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Is remote work bad for the economy?

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Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#91

Post by chii »

smackeyacky wrote: post #79

There was another article in the Sydney Morning Herald [0] behooving everybody to get back to the CBD because...mental health...cafes will close... What if you work in a tech park that has few or no amenities, or your work office is in a cruddy bit of town you really dislike? When the house is tidy and the washing done in the 10 minutes an hour I can wander away from the work laptop, I feel a lot happier than worryin…

> a sacrifice I have to make

and you should never be making a sacrifice for someone else, without enough monetary compensation.

The only sacrifice one should make is for enrolling in the armed services.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#92

Post by newswasboring »

raldi wrote: post #88
newswasboring wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's how that works. It's evident by the fact that there are no school towns like there are college towns. Once the people earning the money move out, there is no taxes left to fund education. Unless we nationalize education, which is not going to happen (at least in America).

School quality is one of the most important criteria people use when deciding where to buy a house.

Maybe within a city, but people are not moving to another town/city to get access to a good school. The primary factor for people moving somewhere is still jobs. If that wasn't the case why will these people move out of the place which made them this capable?

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#93

Post by seydor »

The thing about remote work is like Entropy (or some religions): you can't go back , it's a self-reinforcing thing. So it really isnt very useful to ponder whether it's 'bad for the economy', but what economy will result when people adapt to an increasingly popular reality.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#94

Post by tfehring »

raldi wrote: post #83
briga wrote: post #25

Bad for which economy? Countless programmers over the years have packed up their bags and moved away from their small towns to live in big expensive tech hubs. This has certainly been beneficial for the economy of large metros--they didn't pay to educate these workers and in many cases these workers (including myself) were raised and educated in completely different countries. So these metros have a huge pool of high…

What the small town gets out of it is property values going up because families want to live there because they have good schools that set children on a path to go to a good college, learn a lot, and then move to a city and make a bunch of money.

Is that common in practice? The only example I can think of of a smallish town with excellent public schools is West Lafayette, IN. (It looks like Jackson, WY, and Aspen, CO, also have good schools, but I don't think those are very good examples given that they're so far out of reach for typical families.) Other than that, all of the great school districts I know of are in suburbs of big cities, and the small towns I'm familiar with have decent schools at best.

Maybe it will be more common in the future as a result of remote work. But today it seems hard to create the conditions that result in great school districts - i.e., a relatively high concentration of relatively high-income parents who value education - in a small town that's not within commuting distance of a city with good jobs.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#95

Post by seydor »

randomdata wrote: post #72
wkdneidbwf wrote: post #2

i’ve been working remotely for a decade and i’ve never been happier. i also suspect that the population being happier is no doubt bad for corporate profits.

There is also that pesky problem, particularly in North America, of the shopping district being far away from the housing. At the office, shopping may be no more than a block away. At home, you're in for a big hike (or more likely a car ride) to get to places to buy things. That extra hurdle means you won't take the time as frequently.

That s where european cities have an accidental advantage

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#97

Post by friendzis »

chii wrote: post #89
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…

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

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 actors until it eventually falls back into original pocket. Working from home then they buy more items that have been manufactured in China, spend eating out where restaurants pay mostly wages and farmers, making the chain much shorter.

There are different economic health considerations for different spending habits. While not exactly a loss it's not entirely equal too.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#98

Post by smackeyacky »

loudandskittish wrote: post #80
smackeyacky wrote: post #79

There was another article in the Sydney Morning Herald [0] behooving everybody to get back to the CBD because...mental health...cafes will close... What if you work in a tech park that has few or no amenities, or your work office is in a cruddy bit of town you really dislike? When the house is tidy and the washing done in the 10 minutes an hour I can wander away from the work laptop, I feel a lot happier than worryin…

I find it odd that for decades, people were shamed for wasting money at cafes ...but then as soon as people stopped going to cafes, it's suddenly an economic disaster?

It depends on who you are shaming. The whole "ZOMG stop eating avocado toast and buy a house already" thing directed at young people is disgusting.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#99

Post by smelendez »

newswasboring wrote: post #92
raldi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School quality is one of the most important criteria people use when deciding where to buy a house.

Maybe within a city, but people are not moving to another town/city to get access to a good school. The primary factor for people moving somewhere is still jobs. If that wasn't the case why will these people move out of the place which made them this capable?

Are you in the US? People here absolutely move to get access to what they perceive as good schools for their kids' needs. That can include leaving a major city for a suburb or choosing between multiple suburbs/small towns based on schools.

Work-from-home ads more flexibility, but even with a traditional commute there are typically multiple towns/school districts within an easy range of any given workplace assuming you can afford good transportation.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#100

Post by pillefitz »

randomdata wrote: post #78
lost_tourist wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whose economy are we talking about though? I mean I understand what you're saying but most people I know still prefer eating at home most of the time and going to restaurants occasionally, mainly because meals out cost 3-10x as much as eating at home, unless you start every meal from scratch. this is really important for families.

> mainly because meals out cost 3-10x as much as eating at home If you are at a place that sells an experience that happens to come with food that may be true, but one in the business of selling food is going to beat your home kitchen every time. The big difference is that the home kitchen costs are largely front-loaded. This does mean you generally need less free cashflow when you are hungry, which is an appealing a…

Home kitchens can be had for cheap, so I don't really get why paying 15 USD vs. 3 USD 2-3 times a day should be a better deal.
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