The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#191

Post by cylinder » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

db48x wrote: post #73

hessenwolf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean that more Indians are unemployed, or that the reservations were placed in the greatest economic crapholes that could be found?

The folks living in the reservations have not grown their economies. Economic growth isn't something that happens automatically; you have to go out and start new enterprises, invent new technologies, etc. Some cultures are simply incapable of this and will eventually die out; if you want an extreme example go read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" by Daniel Everett.

What is a Native American on a reservation on worthless land in the middle of the desert going to do for a living? I'd like to see a reservation be granted in midtown Manhattan and see what happens.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#192

Post by pc2g4d » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #168

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74

The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal disability insurance is well covered in an episode of This American Life [1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other hand, is federally funded. The intersecti…

And it's not just disability benefits. When you stop and really analyze it; Medicaid and health insurance credits, SSI, food stamps, EITC, FICA, progressive income tax rates, refundable tax credits, phased-out tax deductions, even things like housing and energy assistance, etc. There's easily $60,000 of services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k, that you get for free or don't have to pay if…

This sounds crazy to me. Maybe you're living in a place with a really high cost of living? What's included in "services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k" ?

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#193

Post by mcguire » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 5:58 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #153

morgante wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't feel the industry really needs that many programmers. That's definitely false, at least in the US.

That's definitely false, we aren't virtualizing brains, we don't have sapient AI, and Mesa still needs tessellation shaders. Plenty of work left to be done.

Priorities, man, priorities.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#194

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:06 PM UTC

the_real_bto wrote: post #95

jokoon wrote: post #92

I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life. "what they do instead" Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of my reach in terms of skill, experience,…

I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles. One wonderful thing about software development, is that credentials and pedigree are not required. If you can make software, you can get a job. Even if you can't write software, there are lots of related jobs. I've been writing software professionally for about 15 years or so. Before that I had flunked out of an electrical engineering program a couple times, and was wait…

> Even if you can't write software, there are lots of related jobs.

I'm more than a little frustrated that the tech sector hasn't taken this to heart more. There's a lot of day-to-day work that we expect developers to do that anyone with good grades in high school or a liberal arts associates degree could do.

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a low ratio of administrative assistants to developers considering how much developers are paid. Perhaps it would be better if developers were paid hourly or otherwise went home at 5 p.m. like normal professionals.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#195

Post by prostoalex » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:12 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #170

ColinCera wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a lot of disability fraud going on, some of it downright shocking. Example #1: A couple of weeks ago, my brother, an orthopedist, had a 26-year-old man come in for an ankle sprain. In the course of working up the ankle -- mildly sprained, no problem -- he found that the patient doesn't work and is on 100% disability. Why? Because of acne. Yes, acne. Apparently when he was 19 or 20 he had such severe acn…

This stuff is very common, especially here in Chicago with the unions running a fairly corrupt machine. I really wish something could be done. We're taxed hard and money is spent in reckless ways by the government like this. Doesn't seem fair to those of us who actually work to make this money. Worse, there is no solution is site. Who is going to arrest these crooked cops? Other cops? They're on the take as well. >He…

> Worse, there is no solution is site. Who is going to arrest these crooked cops? Other cops?

The fraud burden typically lies with the agency that's cutting the checks. Other agencies (IRS, SEC) deal with fraud in their specific areas and do not rely on police except the very specific step of arresting the individual, which in these cases may never happen.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#196

Post by ranko » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:13 PM UTC

db48x wrote: post #73

hessenwolf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean that more Indians are unemployed, or that the reservations were placed in the greatest economic crapholes that could be found?

The folks living in the reservations have not grown their economies. Economic growth isn't something that happens automatically; you have to go out and start new enterprises, invent new technologies, etc. Some cultures are simply incapable of this and will eventually die out; if you want an extreme example go read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" by Daniel Everett.

If you want a thoughtful and interesting analysis of why you're wrong, read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. While it's (of course) a simplification of the real world, Diamond looks at questions like "Why did Spaniards conquer Peru, rather than Peruvians invading Spain?". Not surprisingly (to most, I'd hope) it's not because of innate differences between cultures.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#197

Post by camgunz » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:15 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #168

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74

The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal disability insurance is well covered in an episode of This American Life [1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other hand, is federally funded. The intersecti…

And it's not just disability benefits. When you stop and really analyze it; Medicaid and health insurance credits, SSI, food stamps, EITC, FICA, progressive income tax rates, refundable tax credits, phased-out tax deductions, even things like housing and energy assistance, etc. There's easily $60,000 of services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k, that you get for free or don't have to pay if…

I'd also really like to see some numbers, because I don't believe that 60% of a $100k/yr. income is lost to "services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k, that you get for free or don't have to pay if you earn $0".

Is your list "Medicaid and health insurance credits, SSI, food stamps, EITC, FICA..." things that you have to pay, or benefits you get if your income is $0/yr.? For example, you wouldn't get EITC if you had no income, but you wouldn't get food stamps if you had $100k/yr.

I would argue that it's poor framing to compare a hypothetical family with $0/yr. income to one with $100k/yr. income. You bring up childcare as an example, but when you look at a family making, say, $35k/yr., they're largely unqualified for assistance but childcare is almost certainly out of reach for them. $100k/yr. families are paying for childcare, paying tons of taxes, and buying amazing Christmas gifts.

Because only 20% of Americans even make >= $100k/yr., I don't think you can rightly call them middle class. I'm not sure we should really be concerned for those at that income level, I think it's more imperative to start looking at people working full time but still making Finally, I'm with you on progressive taxation. Tax tiers make no sense; we need a (simple) tax function. Problem solved.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#198

Post by viewer5 » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:16 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #185

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about picking winners. It is about giving students at least one practical skill early on, then letting them choose what they want to do. I am a programmer, but I can also weld and fix cars. This is because in high school I took some auto shop classes. Let's say for some odd reason programming doesn't work out anymore as a career(this is happening to lawyers and pharmacists), I have something to fall back on.

>>I am a programmer, but I can also weld and fix cars. This is because in high school I took some auto shop classes. That's a pretty flippant dismissal of the knowledge required to either "fix cars" or "weld" for a living. My brother was an excellent welder and it's a very hard life.

> very hard life

As in "physically demanding", or "lots of technical knowledge needed"?

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#199

Post by vidyesh » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:16 PM UTC

coob wrote: post #81

vidyesh wrote: post #11

There are lot of factors which are discussed but not considered when it came to concluding this topic. The increase in population : Instead of comparing the ratio or the percentage of working vs non-working with the present population it compares x out of every 100. The increase in jobs : 2000 vs 2014, the number of jobs available has also changed which is not taken in account. As mentioned in the article older peopl…

Middle East wars creating more disabled people.

And the article very precisely says

>(People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures.)

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#200

Post by zaroth » Fri, Dec 12, 2014, 6:19 PM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #192

zaroth wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not just disability benefits. When you stop and really analyze it; Medicaid and health insurance credits, SSI, food stamps, EITC, FICA, progressive income tax rates, refundable tax credits, phased-out tax deductions, even things like housing and energy assistance, etc. There's easily $60,000 of services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k, that you get for free or don't have to pay if…

This sounds crazy to me. Maybe you're living in a place with a really high cost of living? What's included in "services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay when earning $100k" ?

It's completely bonkers when you lay it all out there. On $100k of family of 4 household income... it's a combination of actively paying taxes, and missing out on credits;

   Payroll taxes*       = $ 15,300
   Federal income taxes = $  6,500
   CA income taxes      = $  4,000
   ACA Subsidy          = $ 12,000
   Food Stamps          = $  8,000
   EITC                 = $  5,000
   Disability           = up to $30,000 if applicable
   Energy credits       = ???
   Housing credits      = ???
   Waived fees          = ???

Some of these are refundable credits or progressive credits which you lose by earning too much, so it's a direct cost of working.

Every progressive subsidy is mathematically equivalent to a progressive tax. The $12,000 ACA "tax credit" is actually a $12,000 progressive tax. It's the single largest tax hike against the middle class... possibly ever?

This doesn't even get into the property tax side of the equation, since we're talking direct cost of working, not cost of owning things like houses, and cars. But that's part of the overall conversation of the war on the middle class. [Edit] There are even property tax circuit breakers where you get credits on property tax for earning less, so that should be in the above table. That's separate from housing credits such as means-tested rent control.

Then you can start to pay for the personal costs of actually going out and earning that income.... everything from child care, to transportation, to business clothes, etc.

And then that's still not even counting opportunity costs, e.g. I'm too busy at work, now I have to pay for a plumber, contractor, mechanic, landscaper, take-out dinner, etc. versus doing it on my own time. Think, all the things you could do for yourself in 2,080 hours per year...

* Don't be fooled by the employer hiding half the cost from you.