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Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

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Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#81

Post by dookahku »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #13

Hard work never lead to economic gains, working hard at creating value does, and that is still true today. If the adage was true, dragging rocks up a hill 18 hrs a day would make you billionaire. The knife in the side of the economy is housing costs. If that were to drop by 50% tomorrow, you would find that suddenly tons of people are happy with the pay the receive for the value they create. People forget (or are sim…

> working hard at creating value does,

You'll have to explain to me what a person at work is doing, then? I mean, if they're not creating excess value by working at a job, whose value is then sold at a surplus over what they get paid, why does that job exist? Why did they get hired?

What exactly do you think people at 'normal jobs' are doing at work all day?

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#82

Post by mathiaspoint »

jparishy wrote: post #66

Wealth inequality is high. High enough you can feel it like a vibe in the air. The richest people in the world are telling everyone to get onboard with technology that is determined to make a lot of those same people's jobs redundant. All with an explicit goal of increasing the price of stock most of those people do not own. IMO there's two economies, maybe divided by those who participate in the stock market and tho…

[flagged]

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#83

Post by Spivak »

mcntsh wrote: post #43
Workaccount2 wrote: post #13

Hard work never lead to economic gains, working hard at creating value does, and that is still true today. If the adage was true, dragging rocks up a hill 18 hrs a day would make you billionaire. The knife in the side of the economy is housing costs. If that were to drop by 50% tomorrow, you would find that suddenly tons of people are happy with the pay the receive for the value they create. People forget (or are sim…

> working hard at creating value does "Creating value" is such a subjective phrase. Societal value? Fiscal value? Someone who drives around your city for 12 hours, rescuing and resuscitating people in life-or-death situations probably provides more societal value than a software engineer who builds CRM features for large social companies but we all know which one gets paid more and who is considered "more successful.…

The parent is pointing out that the labor theory of value is nonsense. How much something is worth is totally unrelated to how hard or how long someone worked on it.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#84

Post by AvAn12 »

We need more startups that are creating durable business that employ a lot of people. Unicorns mostly blow up, and the few that succeed typically are not big or stable employers. How about funding more “lifestyle” companies that aspire to be in business for the long haul, not hunting for the exit on day one.

Obviously this is one of many diverse factors at work - but potential YC founders: the comments section here suggests that there is a lot of great human talent available in the market today.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#85

Post by DudeOpotomus »

The hardest working people in society are paid the least. We created a system of financial engineering that has bifurcated society. The sad part is it's only going to get worse as those with money will have access to the tools and resources that will allow them to accelerate their position.

Conflating wealth for success is a big part of why we're here. Success in life is not the same as success at life and as we all personally know, money is no indicator of one's intelligence, abilities or personality. In face, any idiot can make money and it takes a true sociopath to earn billions without pure luck...

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#86

Post by LightBug1 »

The real problem with this is ... who cares?

Prior experience teachers that those losing faith in this way or are impacted by inequality won't, on the whole, come for the those who put them in that situation.

They'll come for the brown people next door. Because obviously it's their fault.

And whether it comes from their own, internal, faulty logic. Or through the whisperings of Fox News. It won't matter.

Rinse. Repeat.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#87

Post by nluken »

exabrial wrote: post #78

It used to be true, but now you are taxed out of success, and any other gains you save will simply evaporate with unchecked inflation and money printing by Congress. There needs to be a "Hard Stop" on inflation: The federal government's checks bounce if there is no money in the account. ... and somehow, there has been a successful miseducation campaign on the internet that "corporations raising prices causes inflatio…

> now you are taxed out of success

Separate from your inflation argument, aren't income tax levels lower than they used to be, even during the Reagan administration?

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#88

Post by alistairSH »

mathiaspoint wrote: post #82
jparishy wrote: post #66

Wealth inequality is high. High enough you can feel it like a vibe in the air. The richest people in the world are telling everyone to get onboard with technology that is determined to make a lot of those same people's jobs redundant. All with an explicit goal of increasing the price of stock most of those people do not own. IMO there's two economies, maybe divided by those who participate in the stock market and tho…

[flagged]

Huh? Where did he attack the middle-class?

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#89

Post by Consultant32452 »

MangoToupe wrote: post #53
Consultant32452 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have flooded the STEM market with foreign workers. Sometimes we don't even give the foreign workers real jobs, we pretend they are "grad students" and pay them a pittance doing high level science at the universities. I generally like all the foreign folks I've worked with, but they are definitely suppressing the wages of natives to an insane degree.

You could just as easily argue that we simply aren't creating enough jobs to make use of the labor force, which traditionally has been a very dangerous place for an empire—especially the core—to be in.

I agree the empire is in a very dangerous place because it has expanded the labor force more rapidly than it has expanded supply of jobs. This is an existential risk to the empire.

Re: Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

#90

Post by nonethewiser »

LikeBeans wrote: post #15

I think the problem is the loss of the middle class. The ones on top getting a lot of the resources while the rest have to fight for whatever is left. It doesn't matter how hard or how smart you work.

I think you sum up the type of despair people feel pretty well.

It's really more helpful to look at "middle class or better." Because yes, the middle class has shrunk. But more of that share went to the UPPER income tiers.

The middle class went from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2023. But the lower income brackets saw a +3% change while upper saw +8%.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/the-incredible...

>The ones on top getting a lot of the resources while the rest have to fight for whatever is left.

There simply is not a static pool of resources.

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