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> 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 amoun

by 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?
      - yetihehe 5y ago
        With automation or employing more people. We are not at a full production capacity now, we could produce more, but we don't because there is no demand currently for more.
        simonh 5y ago
        The US had close to full employment. Two thirds of the unemployed find a job within 6 months, they’re not really unemployed just between jobs. Of course there are spots of higher unemployment due structural reasons that need addressing, but at the macro scale their just not going to to make an even fractional change. Not the mass scale global transformation your talking about. China is running out of in tapped labour too. Production is expanding elsewhere in SE Asia but those countries are much smaller and taking time and a lot of capital to ramp up. Where are all these new workers going to come from, and if they could work productively already why aren’t they? None of this makes a lick of sense.
        yetihehe 5y ago
        > Where are all these new workers going to come from, and if they could work productively already why aren’t they? Why would they work more productively if that is not needed? They would have to make more things, which people wouldn't buy because there is overproduction. If you have order for 1000 items every week, you make 1000 items every week, even when you could make 5000 items every week. You can slow your production line, this way workers are more relaxed and you have time for maintenance. It's not like every employee out there is used at 100% utilisation, that would not be sustainable. Many times you employ as many people as you can just because it's cheaper than using more automation. If you need to produce more and can't find employes, you can pay them more. If you can't find enough employes at all, that means price per employee is so high that you can now employ some robots. Yeah, it takes time, but global change in time of employment is also not going to happen overnight.
mstipetic 5y ago
Most of our gains in productivity have been captured by either housing pricing or massive government bureaucracies which serve just to “employ” people and have them duffle paper around. We don’t need to work nearly as much to produce this level of comfort
- nightski 5y ago
  While I agree we could live more simply, I feel you'd need a lot more to justify your assertions. The fact is we have access to a lot more luxuries than we did in the past. Are they necessary? No by definition. Are they even worth it? Very debatable. But to act like our lives have not changed at all except for house prices going up is dishonest.
  - wait_a_minute 5y ago
    100%. Also worth noting from Sowell how house prices did go up, but by comparison the prices per square foot relative to how our parents and grandparents started out are not too bad tbh. (They were all humble and started out in much more meager real estate than many people have now, for example 600 or 1000 or 1200 square foot living conditions vs 2500+ average now per home).
    - birksherty 5y ago
      No point in per square feet if people own home not square feet. If price is up, people can't own home and they are not. This is what matters.
      - simonh 5y ago
        The point is people can afford houses if they are willing to compromise on size, in the way previous generations did. A lot are choosing to rent instead. That’s a choice.
        mstipetic 5y ago

by simonh 5y ago

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?
    - yetihehe 5y ago
      With automation or employing more people. We are not at a full production capacity now, we could produce more, but we don't because there is no demand currently for more.
      - simonh 5y ago
        The US had close to full employment. Two thirds of the unemployed find a job within 6 months, they’re not really unemployed just between jobs. Of course there are spots of higher unemployment due structural reasons that need addressing, but at the macro scale their just not going to to make an even fractional change. Not the mass scale global transformation your talking about. China is running out of in tapped labour too. Production is expanding elsewhere in SE Asia but those countries are much smaller and taking time and a lot of capital to ramp up. Where are all these new workers going to come from, and if they could work productively already why aren’t they? None of this makes a lick of sense.
        yetihehe 5y ago
        > Where are all these new workers going to come from, and if they could work productively already why aren’t they? Why would they work more productively if that is not needed? They would have to make more things, which people wouldn't buy because there is overproduction. If you have order for 1000 items every week, you make 1000 items every week, even when you could make 5000 items every week. You can slow your production line, this way workers are more relaxed and you have time for maintenance. It's not like every employee out there is used at 100% utilisation, that would not be sustainable. Many times you employ as many people as you can just because it's cheaper than using more automation. If you need to produce more and can't find employes, you can pay them more. If you can't find enough employes at all, that means price per employee is so high that you can now employ some robots. Yeah, it takes time, but global change in time of employment is also not going to happen overnight.

mstipetic 5y ago

Most of our gains in productivity have been captured by either housing pricing or massive government bureaucracies which serve just to “employ” people and have them duffle paper around. We don’t need to work nearly as much to produce this level of comfort

nightski 5y ago
While I agree we could live more simply, I feel you'd need a lot more to justify your assertions. The fact is we have access to a lot more luxuries than we did in the past. Are they necessary? No by definition. Are they even worth it? Very debatable. But to act like our lives have not changed at all except for house prices going up is dishonest.
- wait_a_minute 5y ago
  100%. Also worth noting from Sowell how house prices did go up, but by comparison the prices per square foot relative to how our parents and grandparents started out are not too bad tbh. (They were all humble and started out in much more meager real estate than many people have now, for example 600 or 1000 or 1200 square foot living conditions vs 2500+ average now per home).
  - birksherty 5y ago
    No point in per square feet if people own home not square feet. If price is up, people can't own home and they are not. This is what matters.
    - simonh 5y ago
      The point is people can afford houses if they are willing to compromise on size, in the way previous generations did. A lot are choosing to rent instead. That’s a choice.
      - mstipetic 5y ago