9 ms·

Billionaires Want People Back to Work. Employees Aren’t So Sure

150 points by aaronbrethorst 7y ago

vvanders 7y ago
Usually they don't say the quiet part out loud, and yet here we are. We're incredibly fortunate in tech that we can do a large portion of work remotely, many people aren't so lucky. One would think that we'd value life above profit but lately that doesn't appear to be the case.
- misiti3780 7y ago
  i agree, i have been trying to help out anyone i can with bigger tips, gift cards from resturants, etc i just feel like its not going to be enough.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I'm getting takeout, encouraging other people to get takeout and I run r/Gigworks. (And I'm not a tech worker. I'm a dirt poor freelance writer, but I'm at least still working because I've done remote work for years.) I'm trying to light my teeny, tiny little candle rather than curse the dark. The pizza place I've been going to regularly for carryout is doing a bit better than they were two weeks ago. I've discussed it with staff. They've said business is still light, but not scary like it was.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
      Upvoted. I'm trying to light my teeny, tiny little candle rather than curse the dark Thanks for that. It's apparently frowned upon in the tech community to have a positive attitude, but I really hate negativity. Find the good in the situation and work with it.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- samsonradu 7y ago
  > Usually they don't say the quiet part out loud, and yet here we are. I can’t wrap my head around this. Why would any sane person say this out loud, regardless of their opinions? Don’t these people have PR consultants around? What am I missing?
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    >I can’t wrap my head around this. Why would any sane person say this out loud, regardless of their opinions?[...]What am I missing? because, sadly, they know that they will not face any consequences for this in the US. It's like Yuval Noah Harari being invited to dinners by the same tech titans he accuses of building a dystopia. The only thing they hear is that they're powerful.
- nostromo 7y ago
  You’re lucky today. Tomorrow isn’t so clear. Ad spends are dropping and dropping fast. Amazon is a retailer. Apple sells luxury goods. Cloud and Microsoft are dependent on big spends from enterprise. All of this is at risk. Tech isn’t independent of the Main Street economy.
  - chickenpotpie 7y ago
    Nothing is independent from the economy, but somethings are less elastic. Apple might also be doing better than others right now because they have a ridiculously large cash reserve and can probably wait this out.
  - vvanders 7y ago
    Certainly not independent but given the option of supporting people in a time of need and pushing them back to work and stressing the healthcare capacity of the county we certainly seem to be trending towards the latter.
twitch-chat 7y ago
There's a reason I like Mark Cuban. I'm glad he spoke against this insanity. For a billionaire, he's always taken great care of his players.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  Except for the whole sexual harassment scandal a couple of years ago...
huangc10 7y ago
Risk vs. Reward. It's truly sad for those who can't work remotely and have to soon choose between risking their lives (or family members for that matter) vs. getting paid. Now that the stimulus is to be passed soon, I also wonder how many people would voluntarily quit and just file for unemployment. So many uncertainties ahead...
- messick 7y ago
  Since you can’t get unemployment after voluntarily quitting, the answer to that question is exactly zero.
  - huangc10 7y ago
    Health and safety reasons is one reason you can quit and still get unemployment. I think Coronavirus falls into this category but I might be wrong.
oulu2006 7y ago
This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Billionaires are billionaires because of the extreme disproportionate gains by the few at the expense of thousands/millions. They're used to seeing the many slave away for their interests. Not seeing that happening now is throwing their view of proper world order into chaos and they're not used to be back in a position without control.
- cairo_x 7y ago
  That is the what lies at the rotten heart of capitalism. I mean, people say a lot of horseshit about what capitalism is or isn't ("I'm a capitalist because I'm for making money and profits.", etc), or creating a fake context where the only alternative is ownership by the state. But at the end of the day it's about the worker employer relationship, period, end of story.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Any person or group in the US can start a worker cooperative and run it as they see fit.
  - scotty79 7y ago
    Are they competitive if they don't exploit their workers like companies do?
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      The idea is to pay the workers out of the profits that would otherwise go to the business owner. This doesn't increase the cost structure of the operation. There's nothing non-capitalist or non-free-market about a worker collective. There are no laws against it. Nobody will try to stop you. You don't need a change in the government. What are you waiting for?
      - scotty79 7y ago
        Company owner can always ditch burnt out workers which is efficient for the company. I'm assuming it's not that easy in workers collective?
asdfman123 7y ago
Okay, so if we let the infection rip, what's their plan to deal with the massive wave of people suffocating on their own phlegm? Dig a trench?
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Not their problem.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    Until someone they consider a peer gets it, and then they'll change their tune.
- mesarvagya 7y ago
  They don't care. That's how they are billionaire and only thing that matter to them is get the revenue and get work done.
- TheBlight 7y ago
  I know this won't be a popular take but I haven't seen any compelling data to indicate what we're dealing with is any more deadly than a cold. No one has any idea how many people have been infected by this virus. It is assuredly many many more than current tests have revealed as the only people being tested are healthcare workers and at-risk individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if over a million people in the U.S. have already had it, possibly many more. That would imply a "massive wave" of people in need of intensive care isn't coming. No more than come about during an ordinary wave of other coronaviruses.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    How do you explain hundreds of people dying every day in Italy?
    - rsweeney21 7y ago
      https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121...
cushychicken 7y ago
What if, at the tail end of all this, a bunch of people find that they've tried remote work and decided: "Hey - this fucking rules!" In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting. Maybe - just maybe - this could be the unplug that helps people prioritize the things that they enjoy over their work. I recognize that's a viewpoint that represents immense privilege. I'm in a job where I'm capable of working remotely. But it'd be a neat thing for people like me to be able to leverage.
- arthurcolle 7y ago
  Seriously hope you're right. But given that we're clearly in a distressed timeline, I doubt this will happen.
- chungy 7y ago
  > In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting. The first two depend _very_ heavily on both your home and office environments. It is certainly not true for myself.
  - anyfoo 7y ago
    Yes, but at the same time, it is absolutely, immensely true for me, and I doubt I'm in a minority small enough for OP's point to not have some merit.
  - Traster 7y ago
    Absolutely, I'm getting very tired of the constant hacker news posts telling me that working from home is the future, that I'm getting twice as much done in half the time. I'll tell you what I have, I have chronic back pain from my uncomfortable dining room chairs and chronic anger at the fact I can't get timely answers to my quesitons. Some people like working from home, fine, but for many of us it's just not right.
    - fossuser 7y ago
317070 7y ago
I'm using my quarantine time to read Piketty's "Capital in the 21st century". I'm actually pretty sure I'm _not_ going back to work if it risks my health. And it is obvious that the rentiers of our economy want the non-rentiers to go back to work. The rentiers actually have little to lose. The article states they might get sick, but if we're being realistic, they are very well sheltered against the collapse of the healthcare system when they would, unlike the rest of us.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  Appropriate disaster reading :-). Others have pointed out how the black plague killed off a lot of serfs and really put a dent in feudalism because of it. It is all well and good to own a thousand hectares of land but without the serfs to work it, its just a nice park to go walking in.
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Trouble is, that nowadays the serfs are in China. In the Middle Ages, servants would flee a lord that was too harsh. The Church and the towns with their rising merchant class would be another way out. Instead we have healthcare tied to the job and the tech hiring cartel. Where is the revolution?
    - ChuckMcM 7y ago
      I see a number of serfs driving around my town partaking in the "gig" economy.
      - HarryHirsch 7y ago
        Moving from Deliveroo to Uber isn't an improvement, is it? You'll get shafted either way, but you can choose the colour of the shaft!
    - me_me_me 7y ago
      > Where is the revolution? There was Occupy Wallstreet. It's very interesting how government attacked it. Both internally and externally. One lesson to learn from it is that a movement need few clearly defined goals. And needs to remove/distance any people who try to muddle with that (intentionally or not). Otherwise this will divide people on the inside, create infighting leading to disillusioned rudderless environment soon distant to self implode.
benbenolson 7y ago
Seems like a pretty straightforward reason: billionaires have lots of people working under them, and they understandably want those people to work again for financial reasons. Definitely not a good idea to go back to work now, though; hopefully this quarantine brings people (socially, emotionally, not physically) together, and hopefully it lasts as long as is necessary.
magma17 7y ago
Some of us look after our employees.
- munk-a 7y ago
  Yea, I mean a lot of businesses are terrible, but there are good cases as well, including all those businesses that budgeted and paid for equipment to allow their employees to remote once this became a clear issue in early March.
airstrike 7y ago
> Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, wants Americans to listen to epidemiologists instead. “Ignore anything someone like me might say,” Cuban wrote in an email. “Lives are at stake.” </thread>
objektif 7y ago
“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick said. “If that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” This is from Dan Patrick, Texas Lt Gov. who doesn't want to sacrifice their lives for S&P 500?
- cat199 7y ago
  Which is also completely ridiculous considering new deal, WWII command and control economy, korea/vietnam draft, and other various 'high alert' scenarios which have occurred while 'the America that all America loves' is a little locked down for a while
- altoidaltoid 7y ago
  one way to fix the Social Security funding shortfalls...
cat199 7y ago
have heard these sorts of statements privately, but not publicly yet - interesting that we're now hearing them from US elites just as the US starts to seriously shutdown - makes me curious if other elites making the same sorts of statments in other countries
- acqq 7y ago
  From what I understand by trying to "read the signs between the lines" (which means it can be somewhat off) one of the reasons Germany is reporting much less deaths is some attitude there that only those who didn't have other illnesses and died now are to be reported as Covid-19 deaths (there is even some critique of Italy for reporting their immense surge of deaths as due to Covid-19!). Of course, the number of deaths that they can't report so will nevertheless go up there too, but they will claim that they are so superior compared to those Europeans southern from them, and they could propaganda their own population that "it's not so dangerous" (by misreporting those with "other illnesses" like hypertension etc) to go back to work as their country and health infrastructure is so superior. The German main advantage is most of their cities being relatively small, so everything is "spread" more than in many countries, less chance for news like in Spain or Italy where the army had to carry corpses because there are too many. It will be more "a few here" and "a few there" etc. I can't quote you some specific news, except some articles in French writing about German view, that I remember reading recently (but haven't saved the links) but at least, as one additional example, if I understood correctly, something I've got delivered from somebody I know, there's some German doctor for which is claimed that he is "epidemiologist" who gets more media presence just recently, claiming that "it's not worse than flu" and that the number of deaths in Italy and Spain is only "because they have bad hygiene." Of course he ignores the fact that there was already a peak of flu season in Italy around two months before, and that now there are there 50 times more deaths per week than then, and hygiene certainly didn't get worse 50 times in so short time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Is_COVID-19_like_a_flu%3F_ENG.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Is_COVID-19_like_a_flu%3F... So stay tuned, if I get more info, and there's some possibility to comment, I will... Or maybe some other person who reads the European news more carefully (best more than one language) will be able to write more. But as this whole topic is already flagged here, don't expect too much here.
praptak 7y ago
"For the rich it's like the trolley problem but the most important thing is saving the trolley."
- thedance 7y ago
  Not even the trolley, just the shareholders of the trolley company (and not even all of them, just the preferred class).
pengaru 7y ago
No shit, it's not like we have no slave-owners today for lack of want, either.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Own and rent are two side of the same coin. We have no slaves today because renting turned out to be cheaper than owning with advancement of infrastructure and technology. We still use convicts as slaves. It's worth it only if someone else (in case of convicts, the government) covers the cost of ownership.
  - pengaru 7y ago
    > We have no slaves today because renting turned out to be cheaper than owning with advancement of infrastructure and technology. Nonsense, I have an embarrassing number of acquaintances who've admitted to wanting slaves and that they'd have them if it weren't illegal. It's important to keep in mind that there's no shortage of people who'd be slave owners if only it were legal. What you see in the prison system is a modern variant but only accessible to very few. Conventional slavery was damn near ubiquitous, accessible to many. We have no slaves because it's illegal.
    - viklove 7y ago
      > Conventional slavery was damn near ubiquitous, accessible to many. [citation needed]
      - pengaru 7y ago
        For starters, in the early 1700s over 40% of NYC households enslaved people, not even in the south. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#Colonial_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#C...
        viklove 7y ago
        I don't know how true that is, considering the link used as a citation for the claim is dead: https://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/slavery_in_new_york https://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/slavery_in_new_york My biggest question is how a "household" is defined. Does it only count landowners? Landowners are significantly wealthier than the average citizen, so of course they would be able to afford more than most. Also, are you aware that the population of NYC was under 10,000 until 1710? So even according to that stat, 4,000 people in one of the wealthiest cities in the country owned slaves. It doesn't seem like evidence that conclusively proves your point. Got any other sources?
AgentOrange1234 7y ago
Wow, back button hijacked for an ad. Haven’t seen that in awhile. What an annoying site.
kvee 7y ago
This is a generally unpopular opinion, and I don't know that I agree with it, but it does appear that the billionaires might be logically right from an ethical perspective. It might cost more QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) to have an economic recession the size of 2008 than to have millions die from COVID-19: https://medium.com/@benfinn/coronavirus-how-much-is-a-life-worth-854570873153 https://medium.com/@benfinn/coronavirus-how-much-is-a-life-w...
- cultus 7y ago
  You are making the very false assumption that we have a choice between deaths and economic collapse. Like it or not, we are seeing faster growth rates than Spain. With our awful response, we could be easily heading for 2+ million deaths if hospitals get overloaded as expected. Workers will not show up anyway because it is dangerous for them and their families (this is already happening). This will cause the economy to collapse at least as bad. Sacrificing grandma to Mammon is not the answer.
  - edem 7y ago
    This comment made my day, thanks.
  - cbsmith 7y ago
    It cuts both ways though. Mortality rates from unemployment are no joke.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      Please cite your sources. I'm not sure that historical analysis of the data supports your opinion. For instance: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290
    - cultus 7y ago
      That's so plainly a much, much smaller cause of death. I'd encourage you to examine evidence more in the future. Besides, mortality rates actually tend to decline during recessions. While the causes of this are still debated, it has been observed for a century [0]. Besides, as I was saying, we don't have a choice between deaths and collapse. You get collapse and fewer deaths or collapse and more deaths. We are choosing the former. [0] https://fortune.com/2019/01/25/economic-downturn-mortality-rates/ https://fortune.com/2019/01/25/economic-downturn-mortality-r...
munk-a 7y ago
As soon as the CEOs and Board Members are willing to shake the hand of everyone coming back into the building we can resume work. The rich aren't going to be exposed to risks like the working folk whether they're at the office or not due to their normal distancing.
rahidz 7y ago
>“The more people are infected, the more likely it is that Blankfein and other billionaires will become infected as well.” May be true, but at the same time >Billionaires and other members of the elite have the luxury of social distancing while making money.
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  Some of them also have dedicated medical facilities.
unnouinceput 7y ago
Then those billionaires should pour some of their billions into research to find a cure. Even one that is not perfect, like the one we have for HIV/AIDS currently, should do the trick. A HIV positive going treatment still has the virus but the plethora of drugs it takes daily stops AIDS from developing. Just ask Magic Johnson, he's doing it for almost 3 decades now.
jrobn 7y ago
Maybe this virus will kill enough baby boomers to balance the social security solvency and transfer wealth up a few generations. I’d you don’t agree with me, than what makes what I said any different than the Topic of this thread.
H8crilA 7y ago
Elon Musk wanted employees to stay in the factory, working, while he himself ran into hiding. He doesn't want to be stopped, even if it means people will die on the way: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4333698-tesla-elon-musk-wins-again https://seekingalpha.com/article/4333698-tesla-elon-musk-win...
lend000 7y ago
There are a lot of factors at play here, and it's highly unlikely anyone has enough information to know the exact optimum response. From a pure health perspective, physical isolation is taxing both physically and mentally. Not everyone has a home gym; is 6 months of sedentary behavior going to cause more cardiovascular complications than coronavirus in the same at-risk groups? Economics also has health and well-being effects for the many people. When we flatten the curve, we extend the length of sedentary behavior but reduce the number of people turned away from the hospital. However, as a previous article [0] describes, if we end up turning 90% of people away anyway, because the virus is just too contagious to control, will sedentary people have weakened immune systems or encounter other complications at a rate that challenges the benefit? As another person who doesn't really know: if I were the feds, I would be using this time to mass manufacture masks and testing for every single American to wear daily, and once those were produced and delivered, reactivate significant parts of the economy, with voluntary precautions. The mask culture in Japan may be contributing to the slower spread. It will go down as a great gaffe all the people who shamed others from not wearing masks in the western world. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598009
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > is 6 months of sedentary behavior going to cause more cardiovascular complications than coronavirus in the same at-risk groups? Every shelter in place order allows people to leave their homes to exercise, and there are plenty of exercises you can do indoors.
unexaminedlife 7y ago
I'm a little sad that I'm pointing this out but Trump is maybe the only politician in the entire US with big enough balls to stand up to billionaires (and really mean it) in this sort of situation if he wanted to.
qwerty456127 7y ago
Although I don't care much about billionaires (I care about the thousands of people they employ though), I'm pretty concerned about small businesses. Many local non-network non-franchise businesses go bankrupt these days.
a3n 7y ago
How can a billionaire stay rich if we don't go back to work? Money doesn't grow on trees. It comes from our bodies.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Money is just a way of taking note of how much of our civilization output each person has the right to. Billionaires just used people to convince other people that they have right to exorbitant share of what we all make in total. Some good things might have been side effect of that process. Some bad too.
- asdff 7y ago
  They can just exist and not do anything. I can't imagine most billionaires burn rate for daily expenses like food and essentials are beyond like 50k a year, if that. Proportionally to me, that would be like if I withdrew a dollar from my bank account and lit it on fire once a year to cover all my necessities.
fallingfrog 7y ago
Maybe this will be the moment when we realize that we actually don’t need billionaires or the whole rentier class at all? That we could all be working half the hours for the same standard of living without them? That we are effectively just serfs toiling at their pleasure?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
jerry1979 7y ago
That's funny. Individually we don't have a lot of power, but when we work together we have lots of power. If only we had some mechanism to bargain collectively for our interests.
GoodJokes 7y ago
They are really going mask off now. Take all their money.
apl002 7y ago
Only the fortunate who have nest eggs saved up can say 'I'm not sure I'm ready to go back yet.' They quoted 1 server like he speaks for everyone. tell that to the people who have families and been furloughed for 2 months or more. Here in Vegas I dont know one person who doesnt want work to start tomorrow. this article reeks of so much privilege its insane. The billionaires will still be billionaires if nothing happened for over a year. The rest of us without the opportunity to have nest eggs will be in poverty.
a3n 7y ago
I don't understand why this is flagged. I've been thinking about this conflict since Trump said Easter.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I'm disappointed in this flagging - there are very vocal calls from some politicians and business folk to "get folks back to work". If we could flag and mute those politicians for spreading dangerous misinformation using unsupported claims that'd be great, but their words are out there and could drastically effect all of our well being.
  - thedance 7y ago
    This site is the mouthpiece of billionaire VCs who owe their wealth to lots of people buying into their system.
claudeganon 7y ago
And...flagged off the front page with amazing speed! Nothing to see here!
Arwill 7y ago
The reason why the Spanish flu hit so hard in 1918 is that countries were not willing to quarantine people in fear that it would hurt their wartime economies.

Usually they don't say the quiet part out loud, and yet here we are. We're incredibly fortunate in tech that we can do a large portion of work remotely, many people aren't so lucky. One would think that we'd value life above profit but lately that doesn't appear to be the case.

misiti3780 7y ago
i agree, i have been trying to help out anyone i can with bigger tips, gift cards from resturants, etc i just feel like its not going to be enough.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I'm getting takeout, encouraging other people to get takeout and I run r/Gigworks. (And I'm not a tech worker. I'm a dirt poor freelance writer, but I'm at least still working because I've done remote work for years.) I'm trying to light my teeny, tiny little candle rather than curse the dark. The pizza place I've been going to regularly for carryout is doing a bit better than they were two weeks ago. I've discussed it with staff. They've said business is still light, but not scary like it was.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    Upvoted. I'm trying to light my teeny, tiny little candle rather than curse the dark Thanks for that. It's apparently frowned upon in the tech community to have a positive attitude, but I really hate negativity. Find the good in the situation and work with it.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
samsonradu 7y ago
> Usually they don't say the quiet part out loud, and yet here we are. I can’t wrap my head around this. Why would any sane person say this out loud, regardless of their opinions? Don’t these people have PR consultants around? What am I missing?
- Barrin92 7y ago
  >I can’t wrap my head around this. Why would any sane person say this out loud, regardless of their opinions?[...]What am I missing? because, sadly, they know that they will not face any consequences for this in the US. It's like Yuval Noah Harari being invited to dinners by the same tech titans he accuses of building a dystopia. The only thing they hear is that they're powerful.
nostromo 7y ago
You’re lucky today. Tomorrow isn’t so clear. Ad spends are dropping and dropping fast. Amazon is a retailer. Apple sells luxury goods. Cloud and Microsoft are dependent on big spends from enterprise. All of this is at risk. Tech isn’t independent of the Main Street economy.
- chickenpotpie 7y ago
  Nothing is independent from the economy, but somethings are less elastic. Apple might also be doing better than others right now because they have a ridiculously large cash reserve and can probably wait this out.
- vvanders 7y ago
  Certainly not independent but given the option of supporting people in a time of need and pushing them back to work and stressing the healthcare capacity of the county we certainly seem to be trending towards the latter.

twitch-chat 7y ago

There's a reason I like Mark Cuban. I'm glad he spoke against this insanity. For a billionaire, he's always taken great care of his players.

cortesoft 7y ago
Except for the whole sexual harassment scandal a couple of years ago...

huangc10 7y ago

Risk vs. Reward. It's truly sad for those who can't work remotely and have to soon choose between risking their lives (or family members for that matter) vs. getting paid. Now that the stimulus is to be passed soon, I also wonder how many people would voluntarily quit and just file for unemployment. So many uncertainties ahead...

messick 7y ago
Since you can’t get unemployment after voluntarily quitting, the answer to that question is exactly zero.
- huangc10 7y ago
  Health and safety reasons is one reason you can quit and still get unemployment. I think Coronavirus falls into this category but I might be wrong.

oulu2006 7y ago

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Billionaires are billionaires because of the extreme disproportionate gains by the few at the expense of thousands/millions. They're used to seeing the many slave away for their interests. Not seeing that happening now is throwing their view of proper world order into chaos and they're not used to be back in a position without control.

cairo_x 7y ago
That is the what lies at the rotten heart of capitalism. I mean, people say a lot of horseshit about what capitalism is or isn't ("I'm a capitalist because I'm for making money and profits.", etc), or creating a fake context where the only alternative is ownership by the state. But at the end of the day it's about the worker employer relationship, period, end of story.
WalterBright 7y ago
Any person or group in the US can start a worker cooperative and run it as they see fit.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Are they competitive if they don't exploit their workers like companies do?
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    The idea is to pay the workers out of the profits that would otherwise go to the business owner. This doesn't increase the cost structure of the operation. There's nothing non-capitalist or non-free-market about a worker collective. There are no laws against it. Nobody will try to stop you. You don't need a change in the government. What are you waiting for?
    - scotty79 7y ago
      Company owner can always ditch burnt out workers which is efficient for the company. I'm assuming it's not that easy in workers collective?

asdfman123 7y ago

Okay, so if we let the infection rip, what's their plan to deal with the massive wave of people suffocating on their own phlegm? Dig a trench?

cycrutchfield 7y ago
Not their problem.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Until someone they consider a peer gets it, and then they'll change their tune.
mesarvagya 7y ago
They don't care. That's how they are billionaire and only thing that matter to them is get the revenue and get work done.
TheBlight 7y ago
I know this won't be a popular take but I haven't seen any compelling data to indicate what we're dealing with is any more deadly than a cold. No one has any idea how many people have been infected by this virus. It is assuredly many many more than current tests have revealed as the only people being tested are healthcare workers and at-risk individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if over a million people in the U.S. have already had it, possibly many more. That would imply a "massive wave" of people in need of intensive care isn't coming. No more than come about during an ordinary wave of other coronaviruses.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  How do you explain hundreds of people dying every day in Italy?
  - rsweeney21 7y ago
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971219303285 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121...

cushychicken 7y ago

What if, at the tail end of all this, a bunch of people find that they've tried remote work and decided: "Hey - this fucking rules!" In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting. Maybe - just maybe - this could be the unplug that helps people prioritize the things that they enjoy over their work. I recognize that's a viewpoint that represents immense privilege. I'm in a job where I'm capable of working remotely. But it'd be a neat thing for people like me to be able to leverage.

arthurcolle 7y ago
Seriously hope you're right. But given that we're clearly in a distressed timeline, I doubt this will happen.
chungy 7y ago
> In part because they've realized that they can complete their core work duties in less time, with less distractions, and zero commuting. The first two depend _very_ heavily on both your home and office environments. It is certainly not true for myself.
- anyfoo 7y ago
  Yes, but at the same time, it is absolutely, immensely true for me, and I doubt I'm in a minority small enough for OP's point to not have some merit.
- Traster 7y ago
  Absolutely, I'm getting very tired of the constant hacker news posts telling me that working from home is the future, that I'm getting twice as much done in half the time. I'll tell you what I have, I have chronic back pain from my uncomfortable dining room chairs and chronic anger at the fact I can't get timely answers to my quesitons. Some people like working from home, fine, but for many of us it's just not right.
  - fossuser 7y ago

317070 7y ago

I'm using my quarantine time to read Piketty's "Capital in the 21st century". I'm actually pretty sure I'm _not_ going back to work if it risks my health. And it is obvious that the rentiers of our economy want the non-rentiers to go back to work. The rentiers actually have little to lose. The article states they might get sick, but if we're being realistic, they are very well sheltered against the collapse of the healthcare system when they would, unlike the rest of us.

ChuckMcM 7y ago
Appropriate disaster reading :-). Others have pointed out how the black plague killed off a lot of serfs and really put a dent in feudalism because of it. It is all well and good to own a thousand hectares of land but without the serfs to work it, its just a nice park to go walking in.
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  Trouble is, that nowadays the serfs are in China. In the Middle Ages, servants would flee a lord that was too harsh. The Church and the towns with their rising merchant class would be another way out. Instead we have healthcare tied to the job and the tech hiring cartel. Where is the revolution?
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    I see a number of serfs driving around my town partaking in the "gig" economy.
    - HarryHirsch 7y ago
      Moving from Deliveroo to Uber isn't an improvement, is it? You'll get shafted either way, but you can choose the colour of the shaft!
  - me_me_me 7y ago
    > Where is the revolution? There was Occupy Wallstreet. It's very interesting how government attacked it. Both internally and externally. One lesson to learn from it is that a movement need few clearly defined goals. And needs to remove/distance any people who try to muddle with that (intentionally or not). Otherwise this will divide people on the inside, create infighting leading to disillusioned rudderless environment soon distant to self implode.

benbenolson 7y ago

Seems like a pretty straightforward reason: billionaires have lots of people working under them, and they understandably want those people to work again for financial reasons. Definitely not a good idea to go back to work now, though; hopefully this quarantine brings people (socially, emotionally, not physically) together, and hopefully it lasts as long as is necessary.

magma17 7y ago

Some of us look after our employees.

munk-a 7y ago
Yea, I mean a lot of businesses are terrible, but there are good cases as well, including all those businesses that budgeted and paid for equipment to allow their employees to remote once this became a clear issue in early March.

airstrike 7y ago

> Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, wants Americans to listen to epidemiologists instead. “Ignore anything someone like me might say,” Cuban wrote in an email. “Lives are at stake.” </thread>

objektif 7y ago

“No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick said. “If that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” This is from Dan Patrick, Texas Lt Gov. who doesn't want to sacrifice their lives for S&P 500?

cat199 7y ago
Which is also completely ridiculous considering new deal, WWII command and control economy, korea/vietnam draft, and other various 'high alert' scenarios which have occurred while 'the America that all America loves' is a little locked down for a while
altoidaltoid 7y ago
one way to fix the Social Security funding shortfalls...

cat199 7y ago

have heard these sorts of statements privately, but not publicly yet - interesting that we're now hearing them from US elites just as the US starts to seriously shutdown - makes me curious if other elites making the same sorts of statments in other countries

acqq 7y ago
From what I understand by trying to "read the signs between the lines" (which means it can be somewhat off) one of the reasons Germany is reporting much less deaths is some attitude there that only those who didn't have other illnesses and died now are to be reported as Covid-19 deaths (there is even some critique of Italy for reporting their immense surge of deaths as due to Covid-19!). Of course, the number of deaths that they can't report so will nevertheless go up there too, but they will claim that they are so superior compared to those Europeans southern from them, and they could propaganda their own population that "it's not so dangerous" (by misreporting those with "other illnesses" like hypertension etc) to go back to work as their country and health infrastructure is so superior. The German main advantage is most of their cities being relatively small, so everything is "spread" more than in many countries, less chance for news like in Spain or Italy where the army had to carry corpses because there are too many. It will be more "a few here" and "a few there" etc. I can't quote you some specific news, except some articles in French writing about German view, that I remember reading recently (but haven't saved the links) but at least, as one additional example, if I understood correctly, something I've got delivered from somebody I know, there's some German doctor for which is claimed that he is "epidemiologist" who gets more media presence just recently, claiming that "it's not worse than flu" and that the number of deaths in Italy and Spain is only "because they have bad hygiene." Of course he ignores the fact that there was already a peak of flu season in Italy around two months before, and that now there are there 50 times more deaths per week than then, and hygiene certainly didn't get worse 50 times in so short time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Is_COVID-19_like_a_flu%3F_ENG.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Is_COVID-19_like_a_flu%3F... So stay tuned, if I get more info, and there's some possibility to comment, I will... Or maybe some other person who reads the European news more carefully (best more than one language) will be able to write more. But as this whole topic is already flagged here, don't expect too much here.

praptak 7y ago

"For the rich it's like the trolley problem but the most important thing is saving the trolley."

thedance 7y ago
Not even the trolley, just the shareholders of the trolley company (and not even all of them, just the preferred class).

pengaru 7y ago

No shit, it's not like we have no slave-owners today for lack of want, either.

scotty79 7y ago
Own and rent are two side of the same coin. We have no slaves today because renting turned out to be cheaper than owning with advancement of infrastructure and technology. We still use convicts as slaves. It's worth it only if someone else (in case of convicts, the government) covers the cost of ownership.
- pengaru 7y ago
  > We have no slaves today because renting turned out to be cheaper than owning with advancement of infrastructure and technology. Nonsense, I have an embarrassing number of acquaintances who've admitted to wanting slaves and that they'd have them if it weren't illegal. It's important to keep in mind that there's no shortage of people who'd be slave owners if only it were legal. What you see in the prison system is a modern variant but only accessible to very few. Conventional slavery was damn near ubiquitous, accessible to many. We have no slaves because it's illegal.
  - viklove 7y ago
    > Conventional slavery was damn near ubiquitous, accessible to many. [citation needed]
    - pengaru 7y ago
      For starters, in the early 1700s over 40% of NYC households enslaved people, not even in the south. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#Colonial_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#C...
      - viklove 7y ago
        I don't know how true that is, considering the link used as a citation for the claim is dead: https://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/slavery_in_new_york https://www.thenation.com/doc/20051107/slavery_in_new_york My biggest question is how a "household" is defined. Does it only count landowners? Landowners are significantly wealthier than the average citizen, so of course they would be able to afford more than most. Also, are you aware that the population of NYC was under 10,000 until 1710? So even according to that stat, 4,000 people in one of the wealthiest cities in the country owned slaves. It doesn't seem like evidence that conclusively proves your point. Got any other sources?

AgentOrange1234 7y ago

Wow, back button hijacked for an ad. Haven’t seen that in awhile. What an annoying site.

kvee 7y ago

This is a generally unpopular opinion, and I don't know that I agree with it, but it does appear that the billionaires might be logically right from an ethical perspective. It might cost more QALYs (quality-adjusted life years) to have an economic recession the size of 2008 than to have millions die from COVID-19: https://medium.com/@benfinn/coronavirus-how-much-is-a-life-worth-854570873153 https://medium.com/@benfinn/coronavirus-how-much-is-a-life-w...

cultus 7y ago
You are making the very false assumption that we have a choice between deaths and economic collapse. Like it or not, we are seeing faster growth rates than Spain. With our awful response, we could be easily heading for 2+ million deaths if hospitals get overloaded as expected. Workers will not show up anyway because it is dangerous for them and their families (this is already happening). This will cause the economy to collapse at least as bad. Sacrificing grandma to Mammon is not the answer.
- edem 7y ago
  This comment made my day, thanks.
- cbsmith 7y ago
  It cuts both ways though. Mortality rates from unemployment are no joke.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Please cite your sources. I'm not sure that historical analysis of the data supports your opinion. For instance: https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290
  - cultus 7y ago
    That's so plainly a much, much smaller cause of death. I'd encourage you to examine evidence more in the future. Besides, mortality rates actually tend to decline during recessions. While the causes of this are still debated, it has been observed for a century [0]. Besides, as I was saying, we don't have a choice between deaths and collapse. You get collapse and fewer deaths or collapse and more deaths. We are choosing the former. [0] https://fortune.com/2019/01/25/economic-downturn-mortality-rates/ https://fortune.com/2019/01/25/economic-downturn-mortality-r...

munk-a 7y ago

As soon as the CEOs and Board Members are willing to shake the hand of everyone coming back into the building we can resume work. The rich aren't going to be exposed to risks like the working folk whether they're at the office or not due to their normal distancing.

rahidz 7y ago

>“The more people are infected, the more likely it is that Blankfein and other billionaires will become infected as well.” May be true, but at the same time >Billionaires and other members of the elite have the luxury of social distancing while making money.

ASalazarMX 7y ago
Some of them also have dedicated medical facilities.

unnouinceput 7y ago

Then those billionaires should pour some of their billions into research to find a cure. Even one that is not perfect, like the one we have for HIV/AIDS currently, should do the trick. A HIV positive going treatment still has the virus but the plethora of drugs it takes daily stops AIDS from developing. Just ask Magic Johnson, he's doing it for almost 3 decades now.

jrobn 7y ago

Maybe this virus will kill enough baby boomers to balance the social security solvency and transfer wealth up a few generations. I’d you don’t agree with me, than what makes what I said any different than the Topic of this thread.

H8crilA 7y ago

Elon Musk wanted employees to stay in the factory, working, while he himself ran into hiding. He doesn't want to be stopped, even if it means people will die on the way: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4333698-tesla-elon-musk-wins-again https://seekingalpha.com/article/4333698-tesla-elon-musk-win...

lend000 7y ago

There are a lot of factors at play here, and it's highly unlikely anyone has enough information to know the exact optimum response. From a pure health perspective, physical isolation is taxing both physically and mentally. Not everyone has a home gym; is 6 months of sedentary behavior going to cause more cardiovascular complications than coronavirus in the same at-risk groups? Economics also has health and well-being effects for the many people. When we flatten the curve, we extend the length of sedentary behavior but reduce the number of people turned away from the hospital. However, as a previous article [0] describes, if we end up turning 90% of people away anyway, because the virus is just too contagious to control, will sedentary people have weakened immune systems or encounter other complications at a rate that challenges the benefit? As another person who doesn't really know: if I were the feds, I would be using this time to mass manufacture masks and testing for every single American to wear daily, and once those were produced and delivered, reactivate significant parts of the economy, with voluntary precautions. The mask culture in Japan may be contributing to the slower spread. It will go down as a great gaffe all the people who shamed others from not wearing masks in the western world. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22598009

heavyset_go 7y ago
> is 6 months of sedentary behavior going to cause more cardiovascular complications than coronavirus in the same at-risk groups? Every shelter in place order allows people to leave their homes to exercise, and there are plenty of exercises you can do indoors.

unexaminedlife 7y ago

I'm a little sad that I'm pointing this out but Trump is maybe the only politician in the entire US with big enough balls to stand up to billionaires (and really mean it) in this sort of situation if he wanted to.

qwerty456127 7y ago

Although I don't care much about billionaires (I care about the thousands of people they employ though), I'm pretty concerned about small businesses. Many local non-network non-franchise businesses go bankrupt these days.

a3n 7y ago

How can a billionaire stay rich if we don't go back to work? Money doesn't grow on trees. It comes from our bodies.

scotty79 7y ago
Money is just a way of taking note of how much of our civilization output each person has the right to. Billionaires just used people to convince other people that they have right to exorbitant share of what we all make in total. Some good things might have been side effect of that process. Some bad too.
asdff 7y ago
They can just exist and not do anything. I can't imagine most billionaires burn rate for daily expenses like food and essentials are beyond like 50k a year, if that. Proportionally to me, that would be like if I withdrew a dollar from my bank account and lit it on fire once a year to cover all my necessities.

fallingfrog 7y ago

Maybe this will be the moment when we realize that we actually don’t need billionaires or the whole rentier class at all? That we could all be working half the hours for the same standard of living without them? That we are effectively just serfs toiling at their pleasure?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

jerry1979 7y ago

That's funny. Individually we don't have a lot of power, but when we work together we have lots of power. If only we had some mechanism to bargain collectively for our interests.

GoodJokes 7y ago

They are really going mask off now. Take all their money.

apl002 7y ago

Only the fortunate who have nest eggs saved up can say 'I'm not sure I'm ready to go back yet.' They quoted 1 server like he speaks for everyone. tell that to the people who have families and been furloughed for 2 months or more. Here in Vegas I dont know one person who doesnt want work to start tomorrow. this article reeks of so much privilege its insane. The billionaires will still be billionaires if nothing happened for over a year. The rest of us without the opportunity to have nest eggs will be in poverty.

a3n 7y ago

I don't understand why this is flagged. I've been thinking about this conflict since Trump said Easter.

munk-a 7y ago
I'm disappointed in this flagging - there are very vocal calls from some politicians and business folk to "get folks back to work". If we could flag and mute those politicians for spreading dangerous misinformation using unsupported claims that'd be great, but their words are out there and could drastically effect all of our well being.
- thedance 7y ago
  This site is the mouthpiece of billionaire VCs who owe their wealth to lots of people buying into their system.

claudeganon 7y ago

And...flagged off the front page with amazing speed! Nothing to see here!

Arwill 7y ago

The reason why the Spanish flu hit so hard in 1918 is that countries were not willing to quarantine people in fear that it would hurt their wartime economies.