321–330 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re not working like idiots, they have universal unionization and lots of time off.
You can have the best working conditions in the world, it still sucks to have to work if you don't want to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They’re not working like idiots, they have universal unionization and lots of time off.
You can have the best working conditions in the world, it still sucks to have to work if you don't want to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
The top 1% pay like 25% of all taxes. If we want to increase tax revenue 25%, we can just double the taxes on the top 1%. This might cause some of the top 1% to suffer the extreme suffering of being in the top 2%. What part of the math am I not understanding?
Just look at the countries that have already done this. What share of taxes does their top 1% pay, and does that consistent with your model? Or does the reality show exactly the opposite result?
It's utterly insane that people need to work more and longer as technology increases productivity. A truly dystopian economic system. In 1930 Keynes projected that by 2000 their grandchildren could work 15 hours per week¹. Now the projection is that we will work more and longer in the future. And what is this labor supposed to even do? How much of even current work really increases wellbeing? Graeber's thesis of bull…
Yes, that's what strikes me as well. Where is the productivity gains going? Why are we still working 40 hour weeks, and possibly even for many more years? If I remember correctly, Denmark even removed a holiday recently. So work more days a year as well. That's the problem here. That a few people reap all the benefits of this, while the rest of us toil.
Debt servicing.
I have no specific figures to back this up, but my assumption is that as we become more productive, more credit is made available, which leads to bigger debts and asset price inflation. Because of the asset price inflation, the debt is not necessarily used for productive purchases but, for example, to pay more for existing things - the obvious one being a home. The productivity gains are therefore claimed by creditors.
It would be interesting to see how well productivity increases and debt growth (esp. private) correlate.
This is because of their low birth rate primarily right? I think the system has failed at this point, when you are expected to work that long.
There is an obvious solution to the problem of ageing population and declining birth rates. Furthermore, it's a solution everybody's secret soul wants very much: keep people younger for longer. Invent rejuvenation. But politicians would never dare go in front of cameras and say that they will put a dollar into R&D for such an outcome, because the wall of insults and disdain we would hurl, for no rational reason, at t…
It is not that it is hard because it is a controversial subject. It is hard because it is not one problem. To develop rejuvenation you would need to tackle hundreds of very difficult problems, both physiological and neurological, which individually, would represent solutions to critical conditions today (diabetes, dementia, ataxia, arthritis, many types of cancers etc etc).
It's utterly insane that people need to work more and longer as technology increases productivity. A truly dystopian economic system. In 1930 Keynes projected that by 2000 their grandchildren could work 15 hours per week¹. Now the projection is that we will work more and longer in the future. And what is this labor supposed to even do? How much of even current work really increases wellbeing? Graeber's thesis of bull…
If you think about it, there are fewer and fewer jobs that are genuinely useful.
I know it's a difficult topic, but I can't shake the feeling that we need some sort of government intervention in order to reorient the economy towards activities that actually benefit us.
There is an obvious solution to the problem of ageing population and declining birth rates. Furthermore, it's a solution everybody's secret soul wants very much: keep people younger for longer. Invent rejuvenation. But politicians would never dare go in front of cameras and say that they will put a dollar into R&D for such an outcome, because the wall of insults and disdain we would hurl, for no rational reason, at t…
I definitely don't think we have succeeded in "invented" this, but it surely has happened slowly over time. People in theirs 60s today are surely sharper than they used to be, with less chronic physical ailments.
But the end results is people living longer, and the solution still ends up being pushing back the retirement age.