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I'm cynical. I think it's frankly worse than that. When we talk about economic and market forces, we don't talk about "greed" as a major economic force. We k

by bb88 7y ago

I'm cynical. I think it's frankly worse than that. When we talk about economic and market forces, we don't talk about "greed" as a major economic force. We know it's the creation of capitalism, but economists seem to do everything in their power to ignore it. Standard economic models breaks down when people are powerful enough to create their own supply/demand curves. We've had the term "working poor" for a while. I suspect that we'll have "working homeless" in the decades to come.

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago
> I suspect that we'll have "working homeless" in the decades to come. "A 2010 longitudinal study of homeless men conducted in Birmingham, Alabama, found that most earned an average of ninety dollars per week while working an average of thirty hours per week[192]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_S... "Employees at Amazon's base in Dunfermline, Fife, were apparently so worried they’d lose their jobs if they were late they decided to sleep rough in the woods nearby." https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/10/desperate-amazon-workers-forced-to-sleep-in-tents-so-they-can-be-at-work-on-time-6314899/ https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/10/desperate-amazon-workers-forc...
- Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  And it's highly disturbing to me that people will defend these situations on this site. An alarming amount of HN commenters seem to believe that the cost of labor is a function of the money created by the labor. In other words, a job will only pay $X/hr because it creates $Y/hr in revenue where Y > X + some margin. They pretend that if Y goes up, then it brings X up and if X is low, then it means Y MUST be low as well. It has nothing to do with the greed of shareholders. This line of thinking is what leads to managers firing the entire IT team because they don't generate revenue, and then panicking when the email server crashes.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    The more logical claim reads more like "employers will logically try not to employ unprofitable labor", meaning that the wage paid to a worker will generally be no higher than the variable profit enabled by that worker.
    - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
      Certainly, but that's nothing more than a truism.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        Yet proponents of raising the minimum wage seem to disregard this truism when it comes to the case of workers who for whatever reason can only create variable profit at a rate between the old and new minimum wage. These workers can easily be moved from “profitable to employ” to “unprofitable to employ” by the increase in minimum wage, either entirely or by cutting those hours which would become unprofitable.
    - bb88 7y ago
      I think the truism really is this: In a micro sense: each company will try to reduce labor costs as much as possible, since costs are the enemy of profit. But when we look at the macro situation then: employees are much of the demand curve. Less income means less demand. This is the reason for much of the talk about UBI and job automation.
klipklop 7y ago
The working homeless already exist Los Angeles/California. There are more than a few employed people, with kids, living in their cars. https://www.kqed.org/news/11690325/thousands-of-californians-are-working-while-homeless-and-many-dont-want-their-boss-to-know https://www.kqed.org/news/11690325/thousands-of-californians... https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-economically-homeless-20180226-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-economicall...
- bb88 7y ago
  But that's LA/California right? Thousands is not millions, and California is not the US.
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    Working poor != working homeless
andybak 7y ago
> I suspect that we'll have "working homeless" in the decades to come. In the UK several BBC documentaries have covered exactly this phenomenon. I don't doubt it is already more common in the US then you suspect.
abvdasker 7y ago
I don't understand why you're being downvoted (a comment which itself is likely to solicit downvotes). No serious discussion about the advantages or disadvantages of capitalism can be had without considering the role and utility of greed.
Scapeghost 7y ago
While not exactly homeless, employed people not being able to afford their own house is the norm instead of the exception in the majority of the world. In the "East" and Middle East, many employed young adults live with their parents instead of moving out, even after getting married. In the UAE for example, many expats live in crammed conditions with as many as 6 people in a single room! and sharing a single bathroom. Employment == Your Own House is largely a first world expectation.
- bb88 7y ago
  UAE is not a poor country. They choose to provide for native citizens, not for expatriates. That's on them. "The wealth gap between rich and poor in the UAE is one of the worst in the world, largely due to the amount of welfare and protection afforded to native Emiratis and the amount of neglect towards migrant workers." https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-poverty-in-the-united-arab-emirates/ https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-poverty-in-the-...
  - Scapeghost 7y ago
    You are correct and that is true.
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  I come from Morocco. There, until recent times, most left the family house to go buy their first home, after their first real job. "Renter" was an insult because you had to be really poor to have to rent. Now that speculation and foreign investment is flooding the housing markets and land prices have literally went up 3000x in some cities, it's changing. It's not a first world dream, it's a problem that's rising everywhere around the world.
  - Scapeghost 7y ago
    Thanks for the different perspective. I guess Moroccans are/were relatively more prosperous than other Middle-Eastern nations.
sokoloff 7y ago
I strongly suspect that greed is much older than capitalism.
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  Capitalism is literally allowing greed to run wild and almost completely unchecked. It's the driving force behind greed being such a force in 2019.

by bb88 7y ago

SideburnsOfDoom 7y ago

> I suspect that we'll have "working homeless" in the decades to come. "A 2010 longitudinal study of homeless men conducted in Birmingham, Alabama, found that most earned an average of ninety dollars per week while working an average of thirty hours per week[192]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_S... "Employees at Amazon's base in Dunfermline, Fife, were apparently so worried they’d lose their jobs if they were late they decided to sleep rough in the woods nearby." https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/10/desperate-amazon-workers-forced-to-sleep-in-tents-so-they-can-be-at-work-on-time-6314899/ https://metro.co.uk/2016/12/10/desperate-amazon-workers-forc...

Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
And it's highly disturbing to me that people will defend these situations on this site. An alarming amount of HN commenters seem to believe that the cost of labor is a function of the money created by the labor. In other words, a job will only pay $X/hr because it creates $Y/hr in revenue where Y > X + some margin. They pretend that if Y goes up, then it brings X up and if X is low, then it means Y MUST be low as well. It has nothing to do with the greed of shareholders. This line of thinking is what leads to managers firing the entire IT team because they don't generate revenue, and then panicking when the email server crashes.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  The more logical claim reads more like "employers will logically try not to employ unprofitable labor", meaning that the wage paid to a worker will generally be no higher than the variable profit enabled by that worker.
  - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
    Certainly, but that's nothing more than a truism.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      Yet proponents of raising the minimum wage seem to disregard this truism when it comes to the case of workers who for whatever reason can only create variable profit at a rate between the old and new minimum wage. These workers can easily be moved from “profitable to employ” to “unprofitable to employ” by the increase in minimum wage, either entirely or by cutting those hours which would become unprofitable.
  - bb88 7y ago
    I think the truism really is this: In a micro sense: each company will try to reduce labor costs as much as possible, since costs are the enemy of profit. But when we look at the macro situation then: employees are much of the demand curve. Less income means less demand. This is the reason for much of the talk about UBI and job automation.

klipklop 7y ago

The working homeless already exist Los Angeles/California. There are more than a few employed people, with kids, living in their cars. https://www.kqed.org/news/11690325/thousands-of-californians-are-working-while-homeless-and-many-dont-want-their-boss-to-know https://www.kqed.org/news/11690325/thousands-of-californians... https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-economically-homeless-20180226-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-economicall...

bb88 7y ago
But that's LA/California right? Thousands is not millions, and California is not the US.
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  Working poor != working homeless

andybak 7y ago

> I suspect that we'll have "working homeless" in the decades to come. In the UK several BBC documentaries have covered exactly this phenomenon. I don't doubt it is already more common in the US then you suspect.

abvdasker 7y ago

I don't understand why you're being downvoted (a comment which itself is likely to solicit downvotes). No serious discussion about the advantages or disadvantages of capitalism can be had without considering the role and utility of greed.

Scapeghost 7y ago

While not exactly homeless, employed people not being able to afford their own house is the norm instead of the exception in the majority of the world. In the "East" and Middle East, many employed young adults live with their parents instead of moving out, even after getting married. In the UAE for example, many expats live in crammed conditions with as many as 6 people in a single room! and sharing a single bathroom. Employment == Your Own House is largely a first world expectation.

bb88 7y ago
UAE is not a poor country. They choose to provide for native citizens, not for expatriates. That's on them. "The wealth gap between rich and poor in the UAE is one of the worst in the world, largely due to the amount of welfare and protection afforded to native Emiratis and the amount of neglect towards migrant workers." https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-poverty-in-the-united-arab-emirates/ https://borgenproject.org/top-10-facts-about-poverty-in-the-...
- Scapeghost 7y ago
  You are correct and that is true.
sudosysgen 7y ago
I come from Morocco. There, until recent times, most left the family house to go buy their first home, after their first real job. "Renter" was an insult because you had to be really poor to have to rent. Now that speculation and foreign investment is flooding the housing markets and land prices have literally went up 3000x in some cities, it's changing. It's not a first world dream, it's a problem that's rising everywhere around the world.
- Scapeghost 7y ago
  Thanks for the different perspective. I guess Moroccans are/were relatively more prosperous than other Middle-Eastern nations.

sokoloff 7y ago

I strongly suspect that greed is much older than capitalism.

sudosysgen 7y ago
Capitalism is literally allowing greed to run wild and almost completely unchecked. It's the driving force behind greed being such a force in 2019.