Why do you have a problem with 50K. Sounds like a fair value, especially when kids today have to spend a shit load of money to get a college degree just so they can even apply for a job. Then you have high cost of living,transportation,etc.. So you think 5 bucks an hour is fair?
No, you get me wrong, I'm ok with any salary which is agreed between employee and employer, and of course 50k is very average one and not good enough for expensive areas in US(not joking). I'm talking about overall erosion of the approach to work, which comes to theories about underemployment of growing population, restricted Earth resources, etc. All that bullshit. There is a lot of living space and lot of resources for twice as today Earth population(if not more). The problem is you - as mankind - have to work to unlock the resources and make the living standards better, but instead of that we're all trading .
I understand your point. But I think you overlooked a couple areas. First, household chores and "paid" work aren't equatable. The total amount of housework necessary to maximize living standards is finite. In the productive sector, it's nearly infinite. After a homemaker has washed the floors, vacuumed the house, cooked the meal, washed the dishes, finished the laundry, cut the grass, fixed the roof, polished the silverware, etc. There's not much left. It's done. There's an upper limit on how much possible "work" a homemaker can accomplish to maximize their standard of living, within that homestead. Now take an economy. What tasks must be achieved before living standards are maximized for the human experience, in total? Before humanity can sit on their duffs like the homemaker and truly declare their work "done for the day"? The eradication of disease? Space travel? Universal literacy? Universal healthcare? The end of poverty? Material abundance? Free energy? Total knowledge of the physical world? What about recreational objectives, like high per capita travel? Appreciation of the arts? Community-centric lifestyles? Or high leisure time? Humanity isn't even close to half these objectives. And it's for that reason the economy continues to work, because people continually strive to incrementally improve the lot they have, motivated by the hope of attaining a better life. Our collective life on earth could be much, much better, even though we've come very, very far. The objective reality is that progress is undeniable, and humans undeniably want to participate in that progress. Which is why most humans engage in the real economy via employment, so that they too can consume the fruits producers have innovated which makes their lot better! It's why the economy works. Producers make better things. And workers exchange their time to buy those better things that improve their quality of life. As for the assertion there are reasonable limits on material abundance. Escalades the size of Mac Trucks or 10,000 sq ft homes on every block. No, that's not right. Again, absolute product size is not the hallmark of technological progress. It's innovation, quality and functionality. Homes 50 years from now will probably be the same size, but fabricated out of higher quality materials, incorporating more unique and visually appealing architecture, off-the-grid power technology, safety features like tornado and earthquake resistant structures, mass floor/wall heating.etc. All that for the same price a house costs today. And that will be standard. That's what progress looks like. Look at all the gadgetry, gizmos and functionality incorporated into todays car, compared to 50 years ago. They're light years ahead in terms of engineering, mileage, safety and functionality. At least the Japanese are. That's how it works. Competition drives the hand of innovation while restraining prices. So todays modern man can afford a new car, that 50 years ago, would have bought a car of only half the value. Or 100 years ago, 1/10th the value (Model-T)! All this to say: as long are people are willing to work for all the lifestyle improvements they want, the economy will provide the means of employment for them to earn the necessary income. When people work more, they produce more, earn more income, and spend more. The inverse is also true. The only long-term limitation here is robotics, when, if introduced, could decimate the need for human employment because robots would serve as a neo-slave class making human labor obsolete. But we are nowhere near that point. In the short-term, Depressions happen. Yes. But usually, they are the result of destructive monetary and trade policies that distort or export wealth. Free trade killed our industrial base. And so to it, tens of millions of jobs. Fiat bubbles were introduced to gloss over that fact (the introduction of FIRE-based economy) which destroyed the average consumers wealth by locking-in sky-high debt for tulip bulbs that had no real value. Going forward, discretionary incomes are gutted, killing present demand, and therefore, employment. What we're seeing right now is the aftermath of the housing/banking bubble - massive losses in private sector wealth, which translates to curtailed spending, and therefore employment, going forward. That is to say, the unemployment problem isn't the result of over-productiveness. Rather, the culprit is free trade policies and recursive monetary bubbles which literally destroy private sector wealth and retard future economic activity.
You might want to explain to this lady how her reality is different than your description of the world: http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277918176&sr=8-1
Hey Nitro. I enjoyed your earlier post to me in the thread. I will respond tonight. No disrespect intended. I'm familiar with the plight of the working poor. Having been poor and sidelined for most of my twenties, I know what it's like. I quit a decent telcom job in my late 20's to pursue trading. Burned through my seed capital quick, then worked a menial evening job to pay the bills so I could trade nights. 80 hour weeks for 2 years after that. This is year 7. Happy I persevered... I stand by what I wrote earlier. Destructive trade, monetary and tax policy is the number#1 threat to economic activity and citizen livelihood. Illegals suppress wages making unskilled work unaffordable for most Americans. Chindia sucked up millions of factory jobs. Tax policy and endless Big Government forces an enormous burden on small business and wage earners, making it that much harder to earn a living. The problem is Government. Not the free market. The free market is what brought us this far. It's the Governments heavy-handed attempt to regulate, bailout and reward every Special Interest group and 'disenfranchised' voter that is the real culprit for our dying economy. Under normal conditions, people have money, and will spend it on items to enhance their lifestyle. That fuels demand, production and employment. When external conditions kill private sector wealth - like excessive taxation, outsourcing and repetitive bubbles - money is scarce, demand withers, and unemployment sky-rockets. The notion "machines" are primarily responsible for destroying employment isn't really correct - at least, not yet - because the cost savings enjoyed by the broader economy from having that machine implemented, far outweigh the lost wages from the humans that are replaced by it. I explained this in another thread. Perhaps somebody read it there. Basically, machines save customers more than the wages of the workers it replaced. That savings, is then spent in other industries creating more jobs than the original jobs lost. In cases where demand is highly elastic, automation can lead to more jobs in the same company since a reduction in product cost spurs even higher demand, and thus, investment.
No, the point was completely understood. I read the entire post about 1920 and 1960 and 2000. You made a conclusion that was illogical and unfounded. My response was clarifying that you cannot cherry pick what you consider as revolutionary and then stand on your conclusion as if it was the truth. And the years (1920, 1960 and 2000) are arbitrary. Changes are not based on certain decades or years. Time is a continuum. Even a revolution can take a long time to filter out to everyone, and there will always be people who do not even benefit from the change or may be negatively affected.