Behind the Wall Street Protest

October 12 2011, 19:22:01 UTC 9 years ago

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I understand why someone would want $200 to do my lawn care (which is considerably more than mowing.) The last time I hired a service it was $800 for one visit but that did include quite a lot.

My point is, whether it costs them that much to do it or not, it is not worth it to me to buy it. I can completely agree that they ought to get $200 for that service. However, I'm not interested in PAYING $200 for that service. I will simply not purchase that service.

Sometimes instead of foregoing the product we buy a lower-quality version. I would rather buy wild-caught salmon than farmed salmon, but I do not value it enough to pay the price they charge for wild-caught salmon. Someone else might, but I don't. So I either buy farm-raised salmon or I don't buy salmon.

What I hear people saying is that a worker in Kansas needs $40,000 to live comfortably. But no one actually wants their labor $40,000 worth. They can obtain a reasonable substitute for $20,000 OR they would simply forego buying the goods and services if they didn't value it $40K worth.

The market sets prices, I agree. It's a complex mechanism that involves hundreds of individual choices at any given moment. What is the correct price of wild-caught salmon? The price where, if it goes higher sales will fall and if it goes lower profits will fall. Competition will jump in if salmon is set at any different price.

But what happens if the price people are willing to pay for salmon is less than the cost of production? The answer there is that the fisherman sells his salmon at a loss and probably doesn't go out fishing again anytime soon.

The price you WANT to charge, the salary you WANT to get for your labor, is not related to what you CAN charge other than you get veto vote. You can determine whether you're willing to work at that price. You can't compel anyone to HIRE you at that price.

So here we are in the United States with a workforce that has a dropping value. I cannot even conceive of a price low enough to make it worthwhile for me to give up Quickbooks and Excel and hire a bookkeeper to do paper ledgers. All across the country the same thing is happening. People go to the marketplace with their skillset and no one wants to pay them what they think they're worth.

Workplace participation is the lowest in history. Vast numbers of our population are unemployed.

This is a REAL PROBLEM. All sorts of levels of real problems!

I UNDERSTAND that it's a problem.

I just don't have a clue what to do about it.

How would you put the middle class back to work?

October 12 2011, 19:40:23 UTC 9 years ago

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I don't think this is just a problem with reduced supply of jobs by multinational organizations that can just put their factories in another country where the labor is cheaper. I think the problem is that businesses can't sell because nobody is confident in buying. The nation's money isn't in the lower half of the system any more... perhaps much of the world's money, if you look at Europe and other regions.

If the resources don't exist, they can't be used, and people fall into a more survival-focused mindset. The only way out is to find a new way to obtain necessary resources, or otherwise change the system (that is, the environment rather than the nature of markets) so that more effort flows where it's needed for a person to survive.

Race to the Bottom

October 12 2011, 20:06:43 UTC 9 years ago

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If the resources don't exist, they can't be used, and people fall into a more survival-focused mindset. The only way out is to find a new way to obtain necessary resources, or otherwise change the system (that is, the environment rather than the nature of markets) so that more effort flows where it's needed for a person to survive.

I agree with this. But change the system to WHAT? Do we tax the 1% and give everyone a subsistence-level allowance, a human dividend? But doesn't that just devalue our currency which has already lost substantial value since it became a fiat dollar in 1971?

And what does it do to human dignity to be GIVEN the basic goods of human life?

And what does it do to immigration if one society offers this and the others don't?

And what does it do to our balance of trade when the other countries get sick of loaning us money to live so much better than them?

And what does it do to the richest 1% if you seize their money?

These are real issues and I'm not sure we've got a plan that can work. Any ideas on how to avoid a race to the bottom?

Another person in another thread suggested tariffs. I'm a bit dubious, but still listening.

Re: Race to the Bottom

terrycloth

October 12 2011, 21:21:49 UTC 9 years ago

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Free social services won't necessarily devalue the dollar, or lead to an imbalance in trade -- not if the whole point is that you need to do it because all the work is being done by robots now.

The taxes needed for it probably aren't excessive, if the level of support you're offering is minimal. And by 'not excessive' I mean 'we had them in the past and it worked out okay'.

Human dignity and immigration are real concerns, though. Especially since the first turns into crime pretty easily.

OTOH telling people to go fuck themselves in the hopes that they'll get desperate and come up with some new worthwhile thing to do (which is the default option if you *don't* provide services, and is what has actually been working pretty well until recently, and I think it's a bit early to go all gloom and doom on its prospects) also leads to crime.

Anyway -- the optimistic viewpoint would be, if people didn't need money to live, they might be willing to work for lower wages. The pessimistic viewpoint is that if people don't need money to live NO ONE is going to do certain jobs which are just that unpleasant. x.x

Maybe those are jobs for robots?

What would be a good solution to uneven distribution of wealth?

October 12 2011, 21:38:29 UTC 9 years ago

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A lot of the problem seems to be about wealth distribution.

If we provide a basic subsistence level income for 80% of the population and 20% still have jobs then we continue to have unacceptable levels of wealth distribution.

Wealth is the accumulation of income over time: someone who makes very little and can save very little will save it in a low-income-producing vehicle like a savings account or maybe their house. Someone with more income will save in those places PLUS a pension plan. Someone with even MORE income will save in both those places PLUS some riskier stocks.

Over time, the rich get richer just by mathematical progression: if you all start out with the same $4,000 to invest and one invests it at 5% and the other invests it at 10% this will happen.

Same story with someone who makes $20K/year and another person makes $120K/year. The rich will get richer every time, even if they spend every dime they have, because inevitably some of their spending will be on tangibles that they will continue to have.

I don't think anyone is REALLY all that upset about the amount of money one person can acquire in their lifetimes, though: I think they're mostly upset about dynastic wealth. (I could be wrong.)

I feel quite gloom and doomy about people wanting to solve wealth disparity. It isn't a problem that can STAY solved. The highly skilled or higher risk-taking will get richer again by next week.

But I like that you are okay with waiting for the creative destruction to work its way through. I like that idea. We really do need to have some new energy solutions and perhaps that bubble of spending will inflate our middle class again. That would be nice.

I think we've been sick so long now that we've forgotten that we can ever be well again.

Re: What would be a good solution to uneven distribution of wealth?

October 12 2011, 22:43:20 UTC 9 years ago

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I'm not even mad at millionaires. I'm angry at people whose wealth does nobody any good, and those entities (mostly corporations) refusing to support the societies which spawned them, instead drawing off as much wealth as possible while directly intervening to remove and alter laws that require giving any back.

The rich will always be rich, as long as they learned how. But you can't stay rich forever, neither individually nor dynastically, in a society that's otherwise starving. The people will demand what you have.

I could be happy with a hundred thousand dollars. I could support myself for almost ten years on that if I had to; with a few good investments, perhaps much longer. But nobody's going to outright give that to me. I don't mind working for it, but what does it mean when I don't live in a society where I'll ever be able to earn it?

Re: What would be a good solution to uneven distribution of wealth?

9 years ago

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Re: What would be a good solution to uneven distribution of wealth?

9 years ago

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terrycloth

October 12 2011, 23:04:04 UTC 9 years ago

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After a certain point excessive wealth that someone personally 'earned' gets into the same 'no, they don't really deserve that' category that dynastic wealth does. IMO anyway.

And one generation of dynastic wealth doesn't bother me at all, since everyone wants to care for their kids. OTOH taxing inheritance wouldn't stop one generation of dynastic wealth because people can care for their kids by actually caring for them while they're alive.

Plus the person who 'deserves' the money is dead at that point and doesn't care who gets it.

OTOOH trying to limit people to what they deserve probably isn't going to lead to a world that you want to live in. Especially if who deserves what is determined by a political process. I can't see that working any better than the chaos of the market.

So, really, I'd want a solution based on practicality and not morality. v.v

Well...

9 years ago

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Re: Well...

9 years ago

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9 years ago

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Re: Race to the Bottom

October 12 2011, 22:12:47 UTC 9 years ago

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I think the first thing we can do is to codify in law that corporations are not persons. Every person has the right to support causes that are important to them; this does not mean that every person has equal resources to devote to that support. For-profit corporations in particular have no obligation to humans aside from the ones that run them (that is, sit on their boards and operate at their highest levels). Everything a for-profit corporation does is about profit, and whether they can get away with something.

Even not-for-profit corporations end up suspect in this.

One good thing we could do would be to reduce the impact the wealthy have on elections, by reforming election funding and adjusting our electoral system to a form of proportional representation (instead of first-past-the-post). This would both give us one vote per person instead of one vote per dollar, and provide us with a greater variety of views instead of two increasingly polarized factions moving in the same general direction.

Electoral reform, yes, but let's drop the corporate issue

October 12 2011, 22:25:03 UTC 9 years ago Edited: October 12 2011, 22:25:26 UTC

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Corporations are ENTITIES. That is what "incorporating" means, it means that an association of persons joined together to form an entity that exists apart from them, with unlimited life and transferability of ownership.

Corporations are derivatives of people: persons one step removed. They exist as a tool of persons.

The concept of Corporate personhood is tied up with the concept of campaign contributions, right? I mean, your issue isn't that corporations don't get jail time or get executed for murder, it's that they have rights as entities that you wouldn't give them?

If that's the case then we can leave corporate law alone and concentrate on campaign reform and the electoral system changes you propose. I think these both have a lot of merit. The corporate personhood thing just muddies the waters in my opinion.

Almost every person I know is a shareholder in a corporation. They and us are the same. Every CEO run amuck gets to do this because the corporate shareholders - their BOSSES - don't show up to bitchslap them at the annual meetings. Go look at your retirement savings: own any stock? Show up at an annual meeting lately? My point is that we as a citizenry are SO CULPABLE in the misdeeds of corporations that it's fruitless to pretend it was only evil CEOs (selling us the goods we were demanding to buy of our own free will.)

No, let's leave the corporation stuff out of it. But, yes, electoral reform. Got any more on that? Links?

Re: Electoral reform, yes, but let's drop the corporate issue

October 12 2011, 22:36:51 UTC 9 years ago

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>>The concept of Corporate personhood is tied up with the concept of campaign contributions, right? I mean, your issue isn't that corporations don't get jail time or get executed for murder, it's that they have rights as entities that you wouldn't give them?<<

I find that corporate personhood has far more problems than campaign ones. They have the advantages but not the disadvantages of personhood. So they are encouraged and rewarded for doing things that would be considered psychopathic in a human being. This harms everyone.

>>Almost every person I know is a shareholder in a corporation. They and us are the same.<<

Well, there's a key reason for the differences of opinion. Almost nobody I know is a shareholder. They don't have that kind of money. What retirement? People who aren't making enough to live on -- or who are unemployed altogether -- don't have the luxury of retirement. I think that's wrong.

>>But, yes, electoral reform. Got any more on that? Links?<<

Let's see ...
http://tcf.org/elections
http://www.fairvote.org/
http://www1.american.edu/ia/cfer/

Re: Electoral reform, yes, but let's drop the corporate issue

9 years ago

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Re: Electoral reform, yes, but let's drop the corporate issue

October 12 2011, 22:49:42 UTC 9 years ago

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Actually, I do support a more severe punishment for corporations that deliberately kill people. Let's not even bother with fines; save that for the wrongful death lawsuits. Instead, halt operations at those sites where the corporation deliberately took actions that led to death, such as refusing to provide or maintain safety equipment. Confiscate and auction off the property involved if necessary.

Yes, that would punish the workers; but it also provides an incentive for the workers to push the company for better behavior alongside the shareholders.

As for links to material concerning electoral reform and proportional representation, I don't have any I can dig up offhand. I can point to Australia's electoral system and say they do it pretty close to right as far as counting the votes and determining who will serve.

Re: Electoral reform, yes, but let's drop the corporate issue

9 years ago

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Re: Electoral reform, yes, but let's drop the corporate issue

9 years ago

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October 12 2011, 20:09:01 UTC 9 years ago

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Part of what I was getting at isn't just that the supply of jobs left to go elsewhere, it's that those jobs simply are not NEEDED. One person can do the work of 100 now. That one person has a paycheck and 99 don't.

That's what I was telling you about Quickbooks and Excel: those jobs don't need humans anymore.

The jobs that *do* need humans tend to be things like food prep and wiping the bottoms of 90 year olds in nursing homes.

houseboatonstyx

October 12 2011, 22:08:55 UTC 9 years ago

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Well, don't forget the work that the software and hardware people are doing to make Excel keep working.

But overall I agree. Imo one problem is this idea of The Holy Job. Spend some large amount on 'creating jobs' -- when it would be cheaper to just GIVE that money to the workers direct.

October 12 2011, 22:17:19 UTC 9 years ago Edited: October 12 2011, 22:17:38 UTC

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A few things happen when you just give everyone an allowance.

One thing that happens is that the shitty jobs don't get done. I have a farmer friend who wants to have some brush cut and burned to clear a field. She is willing to pay $10/hour for someone to do this work, which involves a brush hog for the physically awful parts. But she can't find anyone who will work at brush removal for $10/hour.

Another thing that happens is that whatever you suggest is not enough. It's not just about escaping the perils of starvation, exposure or illness. $15K/person will do that. But the complaint happening right now is about UNEVEN wealth. As one person put it to me, "everyone should get to live like Paris Hilton". Not that the standard of living on the planet earth should normalize across the continents with a "middle class" level of income for all, but that each American should live in luxury unimaginable to most of mankind throughout history.

Curing want is much easier than curing envy.

The last problem is that the GDP falls. Working for a living is HARD. If you were *sure* that you would get 3 squares and a warm place to sleep and maybe cable TV and health care when you need it, why bother? I mean, REALLY why bother? So it's not just those $15K/year jobs that people would give up, but also the $30K/year jobs (that eventually LEAD to the $60K/year jobs.)

Go study the U.S.S.R.. It turns out that "why bother" is a really compelling argument for staying home and drinking vodka.

9 years ago

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Well...

9 years ago

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