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the cost of housing has inflated more than the cost of potatoes.

Exactly. If incomes increased at the same rate as housing did, then people would be much richer today than they were back then. It's why inflation uses a basket rather than just cherry picking a single component of the basket. If you want things to look bad you use housing. If you want things to look good you use potatoes. If you try and be fair you use a basket.

Im sorry but a basket is absolutely useless when we’re talking about basic needs like housing.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#136

Post by bryanlarsen »

aaomidi wrote: post #135
bryanlarsen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If incomes increased at the same rate as housing did, then people would be much richer today than they were back then. It's why inflation uses a basket rather than just cherry picking a single component of the basket. If you want things to look bad you use housing. If you want things to look good you use potatoes. If you try and be fair you use a basket.

Im sorry but a basket is absolutely useless when we’re talking about basic needs like housing.

2/3 basic needs (food & clothing) are a lot cheaper than they were 50 years ago, and 1/3 is more expensive.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#137

Post by Aerroon »

imiric wrote: post #77
klysm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No amount of automation has ever seemed to result in a net reduction in work to do thus far

Because the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

This cannot be true.

Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it!

But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day.

Wealth is about stuff, not money. If more stuff is produced (that is useful) then people become wealthier. So unless those executives are somehow taking all those extra chairs themselves there must be done other beneficiary from the extra productivity.

It's far more likely that regular people have a growing desire for more stuff than the executives using up all those extra products themselves.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#138

Post by barbariangrunge »

Aerroon wrote: post #137
imiric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

What about advertising?

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#139

Post by xboxnolifes »

MiguelX413 wrote: post #74
echoangle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it? It’s not like the amount of work to do is fixed and once it’s done, everyone can relax for the rest of the year. There’s always work to do and progress just speeds up as work becomes more efficient.

Why not just stop once we've done the same work as in the past?

Because, thus far, people have always wanted more.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#140

Post by selcuka »

Aerroon wrote: post #137
imiric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

> Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase

You are looking from a single worker's perspective. A more realistic example is 4 workers used to make 4 chairs per day, and now 3 workers can make the same number of chairs. Boss makes more money. No net gain for the remaining 3 workers (and the laid off worker has to find another job, potentially for a lower salary).

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