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How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? Because we are more productive than ever. No thanks on more government-run programs for daycare f

How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? Because we are more productive than ever. No thanks on more government-run programs for daycare facilities. No thanks to making participation mandatory at 3 years old for compulsory education outside the home. I prefer they give direct cash to parents in the form of more generous direct payments like they were doing for the last year and a half during the pandemic, thereby empowering parents to make the best decision for their own households. Idgaf about Macron until he publicly gives an account for why France was degrading its nuclear plants prematurely and failing to build more in a timely fashion. And he should also talk about what France will contribute to NATO in the form of defense budget spending as a share of GDP, along with Germany and other western European countries that were slacking off for years. He can otherwise shut up about compulsive kindgarten at 3 rather than 6, because that is subversion of parental authority. More shitty government programs or opportunities for bad and dishonest people to indoctrinate the young from earlier ages, particularly now that some bureaucrats would want to use their responsibilities as if they constitute the power to subvert parental involvement, are a huge no from me. We spent too much already and these politicians only gave us inflation. Now you advocate for them to have more control and say over education by recommending more of their services? Nah, way more efficient, empowering, and aligned with freedom & democracy if parents in a household just get direct cash every month rather than government-run facilities. No thanks. Way too many problems with more gov. Give cash instead, solve the problem. And foster good working environment so wages go up and people can choose to work less and still have a family. Not rocket science

rossjudson 5y ago
Do you have kids? This reads like you don't. It reads like libertarian derp. Getting "direct cash" that a young family could use for daycare doesn't make any difference if there's nowhere for them to spend it.
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  I am responsible for a household. Stop trying to invalidate an idea or a set of of propositions based on this variety of cheap ad-hominy bs. You’re trying to read between the lines of the post to see if you can neatly categorize a challenge as being part of some bucket you sneer at. That comes across as being dishonest or intellectually lazy. Direct cash to households with kids during almost two years of pandemi has lifted many children out of poverty and given parents more freedom and flexibility. Plenty of evidence of this. When you’re getting direct cash and wages are good and bureaucrats aren’t inflating their way to Power, you can even afford to work less so one of the parents is always around if they want. That’s how it should be and can be and will be.
metalliqaz 5y ago
increase wages how?
- goldenkey 5y ago
  Simple, just pass go, and draw a card from Chance.
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  Direct cash to households in the form of a guaranteed payment income, with excess collected at tax season.
simonh 5y ago
> How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? If you want people generally to work less and earn more, how are you going to reduce the amount of work there is for them to do? Also how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford (inflation? What dat?) if less work is being done to provide them? Sounds fascinating.
- yetihehe 5y ago
  > Also how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford We could start manufacturing those more expensive but better quality goods, which most of people could not afford. There is no problem with manufacturing enough goods. There is problem that many people only have money for the cheapest shit which breaks easily and needs to be replaced soon which costs even more money and destroys environment.
  - simonh 5y ago
    I’m not saying you are wrong, but everyone working less and being richer is an outcome, not a policy. How do you think we should achieve that? Making higher quality goods sounds like it would take more work, not less. It’s all very well saying “we could just”, but how would you bring about this change? How do you persuade people to want different things and make different choices? That’s the interesting question.
    - yetihehe 5y ago
      Whole discussion was started because your question "how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford" seems nonsensical. How? With increased production. Increasing production is not a problem.
      - simonh 5y ago
        How are you going to do that though, with people working less? Why is it not a problem?
dragonwriter 5y ago
> How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? Or increase taxes on capital and redistribute the gains, rather than relying on wages.
- nervlord 5y ago
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  If this is done to guarantee a nice ubi and access to rigorous education opportunities based on proven merit and results year over year, sounds good to me. Great safety net, can be funded efficiently in a way that respects individuals, the Constitution, Democracy. Sounds great!!!
rini17 5y ago
AFAIK French policy was driven by mothers that want to continue working. Most jobs and careers just aren't possible to do with halved working hours even if it was paid well. That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child?
- nervlord 5y ago
- ratww 5y ago
  > Most jobs and careers just aren't possible to do with halved working hours even if it was paid well. Nah. That’s what people used to say abou WFH too. All this is purely due to capricious employers and institutions, not because of some natural law. If companies had their way, we’d be working 80h/week. That’s true for both low paying and high paying jobs.
- kelnos 5y ago
  > Most jobs and careers just aren't possible to do with halved working hours I just don't buy this; it feels like a lack of imagination. Sure, today, very few firms that traditionally employ full-time, salaried employees would even consider the idea of hiring twice as many half-time workers, but there's no inherent reason why it couldn't work. Certainly, there are hurdles: some per-employee costs are fixed regardless of how many hours they work. But this is just an argument to fix them (because they're stupid in general), not to avoid the situation. Most part-time and contract workers in the US don't get benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. But this is an argument to fix those broken programs, not throw our hands up and claim the status quo is the only option. Corporate profits and executive pay growth is generally far outstripping the wages paid to mid- and low-level employees. There's no reason why most companies can't pay their employees more equitably, and stop with all the pay inequality garbage. > That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child? I'm not a parent, but childhood education these days seems more about pushing government propaganda and training kids to be obedient little employees (not to mention providing much-needed free day-care for parents), than about nurturing creativity and curiosity, and giving kids the tools they need to be productive, yet critical-thinking, independent people. I look at stories of 12-year-old kids getting arrested at school for asinine reasons[0] and wonder what the hell is happening. I don't think people need "exclusive authority" over their children in general, but I do think the current state of public (and even private, in many cases) education could easily drive parents to not want their kids to be a part of it. [0] https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrested-kids-school/ https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrest...
dhdhhdd 5y ago
I'd prefer schools spent money better. Preschool in my district is 4 days a week, 2.5hrs / day. That's a JOKE. Meant only for people who don't work. But they also got another levy on taxes for "technology" and "new buildings". They don't need more money, they just need to better spend the money they have. Private daycare costs around $2000/month. That's more than tuition on the university ($1000/month or so). So I just wish that once kids are in preschool age the preschool offered something reasonable Also, have i mentioned that public preschool is not free? On top of taxes, we pay $400/month or so for 4 days a week, 2.5hrs/day preschool. It's nuts. Oh, and they insert a random "teacher development days" where preschool is closed. Can't they do development in summer, when the school is closed anyway? Being a parent sux.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
- kelseyfrog 5y ago
  Yep. When every person who wants kids has to make these economic decisions their aggregate choices are reflected in population dynamics. "Just choose not to have kids then" en mass results in socio-economic states present systems are not robust against. Incentive engineering is basic economics, and no amount of rhetoric around "just have more kids" is going to change the material realities would be parents face.
andrewjl 5y ago
> He can otherwise shut up about compulsive kindgarten at 3 rather than 6, because that is subversion of parental authority. How does replacing one form of authoritarianism with another, perhaps preferable to some, form of authoritarianism make things better? > More shitty government programs or opportunities for bad and dishonest people to indoctrinate the young from earlier ages, particularly now that some bureaucrats would want to use their responsibilities as if they constitute the power to subvert parental involvement, are a huge no from me. As opposed to shitty private sector programs run by profiteers? > We spent too much already and these politicians only gave us inflation. What does this have to do with anything?
shigawire 5y ago
Why does Macrons nuclear energy policy invalidate his childcare/education policy? I'm not seeing a straight line there. Also you complain about inflation but also want more direct cash infusions?
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  Because if Macron lacks wisdom for proper energy management of the people when people are in cold times and need reasonable electricity, and if he is unable to be disciplined on basic matters pertaining to defense spending and defense readiness, why on earth would anyone trust him to be wise oj compulsive state-sponsored kindgarten at 3 years old? Tearing a babe away from mother so soon to give them state-sponsored educational materials? Nah. He’s a control freak like any other bureaucrat. Otherwise it’d be straight cash to the household every month and more parental supervision. More parental choice, not less. Direct cash infusions to households would not affect inflation. Giant bailouts for huge corporations and for huge corrupt political super pacs definitely does though. Read the book Utopia For Realists for the chapter on direct cash to households and the compiled evidence done over decades in the United States and even Canada.
  - biztos 5y ago
    > He’s a control freak like any other bureaucrat. Otherwise… He’s a $BAD. Otherwise he’d do $THING_I_WANT. I mean, even if both parts turn out to be true I doubt this is how it works.
    - wait_a_minute 5y ago
      Try repeating your shitpost in the light of the reality that right now, entire families are being blown apart by evil warfare between Ukraine and Russia. So no, it's not such a simple reductionist shit-take like you're offering. Be more mature and serious or be banned. There's no more time for bullshit. We can measure the consequences of his actions and ideas by seeing the struggle of the nuclear reactors, which wouldn't have been a problem if France leadership including Macron was truly wise and privy to what the people need at a basic level - which is cheap and reliable electricity for fuck's sake. And NATO defense spending should've been 2% of GDP for a long time, but they failed even in times of great relative peace by comparison in 2014 when they were below where they are supposed to be. No serious person, in the face of rockets obliterating their nation, could resort to such a shitty reductionist take like yours unless they were just looking to troll rather than to understand that YES, it's possible to say that someone is bad and why and how. https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron.html https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron... How is this working out for him and France now with energy costs skyrocketing and old pipelines and new pipelines from Russia no longer guaranteed because of immaturity across the board at all levels of leadership now culminating in barbarism in 2022 of all times? So yes, it's possible to prove that Macron made bad choices, because of what the consequences are.
kcplate 5y ago
> How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? Ok. How?
biztos 5y ago
Looks to me like our lot has seen a whole lot of wage increase without generally working less. I don’t even see that much early retirement, instead of getting our mountains of things. Or is this advice only for the proletariat, who for some reason will behave differently?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- falcolas 5y ago
  The cost of living has increased proportionally, not exactly leaving a lot of room for additional retirement savings. Plus, proper retirement saving is hard. Saving 10% in a method that negates inflation only nets you 4.5 years of income at retirement age. You’ll need to drop your living costs by over 3x to live to a median age, unless you don’t retire in the traditional sense.
osigurdson 5y ago
There are a number of issues mixed together here so it is easy to attack. However, the main argument: direct cash with increased privatization vs public services is valid and should not be rejected out of hand. This approach could work better - at least it is not guaranteed to be worse.
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  You aren't...attacking anything. :) That's my view too! Allow households and taxpayers and consumers to make their best choices on which services they like, even if it's private. Let the best teams win!

rossjudson 5y ago

Do you have kids? This reads like you don't. It reads like libertarian derp. Getting "direct cash" that a young family could use for daycare doesn't make any difference if there's nowhere for them to spend it.

wait_a_minute 5y ago
I am responsible for a household. Stop trying to invalidate an idea or a set of of propositions based on this variety of cheap ad-hominy bs. You’re trying to read between the lines of the post to see if you can neatly categorize a challenge as being part of some bucket you sneer at. That comes across as being dishonest or intellectually lazy. Direct cash to households with kids during almost two years of pandemi has lifted many children out of poverty and given parents more freedom and flexibility. Plenty of evidence of this. When you’re getting direct cash and wages are good and bureaucrats aren’t inflating their way to Power, you can even afford to work less so one of the parents is always around if they want. That’s how it should be and can be and will be.

metalliqaz 5y ago

increase wages how?

goldenkey 5y ago
Simple, just pass go, and draw a card from Chance.
wait_a_minute 5y ago
Direct cash to households in the form of a guaranteed payment income, with excess collected at tax season.

simonh 5y ago

> How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? If you want people generally to work less and earn more, how are you going to reduce the amount of work there is for them to do? Also how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford (inflation? What dat?) if less work is being done to provide them? Sounds fascinating.

yetihehe 5y ago
> Also how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford We could start manufacturing those more expensive but better quality goods, which most of people could not afford. There is no problem with manufacturing enough goods. There is problem that many people only have money for the cheapest shit which breaks easily and needs to be replaced soon which costs even more money and destroys environment.
- simonh 5y ago
  I’m not saying you are wrong, but everyone working less and being richer is an outcome, not a policy. How do you think we should achieve that? Making higher quality goods sounds like it would take more work, not less. It’s all very well saying “we could just”, but how would you bring about this change? How do you persuade people to want different things and make different choices? That’s the interesting question.
  - yetihehe 5y ago
    Whole discussion was started because your question "how are you going to provide the additional goods and services these people will be able to afford" seems nonsensical. How? With increased production. Increasing production is not a problem.
    - simonh 5y ago
      How are you going to do that though, with people working less? Why is it not a problem?

dragonwriter 5y ago

> How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? Or increase taxes on capital and redistribute the gains, rather than relying on wages.

nervlord 5y ago
wait_a_minute 5y ago
If this is done to guarantee a nice ubi and access to rigorous education opportunities based on proven merit and results year over year, sounds good to me. Great safety net, can be funded efficiently in a way that respects individuals, the Constitution, Democracy. Sounds great!!!

rini17 5y ago

AFAIK French policy was driven by mothers that want to continue working. Most jobs and careers just aren't possible to do with halved working hours even if it was paid well. That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child?

nervlord 5y ago
ratww 5y ago
> Most jobs and careers just aren't possible to do with halved working hours even if it was paid well. Nah. That’s what people used to say abou WFH too. All this is purely due to capricious employers and institutions, not because of some natural law. If companies had their way, we’d be working 80h/week. That’s true for both low paying and high paying jobs.
kelnos 5y ago
> Most jobs and careers just aren't possible to do with halved working hours I just don't buy this; it feels like a lack of imagination. Sure, today, very few firms that traditionally employ full-time, salaried employees would even consider the idea of hiring twice as many half-time workers, but there's no inherent reason why it couldn't work. Certainly, there are hurdles: some per-employee costs are fixed regardless of how many hours they work. But this is just an argument to fix them (because they're stupid in general), not to avoid the situation. Most part-time and contract workers in the US don't get benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. But this is an argument to fix those broken programs, not throw our hands up and claim the status quo is the only option. Corporate profits and executive pay growth is generally far outstripping the wages paid to mid- and low-level employees. There's no reason why most companies can't pay their employees more equitably, and stop with all the pay inequality garbage. > That's the European approach that children belong to whole community not only their parents and the authority and the burden is shared. I don't get why are you so hell bent on having exclusive authority over your child? I'm not a parent, but childhood education these days seems more about pushing government propaganda and training kids to be obedient little employees (not to mention providing much-needed free day-care for parents), than about nurturing creativity and curiosity, and giving kids the tools they need to be productive, yet critical-thinking, independent people. I look at stories of 12-year-old kids getting arrested at school for asinine reasons[0] and wonder what the hell is happening. I don't think people need "exclusive authority" over their children in general, but I do think the current state of public (and even private, in many cases) education could easily drive parents to not want their kids to be a part of it. [0] https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrested-kids-school/ https://www.copblock.org/140900/stupid-reasons-police-arrest...

dhdhhdd 5y ago

I'd prefer schools spent money better. Preschool in my district is 4 days a week, 2.5hrs / day. That's a JOKE. Meant only for people who don't work. But they also got another levy on taxes for "technology" and "new buildings". They don't need more money, they just need to better spend the money they have. Private daycare costs around $2000/month. That's more than tuition on the university ($1000/month or so). So I just wish that once kids are in preschool age the preschool offered something reasonable Also, have i mentioned that public preschool is not free? On top of taxes, we pay $400/month or so for 4 days a week, 2.5hrs/day preschool. It's nuts. Oh, and they insert a random "teacher development days" where preschool is closed. Can't they do development in summer, when the school is closed anyway? Being a parent sux.

cyberpunk 5y ago
kelseyfrog 5y ago
Yep. When every person who wants kids has to make these economic decisions their aggregate choices are reflected in population dynamics. "Just choose not to have kids then" en mass results in socio-economic states present systems are not robust against. Incentive engineering is basic economics, and no amount of rhetoric around "just have more kids" is going to change the material realities would be parents face.

andrewjl 5y ago

> He can otherwise shut up about compulsive kindgarten at 3 rather than 6, because that is subversion of parental authority. How does replacing one form of authoritarianism with another, perhaps preferable to some, form of authoritarianism make things better? > More shitty government programs or opportunities for bad and dishonest people to indoctrinate the young from earlier ages, particularly now that some bureaucrats would want to use their responsibilities as if they constitute the power to subvert parental involvement, are a huge no from me. As opposed to shitty private sector programs run by profiteers? > We spent too much already and these politicians only gave us inflation. What does this have to do with anything?

shigawire 5y ago

Why does Macrons nuclear energy policy invalidate his childcare/education policy? I'm not seeing a straight line there. Also you complain about inflation but also want more direct cash infusions?

wait_a_minute 5y ago
Because if Macron lacks wisdom for proper energy management of the people when people are in cold times and need reasonable electricity, and if he is unable to be disciplined on basic matters pertaining to defense spending and defense readiness, why on earth would anyone trust him to be wise oj compulsive state-sponsored kindgarten at 3 years old? Tearing a babe away from mother so soon to give them state-sponsored educational materials? Nah. He’s a control freak like any other bureaucrat. Otherwise it’d be straight cash to the household every month and more parental supervision. More parental choice, not less. Direct cash infusions to households would not affect inflation. Giant bailouts for huge corporations and for huge corrupt political super pacs definitely does though. Read the book Utopia For Realists for the chapter on direct cash to households and the compiled evidence done over decades in the United States and even Canada.
- biztos 5y ago
  > He’s a control freak like any other bureaucrat. Otherwise… He’s a $BAD. Otherwise he’d do $THING_I_WANT. I mean, even if both parts turn out to be true I doubt this is how it works.
  - wait_a_minute 5y ago
    Try repeating your shitpost in the light of the reality that right now, entire families are being blown apart by evil warfare between Ukraine and Russia. So no, it's not such a simple reductionist shit-take like you're offering. Be more mature and serious or be banned. There's no more time for bullshit. We can measure the consequences of his actions and ideas by seeing the struggle of the nuclear reactors, which wouldn't have been a problem if France leadership including Macron was truly wise and privy to what the people need at a basic level - which is cheap and reliable electricity for fuck's sake. And NATO defense spending should've been 2% of GDP for a long time, but they failed even in times of great relative peace by comparison in 2014 when they were below where they are supposed to be. No serious person, in the face of rockets obliterating their nation, could resort to such a shitty reductionist take like yours unless they were just looking to troll rather than to understand that YES, it's possible to say that someone is bad and why and how. https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron.html https://phys.org/news/2018-11-france-nuclear-reactors-macron... How is this working out for him and France now with energy costs skyrocketing and old pipelines and new pipelines from Russia no longer guaranteed because of immaturity across the board at all levels of leadership now culminating in barbarism in 2022 of all times? So yes, it's possible to prove that Macron made bad choices, because of what the consequences are.

kcplate 5y ago

> How about we increase wages so people can afford to work less? Ok. How?

biztos 5y ago

Looks to me like our lot has seen a whole lot of wage increase without generally working less. I don’t even see that much early retirement, instead of getting our mountains of things. Or is this advice only for the proletariat, who for some reason will behave differently?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
falcolas 5y ago
The cost of living has increased proportionally, not exactly leaving a lot of room for additional retirement savings. Plus, proper retirement saving is hard. Saving 10% in a method that negates inflation only nets you 4.5 years of income at retirement age. You’ll need to drop your living costs by over 3x to live to a median age, unless you don’t retire in the traditional sense.

osigurdson 5y ago

There are a number of issues mixed together here so it is easy to attack. However, the main argument: direct cash with increased privatization vs public services is valid and should not be rejected out of hand. This approach could work better - at least it is not guaranteed to be worse.

wait_a_minute 5y ago
You aren't...attacking anything. :) That's my view too! Allow households and taxpayers and consumers to make their best choices on which services they like, even if it's private. Let the best teams win!