121–130 of 151 posts
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> The gig economy should only be for people that have economic security. This would be a form of scabbing: taking jobs away from people that don't have economic security, to give disposable income to people that do .
The point is: No one should have economic insecurity when it comes to basic needs.
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It's absolutely a desperation career. Those always exist somewhere in any economy, and arguably there should be options available for desperate people, but the sheer volume of them is getting sad. It's like the US has a very poor, developing country double-exposed over an insanely wealthy and advanced one, both occupying the same territory. I'm not a historian but it strikes me as very strange and somewhat new to the…
>It's absolutely a desperation career. Indeed it is. What's new is that companies have never been this successful to sell what is basically modern day labour as cool and hip and "good for you!". I guess it only a matter of time until we see a resurgence of night lodgers as this revolutionary new alternative way of housing.
Overhead for managing repetitive and time intensive labor work is high, so when a program can do it, that overhead drops, efficiency increases, and it becomes profitable.
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It's the allure for sure but I imagine quite quickly gets proven wrong as you find yourself working certain hours due to higher rates and/or increased demand. With wages that low (these are Uber's own figures too) and close to no upward mobility career wise, it seems like a colossal dead end one could easily become trapped in. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance…
>I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance costs of their car Nearly every car owner fails to adequately budget for (or even understand) the full cost of ownership of their car :) Edit: I forgot my audience for a second. Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical . People routinely fail to properly account for the TCO. The entire auto-sales mode…
Or every time you go somewhere, the cost of a roundtrip is the number of miles to reach your destination, in dollars (since each mile costs around 50 cents, or more). Plus some for tolls and the rising gas costs, but a 20% buffer should take care of that.
If you have a luxury car, add another 20% or 30%.
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A land tax trickles down as increased agricultural and housing prices. So it's strongly recessive, that is, it affects the poor to a much greater proportion than the rich. The US before 1913 was a largely agricultural nation with strong equality due to fair capital allocation, free land distributed to homesteaders, manifest destiny and all that. Dispensing current means of income redistribution would mean reverting t…
The idea that all taxes are ultimately paid for by consumers is dangerous, stupid and misleading. If companies/people could charge you more for whatever you are buying, they would. Taxation is largely paid for by reduced profitability, not increased prices. Land taxes are one of the only ways to tax non-productive, rentier style wealth that has lots of fixed assets, and merely sits on them extacting money with very l…
A large land tax in such an ECON101 postcard-perfect market will immediately increase the costs of inputs to the point where production no longer makes economic sense. Either through decreased production or tariff protectionism the food prices will rise, passing the tax to consumers.
That's not say taxes are always passed down to consumers, that's a pure straw-man you conjure to hurl insults. But in these two cases, they are, to an overwhelming degree.
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The gig economy is already bad enough for workers but in the US it's even worse due to the health care situation. We should get rid of any advantages corporations have over individuals like health insurance.
Do you have the scourge of zero hour contracts in the US? Basically a person can be contractually obligated to work when demanded but with no guarantees of minimum hours or salary.
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It's the allure for sure but I imagine quite quickly gets proven wrong as you find yourself working certain hours due to higher rates and/or increased demand. With wages that low (these are Uber's own figures too) and close to no upward mobility career wise, it seems like a colossal dead end one could easily become trapped in. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance…
>I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of drivers failed to adequately budget for the maintenance costs of their car Nearly every car owner fails to adequately budget for (or even understand) the full cost of ownership of their car :) Edit: I forgot my audience for a second. Guys, college-educated engineers and 1% developers aren't typical . People routinely fail to properly account for the TCO. The entire auto-sales mode…
Even a lot of college-educated engineers seem to not account for it. I was on vacation with a few guys (most of them engineers). This was for a very long road trip (~3000km). They wanted to give the drivers the gas costs. I said the gas costs only cover a minimal part of expenses. I even gave them a back of the envelope calculation (insurance costs + average maintenance costs per km, etc.). They all just said that's not what the car costs.
I said ok, I'm not willing to drive at that price. But I'll pay another person whatever the group agrees on, even if it's total cost in the end. They still went with gas costs.
Gas is like 10 Euro cents per km in Germany (depending on car). The government assesses 30 cents per km. For a newer car the costs are much higher.
I'm guessing the guy that drove incurred costs of roughly 50 cents per km (looking as his car was only 3 years old), and got back 10. That's 3000 * 0,4 = 1200€ he gifted the rest of us.
I find this "gas costs" approach only works if all of your friends drive roughly the same. But living in a European city only a third of us even owns a car.
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Interestingly where I live Ubers are usually 50% more expensive than taxis.
I happily pay a premium for Uber/Lyft; that’s how awful taxis are. I can’t go back.
Everyone’s experiences are different!
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Sorry, I wasn't clear; I was imagining a scenario where people weren't forced to choose crappy options. In that scenario people who needed economic security would choose options that actually gave it to them.
Serious question: in that world, who cleans the toilets?
These aren't gig jobs. They offer steady employment with predictable hours and wages. If everyone has a basic job contract (which is a right in some countries already), it is even more predictable. If the job itself isn't good enough for your basic economic needs, the safety net kicks in. If they lose their job, the safety net kicks in so they aren't struggling to get by with gigs. (Obviously idealized situation).
The point is that worker never is forced to piece together gigs to be able to pay for food, clothing, shelter, and other things society sees necessary to be a full citizen. The same employee might decide to save for a house, vacation, buy a newer vehicle, or something similar and then work gigs on top of his normal employment. It isn't that everyone will be paid well or that no one will clean toilets, but it may mean that companies like Uber would have to hire regular employees so they have the same sort of economic security as the janitor would.
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>It's absolutely a desperation career. Indeed it is. What's new is that companies have never been this successful to sell what is basically modern day labour as cool and hip and "good for you!". I guess it only a matter of time until we see a resurgence of night lodgers as this revolutionary new alternative way of housing.
People don't use it because it's cool and hip, they use it because it's efficient and provides a valuable service. Overhead for managing repetitive and time intensive labor work is high, so when a program can do it, that overhead drops, efficiency increases, and it becomes profitable.
I'm talking about the gig economy from a workers perspective.