4 ms·

I think the article makes a good point about the disappearance of service jobs. But then, I'm one of those "the jobs are disappearing, it's time we renegotiated

• jhancock 15y ago
  How would you renegotiate the social contract? Do you have a draft of a plan? If we keep our monetary/debit systems similar to what we have, do you feel there is a need to redistribute equity/money/capital? If so, how would we go about this?
  • sp332 15y ago
    For a very simple start, people who have money are just sitting on it instead of investing it in companies that actually hire people. That means that money tends to go up the ladder and never comes back down. Maybe we can change the "social contract" to get rich people to hire working-class people again.
    • natrius 15y ago
      I've never understood this claim. I presume rich people don't shove money under their mattresses. They invest the money in companies, loan the money to companies, or put the money in banks that loan money to companies and individuals. How is that sitting on money?
      • drumdance 15y ago
        Exactly. Even buying treasury bonds is helpful because much of the money pays federal employees and the military, and the rest goes to the private sector in the form of contracts.
        • Tycho 15y ago
          Not to mention, the recent financial crisis stems to a large extent from banks being 'under-capitalized,' i.e. not enough rich people just leaving their money in an account.
          • snowwindwaves 15y ago
            or the banks lending out every cent they do have
      • sp332 15y ago
        Currently, it's hard for people to get loans. So if rich people buy bonds, the banks won't lend out much of the money. Interest rates are so low, banks wouldn't make much money on the loans, so there's not much incentive to make more loans. And since the inflation rate is hovering around 0, the bank isn't really losing money by just sitting on it, There just isn't any incentive for the banks to make a lot of loans.
        • matwood 15y ago
          Currently, it's hard for people to get loans. It's hard for people with bad credit to get loans, as it should be. People who are unlikely to pay the loans back should not be given them in the first place. In fact, many people who are in trouble now are blaming banks for giving them the money. So which is it? Should money be given freely to anyone or should creditors be selective with who they give loans?
    • notatoad 15y ago
      Why not embrace actual socialism, instead of trying to shoehorn it into capitalism? If your society relies on the rich to hire staff who don't add value, it is essentially privatized welfare.
      • sp332 15y ago
        People in a society have to take care of each other. Otherwise, why have a society at all? Anyway I'm libertarian, but I'm pro-private welfare. (I'm against government welfare.)
    • ramchip 15y ago
      Aren't almost all rich people rich in stocks? Take the richest billionaires: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires . All these people are rich through owning companies; they don't have loads of actual currency, they just own stocks in companies that employ people.
    • yummyfajitas 15y ago
      Simple way to do this: make hiring easier. I know a person who wanted to hire a part time personal assistant, but didn't because the paperwork was ridiculous. The economics weren't great either - you pay tax, spend what's left on a personal assistant, who then winds up paying tax again. One way to boost the economics of hiring would be to allow individuals to hire other individuals (this would mostly be domestic labor) with pre-tax dollars with a commensurate reduction in paperwork. It would cost the government a lot less per job created than most stimulus schemes I've seen proposed.
      • matwood 15y ago
        Simple way to do this: make hiring easier. Exactly. Right now hiring and firing is hard and expensive. One of the pieces of software I've written for my company attempts to put total costs on attrition and it's staggering from a resource perspective. One of the main drivers of outsourcing isn't the employee wage, but the cost of getting rid of a bad employee.
      • econ101 15y ago
        It is odd that we've settled on a system that taxes upwards of 30% percent on things that increase wealth and provide social stability (hiring, working) rather than tax at 1% or 2% things that don't increase wealth and cause social unrest (large private fortunes)
        • protomyth 15y ago
          Large private fortunes provide capital needed to start businesses or local governments bonding to do infrastructure. No capital, no business. Check the FDR taxes on certain types of wealth for serious historic failure and unintended consequences.
          • econ101 15y ago
            FDR taxes were largely about raising income taxes to punitive levels. The opposite of what I was suggesting. The increase in capital generation brought on from 0% income tax would more than compensate for any destruction of existing capital.