Discussing Basic Income from Forbes Article
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@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
This is interesting.
https://newrepublic.com/article/150506/universal-basic-income-future-of-pointless-workI find that article very elitist and snobbish. They totally demean blue collar workers. There is an abundance of well-paying jobs in the trades. Our schools in the USA don't promote trade jobs enough they want everyone to go to a four-year college. My Dad, with only a high school education, started cleaning businesses and eventually turned it into a business where he made over $100,000 a year during the 1980s. He eventually employed other people too. So that "bullshit" job, as one of the people mentioned in that article would say, provided very nicely for my family.
I also see their analysis of the loss of jobs from automation, very one dimensional. To think that the economy won't come up with a solution for it is a little far fetch. While there might be a lot of bullshit jobs in the white-collar world, it is much harder to have a bullshit job where you are actually building/doing something. Also, people are a great resource.
I am not saying there won't be a shift in the economy and we won't see some jobs disappear. This has happened before. There are a lot fewer farriers than there were in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They are still around just a lot less of them because of the automobile. But with the automobile came the need for gas stations, mechanics, car salesmen, etc which people eventually transferred into.
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@penguinwrangler The first few sentences of the article explain everything that is needed to know about the article and the person writing the story down.
Some years ago, I had a colleague who would frequently complain that he didn’t have enough to do. He’d mention how much free time he had to our team, ask for more tasks from our boss, and bring it up at after-work drinks. He was right, of course, about the situation: Although we were hardly idle, even the most productive among us couldn’t claim to be toiling for eight (or even five, sometimes three) full hours a day. My colleague, who’d come out of a difficult bout of unemployment, simply could not believe that this justified his salary. -
@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
My Dad, with only a high school education, started cleaning businesses and eventually turned it into a business where he made over $100,000 a year during the 1980s. He eventually employed other people too. So that "bullshit" job, as one of the people mentioned in that article would say, provided very nicely for my family.
Being a business owner, that's one thing.
I'm willing to bet those he employed did not earn that.
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@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
This is interesting.
https://newrepublic.com/article/150506/universal-basic-income-future-of-pointless-workI find that article very elitist and snobbish. They totally demean blue collar workers. There is an abundance of well-paying jobs in the trades. Our schools in the USA don't promote trade jobs enough they want everyone to go to a four-year college. My Dad, with only a high school education, started cleaning businesses and eventually turned it into a business where he made over $100,000 a year during the 1980s. He eventually employed other people too. So that "bullshit" job, as one of the people mentioned in that article would say, provided very nicely for my family.
To be fair, though, he earned the good income more from being an entrepreneur and CEO, rather than being a blue collar worker, right? I'm not knocking manual labour, it is needed in some cases, but most of it is not needed and only serves to make loads of people do manual labor instead of enjoying their free time.
White collar is the same, how many tech jobs exist just to push buttons?
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@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
I am not saying there won't be a shift in the economy and we won't see some jobs disappear.
The difference is now, for the first time in history, we only need a few people to provide for everyone. We used to always need more jobs to create the stuff for the other people. Now, we don't. Everyone can have cars, houses, computers, video games, television, vacations, good food, etc. without most people going to work at all. That's never been an option before.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
This is interesting.
https://newrepublic.com/article/150506/universal-basic-income-future-of-pointless-workI find that article very elitist and snobbish. They totally demean blue collar workers. There is an abundance of well-paying jobs in the trades. Our schools in the USA don't promote trade jobs enough they want everyone to go to a four-year college. My Dad, with only a high school education, started cleaning businesses and eventually turned it into a business where he made over $100,000 a year during the 1980s. He eventually employed other people too. So that "bullshit" job, as one of the people mentioned in that article would say, provided very nicely for my family.
To be fair, though, he earned the good income more from being an entrepreneur and CEO, rather than being a blue collar worker, right? I'm not knocking manual labour, it is needed in some cases, but most of it is not needed and only serves to make loads of people do manual labor instead of enjoying their free time.
White collar is the same, how many tech jobs exist just to push buttons?
That is the part that a lot of people have troubles with, paying someone anything for them doing nothing productive and instead enjoying their time.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
This is interesting.
https://newrepublic.com/article/150506/universal-basic-income-future-of-pointless-workI find that article very elitist and snobbish. They totally demean blue collar workers. There is an abundance of well-paying jobs in the trades. Our schools in the USA don't promote trade jobs enough they want everyone to go to a four-year college. My Dad, with only a high school education, started cleaning businesses and eventually turned it into a business where he made over $100,000 a year during the 1980s. He eventually employed other people too. So that "bullshit" job, as one of the people mentioned in that article would say, provided very nicely for my family.
To be fair, though, he earned the good income more from being an entrepreneur and CEO, rather than being a blue collar worker, right? I'm not knocking manual labour, it is needed in some cases, but most of it is not needed and only serves to make loads of people do manual labor instead of enjoying their free time.
White collar is the same, how many tech jobs exist just to push buttons?
Nope, he cleaned businesses right along with the people he employed. He was never just an owner.
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@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
This is interesting.
https://newrepublic.com/article/150506/universal-basic-income-future-of-pointless-workI find that article very elitist and snobbish. They totally demean blue collar workers. There is an abundance of well-paying jobs in the trades. Our schools in the USA don't promote trade jobs enough they want everyone to go to a four-year college. My Dad, with only a high school education, started cleaning businesses and eventually turned it into a business where he made over $100,000 a year during the 1980s. He eventually employed other people too. So that "bullshit" job, as one of the people mentioned in that article would say, provided very nicely for my family.
To be fair, though, he earned the good income more from being an entrepreneur and CEO, rather than being a blue collar worker, right? I'm not knocking manual labour, it is needed in some cases, but most of it is not needed and only serves to make loads of people do manual labor instead of enjoying their free time.
White collar is the same, how many tech jobs exist just to push buttons?
Nope, he cleaned businesses right along with the people he employed. He was never just an owner.
Sure, but I know CEOs that take out the trash. Being a working entrepreneur is how you make a business really happen. But it's almost always the CEO work, not the getting in the trenches, that really makes the money. unless, of course, all the employees made six figures doing the same manual work. If not, that's not what was making the real money.
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@penguinwrangler He's certainly not demeaning blue collar jobs.
He is demeaning the useless paper pushing jobs that don't do anything.
Like half of the people at any given office get paid to do.
You know, the paper pushers who do paperwork, then push that pile of paper (real or electronic) down the line for someone else to do more paperwork and then they push that on down the line. The people who have jobs simply because that the boss wont automate, find out that they go to weekly cult meetings together. The people whose entire existence is to do nothing but show up and collect a paycheck. the one that needs constant validation after completing the most menial task. -
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
I am not saying there won't be a shift in the economy and we won't see some jobs disappear.
The difference is now, for the first time in history, we only need a few people to provide for everyone. We used to always need more jobs to create the stuff for the other people. Now, we don't. Everyone can have cars, houses, computers, video games, television, vacations, good food, etc. without most people going to work at all. That's never been an option before.
I think you are wrong:
https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/news/economy/job-openings-unemployed-workers/index.htmlMore jobs than people looking for jobs.
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I flipped burgers when I worked at Burger King, because it made me a better manager. But it was being the manager that paid the bills, not the flipping of the burgers.
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@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler said in Non-IT News Thread:
I am not saying there won't be a shift in the economy and we won't see some jobs disappear.
The difference is now, for the first time in history, we only need a few people to provide for everyone. We used to always need more jobs to create the stuff for the other people. Now, we don't. Everyone can have cars, houses, computers, video games, television, vacations, good food, etc. without most people going to work at all. That's never been an option before.
I think you are wrong:
https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/news/economy/job-openings-unemployed-workers/index.htmlMore jobs than people looking for jobs.
That tells us nothing. The point is that companies are trying to HIRE unneeded work, the number of openings out there isn't relevant, it's how companies hire.
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Same place as an example, when I was at Burger King, our store employed over 20 people, but did the work of less than four people. Most of the employees exists only to make it "look good" to the owners, not to do work. They had nothing to do. They literally got in the way and going down to four made us work faster and better.
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@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler He's certainly not demeaning blue collar jobs.
He is demeaning the useless paper pushing jobs that don't do anything.
Like half of the people at any given office get paid to do.
You know, the paper pushers who do paperwork, then push that pile of paper (real or electronic) down the line for someone else to do more paperwork and then they push that on down the line. The people who have jobs simply because that the boss wont automate, find out that they go to weekly cult meetings together. The people whose entire existence is to do nothing but show up and collect a paycheck. the one that needs constant validation after completing the most menial task.Exactly, I think the guaranteed income stuff attacks white collar 10x more than blue collar. Most blue collar jobs that can be automated, are. White collar, not nearly so.
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@momurda said in Non-IT News Thread:
@penguinwrangler He's certainly not demeaning blue collar jobs.
He is demeaning the useless paper pushing jobs that don't do anything.
Like half of the people at any given office get paid to do.
You know, the paper pushers who do paperwork, then push that pile of paper (real or electronic) down the line for someone else to do more paperwork and then they push that on down the line. The people who have jobs simply because that the boss wont automate, find out that they go to weekly cult meetings together. The people whose entire existence is to do nothing but show up and collect a paycheck. the one that needs constant validation after completing the most menial task.OHHHH...but wait it says "If a cleaner or bus driver doesn’t report for work, it hurts other people. (These Graeber terms “shit” jobs.)" So calling blue collar jobs shit jobs isn't demeaning?
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Look at pharmacists. An entire field that exists only because of a law. The entire field can be replaced by robots and computers and would make medicine safer, cheaper, and faster. But they have laws to guarantee that humans get paid to stand there and do work that is trivial to automate. The entire field is useless work. Every pharmacist has to use a computer to verify everything anyway. The humans just add risk and cost.
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Taxes are similar. Tax reporting could be standardized and made automatic. Tell the government your details, pay your taxes. Same for everyone. But that would destroy an industry. So they don't, they make taxes convoluted so that people essentially have to either buy software or pay accountants to do work that shouldn't exist. It's all busy work just to create jobs.
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Cleaners are interesting in this framework, because cleaning isn't a useless job, we need things to be cleaned. But often the cleaning is done to clean things for people doing useless jobs. If we eliminate, say, 50% of useless paper pushing jobs, how many bus drivers, cleaners, and other roles also disappear because while real themselves, they were ultimately supporting unneeded work?
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
Taxes are similar. Tax reporting could be standardized and made automatic. Tell the government your details, pay your taxes. Same for everyone. But that would destroy an industry. So they don't, they make taxes convoluted so that people essentially have to either buy software or pay accountants to do work that shouldn't exist. It's all busy work just to create jobs.
Sure there are industries that will fade away, happens all the time. To think that the economy won't come up with jobs that don't even exist right now to fill the void is a little ludicrous. I mean Information Technology didn't exist when my parents were in school.
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A key thing to remember is that no matter how much a role earns, no matter how respected it is, no matter how useful it seems, no matter how much companies want to hire, the point is that in the end most jobs result in unnecessary, useless, and sometimes counter productive end results. It might be many steps removed, but that's how they end up.
The idea behind guaranteed basic income is that most people could stop working. And the quality of life would increase or remain steady - for everyone.
