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The low skilled workers are going to get paid very little because we choose to pay them very little. We as a society have decided that rather than increase the

by jboog 6y ago

The low skilled workers are going to get paid very little because we choose to pay them very little. We as a society have decided that rather than increase the wealth of the very poor at the bottom of society, instead we want to increase the wealth of the ultra wealthy. Why does a person need tens of billions of dollars? Because they worked very hard or had a great idea? Why isn't $500 million enough instead of $50 billion when we have kids in this country and around the world who don't know where their next meal is coming from? Much of Western Europe decided on a much different route than the US took and they have much more egalitarian societies. The problem is that in the US we decided that the ultra wealthy are our betters and deserve as much capital as they can accumulate and the parasites at the bottom are inferior and deserve to toil for Bezos' pocket lint.

fastball 6y ago
We don't "choose" to pay them little. They get paid very little because on an individual basis they provide very little value. This is just reality, and it will continue to be true until we have a post-scarcity economy. If we are making any choice at all, it is choosing to pay the lowest-skilled workers in our society more than they are owed by value delivered, because we have empathy and don't want people to starve to death if avoidable. If you set the scales, with one end being the raw value delivered to the rest of society by a warehouse worker at AMZN, and the other side of the scale being the value being delivered to that same worker from society (in the form of food, clothes, cars, entertainment, housing, etc)... well, the scales would not be balanced at all. Some European countries are more egalitarian because they have deliberately chosen to put their hand down more heavily on the scale in favor of the worker, but this does not change the economic realities of the situation. Relative prosperity continues to increase for everyone, all the time. Amenities once considered to be ridiculous extravagances in times past are now considered pedestrian and in some cases, "deserved". The other issue here is that practically nobody actually has tens of billions of dollars, Jeff Bezos included. He is worth $100B+ because he owns AMZN. If Jeff Bezos did not own such a large portion of AMZN, then arguably he would not have worked so hard to run it. If he had not worked so hard to run it (harder than you or I have ever worked, I'd bet, and I worked a 19H day yesterday), then it seems unlikely AMZN would be worth what it is today. And if it wasn't worth what it is today because Bezos hadn't been there, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. There would be no "billions that no one man deserves!" Europe has plenty of billionaires too. They have fewer because they have produced fewer stratospherically successful companies.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  All smokescreen. We choose what to pay executives (egregious amounts) but not the rank-and-file? Nonsense. Most of the money in the world is possessed by 100 people. Not a fiction, not sophistry about who has the money. It would be a terrible surprise to them and their bankers if they discovered they didn't actually have the money. Crediting a manager for running a business, but not the people that did the work (and they work as hard as Mr Bezos you can be sure), is an American fiction. If not Mr Bezos, then somebody else, or several others (those he put out of business simply by being earlier / bigger). Its very arguable that he has no special merit, other than being in the right place at the right time. Like the railroad magnates of the 1800's, who we now call 'robber barons'.
  - fastball 6y ago
    The smokescreen is you focusing purely on "how much wealth (in terms of imaginary currency units) some people have", as if that is somehow indicative of anything meaningful when it comes to the way we live our lives. Bezos has 1,000,000x more wealth than I do, it's true. But his life is not 1,000,000x better than mine. I guarantee he is not 1,000,000x happier than me. The food he eats is not 1,000,000x better. The gym he goes to is not 1,000,000x better (by any metric, even if it's nicer than mine and in the comfort of his own home). His TV is not 1,000,000x better than mine. His car is not 1,000,000x better than mine. etc. etc. Not anywhere close. The numerical value we assign to some (very few) of those things do have large deltas when compared with what I have (e.g. property he owns), but it is still not even gonna approach that 1M multiplier. And even more certainly, the value he personally is deriving from those things is not anywhere close to 1,000,000x, even if what he paid for it is (which again, it's not). The major difference is many things he has that I do not: for example, a private jet. But not everyone on earth can have a private jet, that is untenable. I am happy for the people with private jets to be the people who, by-and-large, have delivered the most economic prosperity to others. Prosperity is not a zero-sum game. Yes, total value in currency is a zero-sum game (kinda, if we ignore inflation and such), but luckily this doesn't actually matter. What matters to humans is prosperity, and prosperity is not zero-sum. In fact, Bezos has increased the prosperity of humanity in ways that I very much doubt I ever will, while simultaneously creating a massive "wealth disparity" between himself and myself. Almost like just because a disparity exists doesn't mean the world is worse off. In this case, it actually means the opposite.
P_I_Staker 6y ago
Yeah, I don't know where to start with comments like this. There certainly are people that think "stock runners" should make as much as engineers and business people (or close), but this isn't exactly a mainstream belief. The concern is more about making a living wage, healthcare, retirement, and employment rights. Communism isn't necessary to achieve these goals. The outrage has more to do with people hoarding obscene amounts of wealth, without paying their fair share of taxes. Very few people are interested in going after the middle class. Now the middle class may or may not be collateral damage of their policies, but that's not the goal. Not too many people are worried about a software engineer making $90k-$200k (probably more in the valley, this is based on areas with modest COL)
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Not so much hoarding, as the rules were changed so they could skim egregiously off of every transaction. When the man-in-the-middle makes more off of a money transaction than either of the parties involved, the systemic result is they end up with all the money. Model the flows, not rocket science. Taxes are a patch. A direct fix is to severely limit fees for money handling, and to limit executive compensation. Like we used to do, before de-regulation turned it into a shark-infested bloodbath.
jp555 6y ago
Bezos has $100B because Amazon generated $900B of wealth for other people. “Of all human emotions, none is trickier or more elusive than envy...as soon as we feel the pangs, we disguise it to ourselves—it is not envy we feel but unfairness of the distribution of goods or attention, resentment at this unfairness, even anger” The Laws of Human Nature – Robert Greene
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  It's a little saddening to see a quote about envy below a post which mentioned the children who don't know when their next meal will be coming.
  - jp555 6y ago
    Why? The wealth was not taken from those children.
    - claudiawerner 6y ago
      It is, however, extracted from their parents. To post a quote about envy when the discussion is not based in envy but in concern for the welfare of the most vulnerable in society is the upsetting part.
      - jp555 6y ago
        extracted? As in not through voluntary agreement? I think you're talking about taxes, and missing the point entirely.
        xnyan 6y ago
        >extracted? As in not through voluntary agreement? This argument is so facile that I can't believe you are arguing in good faith. The power dynamic between an a low-wage employee (any almost any kind of employee) and an employer is incredibly biased in favor of the employer.
wayoutthere 6y ago
I don't know how much of it is something "we" decided versus how the ultra-rich have been able to take over our political system. It was happening for decades but after the Citizens United ruling it became fully legal to buy politicians with corporate money (if you think they weren't pocketing a lot of that PAC money you're insane). As a result, the regular people lost our voice in the political process. Our political system -- yes, both parties -- exists to subjugate us and keep wages low for unskilled labor. The recent protests / riots have been about the police state that has developed in response to this. I was in the middle of them in my city, and the rioters were primarily poor and white. Their grievances were both pro-Black and economic. They were trashing wealthy areas and stealing from the rich with no reservations. The common sentiment was "I've never lived anywhere nice, why should I care about keeping their [the rich] area nice?" You don't have to be Black to feel that way.
pacala 6y ago
> The low skilled workers are going to get paid very little because we choose to pay them very little. I wish it were that simple. More reasons: * Low skilled workers are paid very little because there don't have any higher paid options. * Low skilled workers are paid very little because there are some many other low skilled workers willing to take their place, domestically, internationally, and through immigration. * If there are 2 business using low skill labor, one paying low wages and another high wages, the latter goes bankrupt. Cherry on top: the AWS project is to turn SWE cushy jobs into 'low skill' occupations. Bezos understands economics. He's building the ultimately efficient money making machine, which, by necessity, reduces the human expenses to the absolute minimum.

by jboog 6y ago

fastball 6y ago

We don't "choose" to pay them little. They get paid very little because on an individual basis they provide very little value. This is just reality, and it will continue to be true until we have a post-scarcity economy. If we are making any choice at all, it is choosing to pay the lowest-skilled workers in our society more than they are owed by value delivered, because we have empathy and don't want people to starve to death if avoidable. If you set the scales, with one end being the raw value delivered to the rest of society by a warehouse worker at AMZN, and the other side of the scale being the value being delivered to that same worker from society (in the form of food, clothes, cars, entertainment, housing, etc)... well, the scales would not be balanced at all. Some European countries are more egalitarian because they have deliberately chosen to put their hand down more heavily on the scale in favor of the worker, but this does not change the economic realities of the situation. Relative prosperity continues to increase for everyone, all the time. Amenities once considered to be ridiculous extravagances in times past are now considered pedestrian and in some cases, "deserved". The other issue here is that practically nobody actually has tens of billions of dollars, Jeff Bezos included. He is worth $100B+ because he owns AMZN. If Jeff Bezos did not own such a large portion of AMZN, then arguably he would not have worked so hard to run it. If he had not worked so hard to run it (harder than you or I have ever worked, I'd bet, and I worked a 19H day yesterday), then it seems unlikely AMZN would be worth what it is today. And if it wasn't worth what it is today because Bezos hadn't been there, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. There would be no "billions that no one man deserves!" Europe has plenty of billionaires too. They have fewer because they have produced fewer stratospherically successful companies.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
All smokescreen. We choose what to pay executives (egregious amounts) but not the rank-and-file? Nonsense. Most of the money in the world is possessed by 100 people. Not a fiction, not sophistry about who has the money. It would be a terrible surprise to them and their bankers if they discovered they didn't actually have the money. Crediting a manager for running a business, but not the people that did the work (and they work as hard as Mr Bezos you can be sure), is an American fiction. If not Mr Bezos, then somebody else, or several others (those he put out of business simply by being earlier / bigger). Its very arguable that he has no special merit, other than being in the right place at the right time. Like the railroad magnates of the 1800's, who we now call 'robber barons'.
- fastball 6y ago
  The smokescreen is you focusing purely on "how much wealth (in terms of imaginary currency units) some people have", as if that is somehow indicative of anything meaningful when it comes to the way we live our lives. Bezos has 1,000,000x more wealth than I do, it's true. But his life is not 1,000,000x better than mine. I guarantee he is not 1,000,000x happier than me. The food he eats is not 1,000,000x better. The gym he goes to is not 1,000,000x better (by any metric, even if it's nicer than mine and in the comfort of his own home). His TV is not 1,000,000x better than mine. His car is not 1,000,000x better than mine. etc. etc. Not anywhere close. The numerical value we assign to some (very few) of those things do have large deltas when compared with what I have (e.g. property he owns), but it is still not even gonna approach that 1M multiplier. And even more certainly, the value he personally is deriving from those things is not anywhere close to 1,000,000x, even if what he paid for it is (which again, it's not). The major difference is many things he has that I do not: for example, a private jet. But not everyone on earth can have a private jet, that is untenable. I am happy for the people with private jets to be the people who, by-and-large, have delivered the most economic prosperity to others. Prosperity is not a zero-sum game. Yes, total value in currency is a zero-sum game (kinda, if we ignore inflation and such), but luckily this doesn't actually matter. What matters to humans is prosperity, and prosperity is not zero-sum. In fact, Bezos has increased the prosperity of humanity in ways that I very much doubt I ever will, while simultaneously creating a massive "wealth disparity" between himself and myself. Almost like just because a disparity exists doesn't mean the world is worse off. In this case, it actually means the opposite.

P_I_Staker 6y ago

Yeah, I don't know where to start with comments like this. There certainly are people that think "stock runners" should make as much as engineers and business people (or close), but this isn't exactly a mainstream belief. The concern is more about making a living wage, healthcare, retirement, and employment rights. Communism isn't necessary to achieve these goals. The outrage has more to do with people hoarding obscene amounts of wealth, without paying their fair share of taxes. Very few people are interested in going after the middle class. Now the middle class may or may not be collateral damage of their policies, but that's not the goal. Not too many people are worried about a software engineer making $90k-$200k (probably more in the valley, this is based on areas with modest COL)

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Not so much hoarding, as the rules were changed so they could skim egregiously off of every transaction. When the man-in-the-middle makes more off of a money transaction than either of the parties involved, the systemic result is they end up with all the money. Model the flows, not rocket science. Taxes are a patch. A direct fix is to severely limit fees for money handling, and to limit executive compensation. Like we used to do, before de-regulation turned it into a shark-infested bloodbath.

jp555 6y ago

Bezos has $100B because Amazon generated $900B of wealth for other people. “Of all human emotions, none is trickier or more elusive than envy...as soon as we feel the pangs, we disguise it to ourselves—it is not envy we feel but unfairness of the distribution of goods or attention, resentment at this unfairness, even anger” The Laws of Human Nature – Robert Greene

claudiawerner 6y ago
It's a little saddening to see a quote about envy below a post which mentioned the children who don't know when their next meal will be coming.
- jp555 6y ago
  Why? The wealth was not taken from those children.
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    It is, however, extracted from their parents. To post a quote about envy when the discussion is not based in envy but in concern for the welfare of the most vulnerable in society is the upsetting part.
    - jp555 6y ago
      extracted? As in not through voluntary agreement? I think you're talking about taxes, and missing the point entirely.
      - xnyan 6y ago
        >extracted? As in not through voluntary agreement? This argument is so facile that I can't believe you are arguing in good faith. The power dynamic between an a low-wage employee (any almost any kind of employee) and an employer is incredibly biased in favor of the employer.

wayoutthere 6y ago

I don't know how much of it is something "we" decided versus how the ultra-rich have been able to take over our political system. It was happening for decades but after the Citizens United ruling it became fully legal to buy politicians with corporate money (if you think they weren't pocketing a lot of that PAC money you're insane). As a result, the regular people lost our voice in the political process. Our political system -- yes, both parties -- exists to subjugate us and keep wages low for unskilled labor. The recent protests / riots have been about the police state that has developed in response to this. I was in the middle of them in my city, and the rioters were primarily poor and white. Their grievances were both pro-Black and economic. They were trashing wealthy areas and stealing from the rich with no reservations. The common sentiment was "I've never lived anywhere nice, why should I care about keeping their [the rich] area nice?" You don't have to be Black to feel that way.

pacala 6y ago

> The low skilled workers are going to get paid very little because we choose to pay them very little. I wish it were that simple. More reasons: * Low skilled workers are paid very little because there don't have any higher paid options. * Low skilled workers are paid very little because there are some many other low skilled workers willing to take their place, domestically, internationally, and through immigration. * If there are 2 business using low skill labor, one paying low wages and another high wages, the latter goes bankrupt. Cherry on top: the AWS project is to turn SWE cushy jobs into 'low skill' occupations. Bezos understands economics. He's building the ultimately efficient money making machine, which, by necessity, reduces the human expenses to the absolute minimum.