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Is remote work bad for the economy?

fractional.work

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Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#311

Post by bitcoin_anon »

geysersam wrote: post #117
friendzis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellllll.... debatable. This argument of expense rerouting is a bit flawed. Suppose working from home saves one some money that they spend elsewhere. Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. The money one spends circulates in the economy much longer and reaches more act…

The purpose of the economy is to fulfill human desires. The only question we have to ask to understand which situation resulted in higher economic output is: which situation resulted in satisfying more human desires. It's clear that the pointless burning of fossil fuels didn't satisfy any human need. Then the question becomes: is the distribution of currency caused by the buying and burning of the fuels preferable to…

> Any time I hear these kinds of reasonings the question comes to mind: if some distributions of currency are preferable to others, and we know what such distributions look like, why not let the government do the distribution directly?

Because this presumes that the people in government will do what is preferable to the masses. My conception of government is that of a tool or weapon that various powers vie for control over. Why should I expect benevolence from such?

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#312

Post by dymk »

bluGill wrote: post #278
dymk wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburbs are economically insolvent, dense cities aren’t. That’s the case for basically every suburb and dense downtown in the US.

Source for that claim? I hear it all the time, but never a source that actually stands up to scrutiny. (strongtowns is the most common - they are not a source)

Why is the strongtowns paper not a source?

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#313

Post by carlosjobim »

kibwen wrote: post #279
carlosjobim wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big cities are dependent on agriculture and raw materials from rural regions for their survival. The small town can exist without the big city, the reversal is not true. As always through history, politicians and bankers plunder the country with taxes and interest. This wealth is then distributed by them, from the big cities, but that doesn't mean that the wealth originated there.

And agricultural areas are dependent on transport hubs to deliver them goods resources from far-flung regions, as well as manufactured goods where the factories want to be near those transport hubs to minimize the cost of inputs. Farming villages are not all producing their own fertilizer from scratch, nor are they all manufacturing combine harvesters from locally-sourced iron. Likewise, facilities for essential high…

> Concentration will always happen, and it will always happen to the benefit of rural areas

Agreed! Both cities and rural areas benefit from each other, but I'm not confused as to what structure is dependent on the other. Cities don't produce their basic necessities and cannot exist without the rural areas. My response was to the poster claiming that rural areas are dependent on cities, when it is clearly not so.

> Farming villages are not all producing their own fertilizer from scratch, nor are they all manufacturing combine harvesters from locally-sourced iron

This iron and fertilizer is certainly not coming from the cities, but I know each region will have their niche. That's why I separated agriculture and raw materials production in the post.

> And agricultural areas are dependent on transport hubs

These hubs can and do exist without the cities. More and more of these are constructed outside of the cities because they are an inconvenience to the city populace. I think we will see the world moving even more in that direction. Especially modern delivery shopping has completely revolutionized how goods are acquired in rural areas. People who had to go to town to get things they needed now order online and wait for the truck to come around. If they order fertilizer or a combine harvester, those goods have probably not been in any city on their way from producer to customer.

> Likewise, facilities for essential high-skill services (e.g. advanced medical care) cannot sustainably be housed in every hamlet in the world.

Yes, I know of whole cities that are centered around hospitals and health care. It's one of those high skilled services that just have to be very centralized to be effective.

> This is only true for values of "exist" where small towns are reduced to primitive subsistence farming.

Who said the small town has to be cut off from the world?

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#314

Post by newswasboring »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #298
chii wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no taxes left to fund education which is why it's really a stupid policy decision to fund schooling via local taxation. There should be federally funded schools.

I think this is the exact wrong direction. California moved to statewide funding parity for schools and voters simply decided they don't want to pay taxes that aren't local. This lead directly to capping property taxes in the state.

> California moved to statewide funding parity for schools and voters simply decided they don't want to pay taxes that aren't local.

Was there a reason given by these people for this? Or was it just "I don't want to pay for someone else". Because that is the core issue with US politics. Everything will improve if that goes away.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#315

Post by fnordpiglet »

midoridensha wrote: post #114
fnordpiglet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe those restaurants can simply move to residential areas. People still eat lunch. Regardless we don’t manufacture buggy whips to keep the buggy whip businesses afloat either.

>Maybe those restaurants can simply move to residential areas. In the US and other places with Euclidean zoning, that's illegal. Restaurants have to be kept far apart from residences. It's better in such places for all the restaurants to go out of business, and people can just stay at home and cook microwave meals.

See the parallel comment to yours. I didn’t mean literally buy a house and open a restaurant. But most zoning has commercial zones near residential zones. Come on, it’s all just sim city.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#316

Post by carlosjobim »

watwut wrote: post #287
carlosjobim wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Joining army can be step towards supporting atrocities and it can be step towards preventing them. Joining a war will always be supporting atrocities committed by your side, while preventing atrocities committed by the enemy.

Yeah, there was no difference between joining SS and resistance or American army. Or, between fighting against invading army (like Russia) and being invader. Everything is always the same.

Soldiers from both sides in every conflict will commit war crimes, including horrible war crimes. That's the grim reality and you can either accept it or put on propaganda blinders. Modern war is hell.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#317

Post by carlosjobim »

bluGill wrote: post #267
carlosjobim wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having your own vehicle is an enormous benefit in quality of life, why would anybody want to take that away? Why should we then eat nice food when we can survive on dull rations? There is so much more to the use of personal vehicles than just "transportation needs", but yes - some places build their infrastructure too much catering to cars. The best way to beat traffic right now without having to wait for anybody els…

Only if the alternative is bad. While it is true that most public transit in the US is bad, that doesn't mean it has to be that way.

It is impossible to build public transport that gives the same freedom of movement as a personal vehicle.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#318

Post by htag »

svsaraf wrote: post #295
htag wrote: post #14

The author talks about three data points: 1. Is there less restaurant business? 2. Does it hurt city real estate? 3. People spend more time with family. I'm much more interested in other points about how remote work has an impact on the economy. * How do cities and states attract well paid remote workers? Who are the winners and losers of this transition. * How does remote work impact wages? A programmer in Nashville…

(I’m the author) This is an underrated comment. These are good threads to pull on in future posts - thanks.

Thanks. I look forward to reading what data you can find and your commentary on them.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#319

Post by octokatt »

blub wrote: post #285
michaelteter wrote: post #74

This applies everywhere: just because a job or business has existed does not mean it has a right to exist forever. This is not being harsh on people; it's just a reality. The blacksmiths in the horse and buggy days saw demand for their services fall when time and technologies changed. The coal miners began losing their jobs when we realized that coal as fuel was more harmful than it was beneficial. History is full of…

The pro remote work viewpoints on HN seem like experienced developers, probably with families, often with terrible commutes externalizing the costs of what’s apparently good for them personally to their colleagues and peers: * removing an outlet for socializing for people that are new to the area / country and don’t have friends. * lack of face to face team bonding for new employees. * lack of personal social contact…

Remote work also means less competition for urban real estate, meaning people who want outlets for socializing, who want to network and go out for drinks, can do so easier!

If remote-first workers are able to stay at home, demand decreases. Prices drop. More early-career folk can actually afford to live in the city, including artists and not-developers, meaning more friendships and business relationships can bloom.

This means needing to substitute using a co-working space or local professional organizations for social time instead of the experience being automatically built into a job. Nonetheless, this is a useful sorting function so young professionals can select into the type of mentoring they want, instead of being forced into mentors-of-convenience.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#320

Post by sokoloff »

Steltek wrote: post #306
sokoloff wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suburbs around Boston are definitely not economically insolvent, and the ones in metro-west are fairly flush financially (continually building and upgrading schools and other town amenities).

The suburbs around Boston are effectively dense cities because they predate railroads, nevermind cars. You don't need skyscrapers to claim "density".

Is that a "No True Suburb" argument?
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