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

Greece introduces the six day work week

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 162 posts

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#151

Post by imtringued »

Aerroon wrote: post #137
imiric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

>Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day.

I hope you noticed that this somebody is someone else and not you. It could be another executive from another company.

The thing is, people don't care about stuff, because stuff is cheap. They need money to pay for housing and they need only the money, because if people stop consuming and spend more money on housing, the housing gets more expensive even for those who would have otherwise spent their money on consumption. Those people also need more money, not stuff, to spend on housing.

When things get more expensive for no reason, the economy must grow regardless of whether people want to consume more. Most wealth is about the allocation of already existing stuff and transforming it into something convenient. Humans didn't create the oil or iron ore in the soil. They just dug it out. Stuff is never produced, only transformed, so economics will always be about fighting for getting that initial endowment.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#152

Post by imiric »

Aerroon wrote: post #137
imiric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

Those extra chairs aren't just given away for free for the benefit of humanity. The company sells them, and hence directly profits from the increased productivity. Meanwhile, the workers who actually make them likely never see their net worth increase because of it, and the executives do. This is a story that's been repeated for centuries.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#153

Post by nexxer »

stavros wrote: post #100
cyberax wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those low-wage tourist-oriented businesses are making crazy high margins and paying workers peanuts. They are really not. I looked into this in 2019, when I was making a backup plan to get an investor visa in the EU. You can buy a hotel business in Greece for basically peanuts, but it is almost impossible to make _any_ profit without resorting to shady tactics. That's also why large chains can move in so easily. Th…

I'll trust your analysis, but how do you explain the extremely high prices nowadays? I went to a beach yesterday, and they wanted 75 EUR to rent an umbrella and two beds for a few hours. That's three days' wages for a Greek, how is this a low-margin business? Opex is minimal (basically bar staff), Capex is minimal (a bunch of beds and umbrellas), where's all the money going? Maybe it's only hotels that are low-margin…

It's down to supply and demand. You get a license from local govenrment, buy some nice furniture, hire some young people, and set up shop offering a nice looking product of beach access with food, drinks, service at your umbrella, for 75 euro. More if you want front row beach access. You do leave the required free space for the public to put down their own umbrella (or not!). If you're the only shop on that particular beach, and it's a nice beach, people will come, and to enough of them your product will look "sexier" than the public beach area. By paying for it, they solve a need of theirs (beach fun) and can also brag about paying for it on social media.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#154

Post by s1artibartfast »

dyauspitr wrote: post #143
whatever1 wrote: post #55

Greece fell from being in the top 10 wealthiest countries in eu to literally second to last. Of course the worker rights bacame a joke in the process.

I’m blown away that Greece was anywhere near the top wealthiest. What exactly did they do? I’m guessing tourism and agricultural exports?

They faked their books, literally, and underrepresented their governmental debt and deficit[1] . I assume the parent post includes state borrowing and spending in assessing "wealthiest"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#155

Post by jowdones »

stavros wrote: post #100
cyberax wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those low-wage tourist-oriented businesses are making crazy high margins and paying workers peanuts. They are really not. I looked into this in 2019, when I was making a backup plan to get an investor visa in the EU. You can buy a hotel business in Greece for basically peanuts, but it is almost impossible to make _any_ profit without resorting to shady tactics. That's also why large chains can move in so easily. Th…

I'll trust your analysis, but how do you explain the extremely high prices nowadays? I went to a beach yesterday, and they wanted 75 EUR to rent an umbrella and two beds for a few hours. That's three days' wages for a Greek, how is this a low-margin business? Opex is minimal (basically bar staff), Capex is minimal (a bunch of beds and umbrellas), where's all the money going? Maybe it's only hotels that are low-margin…

I don't know who you are but chances are they saw you as a guillible sucker. That price is completely unrepresentative for Greece. Two beds and an umbrella for a day range in the 5-10 euro a day and I'm vacationing in Greece since 15 years now so I know. If you know where to look you can find "free" beds and umbrella provided you consume something from the beach bar, starting with 2 euro for a coffee. I'd get like a 5 euro frappe and give 2 euro off record to the lady who hands the tickets and that's it. For a few hours it's enough given that I don't lay the whole day in one place.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#156

Post by pjerem »

klysm wrote: post #9
krasin wrote: post #7

Two things happen at the same time: 1. people say that robots are taking all the jobs 2. countries raise retirement age & adopt 6 day work week, because there's too much work to be done I am not entirely sure, but maybe robots are not that bad, assuming appropriate taxation to fund pensions & 5-day work weeks?

No amount of automation has ever seemed to result in a net reduction in work to do thus far

That’s because we use automation to solve problems and create needs we never had.

I mean, nowadays we solved pretty any need the average human had 100 years ago.

Our leaders are convinced that we must grow and grow, but we basically have everything we need to be a happy species in the long term.

What we are doing now is working (here 6 days a week) to solve inexistant problems marketers are creating while going full throttle both in burn-out and in the environmental wall.

In the meantime, while we are working hard releasing SaaS softwares, there have never been fewer farmers which, historically, have been the job of pretty any human in the last millennia.

If we don’t change this paradigm, we are at risk of dying stupidly from climate induced famine or wars just because we needed the latest smartphone.

Don’t get me wrong : I understand how at the end of the day, in the current system, all of this supports our basic needs. But we need to think about another system because we are going to destroy environment and human psyche.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#157

Post by pjerem »

Aerroon wrote: post #137
imiric wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the gains from increased productivity have been reaped by executives, not workers. You keep working the same hours to make your bosses more money, when you could be working less instead. This income gap has been widening since the 1970s[1,2]. [1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide... [2]: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

Sure but do you know someone who doesn’t have chairs ? I mean, sure, there are people setting up in their first house, people who broke their existing chairs … but there is a lot of available options on the aftermarket.

I understand why you would want brand new chairs. My brain also does want them because they are pretty, because they goes well with your interior etc ...

But brand new chairs are far from a need we need to solve. And we are destroying our planet and our workers health for more chairs than there is asses on this planet.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#158

Post by stavros »

jowdones wrote: post #155
stavros wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll trust your analysis, but how do you explain the extremely high prices nowadays? I went to a beach yesterday, and they wanted 75 EUR to rent an umbrella and two beds for a few hours. That's three days' wages for a Greek, how is this a low-margin business? Opex is minimal (basically bar staff), Capex is minimal (a bunch of beds and umbrellas), where's all the money going? Maybe it's only hotels that are low-margin…

I don't know who you are but chances are they saw you as a guillible sucker. That price is completely unrepresentative for Greece. Two beds and an umbrella for a day range in the 5-10 euro a day and I'm vacationing in Greece since 15 years now so I know. If you know where to look you can find "free" beds and umbrella provided you consume something from the beach bar, starting with 2 euro for a coffee. I'd get like a…

Nope, that's just how much beds in Paros cost.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#159

Post by Aerroon »

pjerem wrote: post #157
Aerroon wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

Sure but do you know someone who doesn’t have chairs ? I mean, sure, there are people setting up in their first house, people who broke their existing chairs … but there is a lot of available options on the aftermarket. I understand why you would want brand new chairs. My brain also does want them because they are pretty, because they goes well with your interior etc ... But brand new chairs are far from a need we ne…

Chairs are just an example. This applies to every product that gets a productivity increase from chairs to batteries to apples to computers to planes.

Re: Greece introduces the six day work week

#160

Post by Aerroon »

barbariangrunge wrote: post #138
Aerroon wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This cannot be true. Imagine your job is producing chairs. You make 1 chair per day. Now you get a machine that improves your productivity and you can make 4 chairs per day, but your pay doesn't increase, instead the executives pocket all of it! But what about the 3 extra chairs? Somebody somewhere gets chairs that wouldn't have got them if you had been producing 1 chair per day. Wealth is about stuff , not money. If…

What about advertising?

I don't think advertising is what creates a desire for a product. I think that desire exists beforehand and advertising mobilizes it.

I didn't know I wanted a smartphone. Ads didn't make me want a smartphone. But when I got a smartphone I knew I wanted one.

Post reply on HN