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Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

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Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#211

Post by slt2021 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #180
Buttons840 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income taxes are higher than capital gains taxes. This isn't based on economic theory or anything, it's just a political choice we have made as a country. We've chosen to reward those who move money around and trade capital more than we reward those who labor. And this at a time when, supposedly, the country is trying to increase its ability to build things. I thought this specific fact worth mentioning.

This is simply incorrect. To make the tax incidence on wages and capital gains equivalent, you must first deduct losses due to inflation and risk. For wages, inflation and risk round to zero. For long-term capital gains inflation and risk are large and often the majority of the "gain". Short-term capital gains are already taxed like wages. In the US, unlike some other developed countries, there is a very limited abil…

its not only capital gains, it is the whole system of shells/offshores that splits large wealth into smaller chunks and takes advantage of tax code

https://x.com/Finance_Nerd_/status/1952063659599106545

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#212

Post by kashunstva »

mathiaspoint wrote: post #92
the_snooze wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any current students reading this, it's entirely doable to finish your program with real experience and connections under your belt. Not just with internships, but TA, research, and student org leadership experience absolutely count too. There are tons of overlooked low-stakes zero-experience opportunities available only to university students, and it's really useful to develop the habit of identifying and pursui…

Do not go to college if you have to spend any money on it. If you do that's everyone telling that you don't belong there and you'll have a hard life if you ignore them.

> Do not go to college if you have to spend any money on it.

I cannot think of a single person in my extended family across three generations for whom that heuristic is true. I don’t doubt that it applies in some situations. I can’t tell you what the actual ROI is; but “belonging there” seems a little encumbered by assumptions about the diversity of ways and timings in which young people develop academically and emotionally.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#213

Post by amelius »

jparishy wrote: post #66

Wealth inequality is high. High enough you can feel it like a vibe in the air. The richest people in the world are telling everyone to get onboard with technology that is determined to make a lot of those same people's jobs redundant. All with an explicit goal of increasing the price of stock most of those people do not own. IMO there's two economies, maybe divided by those who participate in the stock market and tho…

> maybe divided by those who participate in the stock market and those who don't

In many places there's a divide between home owners and people who rent.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#214

Post by WalterBright »

koakuma-chan wrote: post #125
WalterBright wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who have no experience, one can gain experience while in college: 1. contribute to a significant open source project 2. write some significant work of software 3. design and build your own computer 4. build a robot something 5. work as an intern in industry 6. do work as a research assistant When I was at Caltech, students did (entirely on their own): 1. built a gas powered helicopter from scratch 2. built…

You gotta realize that "experience" refers to "professional" or "commercial" experience, i.e. you gain experience by having the status of an employee at a company and having relevant job title.

No, I don't gotta realize that. I'd be impressed by a resume with such accomplishments.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#215

Post by mathiaspoint »

WalterBright wrote: post #214
koakuma-chan wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta realize that "experience" refers to "professional" or "commercial" experience, i.e. you gain experience by having the status of an employee at a company and having relevant job title.

No, I don't gotta realize that. I'd be impressed by a resume with such accomplishments.

I think you're right that it did used to work that way but now all the juniors are competing with people like me who have done all of that and also have five years of professional experience at large companies.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#216

Post by hakunin »

I was always curious, why would anyone believe that hard work leads to economic gains in the first place? That's like saying "flapping your hands very fast leads to building a house". Nothing about working hard has anything to do with economic gains. This has always felt to me like magical thinking: if I check certain boxes, I'm automatically entitled to "hard work funds" allocated to me. Like anything in capitalist market, the only thing that matters is what people want to pay for, and doing that for them. It's not even that important how "hard" you "work" doing it, but yes, the more you do of what people want, the more you'll probably get paid for it.

Part of the issue is that when you're young, the school really imposes lots of schoolwork on you, that you can't ignore. It's like school takes over your time, but none of the liability for whether the time will be well-spent. And at this point you don't have good foresight to know the difference.

The more general wisdom I think that should be learned early in life: you always make your own path. Schools are tools for getting there, but the buck stops with you. If you decide to accept a "pre-made path" given to you by a school, you still have to be the one researching whether it makes sense and signing off on it. Just like when you work with doctors, financial advisors, or other contractors, you have to be the project manager of your life's project. Cannot delegate this part. Not easy to learn early unfortunately, but at least start with the understanding that the only thing that matters for economic gains is doing what people want to pay for.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#217

Post by jimmydddd »

Buttons840 wrote: post #172
jparishy wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're on the same wavelength. To me, I find it hard not to think about our explosive growth as a country happening at the same time we refuse to expand representation of the public. These charts are very frustrating to me: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN11547 The people in power do not want to lose control, but clearly have no idea how to manage the scale of what has been built. There's an American leadership…

We should go back to having the house filled with 1 representative per 10,000 people. Also, we should do something new and have all the representatives in the house be chosen by lottery. Normal people are not represented in congress, because politicians are not normal people, but if we chose people by lottery we would have a branch of congress filled with normal people. They would have time enough to study the issues…

“I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard.” -- William F. Buckley, Jr.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#218

Post by WalterBright »

coliveira wrote: post #158
WalterBright wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> big government Is indeed an issue, as it corresponds with the malaise you describe. > wage stagnation is in part due to the government increasing the costs of hiring people. That indirectly results in correspondingly lower wages. The so-called "employers' contribution" is a misrepresentation.

> government increasing the costs of hiring people This is lazy thinking. If the government is indeed increasing costs, this is happening to everyone across the board. So why would anyone in particular be affected by this? It could even be true in a situation where profits were falling across the economy, but the numbers show that profits are INCREASING for most companies in the US at least. So how can these companie…

> If the government is indeed increasing costs

If? It's a certainty. For starters, the only reason HR departments exist is to try to comply with all the regulations. HR departments are expensive. For seconds, all the "employer contributions" to payroll taxes. Then there are all the wage laws, and mandatory this, and mandated that.

All increase costs of employing people, which comes out of the employees' pockets one way or another.

Profits do not drive employment. What drives employment is the employee provides more value than they cost to hire.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#219

Post by WalterBright »

malcolmgreaves wrote: post #150
WalterBright wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> big government Is indeed an issue, as it corresponds with the malaise you describe. > wage stagnation is in part due to the government increasing the costs of hiring people. That indirectly results in correspondingly lower wages. The so-called "employers' contribution" is a misrepresentation.

You think the greed of billionaires is the governments’ fault?

Everybody's greedy, Malcolm. It's why markets function.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#220

Post by the_snooze »

solardev wrote: post #58
the_snooze wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any current students reading this, it's entirely doable to finish your program with real experience and connections under your belt. Not just with internships, but TA, research, and student org leadership experience absolutely count too. There are tons of overlooked low-stakes zero-experience opportunities available only to university students, and it's really useful to develop the habit of identifying and pursui…

Who's hiring even those people?

When I was an undergrad researcher back during the height of the Great Financial Crisis, I had a handful of internship and full-time offers at various national labs and similar orgs thanks to my supervisor tipping me off about those opportunities and making introductions on my behalf.

When you participate in things beyond your classes, you get an "in" on certain paths unavailable to other folks. You're not any smarter than your peers, but having that initiative lets you avoid competing with them directly. My particular path is just one of many.

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