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Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

theguardian.com

41–50 of 100 posts

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't most investment homes rely on tenants to offset the maintenance and tax costs of owning the home? Construct enough to meet demand for places to live and the rental market should drop, which would hurt the home-as-investment model, which in turn should bring down home prices, right?

Not these days. In hot markets (Vancouver, SF etc) real estate tends to appreciate faster than rent. Having a tenant in a property, along with all the associated rights and obligations, makes a property more difficult to develop or sell. Once upon a time a rental unit with a good tenant was worth more than one without. These days you need to get the tenant out in order to refit and show the property to prospective bu…

> along with all the associated rights and obligations

Government regulation (again) exacerbates this problem. In Seattle, landlords have to give 6 months notice for rent increases. They also are obliged to pay the tenant's relocation costs when the tenant leaves. They can't evict tenants who don't pay rent. Seattle will provide free lawyers to tenants who want to sue their landlords.

So, yeah, if the real estate market is rising fast enough, it's best to not rent it.

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be basic supply and demand, but I think we are beyond that. Demand for the product (housing) has moved beyond basic consumers (people who want to live in them). Real estate is now a primary investment vehicle. So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses for people to live in. Rather it will mean more investment opportunities for people seeking to move money into a "safe" asset. That is the cycle…

> So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses for people to live in. Of course it does. I know that some people buy homes and let them sit vacant, but that's a transitory state. A home has no value if it is not being used. To realize its value, it must be sold to someone who will live in it.

Real estate can be a store of value. It needs to be sold to liquidate the money tied up in it, but that could be years in the future. Having it sit empty until then doesn't stop the investment from working.

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation / stagflation weren't the natural result of everyone trying to get ahead and increasing just their own wage. Inflation / stagflation are the result of supply&demand forces just like everything else in an economy. Inflation happens when the supply of money increases faster than the value it represents. Guess what has been happening with the supply of money when the government prints trillions of dollars to…

A $2000 check is why everything costs 20% more forever?

There's a lot more than that flooding in.

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't see the big, "respectable" unions get involved because under the Taft-Hartley Act general strikes are pretty much illegal. https://web.archive.org/web/20120501041417/http://inthesetim... The thing is, they can't arrest everybody without turning the USA into more of a prison than it already is and setting the stage for John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM AMERICA. October 15 is a good day for a strike, but in the US…

> https://octoberstrike.com/ Too bad they mixed political ideology in what would have been otherwise a unifying populist movement. Remember, most socialists are upper middle class and above. > Our Goals: 25% corporate tax rate (No loopholes) Free Healthcare for all 12 weeks paid paternity and maternity leave $20 minimum wage 4 day work week Stricter Environmental Regulations on Corporations (Bans on single use and mi…

>High minimum wage will just accelerate automation and the disappearance of low-skills jobs.

Isn't that considered a good thing?

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://octoberstrike.com/ Too bad they mixed political ideology in what would have been otherwise a unifying populist movement. Remember, most socialists are upper middle class and above. > Our Goals: 25% corporate tax rate (No loopholes) Free Healthcare for all 12 weeks paid paternity and maternity leave $20 minimum wage 4 day work week Stricter Environmental Regulations on Corporations (Bans on single use and mi…

> For some reasons every socialist I talk to actually think a 15-25 hours week of work is sufficient for society to function A good chunk of that can be improved with full employment. Capitalism also leaves a significant amount of storehouses/factories/etc unused because they're not profitable to operate. We don't have a large enough labor-force to operate at full capacity right now (I think including unemployed), we…

> A good chunk of that can be improved with full employment. Capitalism also leaves a significant amount of storehouses/factories/etc unused because they're not profitable to operate.

You obviously do not have a lot of experience in manufacturing and technology. Factories can close for many valid reasons: inefficient process, lack of resources, lack of talents, consolidation with other factories, etc. These are all necessary for any kind of healthy systems.

> We don't have a large enough labor-force to operate at full capacity right now (I think including unemployed), we'd need more immigration for that.

Immigration is simply moving the problem to another country and is a major problem for developing countries where they people who can keep the lights on are leaving. Mass immigration also leads to lack of integration and social unrest.

> Reducing busywork jobs like advertising that suck in more labor in a pointless arms race will free up people for productive labor.

I'm not for useless marketing but it has a necessary function. Letting people know of potential better solutions is critical. A lot of problems are not known as problems that can be solved by those experiencing them. Also who gets to decide what is "pointless"? There are no good answer to this question, especially in a technological society. And even if marketing exists purely as a way to get an edge in market competition, removing competition itself always leads to complacency and corruption.

> We can take control of the actual physical plants and prevent them from escaping. Money isn't real, physical reality is.

Who is "we"? Most likely not you and me. And the idea that the plants and the workers will automatically keep working at "our" command is just pure fantasy. Organization is not tangible, yet you can't ignore them. Even if you remove the collective convention of money you will not eliminate the phenomenon of supply and demand and who gets to decide always lead to conflict, waste and corruption. And your phrasing of "prevent them from escaping" is very telling of what a dystopia that would be.

> Many countries have this, even poorer countries than the US

Yet Free Health care does not exist. Someone has to get paid, or be forced to stay to work by force, like is happening in Cuba.

> In any case, even libertarian think tanks found M4A would reduce the cost of healthcare by removing complexity from the administrative side at minimum.

If you think that a multi-trillion industry with very close relationships with those in the government would let that happen then you are very naive. The cost will be moved and renamed as the regulations, over-licensure and over-litigation will remain as the root cause of the problem. I live in a "free" health care system, it's more or less the same BS than in the States, but instead of worrying about money we worry about getting service in the first place after waiting hours or days or nothing at all.

> Pricing can be negotiated down via monopsony.

Keyword here is "can". I get it that you are unfamiliar with the horrors of the governmental procurement processes? Here's a hint: always taking the lowest bidder rarely leads to actual low prices.

> Not if the workers control the economy.

In reality only a handful of people can "control" a system. These people rarely tend to be actual workers or never have to work after they "control" others. This is a fantasy at best.

> They will not want their jobs to disappear unless they are promised placement and training. If those are provided, you may see even higher levels of automation as there will be reduced resistance to it.

Not everyone can "learn to code" or acquire new higher level skills. Not all automation leads to more jobs, and even if free market automation can make life dirt cheap and diminish required labor (which is kind of the case since a poor person probably has higher level of living than a king of a few centuries back).

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#46
post #2

The price of everything, from my perspective, has gone insane within the last few months. I would __much__ rather the market were satisfied with more houses, apartments, everything such that people could afford to live places and thus inflation / stagflation weren't the natural result of everyone trying to get ahead and increasing just their own wage. All of the other aspects of the jobs, such as safety conditions an…

That would be basic supply and demand, but I think we are beyond that. Demand for the product (housing) has moved beyond basic consumers (people who want to live in them). Real estate is now a primary investment vehicle. So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses for people to live in. Rather it will mean more investment opportunities for people seeking to move money into a "safe" asset. That is the cycle…

> Real estate is now a primary investment vehicle. So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses

It says right in the SEC filings that places that build enough housing are a threat to the investments of companies like Blackrock.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housin...

It's a good investment because we don't build enough homes.

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't see the big, "respectable" unions get involved because under the Taft-Hartley Act general strikes are pretty much illegal. https://web.archive.org/web/20120501041417/http://inthesetim... The thing is, they can't arrest everybody without turning the USA into more of a prison than it already is and setting the stage for John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM AMERICA. October 15 is a good day for a strike, but in the US…

> https://octoberstrike.com/ Too bad they mixed political ideology in what would have been otherwise a unifying populist movement. Remember, most socialists are upper middle class and above. > Our Goals: 25% corporate tax rate (No loopholes) Free Healthcare for all 12 weeks paid paternity and maternity leave $20 minimum wage 4 day work week Stricter Environmental Regulations on Corporations (Bans on single use and mi…

At a high level 15 25 to hours a week is all that's necessary because the other 15 to 25 hours of work is mostly bull shit filler, and automation can help rest. wwe have ccomputers aand machines doing so much yet we keep working harder and harder, or atleast filling our time up with "work"

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be basic supply and demand, but I think we are beyond that. Demand for the product (housing) has moved beyond basic consumers (people who want to live in them). Real estate is now a primary investment vehicle. So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses for people to live in. Rather it will mean more investment opportunities for people seeking to move money into a "safe" asset. That is the cycle…

> So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses for people to live in. Of course it does. I know that some people buy homes and let them sit vacant, but that's a transitory state. A home has no value if it is not being used. To realize its value, it must be sold to someone who will live in it.

It has to be sold to somebody who while buy it*

They don't have to live in it either, just sell it to somebody else who will buy it

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state needs to build a slew of affordable housing. I think the market has shown quite clearly it's ill-equipped to deal with the problem. Housing needs to be built for the purpose of housing people rather than the purpose of making profit.

State housing has a place, but I think they really need to fix the demand side of investors. There should be significant deterant to holding residential property in large scale. While options are varied I think a progressive asset tax of total property owned. Something like 0.5% per million starting on the second million. Maybe some principle place of residence reduction. So most people can have a house even a second…

First home? 3% real estate transaction tax, or 1% if renovating up to high energy savings specs.

Any other home? 12% real estate transaction tax.

That's roughly how it works in the Flanders region of Belgium from 2022.

Re: Wave of US labor unrest could see tens of thousands on strike within weeks

#50
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So building more doesn't necessarily mean more houses for people to live in. Of course it does. I know that some people buy homes and let them sit vacant, but that's a transitory state. A home has no value if it is not being used. To realize its value, it must be sold to someone who will live in it.

Real estate can be a store of value. It needs to be sold to liquidate the money tied up in it, but that could be years in the future. Having it sit empty until then doesn't stop the investment from working.

Vacant real estate can be quite a drain on your money. Vacant houses, for example, attract squatters, thieves and vandals. They still cost property taxes, insurance, upkeep, and your time.
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