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

nytimes.com

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

#211

Post by john_b »

malandrew wrote: post #158
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…

It's pretty disgusting that those that are supposed to be stopping crimes are knowingly and intentionally committing fraud to get additional money from the state. Between this and the recent civil asset forfeiture scandals, I'm amazed people aren't more outraged.

Outrage requires awareness as a first step. Our mainstream sources of journalism are often too preoccupied with party talking points when covering welfare programs to get to the real issues of corruption, fraud, and systemic brokenness underneath. It seems to be slowly changing, however. Articles like this one are a good start.

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

#212

Post by to3m »

morganvachon wrote: post #70
yen223 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, you need savings. If you absolutely need a paycheck this month to make it through to next month, you simply cannot afford the risks involved in doing the whole startup thing. Another thing, you need skills. But it's very difficult to get a decent education (formal or otherwise) if your family isn't able to support you during your formative learning years. It's not easy to learn programming if your fami…

> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.

I am intrigued by the way you think. Do you play poker?

Our monthly tournament is always looking for new players...

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

#213

Post by morgante »

VLM wrote: post #137
morgante wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed. Why? I'm pretty sure I'll be totally fine in retirement (predicted savings of $5M+).

Everyone can still be screwed at the same time you're OK. Unless you're implying you're just average median dude. Some experiments can be run in a spreadsheet. I assumed 40 years of work (optimistic) and google reports a median personal income of 32140/yr and average savings rate of 3.2%. Shadowstats reports an average inflation rate around 5%, thats sounds about right. The S+P 500 total return over the last half cen…

Sorry, but some of your assumptions seem ridiculous.

Nobody I know experiences nominal wage declines, even of 1%. For reference, the average annual raise is a full 3%. [1]

As for 5% inflation, everyone knows Shadowstats is incredibly bogus and pushing a clear agenda without any grounding in realistic CPIs. [2] [3] For the past few years we've been experiencing almost 0% inflation, though I use 3% for my models (to be conservative).

I'm not implying that someone with average income will retire with millions, I just took issue with the idea that somehow "everyone" is going to end up penniless. 50% of people fall above median income and a substantial portion of us can reasonably expect to have retirement savings readily available.

1: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2013/09/... 2: http://voxrationalis.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/the-absurdity-... 3: http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2013/10/14/niall...

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

#215

Post by akgerber »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #93
venomsnake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we cannot produce more, because the unemployed don't consume. So we lay of people. It is a death spiral.

If your future economic prospects require ever increasing consumption then surely there's a problem; resources are finite. If we need more people consuming more and more stuff (that mostly gets put in landfill within a couple of years) then we're completely screwed. We need to start restructuring our way of life to accommodate the need to conserve resources, for one, and the need to support a basic standard of living…

Depends on what that 'consumption' consists of. We could have an economy of eternal growth in art, scholarship, mathematics, music, and software. The main input there is human thought.

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

#216

Post by billmalarky »

malandrew wrote: post #158
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…

It's pretty disgusting that those that are supposed to be stopping crimes are knowingly and intentionally committing fraud to get additional money from the state. Between this and the recent civil asset forfeiture scandals, I'm amazed people aren't more outraged.

I would argue that police are inherently no more ethical than the average reasonable citizen.

The solution of course is transparency. Stop treating police as holier than thou. They're just government workers. "Trust but verify" works wonders for keeping people honest. Good people as well as bad, because it removes temptation.

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

#217

Post by john_b »

humanrebar wrote: post #204
icantthinkofone wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to mention that. He applied at large and small companies but, the kicker is, he's all set for retirement, doesn't need the money, and only wants to bring in about $20K to $30K so he can help fund a non-profit he likes.

I've wondered about this. I often do interviews and say, "This guy isn't gangbusters, but he could help us out with if he's willing to work for the right price." My bosses usually wince at that sentiment, probably because I'm underestimating how much overhead is or something, but there should be a number that makes it worth it, right? And if the guy ends up being smart and reliable, you could ask him to retrain for a…

If your company is having that discussion in the context of full time employment, the indirect costs (i.e. non-salary things like health insurance, 401(k) matching, etc) are a significant factor in the equation. As salary drops, these (relatively fixed) indirect costs become a larger percentage of the cost of retaining someone.

If you measure the value of the employee by the salary you pay him or her, the ratio of total costs incurred by the company to value derived by the company for this one employee increases as that employee's salary drops. This is one of the major reasons that temporary jobs and part time work have become popular solutions to this problem: the indirect costs associated with these types of hires are lower.

What we really need, in an ideal world, is a set of personal benefit programs (health & life insurance are the big ones) which are completely uncorrelated with your employment status or location. Forcing employers to shoulder the burden for personal benefits leads down a dark and dysfunctional path where the programs are not controlled and managed by those who have an interest in them for what they provide, but by those who have an interest in minimizing the costs of such programs.

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

#218

Post by akgerber »

cylinder wrote: post #191
db48x wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Merely being within an easy drive of Manhattan has proven quite profitable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohegan_Indian_Tribe

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

#219

Post by akgerber »

patja wrote: post #126

The article states that every month the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics asks all men who are not working and not receiving unemployment benefits what their situation is. How does this process work? Having been in this population, I know for certain nobody from the government has ever asked me for this information.

Not all of them, just a random sample of the population which includes some of them: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/

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

#220

Post by emodendroket »

MCRed wrote: post #163
emodendroket wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the majority of the long-term unemployed are unemployed because they're working on tech startups.

I don't know the proportions at all, didn't mean to imply the majority were. However, it is a trend that there are a lot more people becoming independant and making their money online via various ways (not all of which are startups, most of which are probably what would be called "lifestyle businesses" here, though I hate that term) and thus not counted on the "employment rolls".

Maybe, but most of those people aren't voluntarily doing that, are underpaid, and don't have any chance of making it big with what they're doing. Basically, all of the hardship of being independent without the rewards. (think of freelance journalists working for peanuts, or often putting stuff out for free for "exposure," for instance)
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