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The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

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Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#161
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax changes that have been overdue for twenty-odd years to address house prices and attempt to level the playing field between labour and capital. Pity they didn't also change the gas tax.

The tax is already bad here, even without it. I paid $89,000 taxes just for the last financial year because stock gains are added up on top of the income and my partner doesn’t work and there’s no family support allowance here. I can apply Australian citizenship next year but I will leave ASAP after becoming a citizen for Singapore, Dubai or Hong Kong where the tax is < 20%

If you made income, and enough gain in stocks to pay that much in tax, you should be happy.

I want to know why you are keen to become an Australian citizen if you’re not enthusiastic about contributing your share.

Constructive discussion about appropriate levels of taxation is important, but let’s at least agree that the things we rely on (roads, hospitals, schools, defence, …) cost something.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can get PR in Singapore through my partner, so no 60%. Company paid medical and everything so expat life and no responsibilities. And if I were ever have to have kids, you can’t hire a maid here sleeping at your apartment and you have to clean yourself which is ridiculous. In Hk, SG, Dubai you can get domestic helpers cheaply and they take care of everything

> And if I were ever have to have kids, you can’t hire a maid here sleeping at your apartment and you have to clean yourself which is ridiculous. Not sure if serious. If serious: This is a really weird and almost sociopathic thing to say. I really don't get where you're coming from. It's certainly not the cultural direction I'd like to see Australia moving in.

You realize this is the standard in Asia right? They only cost like 2.5k a month which is pretty good value

https://www.life.gov.sg/guides/domestic-helper

https://www.immd.gov.hk/eng/services/visas/foreign_domestic_...

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#163
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, lol

It's a little bit snark, but I do think it would be an interesting experiment. Wish I had lots of money to try it out.

If I had the “lots of money” required, I’d try out a zero-day work week instead!

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#164
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be ok in a non-globalized world. In our world, any country that implements those laws will see a lot more offshoring.

This has the same energy as "if we tax the billionaires, they'll leave". That statement and yours are wrong. Why? Because if it was profitable, they would've done it already. Pretty much any employer would use you as fertilizer if there was an uptick in the stock price. But let's say it's true. Great. Punish them with tariffs. They also have diminished political power because they're no longer a local employer. We ar…

> We are colletively at a breaking point as a society where people legitimately can't afford to exist in a society

Aren't poverty rates being reduced basically everywhere and people getting richer across all deciles? The truth is that even if 90% tax rate was enforceable it would not change much - many problems plaguing societies right now are due to bad legislation and NIMBYs, with housing being the prime example. Somehow people want at same time: more houses, cheaper housing and as little new housing development as possible.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot of shoulds, oughts, etc. How about this: do whatever you want. Nothing is stopping you from setting up a 3 day workweek co-op. More power to any group that wants to. There are a number out there already. But it's worth considering why it hasn't totally taken over "naturally".

Labor has been completely defeated in the US. Capital sets the terms and has captured the political class. You know this but are using deflection to put blame on individuals who don’t actually hold power. Management can offshore anytime workers present a challenge.

What are you talking about? Minimum wage has nowadays a lot wider coverage and many unions have absurd privileges and compensations (e.g. docking unions) for which entire society has to pay. Even recently NYC hotel keepers have managed to negotiate 6 figure salary. There's lots of doomerism that doesn't really hold up when confronted with actual evidence lately.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#166

I was contacted this week for a position that was openly 6 days a week. We need to end H1B in this country as soon as possible and keep the 996 schedule firmly out of the United States. They call you lazy for not wanting to compete against the entire world in your own country.

Quite a leap to attribute corporate greed to H1B. Think again: this is entirely homegrown.

Is there not a connection between the two?

You'll have to spell out what you're suggesting here. "Think again" only works on LLMs, and then only sometimes.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#167
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should realise that they will be the ones paying for it. Prices will increase a lot. People need to be aware of that. Personally I'm okay with that trade-off. Also corporations - when checks and balances work properly, which is frequently not the case unfortunately - are great and net benefit for humanity.

Prices are already obscene, and we’re all being ripped off. I’d much rather pay the prices corrected-for-supporting-livelihoods, than the artificially inflated prices used to line the pockets of the rich.

> I’d much rather pay the prices corrected-for-supporting-livelihoods, than the artificially inflated prices used to line the pockets of the rich.

But unless you do central planning (which doesn't work) you can't really separate these two, can you?

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could as a German but my partner has a weaker passport so I’m just waiting till she got her australian passport

so you take but you don't want to give? perhaps try a different perspective of, "it's good i live in a place where we contribute for a common good"

Taxes are a financial loss.

I preferred living in Hong Kong and Singapore and do not enjoy living here honestly, but if you treat it as payment for my+partner’s backup citizenship, it seems more justifiable.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#169
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone has a company doing an IPO, it’s extremely unlikely that the company was so small that one person did all the work. Why is it a given that one person should retain nearly all of the proceeds of the sale? To answer your question, that person is funneling funds from investors who are expecting returns derived from the labor provided by the undercompensated employees.

Ok, let's follow that logic. If IPO makes CEO much, much richer but generally also makes company and workers better off (but to smaller degree), does IPO make workers more undercompensated? Nobody lost anything for the CEO to gain. Also is "funneling" (that's an interesting choice of word) investors money into company stock a bad thing? Why would it be? I'd say it's a very, very good thing and it's in almost always 1…

Presumably there's some level of progressive taxation where the top rate is between 0% and 100% that most helps the median person.

The problem is that people with power are largely incentivized to push this rate lower than the optimal-for-the-median-person rate in order to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#170

Speaking as an American, I don’t give a shit if it increases productivity or not. Productivity has gone up exponentially with technological advancement since the advent of the 5 day work week. We, as a species, should be minimizing work to 3 or 4 days a week with equal overall pay. Corporations should be fined heavily for contacting an employee after working hours. On call should require corporations to pay hefty ove…

Speaking as an exhausted Australian...

I would love a three day weekend every weekend. in fact I'd even "pay" for that (My father used his LSL one day a week every week.. a genius idea imho).

But I dont see it happening any time soon.

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