Feudalism
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A vicious cycle describes a system featuring positive feed back, whereas what you are describing is a negative feed back loop, better described as ‘self-correcting’. If a person who currently has a job chooses to stop working, that job goes back on the market. We have already agreed that it is desirable to have a job, thus we can assume that market forces will supply a new candidate for the position.
It's also desirable to get more for less. Pretty much everyone believes that. That's the vicious cycle promoted by positive feedback. Obviously, nothing is as simple as that, but we're doing a relatively simple thought experiment.
Not everyone believes a job is a good thing, and even among those who do, the reasons are different. It's certainly possible that there will always be someone willing to work for the benefit of others. I think there will still be other negative consequences. Those working are almost certainly going to resent the people able to survive only because others are forced to support them.
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Ok, well here's what I think would happen: the people who aren't able to get jobs will envy the ones who are “why should I be poorer than they are, just because they're stronger/smarter/harder-working?” and invent Marxism.
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It's also desirable to get more for less. Pretty much everyone believes that. That's the vicious cycle promoted by positive feedback. Obviously, nothing is as simple as that, but we're doing a relatively simple thought experiment.
Well, who would vote (with ballot or wallet) for the opposite: getting less for more? They might be keen on giving less for more to others, but they're rarely keen on being on the receiving end of that transaction.
The problem with automating lots of low-level jobs to the point where there are no non-automated alternatives is that you end up with lots of people with nothing else to do. That causes all sorts of trouble (e.g., a proportion of them will decide to get involved in criminal enterprises of one sort or another). You can't just say “well, they should get high-skill jobs” because many people are thoroughly unsuited for such tasks.
I'm not sure what we ought to do instead. Ideally, as a society we'd find new low-skill jobs to occupy people who can't take up high-skill jobs, but that doesn't seem to be happening at a high enough rate to prevent mass unemployment. The alternatives appear to be not as nice, but we collectively lack the wit to make them happen it seems.
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Well, who would vote (with ballot or wallet) for the opposite: getting less for more? They might be keen on giving less for more to others, but they're rarely keen on being on the receiving end of that transaction.
Yes, it's typically voting for other people to have less in order to give more to those who have less.
The problem with automating lots of low-level jobs to the point where there are no non-automated alternatives is that you end up with lots of people with nothing else to do.
Yep. But no one really wants to go back. And while the idea of a permanent underclass is really horrific, there doesn't seem to be a way around it, short of making everyone worse off.
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Yes, it's typically voting for other people to have less in order to give more to those who have less.
Or voting for those who have less to give more to those who have more.
Either way, something stinks. (I prefer to keep the amount of rioting in the streets down. YMMV.)
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I'm not sure what we ought to do instead. Ideally, as a society we'd find new low-skill jobs to occupy people who can't take up high-skill jobs, but that doesn't seem to be happening at a high enough rate to prevent mass unemployment. The alternatives appear to be not as nice, but we collectively lack the wit to make them happen it seems.
i think I may have an answer for this, and it may even be tried if the economy gets bad enough: bring back the small family farm. People were forced off the farms so that they'd go work in factories during the industrial revolution; they might go back if the incentives are right.
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Yes, we will definitely see a lot of movement from high cost properties to lower cost properties. But this is going to have a big, and inefficient impact. Lower population densities are bad for economies of scale.
Another possible solution is entrepreneurship from the underclass. But that isn't so easy. Putting in the hours to start a business when you're working full time or getting laid off is really hard. This might work for maybe one percent of the poor.
The problem is that people aren't fractional. A person either works an 8 hour day (or more), or they work none and end up starving or in the underclass. Hours are fractional, and they need to be treated as such, in marginal terms instead of being treated as discrete blocks of 8.
And this is why I support a shorter work week. At least, the economic distortion introduced by treating time in discrete blocks will be lessened by having smaller blocks. Demand for workers will go up. Unemployment will go down. Aggregate demand will go up, as there would be more consumers.
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Yes, we will definitely see a lot of movement from high cost properties to lower cost properties. But this is going to have a big, and inefficient impact. Lower population densities are bad for economies of scale.
If you're only looking at the dollars, this is definitely a bad thing. If you've been to Starbucks, on the other hand, you know that quality can be hard to scale. Compare produce (especially tomatoes) from a local farmer's market to what you would get at Walmart, to give you another example. My point is it wouldn't be a total loss.
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CUE BOOMZILLA
Yeah, irrational things like progressive income tax
As someone living in a place with a lot of progressive income tax, it's fucking irrational and actually disincentivises me to try and earn more.
But hey, we've got a progressive income tax and a GST. Fucked coming and going.
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As someone living in a place with a lot of progressive income tax, it's fucking irrational and actually disincentivises me to try and earn more.
Are you saying that you are in a situation where you could do more work and end up with less cash-in-hand? Because that is bad, and I definitely feel that such circumstances should be avoided. Another place this tends to occur is for people on welfare, who frequently have an earnings limit beyond which their income support is cut off completely. That is not ideal.
Or are you saying that you could still make more money by doing more work, but the thought of paying more taxes makes you so angry that you choose not to, out of spite? Because you are the one being irrational, in this hypothetical scenario.
Or is it that diminishing returns have led to a situation where you choose to do a certain amount of work, and no more? Because everyone else in this thread is complaining about being induced to work more and more hours per week, so why are complaining about being in a place where the system actually works?
f you're only looking at the dollars, this is definitely a bad thing. If you've been to Starbucks, on the other hand, you know that quality can be hard to scale. Compare produce (especially tomatoes) from a local farmer's market to what you would get at Walmart, to give you another example. My point is it wouldn't be a total loss.
Creation of high quality goods to incentivize people to work hard to improve their quality of life above (in my opinion) some baseline is a very important problem. However, it is the precise problem to which the existent of a free market is the perfect solution. Trying to force things will only make things worse.
Keeping people alive and fit to engage in the free market, on the other hand, is a different kind of problem.
Filed under: Free as in free choice, not free as in free-to-play
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Are you saying that you are in a situation where you could do more work and end up with less cash-in-hand?
Yep. If my earnings tick over a threshold value for the week, I go up a tax bracket and am taxed more per dollar, ending up earning less money after tax than I would've had if I was getting paid just under that threshold value.
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That's loopy. The higher tax level ought to only be paid on the amount earned over the threshold. (That's how income taxes work in the UK, which is why the headline rate of 40% doesn't matter to most people as much as it appears at first glance.)
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That's loopy. The higher tax level ought to only be paid on the amount earned over the threshold. (That's how income taxes work in the UK, which is why the headline rate of 40% doesn't matter to most people as much as it appears at first glance.)
Not bought a house in the UK have you?
Rate of SDLT (percentage of the total purchase price) [emphasis mine]
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If you're only looking at the dollars, this is definitely a bad thing. If you've been to Starbucks, on the other hand, you know that quality can be hard to scale. Compare produce (especially tomatoes) from a local farmer's market to what you would get at Walmart, to give you another example. My point is it wouldn't be a total loss.
If you had asked me, I would have lumped this in with making stuff worse for everyone. The small family farm is a lot less efficient and requires a fuck ton of work compared to more modern methods. Most people can't afford to live off of local farmer's market levels of effort (and maintain their standard of living in other areas), and trying to scale that to replace the supermarket wouldn't scale the quality of bespoke produce like that.
I'm sure there would be exceptions, and the more optimistic among us might point to those as the silver lining of the decline of our civilization.
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US income tax works this way too, despite rampant rumors to the contrary. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/marginaltaxrate.asp
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We're definitely in silver lining territory here. A drastic change of some sort is inevitable, as the current policy of relying on credit expansion to drive economic growth is unsustainable.
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Yep. If my earnings tick over a threshold value for the week, I go up a tax bracket and am taxed more per dollar, ending up earning less money after tax than I would've had if I was getting paid just under that threshold value.
You work a regular development job with a regular salary? You only get the higher tax rate on the portion over the bracket threshold. The rest is still at the lower rate.There may be circumstances where this is not the case, but I haven't delved terribly deep.
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I think @trithne is in Australia, and I'm not familiar with their tax code. But nothing in tax codes are simple, and at certain thresholds in the US, different things kick in or are phased out. If you get to the Alternative Minimum Tax, for instance, you lose out a lot (all?) itemized deductions.
Then, again, part of the issue may be how withholding is done vs the ultimate rate. I note he talks about earnings per week. Interest free loans to the government suck.
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Interest free loans to the government suck.
Which is why many places have penalties if you don't have enough withholding, that way if you decide not to give an interest free loan they can make it up later in a lump sum.
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People earn the money for the benefit of their children (if they have them).
That's why the estate tax is unpopular.
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They should just let the village take over and be done with it.
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The problem for us, as I see it, and which I think you're maybe dancing around, is that technological improvement is creating an underclass of people who are apparently incapable of doing the higher skilled jobs that the technology brings.
So people are becoming obsolete?
It also deprecates jobs, up to the point that there simply aren't enough jobs for everyone because "the robots took it away". And, with the system that requires you to work to survive, they are of course angry at this, while in fact we should all celebrate this. I mean, do we really want to say that shoveling shit is something humans should do instead of a pumping station?
Uppity humans wouldn't be willing to do it anymore anyway.
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So people are becoming obsolete?
Seems like some of them are (from a productive-member-of-society perspective). I guess if they're actually stupid enough that they can't learn some sort of skill, they really are. I suspect most are not actually that stupid, but haven't encountered enough incentives to make the effort to make themselves useful to the rest of us.
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Yep. If my earnings tick over a threshold value for the week, I go up a tax bracket and am taxed more per dollar, ending up earning less money after tax than I would've had if I was getting paid just under that threshold value.
I got about a 50% raise last year when I switched jobs. It sounded like a great deal, except it bumped me up a tax bracket and my final paycheck is only about 10% higher. And that part really sucks since I moved to a new city and my vehicle property taxes went up, car insurance went up, and my rent quadrupled.
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I got about a 50% raise last year when I switched jobs. It sounded like a great deal, except it bumped me up a tax bracket and my final paycheck is only about 10% higher.
Sounds like over aggressive tax withholding.
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It's like iterated prisoners dilemma. Trying to leave a better world for your children is seen as a worse option than trying to make more money for them.
I would prefer if we could break out of the whole stupid cycle, but I don't see any way to make that possible :(
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It's more like a stag hunt.
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As someone living in a place with a lot of progressive income tax, it's fucking irrational and actually disincentivises me to try and earn more.
Really? Hopefully you live in a different country than the US, because the "you'll make less money by making more money" bullshit is a bunch of FUD spread to scare voters into voting and/or clamoring for lowering taxes on the wealthier classes (which is hilarious because easily 75% of those voters will never make enough money to even sniff the next tax bracket).
I got about a 50% raise last year when I switched jobs. It sounded like a great deal, except it bumped me up a tax bracket and my final paycheck is only about 10% higher. And that part really sucks since I moved to a new city and my vehicle property taxes went up, car insurance went up, and my rent quadrupled.
Despite the exaggeration, it's still higher. Come back when you would actually turn down making more money on some silly principal against paying higher taxrates.
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All that said - if taxes were raised, I'd probably piss and moan about it. If they were lowered, I likely would not complain (I live in the US, so this is a US viewpoint). I don't see higher or lower taxes being a very effective fix to anything any more than a higher/lower minimum wage is. Changing the income tax scale would have at least some effect, but what good could that effect ever really be, since a large number of the people that are struggling and need the help are the ones that already barely or don't pay income taxes as it is.
There really would have to be a lot more comprehensive tax change, to all forms of tax, and damn are there a lot of them. If I had an answer, I'd run for office. If the answer were easy, someone would have already come up with it already. But in my personal experience though, almost every person in every country complains about their taxes, including the people that hardly have to pay any, as well as the people that make so much that the tax doesn't matter!
So... I am hopefully more difficult to please on the tax issue than the sims in Sim City 2000.
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Not bought a house in the UK have you?
Fortunately for me, I was not talking about taxes on housing purchases (where the UK is very fucked up) but rather on income.
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Trying to leave a better world for your children is seen as a worse option than trying to make more money for them.
I don't see these as conflicting goals at all.
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That's true, but when they do come into conflict, one of them's going to be seen as the obvious better option.
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Only to those who are fit from an evolutionary perspective.
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Christians don't like money?
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I'm totally lost now.
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Me too, sorry.
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I guess what I had in my imagination was that if inheritance were not supported by our legal system, the only option available would be to improve the world around (or at least your own country). I mean, there's a sense in which something that is only given away after you die is not really ‘voluntarily transferred’ at all.
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People would just give the stuff to their kids before they die. This actually happens now, through instruments like trusts.
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True, but it would at least be a step in the right direction, imo. I mean, if someone didn't arrange something like that before they died, you've got to wonder how much they really wanted their potential heirs to have it.
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Actually, that sounds really capricious to me. The really rich people that so bother you have plenty of time and resources to arrange that sort of thing.
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Yeah, I get what you're saying (I hope): that it would mean basically squat in terms of raw numbers (right?) but the goal here is to weaken the assumption that creating large estates to be passed down through generations is the default way of doing things.
I mean, the one specific rich person that bothers me the most, had a terrible relationship with and never saw a penny while their parents were alive. You've got to wonder that maybe if the parenting were a bit better, they actually would have been a suitable person to transfer ownership of the company to, and the parents might have been happy to intentionally make that decision.
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Yeah, I get what you're saying (I hope): that it would mean basically squat in terms of raw numbers (right?)
I'm saying that I find your idea of preventing voluntary wealth transfer morally repulsive.
I mean, the one specific rich person that bothers me the most, had a terrible relationship with and never saw a penny while their parents were alive.
Thanks. This explains a lot.
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No exaggeration, but I forgot to mention I switched states too and my new state has a much higher state income tax.
I didn't WANT to move, I was laid off from my old job and it was in a rural area where there was exactly ONE software dev position within 100 miles, mine. (okay, it was actually three, but all three of us were let go because the bosses decided they didn't want to write software after all).
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That sucks. Just remember, declining quality of life is going to affect us all until the boomers die off and their inflationary spending ends.
At least we have something to look forward to. If we live that long.
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I read a fun story called Riders of the Purple Wage once. It was about humanity with no want. Basically only around 20% of people were willing and able to create art, crafts and beauty, and the other 80% were just fat, drunken slobs mindlessly consuming.
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Basically only around 20% of people were willing and able to create art, crafts and beauty, and the other 80% were just fat, drunken slobs mindlessly consuming.
Sounds a lot like the people in WALL-E, except for the 20% part.
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if inheritance were not supported by our legal system, the only option available would be to improve the world around
There's a huge disconnect between giving money to the government and improving the country.
There's a similar disconnect when giving money to an individual.
Giving money to a crack addict doesn't get him off the crack. He just buys more crack. No improvement.
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The goodwill and social investment of other people can indirectly benefit me in the future, but the money will definitely directly benefit me now.
I'd go with the sure thing, too.
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declining quality of life is going to affect us all until the boomers die off and their inflationary spending ends.
Yes, quality of life has clearly been declining.
Filed Under: Do you even?
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Where did you move from/to such that your rent quadrupled? Idaho to New York City?
