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There's very few people that would not be deep in poverty if they only received 2/5 of their wages. I spend 1.25 days a week working just to afford rent (roomm

by dikdik 10y ago

There's very few people that would not be deep in poverty if they only received 2/5 of their wages. I spend 1.25 days a week working just to afford rent (roommates, very crappy construction, no AC, no central heat, semi-decent area... ie can't find anything cheaper unless I were to add at least 2 hours to my commute every day). These are the types of comments I just can't relate to on HN. I do not have many luxuries in my life (due to lack of funds) and I know I'm hardly doing poorly in modern America.

mseebach 9y ago
You're confusing not being able to with not wanting to. You seem to live in a high rent area: that makes sense if you're optimising for career/lifetime earnings - but in this hypothetical you're not, you're optimising for leasure time. Adding two hours to your commute matters less when you're only doing it twice a week. Also, anyway, I'll bet that you can buy food for a week on less than 0.75 days wages. You could, if you wanted to, if five days of leisure a week was actually your life goal, most likely make a number of changes and achieve that. But it's not going to be a life of very many modern luxuries. People on two days a week will generally be (money) poor, but they can live, and have a lot more leasure time. But that's the point: they don't want to, they want luxuries more, and that's fine. Remember that Keynes was writing a century ago: two days a week can buy you a decently comfortable 1910s life, but that looks a lot like poverty today (you mention your lack of AC and central heating - well, Keynes never had any of that) - because we're spending our money on luxuries rather than leisure time.
FabHK 9y ago
There's another pertinent book, by the way, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank, in which he highlights how much the concepts of "normal" and "luxury" are really contingent and depending on our environment. Spending some time in Nepal, or the Philippines, or Kenya makes you appreciate that (and those are relatively thriving countries). There's really a lot of "Keeping up with the Joneses". Having said that, in some areas in the USA you really pay ridiculous amounts for a rather basic quality of life (or in HK, London, Munich, etc. for that matter).

by dikdik 10y ago

mseebach 9y ago

You're confusing not being able to with not wanting to. You seem to live in a high rent area: that makes sense if you're optimising for career/lifetime earnings - but in this hypothetical you're not, you're optimising for leasure time. Adding two hours to your commute matters less when you're only doing it twice a week. Also, anyway, I'll bet that you can buy food for a week on less than 0.75 days wages. You could, if you wanted to, if five days of leisure a week was actually your life goal, most likely make a number of changes and achieve that. But it's not going to be a life of very many modern luxuries. People on two days a week will generally be (money) poor, but they can live, and have a lot more leasure time. But that's the point: they don't want to, they want luxuries more, and that's fine. Remember that Keynes was writing a century ago: two days a week can buy you a decently comfortable 1910s life, but that looks a lot like poverty today (you mention your lack of AC and central heating - well, Keynes never had any of that) - because we're spending our money on luxuries rather than leisure time.

FabHK 9y ago

There's another pertinent book, by the way, Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy by Robert H. Frank, in which he highlights how much the concepts of "normal" and "luxury" are really contingent and depending on our environment. Spending some time in Nepal, or the Philippines, or Kenya makes you appreciate that (and those are relatively thriving countries). There's really a lot of "Keeping up with the Joneses". Having said that, in some areas in the USA you really pay ridiculous amounts for a rather basic quality of life (or in HK, London, Munich, etc. for that matter).