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Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

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Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#281

Post by ben_w »

Den_VR wrote: post #272
ben_w wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, cleaning rooms cannot be fully automated at any price. The AI to control the robots just isn't good enough for how broad a term "unclean" can be. I don't want to comment about picking crops, that's rapidly changing and I don't expect to be up-to-date with this. I've seen people being confidently wrong about "cows won't milk themselves" decades after there were machines cows could operate by themselves to g…

When you get into the “ at any price ” range, then you should be up for engineering the room to support fully automated cleaning, and so I’d contend this is possible today. For certain situations. For example, automatic cleaning of a capsule hotel. I’ve just checked into one myself, nearly everything is self-service with an rfid band for access. How about automatic cleaning of a clean room?

Sure, but "For certain situations" is a strong barrier here.

So, the example with most saliency for me (which may not be the hardest to deal with) is:

Imagine a hotel that is hosting a convention, and is fully occupied for five days. On day one, a norovirus infection event gets everyone, on day four everyone's digestive tracts are voided from both ends with about 40 seconds' warning. How well do the automation systems cope?

This example is probably quite close to the top of the list of things I expect cleaning staff to be hoping someone can automate/has already automated, because noro is hella infectious like that and who on earth would actually want to be the one who has to clean up after such incidents, but has this kind of cleanup actually been fully automated yet?

I had to clean up after a relative (which is why it's salient for me), and I think I caught it from them because I'd missed the inside of a cupboard door handle before removing my gloves.

> How about automatic cleaning of a clean room?

Positive air pressure, air filters, and requiring occupants to wear stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom#/media/File:Cleanroo...

Would be one of the easier cases, given they are work environments and by extension there's an expectation of reduced scope of things for the automation to be doing, though even then I'd expect some unplanned incidents require human intervention.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#282

Post by quantified »

okwhateverdude wrote: post #241
Yeul wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously in the Netherlands poverty has gone down. But that's because the government has a pretty solid Robin Hood system going on: take from the rich give to the poor. The amount of wealth that is redistributed is frankly insane.

I'm generally in favor. My taxes provide an amazing experience here. I have never seen the abject poverty that I've seen in other places (such as the US) here in NL. Great infrastructure, labor laws, culture and arts, etc. I worry less about break-ins and theft. All-in-all, the least worst place to live, by far.

If we in the USA got our money's worth from taxes, we feel rich. But we truly don't.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#283

Post by refurb »

rester324 wrote: post #276
refurb wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not what “trickle down economics” is. It’s basically the Laffer curve which argues that tax receipts can actually go down with higher taxes rates as tax’s can discourage growth if high enough. Thus if you lower taxes, economics growth increases (overall tax receipts go up, not down).

I don't understand. Can you elaborate? The Laffer curve simply shows the relationship between taxation and government revenue. It has nothing to do with the policies and the economic theories. In fact, there are two points on both sides of the Laffer curve's maxima where tax revenues are the same in theory. That's just a simple didactical tool, nothing more. Saying that the Laffer curve is the trickle down economics…

The Laffer curve is the basis for what was called "trickle down economics".

The Reagan administration argued the US was the right side of the curve, and that lowering taxes would result in economic growth ("a rising tide raises all boats"). Economic growth benefits every worker.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#284

Post by bko »

throw0101d wrote: post #271
jalapenos wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, since they own all the beachfront property

> True, since they own all the beachfront property Climate change does not mean just rising sea levels, but more extreme weather as well, which can include more flooding: warmer air holds more moisture, so when it eventually gets released it can be in downpours. See recent flooding in Texas. Poor people tend to live in the highest risk areas because the safer areas are desired most and so the people with money bid up…

Regarding people living in Tornado Alley because they can't afford to live anywhere else, insurance costs are much higher there, so not exactly a bargain. And plenty of wealthy people love high risk areas. Pretty much anything by a sea is high risk. And again, they pay for it with higher insurance rates.

It's hard to get a good measure of damage caused by climate change. There are much touted statistics that say billion dollar weather events are more common than ever, but that's mainly due to things being more expensive and increased development (i.e. beach front properties)

A more objective measure, although no perfect, is deaths caused by climate events. If climate events were more catastrophic over time, you would expect deaths to go up somewhat proportionally. To my knowledge, there haven't been major advances in rescue technology in the last 50 years or so.

But we see this number has come down pretty drastically over the last 150 years. In the US it has also come down or stayed about the same

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269715/global-reported-...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fatality-rates-in-the-us-...

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#285

Post by quantified »

refurb wrote: post #202
einrealist wrote: post #135

That's the myth of Trickle-down economics in action.

But it’s not. The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. They don’t. A great example were the people in the 0.1% percentile of income. Evil rich people! Turns out people who end up in that group, only do so for a single year in their entire life . Things like selling a company or getting a large windfall propels them into the 0.1%, then af…

Why pick the top and bottom 0.1%? The top 3% and the bottom 40 are probably a less frothy cohort. What cited data would yoh find for those?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#286

Post by rester324 »

refurb wrote: post #283
rester324 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Can you elaborate? The Laffer curve simply shows the relationship between taxation and government revenue. It has nothing to do with the policies and the economic theories. In fact, there are two points on both sides of the Laffer curve's maxima where tax revenues are the same in theory. That's just a simple didactical tool, nothing more. Saying that the Laffer curve is the trickle down economics…

The Laffer curve is the basis for what was called "trickle down economics". The Reagan administration argued the US was the right side of the curve, and that lowering taxes would result in economic growth ("a rising tide raises all boats"). Economic growth benefits every worker.

OK. Thank you for the explanation. But then again, I think you are confusig things. So I am not convinced at all. But at least now I understand where you are coming from.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#287

Post by agent_turtle »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #173
Hikikomori wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term stable tariffs yes. But you can't pretend like trumps tariffs were not done in the worst way possible?

Trump uses wild % amounts as a negotiation tactic. Is it the best way to do it? I don’t know. You can’t argue though that it does force the other side to come quickly to negotiation table to talk about the deal. So, if the goal is to get the deal now, then it’s effective. If the goal is something else, then it’s not a good tactic. I do not have enough information to definitely say whether it’s good or bad. Most of th…

> I do not have enough information to definitely say whether it’s good or bad.

Usually when I don't have enough information on an issue, I take it upon myself to learn more about it before stating an opinion.

> Most of the things in life are neither because they have good side effects, and bad side effects to them.

You don't have to be a doctor to understand that the downside of cancer probably outweighs the upside of not having to save for retirement. Economic instability is the cancer in this metaphor, and the cause of it is Trump changing his mind on tariff rates every other day. Economists, like doctors, are trained on how to treat this illness, and all of them are saying "stop doing that". Trump can either listen to the experts or continue on his path, destroying the American economy in the process.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#288

Post by n4r9 »

bko wrote: post #284
throw0101d wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True, since they own all the beachfront property Climate change does not mean just rising sea levels, but more extreme weather as well, which can include more flooding: warmer air holds more moisture, so when it eventually gets released it can be in downpours. See recent flooding in Texas. Poor people tend to live in the highest risk areas because the safer areas are desired most and so the people with money bid up…

Regarding people living in Tornado Alley because they can't afford to live anywhere else, insurance costs are much higher there, so not exactly a bargain. And plenty of wealthy people love high risk areas. Pretty much anything by a sea is high risk. And again, they pay for it with higher insurance rates. It's hard to get a good measure of damage caused by climate change. There are much touted statistics that say bill…

Is insurance a legal requirement for a trailer in Tornado Alley?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#289

Post by pseudocomposer »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #275
jalapenos wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immigration crackdown and the tariffs will also mean effective reduced supply of foreign labor, and since their labor is what poor people sell, it will cause upward pressure on their earnings.

The tariff will cause, is causing in fact, increased prices. This will have a negative effect on their earnings.

Could you please define what you mean by “earnings” in this context?

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#290

Post by lotsofpulp »

throw0101d wrote: post #273
nosianu wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. Here is something I posted only a few days ago. It is Germany, but that point is certainly not much different from Anglo-Saxon countries. It is a podcast, and in German too, but it is high quality and on one of the best stations in Germany (Deutschlandfunk's culture channel - https://en.wikipedi…

> Yes individuals can rise and fall. One of the critiques of meritocracy: > […] It’s wild that everyone is using “merit” and “meritocracy” as though it somehow avoids elitism, when in reality it’s a sneaky way to cement biases without the appearance of bias. Of course people should be judged on their skills and not their wealth. But, how’d they acquire those skills, and why would anyone assume the money didn’t help?…

I do not see how this is criticism.

Everything in life involves hefty doses of luck. The alternative (i.e. without merit) seems obviously worse as it would be completely luck, no?

The complaint seems to want to lower the ceiling rather than raise the floor.

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