Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 87 posts

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#51

Post by Avshalom »

ctdonath wrote: post #50
quinnchr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not immoral? Why should employees work full time yet still need food stamps to get by, while employers see record profits? How is it moral to not pay someone a living wage, while the wages at the top go up? http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/hidden-...

How moral is it to not earn a living wage, but expect others to supply it anyway?

The Waltons' fortunes are built by our labor, unless you think they could staff ~9000 locations by themselves.

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#53

Post by enraged_camel »

paulhauggis wrote: post #43
quinnchr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not immoral? Why should employees work full time yet still need food stamps to get by, while employers see record profits? How is it moral to not pay someone a living wage, while the wages at the top go up? http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate-subsidy-watch/hidden-...

How often is this really happening? and what is the cause? Is it because the employer isn't paying employees enough or is it because the employee made poor life decisions (had kids too early, didn't learn any marketable skills, etc)? Minimum wage isn't meant to support an entire family. There are plenty of places you can rent these days that are cheap (Just looking on craiglist, I can see rooms for rent that someone…

Is it because the employer isn't paying employees enough or is it because the employee made poor life decisions (had kids too early, didn't learn any marketable skills, etc)?

WOW! This is not only textbook false dichotomy, but also a fundamental attribution error [1].

"Had kids too early" - what if their pregnancy was a result of rape, and they could not afford an abortion (or it was illegal in their state)?

"Didn't learn any marketable skills" - what if they weren't born into a good family and didn't have the role models that could teach them what skills are marketable in the first place.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#54

Post by twoodfin »

jbooth wrote: post #29
acslater00 wrote: post #22

Couple things here. First, corporate profits are aberrantly high for a number of reasons, none of which are likely to be permanent. John Hussman, an analyst whom I respect deeply, has a good discussion of this from the perspective of stock valuations, but the basic point is relevant here. [ http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc130408.htm ] Second, while I agree that this is "the story" in a purely journalistic sense, i…

I think the biggest problem of incentives can be summed up as: It's much more profitable to do a mediocre job in banking than to do a world-changing job of actually building things. Proximity to money is worth more than actual ingenuity.

Then why doesn't every income-motivated mediocre person try to get a job in banking? The banks would have their pick of candidates, and they'd save on employment costs.

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#55

Post by klbarry »

jellicle wrote: post #7
youngerdryas wrote: post #2

From the comments: "The focus and concern shouldn't be how much the top 1% are making, it should be how much the 99% are making, especially the bottom 50%. I dont really care how much money Bill Gates and Donald Trump are making. Their income has absolutely no effect at all on my income, what I'm most concerned about is how much money I'm making. The economy is not a zero sum game, where if the rich make a trillion m…

> The chart above shows corporate profits going through the roof but at the same time labour income is INCREASING. Actually if you graph real per capita labour income, it's decreasing. Labour income as a whole is only increasing because of inflation and population inflation.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#56

Post by jordan0day »

vinhboy wrote: post #24
youngerdryas wrote: post #2

From the comments: "The focus and concern shouldn't be how much the top 1% are making, it should be how much the 99% are making, especially the bottom 50%. I dont really care how much money Bill Gates and Donald Trump are making. Their income has absolutely no effect at all on my income, what I'm most concerned about is how much money I'm making. The economy is not a zero sum game, where if the rich make a trillion m…

"Trade only happens if its mutually beneficial for BOTH parties" That is not true. People often trade out of need, and a lot of time, desperation. It is not mutually beneficial. That notion is so wrong I am not sure how to begin refuting it.

Mutually beneficial does not mean "perfect". Lots of trade may be unfair, especially in hindsight, but at the time the trade occurred, each party sees benefit in the trade. Otherwise, why would they trade?

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#57

Post by CapitalistCartr »

jbooth wrote: post #29
acslater00 wrote: post #22

Couple things here. First, corporate profits are aberrantly high for a number of reasons, none of which are likely to be permanent. John Hussman, an analyst whom I respect deeply, has a good discussion of this from the perspective of stock valuations, but the basic point is relevant here. [ http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc130408.htm ] Second, while I agree that this is "the story" in a purely journalistic sense, i…

I think the biggest problem of incentives can be summed up as: It's much more profitable to do a mediocre job in banking than to do a world-changing job of actually building things. Proximity to money is worth more than actual ingenuity.

"Proximity to money" Imagine a city on the confluence of two rivers, with a series of locks making it a major trade center. The leaders of the lock operators union come to the city fathers requesting they be paid a percentage of the trade passing through the locks rather than a regular wage.

The city leaders ask why, since they didn't build the locks or create any of the system that makes it all happen, they should share in the wealth above others, and above the work they do.

The Union leaders reply that the small percentage they're asking for will pay total about the same as they're getting now, and it better aligns the interests of both sides. Of course the city leaders eventually agree. And of course, the "modest percentage" steadily grows over time, with a multitude of clever, more complex shipping arrangements.

That's the financial system we have. They didn't build it; their brain power goes to make it more opaque, and siphon more to them. And with regulatory capture, the federal gov't abets it all.

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#58

Post by ctdonath »

Avshalom wrote: post #51
ctdonath wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How moral is it to not earn a living wage, but expect others to supply it anyway?

The Waltons' fortunes are built by our labor, unless you think they could staff ~9000 locations by themselves.

Non-sequitur.

The Walton's fortunes are built by trading for our labor, benefitting both. This does not obligate the Waltons to pay "living wages" where the value of one's labor does not rise to the cost of one's living expenses.

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#59

Post by jordan0day »

boomlinde wrote: post #12
civilian wrote: post #3

Yup. Using humans to get stuff done isn't our only option anymore, so a difference between the stock market and labor market isn't surprising. I live in a liberal area and I'm facebook friends with a lot of Burners (people who have gone to burning man). I see a ton of image macros and posts where people are implying that it's a moral wrong that businesses are doing well while we have high unemployment. :-/ For me, on…

What is morally wrong is the idea that everyone should have a job in a society where it's so obviously unnecessary for everyone to work, and where the level of productivity is in fact detrimental to the people and their environment in the long term. What I'm saying is that we should get rid of the idea of not having a wage job at all as inherently less respectable than working with anything and introduce a guaranteed…

This, exactly. On hn we can have these discussions (and see a lot of people hold these welfare=lazy straw man views) because most of us have jobs that haven't been automated away... yet. But that day is coming. Probably a lot sooner than most of us realize.

I can't help but agree that a policy of full employment or guaranteed minimum income is going to be necessary in the not-too-distant future, unless we're comfortable living in a society where most people are destitute because they weren't born to already-rich parents.

Re: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market

#60

Post by yummyfajitas »

readme wrote: post #26
civilian wrote: post #3

Yup. Using humans to get stuff done isn't our only option anymore, so a difference between the stock market and labor market isn't surprising. I live in a liberal area and I'm facebook friends with a lot of Burners (people who have gone to burning man). I see a ton of image macros and posts where people are implying that it's a moral wrong that businesses are doing well while we have high unemployment. :-/ For me, on…

> For me, once I understood the (technological, economic) reasons for the difference it became less of a moral issue and more of a practical issue. keywords: "For me" Everyone seems to lose their empathy for the poor and unfortunate once they become successful themselves. But I bet before you landed your sweet coffeescript gig, that you were pretty empathetic. It's not a practical issue. It's purely a moral one. We a…

The system rewards luck and pedigree more than it rewards effort and hard work.

What evidence do you have for this?

Post reply on HN