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What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

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Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#271

Post by new_hackers »

maxharris wrote: post #242
sokoloff wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with SS is that if the 25 year olds don't keep paying, there's no money to give to the 75 year olds who paid their whole working life. The money THEY contributed is long ago spent. It's much harder to tell the 25 year olds to keep paying FICA and save for their own retirement.

If 25-year-olds are in a booming economy (a result of decreasing the economic controls), the taxes won't hurt nearly as much. Also, the knowledge that those are getting phased out and are a one-time thing will help a great deal. The end result is a society where entire generations of people stop viewing each other as burdens and resources (young and old), and instead as individuals, with their own lives and responsib…

Nope. It isn't just, it is the jungle. A wise man once told me, "you must push the cart when you are young, so that you may ride it when you are old."

Our older generations must be looked after by the younger, instead of just discarded when their utility is below market average.

Your scenario works when everyone is on a fair and equal playing field, however for those that are disadvantaged, you are quite literally saying they must starve or be killed for the good of society. That my friend is a cruel world, and not one which I wish to strive for.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#272

Post by TFYS »

maxharris wrote: post #270
TFYS wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally, what is the point here? An more economically "equal" society, or a society where people like me don't die waiting in line for care? I stridently advocate for the latter. So only the amount of economic value a person can produce should decide the value of the persons life, is that what you are saying? The more money you have, the more your life is worth? This kind of neoliberal ideology sounds absolutely ho…

What you are experiencing now with the wait is nothing compared to what poor people would have to endure in the system you advocate. First, you do realize that not everyone that goes into the hospital today comes back out alive, right? There are a lot of things medicine can't yet cure - today - for any price. Second, if you block high-priced medical advances, you are also blocking the low-priced ones that inevitably…

I don't have enough knowledge in this area to say if the current regulations have done any good, but I'm sure there are legitimate reasons for those regulations in many cases.

But my problem isn't really with freedom in the medical field, I can support that if it really saves more lives. What I don't agree with is the way you propose to make this freedom happen. Determining who is worth saving and who is not by the amount of money they have is something I can't support, and it's what would happen with a free market approach. You say that is the only way to achieve what you want, but I don't believe so. We could increase public funding, for example.

By the way, have you looked into getting what you need from abroad?

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#273

Post by falcolas »

gscott wrote: post #86
chrisbennet wrote: post #33

For anyone who has a theory that involves making new jobs and retraining people, consider these cases: A) 50 something factory worker whos job along with the other 100 folks he works with, have been eliminated by automation or some other sort of efficiency. B) 30 something software engineer who's field (except for research) has been eliminated by AI. "A" is something most of us have the luxury of had waving away with…

It is also a location problem. If you have bought a house but can't sell easily or don't want to move then you can't go to a place in the United States that has more jobs. For example right now in Grand Forks ND there are walmart jobs $14-$18 an hour and apartments for super cheap (with electricity included) for $450 and up.

As someone who lived in Grand Forks... I would rather do the same job for $7 an hour just about anywhere else. The weather, floods, wind, and lack of anything to do around there make it a very un-desirable place to live.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#274

Post by falcolas »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #99
pixie_ wrote: post #8

I feel like ancient civilizations a lot of times turned to art once their societies leveled off. Large structures, pots, roads, figures, clothing, etc.. I believe art is unlimited resource and we could have an economy running purely on art. Isn't a large portion of the economy already running off of art? Movies, games, tv, media, events. I actually feel there even a lack of art right now in terms of food, furniture,…

The problem isn't the supply; it's the demand. There are many, many artists out there. You want custom furniture? Go online and you'll find people who will make it. The problem is that not enough people can afford it. Not enough demand at an appropriate price point means that the artist starves. Hell, I used to make handmade jewelry boxes from exotic woods. Once I realized what I would have to sell them for to get an…

Ironically, I've found (this was with Blacksmithing) that the higher the price, the better it sells. The high price itself creates a sense of value, and makes the object worth more in its exclusivity. Of course, there's a ceiling, but up to that point there's a lot of wiggle room in which to part fools and their money.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#275

Post by otterley »

fweespeech wrote: post #219
WalterBright wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more complex than that: https://www.rocketlawyer.com/article/what-states-are-at-will...

In statute, yes. However, in reality, all of it can be covered by a boilerplate employee contract that makes you effectively at-will and provides negligible protection.

Provisions in contracts that require one of the parties to waive statutory protections are usually deemed void in courts as contrary to public policy.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#276

Post by astazangasta »

reality_czech wrote: post #195
astazangasta wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far. The period in which the American economy was growing most was when it was also most organized. The post-war consensus was about scientific management of industry and the economy, not about free markets and profit maximization; that dogma only took hold in the 80s (both in business schools and in politics), and it has been a stead…

A lot of people look back on the period from 1945 to 1970 as a golden age of growth under a more left-leaning economic regime than today. It sounds like you are one them, based on your "let's organize the economy" enthusiasm. The problem with that is that the post-WWII period was much different than today. Pretty much every other advanced economy besides the US had been economically devastated by a long and bloody wa…

I'm not advocating going back to 1950 or having planned economies (I am rather an anarchist), I am merely pointing out that it is wrong to suggest an orientation to short term profit makes the best economy.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#277

Post by [deleted] »

jdminhbg wrote: post #168
squeaky-clean wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are sports economics zero-sum? Both teams get paid for playing. If one team loses, they don't give money to the other team.

Depending on the sport, there is frequently prize money at stake, so while you're not actively giving money to the winner, you're all competing for a fixed prize. But beyond that, the more salient point is that unlike in sports, in the real world, for me to win does not necessarily mean that you have to lose. Every time I make a shot in basketball, I've increased the "value" of my team and also decreased the value of…

[deleted]

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#278

Post by logfromblammo »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #257
logfromblammo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a tiny flaw in your reasoning. I will give you a hint as to what it is. Prison inmate workers may earn about $4.73/day in the US. If you pay someone $7.25/h to do nothing, that might be considered an incentive payment to not do work that does net harm to society. While it would always be better to pay the $7.25 for something that might benefit the economy less in absolute terms, there is no "zero" that can b…

Strangely, generous welfare isn't preventing Islamic terrorists from blowing up Europe on a regular basis. But lets take your claim as given, namely that some classes of people are so dangerous if we don't pay them they'll harm us. If I thought you were right, then I'd probably turn to the Brexiters and Trumpkins for a solution. Are you really claiming that the poor are basically just gangsters and terrorists?

Hungry and/or angry people commit more crimes. That's just axiomatic. Desperation will cause those who had formerly been following all the rules to try something different in order to improve their situation. So social welfare as a bribe mainly helps that marginal fraction that would only shoplift if they absolutely couldn't pay. And there are a lot of people like that. It won't do anything about those who would shoplift for thrills, even if they could buy the whole shop, and it won't do anything about those who would light it up just to watch it burn. Those are relatively few.

I'd estimate at least 90% of people living under the poverty line would never choose to commit a violent crime or property crime if their survival needs were assured. Malum prohibitum crimes and regulatory infractions are another story. Having more money means you can smoke higher-quality marijuana, and usually with less police interference. Having more money means you can pay speeding and parking fines without spending any nights in the county jail.

"Poor people" are not just one big homogenous group. They have their righteous saints and their sleazy lowlifes, and everything in between, just like every other economic class. The former deserve society's help, whereas the latter can sometimes be bribed to behave better.

Welfare doesn't stop the terrorism that still happens in places that have welfare, because those terrorists aren't murderously mad about being poor. It certainly stops food riots, at least until the system collapses. The crime in the Chavez-unraveled Venezuela is quite different from terrorist activity in Europe.

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#279

Post by infinite8s »

maxharris wrote: post #129
johnwheeler wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To see why that is true, imagine we lived in a sports-based economy. In such a marketplace, I would be a flop. You could supply me with the world’s best instruction, and I could endlessly strive to improve my skills. But, alas, on the gridiron or basketball court I would never command even a minimum wage. The brutal truth is that an advanced economic system, whether it be geared to physical or mental skills, will lea…

Our alternative is to live in a primitive economic/political system, such as Europe in the middle ages or Venezuela today. Even the scraps of giants make me better off than I'd be in either of those places.

That's true only in the case of economic scarcity. If there aren't enough jobs around (because of automation) then scarcity is no longer the driving force and we need to look to economic systems that were not scarcity constrained (for example, the potlach societies of papua new guinea).

Re: What If There Just Aren’t Enough Jobs to Go Around?

#280

Post by infinite8s »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #269
squeaky-clean wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are sports economics zero-sum? Both teams get paid for playing. If one team loses, they don't give money to the other team.

Sports is zero-sum in the way that there's a fixed amount of money to be distributed from ticket sales and TV rights. That money goes to the top few hundred athletes/clubs/franchises in every sport - doesn't matter whether there are a million or a billion aspiring players. Pertinently, active investment management - Buffett's forte - is similarly zero-sum in the way fees on managed assets accrue, although the stock m…

The stock market isn't as a whole as long as we have continuing growth. Japan is a good counterexample to that.
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