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There are no such things as “jobs americans won’t do”. It’s just you have to compensate people accordingly. With this failing stealth UBI experiment that we are

There are no such things as “jobs americans won’t do”. It’s just you have to compensate people accordingly. With this failing stealth UBI experiment that we are currently engaged in, people aren’t willing to work when many of them are getting near 100% the same income not to work. The rest of us are being crushed by inflation.

solosoyokaze 5y ago
> The rest of us are being crushed by inflation. The top 1% are making more money than ever before. If you're holding assets impacted by inflation, you're doing quite well now. If we take it as a given that in a modern, humane society no one should starve to death on the street and everyone should have access to the basics of survival, then the answer to the labor "shortage" is simply to shift some of the historically record breaking wealth inequality back down the org chart from the executives to the roles that need filling.
- AdrianB1 5y ago
  How do you define the basics of survival? In parts of the world people live with 2 hamburgers a day, is that what you propose? Even $15/hour seems huge compared with basics of survival. Also, there are not enough executives to take from them to give to the poor. You need 100 or 1000 times more for that, so the executives theme is a straw man.
  - solosoyokaze 5y ago
    I would define the basics of survival as: * Basic groceries * Healthcare * Housing I don't think these things are easy to achieve but they seem like obvious goals to societal progress. If not, what are we even progressing towards? > Also, there are not enough executives to take from them to give to the poor. You need 100 or 1000 times more for that, so the executives theme is a straw man. I said if a company wants to fill a role, that they should pull from executive pay. The average CEO gets 70-1 the pay of the average employee. There is absolutely a surplus of capital to pull from to increase worker pay (thus filling the role). https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-pay https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-pay
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      I would add transportation and communications to the "basics of survival".
      - AdrianB1 5y ago
        This is nowhere close to 'basics of survival'. You can survive on 2 hamburgers a day and 1 liter of drinking water, this is called survival. If you want 'basics of nice living' then call it that way, but don't redefine the dictionary. Think of 'basics of survival' what you need to continue to live if you land on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, naked and with no tools.
        solosoyokaze 5y ago
        You can’t live without shelter or medical care.
        AdrianB1 5y ago
        Really? Tell that to Hiroo Onoda and his 29 years in the jungle. You see, people play on the subjective nature of life and honesty is not a virtue anymore.
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  Agreed. Not long ago there was debate about a permanent structural stagnation with permanent unemployment. The argument was that workers lacked sufficient training or desire to fill current jobs. All while some economists were screaming that it was actually the result of an insufficient fiscal stimulus response to the Great Recession that could have easily been solved had the response been $1.5T instead of $700B. Given the massive fiscal response to COVID and this current situation resulting in a rebalancing as you highlighted, I think it’s clear that it was never structural and always a result of unnecessary slack due to a financial recession easily solved by government support spending.
paulpauper 5y ago
But inflaiton is very low. yeah, CPI excludes stuff, but we're a long way from the 70s and 80s.
- inetknght 5y ago
  > inflaiton is very low No it isn't. My rent is up 80% since two years ago. Food costs are up 40%. Healthcare is up 200%. Good news though: fuel costs are about the same!
  - loopercal 5y ago
    >My rent is up 80% since two years ago. There's no major* rental market in the US where this is the case. * - There could be some oil boom in a 300 person town I don't know about I guess.
    - inetknght 5y ago
      Houston, March 2019, my rent renewal was $1500/mo for a 12-month lease or $1500/mo for month-to-month or a new contract. Houston, October 2020, my rent renewal was $1500 for a 15-month lease or $2100/month for month-to-month or a new contract. Okay so 80% is an exaggeration. 30% isn't.
      - throwawaygh 5y ago
        > Houston, March 2019, my rent renewal was $1500/mo for a 12-month lease or $1500/mo for month-to-month or a new contract. Houston, October 2020, my rent renewal was $1500 for a 15-month lease or $2100/month for month-to-month or a new contract. Is there a typo here? You have to sign a longer lease but you are paying the same per month... that's a 0% increase. And as for month-to-month, paying zero premium for a month-to-month lease is abnormal in pretty much every market...
        inetknght 5y ago
        > You have to sign a longer lease but you are paying the same per month Signing a longer lease demonstrates that the new lease isn't like the old. Otherwise let's compare apples and oranges in the economy too.
boublepop 5y ago
A system where people get the same to work as not to work is not Universal Basic Income, UBI. Such a system is guaranteed basic income. There’s a huge difference.
dmwallin 5y ago
It's unfortunately nowhere near a stealth UBI experiment and really just a classic welfare trap, in the vein of so many other government programs. There are many bad incentives in our unemployment system and it was clearly never designed to be a delivery method for long term stimulus.
bogwog 5y ago
This is not UBI at all. If someone starts working now, they lose those unemployment benefits they're getting. So the question becomes: should I work my ass off at this shitty job to make $X, or should I stay unemployed and make $X? If it were real UBI, these people could work those shitty jobs while still receiving the extra income every month. It's still a shitty job, but you also get the added benefit of not having to live in poverty while you do it. EDIT: Also, this situation is further proof of how useful UBI would be to the economy. It would be the government helping businesses by subsidizing wages, making even crappy unsustainable jobs livable and attractive to workers.
- randomopining 5y ago
  No one is gonna do a shitty job if they don’t have to financially lol. Clear misunderstanding of incentives. Most people would chill or take easy fun jobs.
  - WarChortle18 5y ago
    I think you vastly under estimate peoples will to advance. Would some take easy or no jobs sure, but not everyone wants to get by with a fixed income. They will always want to buy something UBI doesn't enable them to buy. A nice vacation, nicer larger home, new car etc. UBI would just give people the cushion to take a risk and know if I fail I don't end up homeless. Or the piece of mind to relax and know they can eat a healthy meal and pay rent no need to work 2 or 3 jobs. Maybe the reinvest in their education.
heavyset_go 5y ago
There's a global pandemic.

solosoyokaze 5y ago

> The rest of us are being crushed by inflation. The top 1% are making more money than ever before. If you're holding assets impacted by inflation, you're doing quite well now. If we take it as a given that in a modern, humane society no one should starve to death on the street and everyone should have access to the basics of survival, then the answer to the labor "shortage" is simply to shift some of the historically record breaking wealth inequality back down the org chart from the executives to the roles that need filling.

AdrianB1 5y ago
How do you define the basics of survival? In parts of the world people live with 2 hamburgers a day, is that what you propose? Even $15/hour seems huge compared with basics of survival. Also, there are not enough executives to take from them to give to the poor. You need 100 or 1000 times more for that, so the executives theme is a straw man.
- solosoyokaze 5y ago
  I would define the basics of survival as: * Basic groceries * Healthcare * Housing I don't think these things are easy to achieve but they seem like obvious goals to societal progress. If not, what are we even progressing towards? > Also, there are not enough executives to take from them to give to the poor. You need 100 or 1000 times more for that, so the executives theme is a straw man. I said if a company wants to fill a role, that they should pull from executive pay. The average CEO gets 70-1 the pay of the average employee. There is absolutely a surplus of capital to pull from to increase worker pay (thus filling the role). https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-pay https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/ceo-pay
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    I would add transportation and communications to the "basics of survival".
    - AdrianB1 5y ago
      This is nowhere close to 'basics of survival'. You can survive on 2 hamburgers a day and 1 liter of drinking water, this is called survival. If you want 'basics of nice living' then call it that way, but don't redefine the dictionary. Think of 'basics of survival' what you need to continue to live if you land on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, naked and with no tools.
      - solosoyokaze 5y ago
        You can’t live without shelter or medical care.
        AdrianB1 5y ago
        Really? Tell that to Hiroo Onoda and his 29 years in the jungle. You see, people play on the subjective nature of life and honesty is not a virtue anymore.
digitaltrees 5y ago
Agreed. Not long ago there was debate about a permanent structural stagnation with permanent unemployment. The argument was that workers lacked sufficient training or desire to fill current jobs. All while some economists were screaming that it was actually the result of an insufficient fiscal stimulus response to the Great Recession that could have easily been solved had the response been $1.5T instead of $700B. Given the massive fiscal response to COVID and this current situation resulting in a rebalancing as you highlighted, I think it’s clear that it was never structural and always a result of unnecessary slack due to a financial recession easily solved by government support spending.

paulpauper 5y ago

But inflaiton is very low. yeah, CPI excludes stuff, but we're a long way from the 70s and 80s.

inetknght 5y ago
> inflaiton is very low No it isn't. My rent is up 80% since two years ago. Food costs are up 40%. Healthcare is up 200%. Good news though: fuel costs are about the same!
- loopercal 5y ago
  >My rent is up 80% since two years ago. There's no major* rental market in the US where this is the case. * - There could be some oil boom in a 300 person town I don't know about I guess.
  - inetknght 5y ago
    Houston, March 2019, my rent renewal was $1500/mo for a 12-month lease or $1500/mo for month-to-month or a new contract. Houston, October 2020, my rent renewal was $1500 for a 15-month lease or $2100/month for month-to-month or a new contract. Okay so 80% is an exaggeration. 30% isn't.
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      > Houston, March 2019, my rent renewal was $1500/mo for a 12-month lease or $1500/mo for month-to-month or a new contract. Houston, October 2020, my rent renewal was $1500 for a 15-month lease or $2100/month for month-to-month or a new contract. Is there a typo here? You have to sign a longer lease but you are paying the same per month... that's a 0% increase. And as for month-to-month, paying zero premium for a month-to-month lease is abnormal in pretty much every market...
      - inetknght 5y ago
        > You have to sign a longer lease but you are paying the same per month Signing a longer lease demonstrates that the new lease isn't like the old. Otherwise let's compare apples and oranges in the economy too.

boublepop 5y ago

A system where people get the same to work as not to work is not Universal Basic Income, UBI. Such a system is guaranteed basic income. There’s a huge difference.

dmwallin 5y ago

It's unfortunately nowhere near a stealth UBI experiment and really just a classic welfare trap, in the vein of so many other government programs. There are many bad incentives in our unemployment system and it was clearly never designed to be a delivery method for long term stimulus.

bogwog 5y ago

This is not UBI at all. If someone starts working now, they lose those unemployment benefits they're getting. So the question becomes: should I work my ass off at this shitty job to make $X, or should I stay unemployed and make $X? If it were real UBI, these people could work those shitty jobs while still receiving the extra income every month. It's still a shitty job, but you also get the added benefit of not having to live in poverty while you do it. EDIT: Also, this situation is further proof of how useful UBI would be to the economy. It would be the government helping businesses by subsidizing wages, making even crappy unsustainable jobs livable and attractive to workers.

randomopining 5y ago
No one is gonna do a shitty job if they don’t have to financially lol. Clear misunderstanding of incentives. Most people would chill or take easy fun jobs.
- WarChortle18 5y ago
  I think you vastly under estimate peoples will to advance. Would some take easy or no jobs sure, but not everyone wants to get by with a fixed income. They will always want to buy something UBI doesn't enable them to buy. A nice vacation, nicer larger home, new car etc. UBI would just give people the cushion to take a risk and know if I fail I don't end up homeless. Or the piece of mind to relax and know they can eat a healthy meal and pay rent no need to work 2 or 3 jobs. Maybe the reinvest in their education.

heavyset_go 5y ago

There's a global pandemic.