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Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#241

Post by jacquesm »

drakythe wrote: post #32
jacquesm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can contract for 4 days per week at plenty of employers. It's called a part-time job.

I'm gonna borrow OP's mindset for a second: Fuck this. In the United States the benefits of full time employment are mandatory if you want to live a much less stressful life. Tying benefits to employment has given employers far too much control over their employees lives, without a huge savings or secondary income source anyone without insurance is one bad day away from bankruptcy (and too many people /with/ benefits…

The US economic system is broken in many ways and workers rights there are next to non-existent. It is also not the only country in the world and there are plenty of examples of how it can be done better.

If you want to change that start with changing how you vote, the two party system is broken beyond repair, the US would fare much better under a coalition government.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#242

Post by ChrisLomont »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #215
ChrisLomont wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>tax rates during or before the Reagan years The tax rates people quote are not usually effective rates; they're marginal rates, and no one really paid them. The Reagan tax cuts were revenue neutral - they cut the top marginal rates and removed loopholes. During one of them the effective rate on the rich increased slightly. >When you look back at the last few decades you will see that republicans have decided that ri…

If you compare the share of taxes different groups are paying you also should compare the share of income they are receiving. You should also compare income growth of these groups over the last decades. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that upper incomes did much better over that period compared to other groups.

>If you compare the share of taxes different groups are paying you also should compare the share of income they are receiving.

If someone pays 30% of income to tax, raising their income only means they're paying more dollars in tax. 30% is a ratio.

The rich also lost bigger chunks during the downturn.

The middle class is shrinking due to more moving up than down. That doesn't fit your narrative so well, but as far as I can tell, it's true, and has been true for some time. So of course their "share" is shrinking and the "rich" share is increasing - but then you might want to see what happened to the underlying people. After all, the set of rich people (and middle class, and poor) is always in flux.

If you really care to look at the numbers, the top 1% earns around 20% of all income, and pays around 37% of all taxes. The bottom 50% made 12% of all income, and paid 3% of all taxes.

So the top is paying almost 2x the share of taxes compared to their income than the average person, and the bottom half pays around 1/4x.

No matter how you slice it, the top do pay a lot in taxes. It's why the US is rated one of the most progressive tax structures in the OECD.

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#243

Post by zackmorris »

rpiguy wrote: post #119
jonfw wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing somebody else to "share" against their will isn't really in the spirit of sharing.

Thank you for pointing this out. Forced sharing is confiscation.

I've been thinking lately that half the US could opt out of public healthcare, the rest would subsidize them, and the per-capita cost on the payers would still be less than it is today through private insurance.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#244

Post by notSupplied »

redblacktree wrote: post #34
ChrisLomont wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why there is no national healthcare - money, someone makes a ton of it by preventing nationalization of healthcare system It could also be that things cost money, and taxpayers don't want to pay for some things. The Democrats have decided that the rich must pay for it. Republicans have decided that it's too costly. By splitting the crowd, we have reached an impasse. We could do what every other country has done, and…

I'd consider myself a Democrat, and I'm willing to pay more taxes for it. If people take a good look at their paychecks, I think most folks would be better off. Instead of paying (made up numbers) $800/mo to an insurer, you may pay an additional $600/mo in taxes. That's a win. And like someone above said, it makes people less tied to their jobs, which I think all workers should support.

A lot of people don't see/won't look at the cost of healthcare that their employees are already paying. Even fewer would recognize this as effectively the same thing as a tax.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#245

Post by samvher »

anon9001 wrote: post #196
samvher wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consuming more vs working less is totally within an individual's control though. Current productivity is amazing, even with a relatively average salary (let's say $50k) it's completely possible to spend only a third to half of that if you don't have children. That means for every week you work you get 1-2 weeks of life with no work responsibilities. You'll have to choose that though, it means you adjust the location…

I think you're wrong. I make a typical SF software engineer salary and I live in a low cost of living area. The reality is that I still need about $3M to permanently stop working. Healthcare is expensive and the dollars that I'm making now will be worth much less later in life, even when prudently invested. I'll probably be able to achieve independence by 40 or 45 instead of 55 or 65 because I have a low CoL and won'…

Do you mean that you don't expect the gains of investment to offset the losses from inflation? Because I would find that surprising.

$3M is a lot, typically the rule of thumb is that you need 25 years worth of living expenses to be financially independent. That means you expect to spend $120k yearly? That's up to you of course but that fits exactly in what I said about choosing how much you spend. My monthly expenses are currently My salary is far from an SF salary and I do work full-time but I find my work quite fulfilling. If it weren't I wouldn't have much difficulty finding work with more freedom for e.g. part-time employment.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#246

Post by rpiguy »

zackmorris wrote: post #243
rpiguy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for pointing this out. Forced sharing is confiscation.

I've been thinking lately that half the US could opt out of public healthcare, the rest would subsidize them, and the per-capita cost on the payers would still be less than it is today through private insurance.

I am actually not opposed to some kind of national health program, but the supply problem (and therefore the price problem) needs to be addressed first. Partially socializing what we have today will only make things worse.

Proponents of national healthcare always say that it will lower costs, but unless the government seizes control of everything, doctor salaries, hospital employee pay, etc. cost will never go down.

I am not arguing that the government should do all that, in fact it would terrify me. But it should work to increase the supply of healthcare and to create efficiencies and price transparency to drive costs down. Once costs are manageable it will be easier to find a way to guarantee healthcare affordably without crippling the economy or having the government run everything.

Of course when a pragmatic approach like the above is offered you always run into the "my mom has cancer now" argument that we just need to do it as soon as possible. It is a hard argument to refute.

It is a complex issue.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#247

Post by anon73044 »

EpicEng wrote: post #13
notus wrote: post #2

> In contrast, Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba, has championed 12-hour working days. In April 2019, he described the "996" pattern, in which workers do 09:00-21:00 shifts, six days a week, as "a blessing". Yikes, that sounds depressing. > A report commissioned by the Labour Party in the UK suggested a four-day working week would be "unrealistic". The report seems to be missing the point o…

Many jobs are "warming a chair". Pretty much all of retail and service jobs. In manufacturing you will absolutely lose productivity if you shave a day off of the schedule.

I invite you to go work full time at your local big box store. Especially in Building Materials. Or Flooring perhaps. Yes, alot of retail is "hurry up and wait" on the front end, but in other departments there's literally tons of work that happens throughout the day and you'll never notice it if you're not there 40 hours a week.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#248

Post by EpicEng »

anon73044 wrote: post #247
EpicEng wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many jobs are "warming a chair". Pretty much all of retail and service jobs. In manufacturing you will absolutely lose productivity if you shave a day off of the schedule.

I invite you to go work full time at your local big box store. Especially in Building Materials. Or Flooring perhaps. Yes, alot of retail is "hurry up and wait" on the front end, but in other departments there's literally tons of work that happens throughout the day and you'll never notice it if you're not there 40 hours a week.

Then we agree; hours worked in a job like that directly correlates to production or a butt in the seat is required at all times.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#249

Post by ninedays »

pgt wrote: post #3

Duplicate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21433710 The aha comment that made me realise why this probably won't take off by @claudeganon [^1]: > "The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level, or organize against their employers. It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare s…

The problem with this reasoning is that it doesn't apply to countries outside the US. Take Europe for example where the healthcare system is miles ahead compared to the US yet Europe is clearly not the most innovative space because of this.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#250

Post by anon9001 »

samvher wrote: post #245
anon9001 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong. I make a typical SF software engineer salary and I live in a low cost of living area. The reality is that I still need about $3M to permanently stop working. Healthcare is expensive and the dollars that I'm making now will be worth much less later in life, even when prudently invested. I'll probably be able to achieve independence by 40 or 45 instead of 55 or 65 because I have a low CoL and won'…

Do you mean that you don't expect the gains of investment to offset the losses from inflation? Because I would find that surprising. $3M is a lot, typically the rule of thumb is that you need 25 years worth of living expenses to be financially independent. That means you expect to spend $120k yearly? That's up to you of course but that fits exactly in what I said about choosing how much you spend. My monthly expenses…

The gains of investment can offset the losses from inflation, yeah, but I'd also be drawing down. The problem is that I might live longer than 25 years and I might not be able to work by that point.

I checked my math again with https://www.firecalc.com/

I would need about $50k/yr in expenses at present (adjusted for inflation in the future). If I'm planning for 50 years out, that means I need a portfolio of about $1.6M to have a high probability of being able to make it 50 years.

So not quite $3M, and maybe I could cut more expenses, but I think at least $1.5M in liquid assets is what I need. If by some miracle I can get a $1M payday when my current employer sells, then maybe I've got a chance at being done in the next few years.

If I could get my spending down to $30k/yr, which might be possible, then I could get away with $1M, but I'll still have to put in another 5 years or so to hit that $1M number.

Keep in my mind for US people, we have to buy our own health insurance, and if something medical goes wrong and you can't work, you can easily go bankrupt that way. There's such little safety net that I'd like to have more than I think I'll need.

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