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The rich niche

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Re: The rich niche

#41

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

It's far from just writing though, isn't it? With the massive shift in the percentage of GDP that flows to capital rather than labor, the motivation for almost all economic activity to focus on the desires and whims of the rich gets stronger and stronger. Luxury spas, housing, boats, clothing, resorts, processed foods, even popular entertainment: cater to the whims of the rich, and you seem to have more of a chance of making a living than catering to the needs of the less-rich and poor.

Of course, this is more or less precisely the opposite of what an economy is supposed to do, but is simultaneously obviously the inevitable behavior of an economy structured and run by the assumptions of 21st century US capitalism.

Re: The rich niche

#42

Post by stronglikedan »

sandworm101 wrote: post #6

I was recently a rep for the office's annual charity drive. At the end of it our office (west coast) was compared to offices in other parts of the country. While we had lots of one-time donations, literally nobody signed up for "workplace giving", to have money regularly taken off their paychecks. It is about fear an uncertainty. When people are stretched thin they will still give money when they can. But when is key…

Even if I could, I wouldn't sign up for workplace giving, because I know it's just a ploy to get tax breaks for the company. I'd much rather donate directly, and get the max tax breaks for myself. Same with giving donations in the checkout line. Amazon Smile is the only one I use, because it doesn't cost me extra.

Re: The rich niche

#43

Post by JSavageOne »

That's how capitalist societies centered on maximizing profit have always worked. When someone tells someone else to "pick themselves up by their bootstraps", really what they're saying is "sell someone to someone else with money willing to pay for your service". Homeless people and poor people are basically invisible to the economy, and serving them literally contributes nothing to the economy (directly at least) since GDP by definition only includes monetary transactions.

Even as a white collar worker, you'll quickly realize that the executives calling the shots are generally already rich themselves, and their bosses the investors are even richer. Money dictates everything we do down to the mission of our companies and the role of our jobs. Sure you can opt out, but then you're essentially taking a vow of poverty, and unless you're rich already that's a pretty big risk. It's no surprise that workers realizing that they are effectively servants of the rich have backlashed and opted out.

This phenomenon of serving rich people exists not just within our labor market, but also in politics. In theory a democracy should reflect the will of the people, but in practice the rich own the media/advertising, and the poor are too busy working to make ends meet to be politically active.

Re: The rich niche

#44

Post by mech987 »

>Jonah Peretti was right in 2017 when he warned that paywalls are “bad for democracy.”

Haven't we also come to the conclusion that ad-supported clickbait journalism is bad for democracy?

Re: The rich niche

#45

Post by gumby »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #14
fallingknife wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office charity drives are already bad enough in that they socially pressure employees to give money. I would be furious if the company I worked for asked me to start recurring donations out of my paycheck. Keep employer-employee relationships to strictly business. I can donate to charity on my own time.

All charity done by big companies smells shitty to me... you're a multimillion $$$ company, and you want me to donate 20$ to feed the poor?

For charity by companies I agree with your position. But when a company will match your donation (which is given in your name) why not?

I also don't agree with those big name-things donations by HNWs. If you really want to give, why name the thing after yourself? And depending on the charity of billionaires is a sign of a broken system anyway.

Re: The rich niche

#46

Post by metabagel »

ahelwer wrote: post #15
throwaway22032 wrote: post #5

You can argue that this is a feedback loop, though. I can survive on minimum wage in the UK, therefore if I earn min wage + 1,000 (after tax), I can afford these subscriptions. The question is whether I prefer that over other things. I prioritised learning materials, computers, etc in my youth when I had a hilariously low budget and it paid dividends. The questions IMO are: 1) to what extent is the economy zero sum,…

Reading the news is, in my opinion, nearly diametrically opposed to investing in yourself. You will get a better understanding of current events (upon hearing of them from others, the best filter that money can't even buy) by reading history books exploring the past couple hundred years. The news is an entertainment product where personalities are constantly making statements or predictions that never pan out, and th…

Trump's ties to the Russian government and intelligence services are far from a hoax.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/513499-republicans-i...

https://i.redd.it/nf1crtngi3iy.jpg

Re: The rich niche

#47

Post by lkxijlewlf »

ssivark wrote: post #28
dwater wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This took a lot of my mental energy when I was a teacher. I didn't have any of my bills on autopay because I had to constantly manage when I would have enough money in my account to pay any given bill. Even now that I'm much more comfortable I only have about half of my bills set to autopay just in case, e.g., one bill comes due the day before my paycheck lands in my account.

Seems like it would be a fantastic feature for payment processors to provide scheduling! (and negotiating with subscription providers to operationalize that) I dunno how many Bay Area SWEs/PMs can even grok such a lived experience, for them to prioritize it as a feature request.

> Seems like it would be a fantastic feature for payment processors to provide scheduling!

No, no, no. You have it wrong. You're not thinking about being able to charge late fees. How are you going to charge late fees if nobody is ever late?

Re: The rich niche

#48

Post by rthomas6 »

> One of the more cringeworthy cliches is “riches in niches.”

cliches, riches, niches. (Proounced clee-shays, ritches, nee-shiz.)

Hooray English!

Re: The rich niche

#49

Post by ahelwer »

metabagel wrote: post #46
ahelwer wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the news is, in my opinion, nearly diametrically opposed to investing in yourself. You will get a better understanding of current events (upon hearing of them from others, the best filter that money can't even buy) by reading history books exploring the past couple hundred years. The news is an entertainment product where personalities are constantly making statements or predictions that never pan out, and th…

Trump's ties to the Russian government and intelligence services are far from a hoax. https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/513499-republicans-i... https://i.redd.it/nf1crtngi3iy.jpg

Look, I know there's negligible chance I'll be able to overcome your sunk cost of multiple years of attention and presumably many authored social media posts, but you really can just move on and nobody will actually care one way or the other. The 2016 election wasn't rigged, it's just a weird thing that happened and a handful of Russian people being paid to post poorly-made memes contributed very little to the outcome. I don't like Trump but it's getting a bit embarrassing at this point. A lot of people, your fellow Americans, really did vote for him for their own reasons. You can either integrate that into your worldview or keep living in a world created and then abandoned by media personalities once it outlived its usefulness.

Re: The rich niche

#50

Post by fallingknife »

vgeek wrote: post #27
fallingknife wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office charity drives are already bad enough in that they socially pressure employees to give money. I would be furious if the company I worked for asked me to start recurring donations out of my paycheck. Keep employer-employee relationships to strictly business. I can donate to charity on my own time.

I worked at a college and during the hiring process, they tried to coerce you to sign up to automatic payroll deductions for donations to the college itself. I believe it was an opt-in by default, and you had to explicitly opt out by filling out a paper form. I was kind of confused by the absurdity.

Woah! Opt-in is bad enough, but opt-out "give us back part of your check" should be outright illegal.
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