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

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–288 of 288 posts

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

#281

Post by Domenic_S »

dragonwriter wrote: post #240
Domenic_S wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, Medicaid + MediCal is substantially better than most private insurance, at least for elder care.

> In California, Medicaid + MediCal is substantially better than most private insurance Medi-Cal is the name of California's Medicaid program, so "Medicaid + Medi-Cal" is just counting the same program twice. Which, if you could actually benefit that way, would probably be fairly generous, but the state actually makes a significant effort to prevent that. Did you intend to say Medicare + Medi-Cal, perhaps?

Indeed I did. Thanks.

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

#282

Post by wavefunction »

viewer5 wrote: post #198
wavefunction wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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"?

Both. Also in steadily working. My brother was one of three people with certain certifications in our state of several million people and had to put up with the sort of nonsense that would have us quitting immediately.

But it's part of the job of an iron-monger.

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

#283

Post by accolade »

jokoon wrote: post #127
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.

I guess I don't have a lot of exposure since I did not announce any concrete project. But I'm not seeing a lot of hiring ads... Maybe it's because I'm not fluent in .net, javascript or java. I don't answer so many stackoverflow questions, but I use bitbucket regularly, several stackexchange accounts, several programming-oriented forums... I guess it boils down to immigration policy...

You know more than I do, and 97 percent of the world population. Start your own project and work to your strengths. This isn't a race or competition btw :)

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

#284

Post by jongraehl »

Malarkey73 wrote: post #72
ctdonath wrote: post #67

Where does minimum wage [objectively] fit in? If an employer can't pay someone what a job is worth, either the job doesn't get done or a machine is found to do it - leaving someone without the opportunity for a job. Yes, it may not be a "living wage", but no wage is even less desirable. I've started using Taco Bell's remote ordering app. The clerk, seeing how I'd ordered (not using his services), yesterday thanked me…

[Objectively] in countries where a minimum wage has been introduced at a higher rate than the US and is reviewed each year it has pushed up wages but had little effect on employment. e.g. see for instance this discussion http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-m... Further I can't really stand the crocodile tears of business who want to employ workers at below living level wages. Their fake concern…

1. min-wage raises are so modest and so slowly phased-in (in the US) so to not produce smoking-gun employment drops, and employers prepare in advance for them, so sloppy underpowered studies don't show any large effect. marginal effects are small and so you need a powerful study.

2. do you want people who receive food stamps etc. and aren't hireable at $8/hr to have any legal on-the-books employment options or not? either way they're getting the food stamps.

3. I personally would rather see more Costcos+Trader Joes than Wal-marts+McDonalds, so i want to believe your 'bad employers winning' unless we force higher pay, but presumably people won't work for bad employers, so i don't see where your forecast is coming from. anyway it seems a little cargo-cult. you can't just start paying $20/hr instead of $8 and suddenly beat Costco.

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

#285

Post by innguest »

protomyth wrote: post #271
innguest wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not employment because it doesn't generate wealth. Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.

So, excluding all government jobs would be appropriate? No police or fire in your numbers either?

The government owes $118 trillion total (adding unfunded liabilities). When it can balance its budget than maybe we can have this discussion.

Otherwise, anyone can steal $18 trillion from the masses under the pretense of using it for the public good - when really all (yes, 100%) it does is pay debt interest according to the government's own report on how tax money is spent - and "create" several jobs for you as well.

So no, those shouldn't count unless you want to keep on living on fantasy land, believe government's inflation numbers (and close your eyes when you go grocery shopping), and ignore the fact those government "jobs" do not make us more competitive to other countries. You don't win in the global economy by giving everyone jobs, but by allowing people to create real jobs that compete with other countries so that we as a population become wealthier.

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

#286

Post by db48x »

protomyth wrote: post #272
Detrus wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this article recently that being poor is a set of bad habits and someone commented "poor is a permanent condition, broke is temporary." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2590535 Stating it that way seems reasonable enough. I haven't read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" fully but from summaries I'm guessing the tribes refused to accept Western ways and were comfortable living the way that let them survive…

You are missing my basic premise, the culture was almost destroyed and is in the process of building backup now. The book has nothing in common with the experience of US Tribes. The tribes ran the gamut in what they had before Columbus. It is know that trade routes existed bring things only found in the arctic regions south to the deserts and beyond.

Oh, I agree completely. If smallpox hadn't been a factor, then the tribes would have been strong enough to compete. They would have kept their cultures and been able to adapt and grow. It's good to hear that they are rebuilding their culture; it means that they won't die out.

The world would look very different today if the European explorers had brought back a virulent disease (like smallpox) instead of merely chronic ones (like syphilis). They simply had no idea what the risks were. They lucked out with malaria and yellow fever as well; most of Europe is too far north for them to be as big a problem as they are in Africa, or as they were in the American south.

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

#287

Post by protomyth »

db48x wrote: post #286
protomyth wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing my basic premise, the culture was almost destroyed and is in the process of building backup now. The book has nothing in common with the experience of US Tribes. The tribes ran the gamut in what they had before Columbus. It is know that trade routes existed bring things only found in the arctic regions south to the deserts and beyond.

Oh, I agree completely. If smallpox hadn't been a factor, then the tribes would have been strong enough to compete. They would have kept their cultures and been able to adapt and grow. It's good to hear that they are rebuilding their culture; it means that they won't die out. The world would look very different today if the European explorers had brought back a virulent disease (like smallpox) instead of merely chron…

"If smallpox hadn't been a factor, then the tribes would have been strong enough to compete."

Smallpox is the least of the problems that the tribes faced. The government abuse of land and wealth, the beating out of culture, the killing of food sources, and parking the tribes in the middle of nowhere on land that wouldn't grow anything. Broken promises and laughing officials are the problems.

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

#288

Post by zaroth »

hyperpape wrote: post #278
zaroth wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's just wrong to mention DI here I agree with SSI and SSDI the pit is very, very deep. The incentive to just give up is extraordinary. You have to willingly forgo tens of thousands of dollars for the pleasure of working. Since trying even just a little bit disqualifies you. And yes, SSI/SSDI eats your soul. But the argument stands even without SSI/SSDI though. Just adding ACA on top of the existing subsidies was…

You're right, the proper statement is "you can't count _all_ payroll taxes as lost income." Your numbers still aren't accurate. You're also going higher than the initial income you mentioned ($100k), and you've switched from household income to individual (a two income family with $75k and $45k will look quite differently). And you can't make the point without disability income. As shown lower down in the thread, you…

My point was simply to show the maximum range of possible outcomes, which is why I showed from $10k to $120k. I wasn't trying to tie it back to any particular scenario. Even in the absolute best case, the SSI program is clearly not about providing individual ROI for your tax dollars. It's about your incremental work supporting others. Which is fine... to a point.

The 'retained future income' portion of FICO payments, lets say with a 4% discount rate (ARR), is pennies on the dollar even in the best parts of the income curve where your earnings count the most toward achieving benefits.

Using 'danans' numbers he came up with $35k of marginal utility from $115k of household income. Those numbers were obviously overly conservative, but did include an average SSDI of $24k. There are many, many benefits that danans did not include, which I enumerated in my reply downthread, but I'm willing to settle on $35k of utility from $115k of work as a starting point.

Now showing it without SSI/SSDI and just relying on food stamps, Medicaid, EITC, and other means-tested programs you still get horrible outcomes like the $24k - $30k example from 'chipotle_coyote' but I agree it won't be a straight-out loss up to $100k.

But I hear you -- if I believe enough in making an irrefutable point, I should just code up the site and accept pull requests on Github.

I have always shown my math and quoted my sources, so you might not agree with the methodology, but I've tried to be accurate with the numbers, and cite sources of inaccuracy where-ever possible. I'm sorry you found it dishonest.

Post reply on HN