[Cog]

How about we do something even more daring? Let the people who earned the money keep it and spend it how they desire. Poor people don't need the money from the rich since the poor have modest enough needs. Three hots and a cot in a tent will be adequate for their continued existence. Maybe throw in a movie on Friday night after they take their weekly shower.

[AdTheNad]

How about we do something even more daring? Let the people who earned the money keep it and spend it how they desire. Poor people don't need the money from the rich since the poor have modest enough needs. Three hots and a cot in a tent will be adequate for their continued existence. Maybe throw in a movie on Friday night after they take their weekly shower.

What you call earning, when it gets into the extreme levels such as billions, I call being the biggest pirate. They didn't earn or make the land, they didn't earn or make the coal, oil, gas, gold, soil and on and on. They are just the biggest pirates with the biggest force behind them, masquerading as legitimate while showing the ethics of animals.

No one on the planet has ever earnt a billion without taking advantage of cushy government contracts, burning through irreplaceable finite resources or abusing some form of either monopoly or other unfair advantage.

You think sticking a flag in a piece of unexplored land to claim as your own, or just murdering the natives counts as earning, but picking up a welfare check doesn't? Do you think receiving dividends for being born to a wealthy family is earning but being born in a wealthy country and receiving a citizen dividend isn't?

[AgentR11]

However at the same time implement the progressive wealth tax, or at the least the progressive land tax. By progressive I mean 0% on any land worth up to say a couple of million - so middle class people aren't even negatively affected in the slightest, say 1% between 2 and 5 Million, 2% above 5 etc, not necessarily these percentages and figures, but that is the idea.

Now you're in the ballgame, no longer focused on income, but assets. You do have your numbers a bit low on the bottom side, you'll catch a lot more fish than you want, many of whom don't really make piddle, and certainly could "lose the farm" over failing to comply with appropriate reporting and regulatory requirements involved in such a tax. You want to tag people/corporations that are already paying $50k plus in state/local property taxes, folks that must earn high revenue from the property in order to maintain it. They have the wherewithal to not only pay your new tax, but also have the systems available to comply with the necessary reporting requirements.

[jdmartin]

How about we do something even more daring? Let the people who earned the money keep it and spend it how they desire. Poor people don't need the money from the rich since the poor have modest enough needs. Three hots and a cot in a tent will be adequate for their continued existence. Maybe throw in a movie on Friday night after they take their weekly shower.

This is bullshit. Most people themselves "earn" almost nothing, because what you yourself can do is limited. Instead, they leverage other people's labor to make a killing for themselves. Great system if you're one of the few at the top, OK system for a bunch in the middle and Pretty Crappy if you're amongst the supermajority at the bottom. This is the same "job creators" "movers and shakers" etc bullshit we hear non-stop. The wealthy jackoffs NEED the masses to earn their money AND buy their crap, or else they wouldn't be wealthy.

At least Newfie has ideas and suggestions. Maybe there's other, better ideas, but this thread is about a shortened work week and the philosophy of more hours vs. less hours worked and overall benefit to society. This thread was going beautifully until a few people showed up with no ideas of their own, other than the same old crap, and spent all their time attempting to poke holes in suggestions that could at least be talking points. Maybe there's no way to do any of it, but no one will ever know unless it's discussed.

As for the workaholics, I find it sad that they have nothing better to do with their life. The idea of "doing what you love so you never work" is fantasy except for a select few. For everyone else, it's minimizing the time spent doing unpleasantness so you can focus on the pleasant. Even if you're a hardcore doomer on the doomstead, there's going to be a bunch of crap that you hate doing but will need to be done in order for one to survive.

[AgentR11]

As for the workaholics, I find it sad that they have nothing better to do with their life. The idea of "doing what you love so you never work" is fantasy except for a select few. For everyone else, it's minimizing the time spent doing unpleasantness so you can focus on the pleasant. Even if you're a hardcore doomer on the doomstead, there's going to be a bunch of crap that you hate doing but will need to be done in order for one to survive.

If its a fantasy except for a select few, then there is no need for regulatory prohibition on labor. Simply allow it to be possible for those at 62 to stop working. The ones that are "doing unpleasantness", will stop; those that are doing exactly what they want to be doing, won't. There shouldn't be enough of us to undermine the overall effect, if we are a "select few". [it gets old being 3rd SD, "select few", whatever... *NOT* lol]

However, I'm really wondering about this "focus on the pleasant". My observations about retirement, and those who are retired, is that they are, in fact, "doing the unpleasant" *AND* not getting paid for it. If I travel, I expect to get paid for it, and paid well. Socialize or sit and converse? You best have a fat checkbook. Watch TV? I don't even know any of the names of the current sitcoms or movies. Go fish? See Travel. Go sail? See Travel, except I think I have an idea concerning how to make money (low revenue, lower expense) while sailing, so it won't make me quite as angry. Exactly what is it about this "retirement" thing that I am supposed to enjoy?

What's interesting here, is that our system is going exactly in the opposite direction to Newfie's suggestion, making it ever harder for people to retire before 70, even if they wanted to. Every regulation in the work system favors paying overtime or contracting out, as opposed to picking up new hires.

[jdmartin]

If its a fantasy except for a select few, then there is no need for regulatory prohibition on labor. Simply allow it to be possible for those at 62 to stop working. The ones that are "doing unpleasantness", will stop; those that are doing exactly what they want to be doing, won't. There shouldn't be enough of us to undermine the overall effect, if we are a "select few". [it gets old being 3rd SD, "select few", whatever... *NOT* lol]

I don't disagree with this premise. The key is the phrase I highlighted above. If we get that right, then I believe you are correct and that's exactly what will/would happen. I've got a few more years yet till I retire, but I seriously doubt many people that are working their asses off into their 70's want to be doing that - rather, they have nothing to fall back on other than their own back and whatever can be tossed at it.

[Cog]

Why do I need to pay for you to retire at age 62? You have your entire work life to make that happen for yourself without involving seizing my labor and wealth. If you don't want to bother, then that is nothing to me.

[AgentR11]

Well, like it or lump it, we can't get rid of SS, so its just a question of its configuration at this point. They are suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to work after 62, I'm suggesting that such age discrimination is evil, and suggesting an alternative that would largely accomplish their same objective. IF social programs are to encourage people to not work after 62, then they must be sufficient to cover the non-working costs of the lower half of the asset spectrum for whom is not possible to adequate save for retirement.

[Pretorian]

How about we do something even more daring? Let the people who earned the money keep it and spend it how they desire. Poor people don't need the money from the rich since the poor have modest enough needs. Three hots and a cot in a tent will be adequate for their continued existence. Maybe throw in a movie on Friday night after they take their weekly shower.

So who will be paying for the three hots and a cot, showers and movies? And if they will have to slave away for you for that, what would stop them from cracking your industrious kettle open? I mean you do understand that your precious life is less precious for them than it is for you? Or no?

[Pretorian]

Now, if our depression and po and agw finally pile up high enough to kill the marketplace, and I no longer can create more value than I draw in compensation, then I'll bow out gracefully, work the soil or sail the gulf, and generally try to stay out of the way till I croak. But to be excluded from the market by regulatory drivel, I'm going down fighting.

Well there is an easy fix for this. You just refuse to accept part of your compensation that you consider to be unfair. Leave it to the employer/stockholders, I'm sure they would not mind. Furthermore, in fact you can increase your output right now by using the above mentioned advise.
Seriously Agent, if you really think so, and you love what you do, why not work for free? Right now? Think how secure your job would be !
PS I do believe that you make some good stuff, whatever that is.

[Pretorian]

I work in mass transit, which many folks see as a 'green' job. I know that I did for years and eschewed higher paying jobs in other industries that were not as 'worthy' in my opinion. But now I have come to see what I do as akin to building highways. It really isn't fixing anything, just packing people closer and encouraging a higher population density. To what end?

Perhaps I can help you with that. High-density areas usually have lower , or significantly lower birth rates than low-density areas. That is true even in Africa and Haiti. The rich get the best spots, and the poor left with a few square feet to squat on. In the cities there are more infections, and they spread faster and easier than in countryside. Think of AIDS for example -- it is normal to be a slut or a gay in the city, who cares, for the countryside, it might be a problem. Again, stress due to overcrowding along with resulting murders and conflicts, heart attacks, ulcers, premature deaths. I could go on, but i'm sure you get the idea.

[AgentR11]

Well there is an easy fix for this. You just refuse to accept part of your compensation that you consider to be unfair. Leave it to the employer/stockholders, I'm sure they would not mind. Furthermore, in fact you can increase your output right now by using the above mentioned advise.

Its generally not as simple as that. Creation of value is part of the deal; if I'm not creating enough value to justify the particular salary+costs, then hanging around is really just getting in the way. In such a case, I should leave, and either acknowledge that I've ceased being capable of a productive contribution, or produce on my own.

Seriously Agent, if you really think so, and you love what you do, why not work for free?

Because the compensation is a fairly objective measurement of the value produced.

Besides, as the Joker said, "If you're good at something, never do it for free."

[prajeshbhat]

Perhaps I can help you with that. High-density areas usually have lower , or significantly lower birth rates than low-density areas. That is true even in Africa and Haiti. The rich get the best spots, and the poor left with a few square feet to squat on. In the cities there are more infections, and they spread faster and easier than in countryside. Think of AIDS for example -- it is normal to be a slut or a gay in the city, who cares, for the countryside, it might be a problem. Again, stress due to overcrowding along with resulting murders and conflicts, heart attacks, ulcers, premature deaths. I could go on, but i'm sure you get the idea.

The birth rates may be low in high density areas. But their population can still keep on growing.
People from rural areas keep migrating to the urban areas in search of opportunities. When the country is sufficiently industrialized and urbanized, the population start declining. So they start adding young immigrants to their population as we are seeing in USA and Western Europe.

[Newfie]

Seems there is still a problem with posts going up.

Frustrating.

But we are diverging from the central theme about the overall value of sharing the work.

Let me ask this simple question. If we have too much unemployment now why are they raising the retirement age? Doesn't that just make the matter worse by keeping older folks in the job market? So how does raising the retirement age help?

My thought is that if you are working at 65 you are probably pretty productive. If you are hooked into the traces and pulling then they want to keep you there until you drop.

[prajeshbhat]

But we are diverging from the central theme about the overall value of sharing the work.

The problem is that work is a not done for the sake of feeding people or for making this world a better place or whatever the masters tell us the purpose of work is. After 100000 years of progress the world is still a dangerous place and most people are hungry.

What we call work is just a means for the masters of the existing dominant system to expand their empires. The objective is to let the men at the top of the hierarchy get laid as frequently as possible. The entire human potential is employed for the sole purpose that a few 70 somethings in the top 0.001% can keep trying to spread their genes around. Which is tragic because their balls are all shriveled up already. And they are not particularly bright either. Most of them were just born into wealth.

So this is how the system used to work. Talented people waste their entire youth taking orders from these owners of gigantic corporations, harnessing natural resources to build larger and larger machines so that the rich can build larger and larger empires. People form hierarchies to ensure that the empire building is orderly and organized. That is how employment is created. The masters engaged in empire building give orders to the poor. That is it. There is no mysterious invisible hand. Since people at the bottom of the hierarchy are doing most of the actual construction, you also have to make sure that the people at the very bottom never organize and bargain for higher wages or better working conditions. That doesn't help in empire building. Therefore, the union bashing.

If you are looking for work, there are 500 million people in Africa who are starving. Feeding them would be something that a decent society calls work. And sharing that kind of work would be a good idea too. But no. That doesn't help in empire building either. So nobody is going to pay you for feeding the poor.

Unemployment as you see today is not a technical problem. It's a social problem. Peak oil has put a limit on empire building. The masters and confused and dumbfounded. The bets they have been making on the future all their lives are unraveling one by one. They are losing piles and piles of money. They don't know what orders to give. And the governments can think of nothing better to do than to keep bailing out the masters and make them feel rich and relevant.

I don't think problem will not be solved by lowering the retirement age. Unless the people at the very top of the hierarchy figure out how their empires will continue to grow, there will be high unemployment within the system.

[SeaGypsy]

Sociopathology is highly adaptable and is not subject to age restriction. Enjoyable rant Praj Das, but oversimplified.
Thing is, when the game changes, different folks often have 'the edge'. A reshuffle of power deck is already well underway.

[AgentR11]

Can we not bring up starvation in Africa as an example of needing to produce more. Starvation in Africa is a political action, it is a means of warfare, and its as old as human social organization. Even in the locale's with current droughts and/or crop failures, sufficient food is within an easy truck drive of being delivered; if those at the top of the empires in Africa WANTED those people to be fed that is...

As it is, the people at the top over there want them dead.
Thus, the trucks aren't delivering.

I'd also like some examples of these 70 yr old Emperors with at least a dozen genetic children. I suspect your typical cosmetically pleasing sperm donor has a vastly higher propagation rate, no? In fact, I'd suggest that the modern trend is to minimize child count while maximizing the coitus count. To successfully hand off your empire you need to have very few kids, minimizing sources of estate conflict, working them into the organization, so even if it is split between them in some way, the portions they currently run are more than enough to keep young, inexperienced empire builders fully occupied. (lest they take their money to vegas and blow it on drugs, poker, and hookers, not necessarily in that order.)

[Pretorian]

Perhaps I can help you with that. High-density areas usually have lower , or significantly lower birth rates than low-density areas. That is true even in Africa and Haiti. The rich get the best spots, and the poor left with a few square feet to squat on. In the cities there are more infections, and they spread faster and easier than in countryside. Think of AIDS for example -- it is normal to be a slut or a gay in the city, who cares, for the countryside, it might be a problem. Again, stress due to overcrowding along with resulting murders and conflicts, heart attacks, ulcers, premature deaths. I could go on, but i'm sure you get the idea.

The birth rates may be low in high density areas. But their population can still keep on growing.
People from rural areas keep migrating to the urban areas in search of opportunities.

It doesn't matter, the more the merrier. I'd rather have'em excreting in each others' bowls than in the wild. If people were to spread out on Earth evenly they will kill everything bigger than a cockroach before afternoon. Considering how many peasants one tractor can replace , breeding kids for slave labor is probably not a profitable option for yokels anyway. And without villagers supplying human biomass to the cities, they will suffocate too.

As for immigration, please name me one civilized or even a third-world country that will let you in because you are young.

[AgentR11]

Let me ask this simple question. If we have too much unemployment now why are they raising the retirement age? Doesn't that just make the matter worse by keeping older folks in the job market? So how does raising the retirement age help?

Because unemployment is NOT too high right now.
What is too high, is the percentage of people who believe they should be working for wages.

Current process is winnowing them out while also providing means and encouragement for those who should be working for wages, to continue to do so for as long as they feel able.

Just look at current HR practice. You want to hire for a new project? Do you go post and honestly read through resumes? Not a chance in h... You find someone, that knows someone who is currently working full throttle but is interested in a change of scenery. And you snipe them. Which reshuffles the existing productive force, but does not pull anyone off of unemployment until the cycle has run many times and the HR person last in line is looking to pickup a low wage, bottom shelf grunt slot, for which they will receive 5,000 resumes.

[Pretorian]

if you are looking for work, there are 500 million people in Africa who are starving. Feeding them would be something that a decent society calls work.

If you don't mind me asking, why don't YOU do it? All you have to do is pay the farmer, the driver, etc. for their work. No one asks for anything else. Just restrict yourself to your biological minimum, live in a tent, and send the rest of your money to Africa. Sell your house if you have one, that would help greatly.
Besides, what "society" you are talking about? UN? Most people in Africa and everywhere else do not live and die with UN's issues in their minds. Yet UN and it's donors do feed a billion or so of alien and often openly hostile to them humanoids. Why, well that is beyond my understanding.