Topic: Antiwork: It takes a lot of work to create no work. (Read 348 times)

It's a little like the robot thing. If robots take over all the jobs, nobody will have any money to buy products and services. Then, people will go back to trading among themselves without robot products... and manufacturing things by human hands.

But it's the same with high-priced anything. If I need it, and can't afford it, I'll make it, or I'll make something that will work better than it did in the first place.

Would you like to live on the beach? Move there. You can find a way. You don't have to depend on being stuck in a dead-end job, working for some boss who doesn't appreciate you. Put your thinking cap on. And if your brain doesn't work very well, use nootropics to stimulate your thinking.

(satire below)
give it time..
soon plumbers fees will be so high people might aswell sell their property to be demolished and built into apartments and take that money and buy a new house without faults

when machines can make flatpack housing in a warehouse and ship it anywhere. many people wont want to repair their home once problems get passed the duct-tape stage
instead they will just order replacement house ground floor section and hire a crane. split it apart and put it together like lego

     I have to admit, I feel the legitimacy of the thought but the idea itself is kind of flawed. Some noticed the flaws in this which is excess everything when working hours get reduced. But for the right mindset, I think it will push for more progress in every field(highly doubt that a lot will have that kind of mindset though). And yes, granted that the idea can really give more benefits than cons for humanity, making it come into fruition is a whole different story and can prove to be somewhat more difficult. The world we live in today is a world full of greed, without having a solution for reducing greed or criminalizing too much greed(lol), there won't be much improvement in the way things are spinning. Although unity may be feasible, but impossible.

And think about office type jobs too that are going away.
How many records rooms are going away because it's become digital?
Old school massive technical storage libraries even when they replaced paper with microfilm or other storage mediums, gone, replaced by one guy the IT department.

Yeah, some skilled trades are going to be here forever but even they are changing. Think about plumbing; soldering pipes, bending pipes, worrying about all that kind of stuff.
Gone for a lot of residential. I helped a friend re-do all the water on the 2nd floor of his house. 2 bath, 1 laundry room all PEX for in and PVC for drains. Crimp tools and glue. Took a few hours with a lot of that having to do with us trying to figure out the angles for one of the drains. Still no leaks after over 20 years.

-Dave

imagine there were 1million plates needing to be milled in a week
hand milled used to be a 2man team per plate. doing 3 plates an hour
so 2 men can do 24 plates in their 8 hour shift.
3 rotating shift is 72 plates a day 504 a week for 6 people(multiply by 2000)
it would require 12000 workers working side by side on

early automation made a machine able to to it in 6 minutes meaning 1680 can be milled a week per machine
and needing ~600 machines. where each machine needed to be monitored by a man in a 3 shift
it would require 1800 workers watching the machines. pressing the button..
(12000->1800)

then more efficienct machines can do it in 3 minutes. so that halves the machines and workers
(1800->900)
now it doesnt even require someone at the button 24/7 (3 shifts a day of 3 workers per machine)
now it can be one person logging into a computer once a week and setting the new template design. and have 300 machines operating 24/7 unmonitored
(900->1)

all thats needed now is 1 operator. 1 repair man and 1 truck driver. everything from loading the material to the machines to loading the end product onto a truck is automated
(12000->3)

For an interesting look at automation changing / removing jobs take a look at this video from Richard Hammonds Big:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdzu63HRrO0&ab_channel=EpicConstruction
Entire shipping ports are being run by a handful of people when it used to be in the 100s and 100s of people.

Due to better tools in general, there are a lot of jobs that although they still need skilled workers they need a lot less of them
How many things used to have to be milled by hand 30+ years ago that I can now just drop into a CNC machine, push a button and get it done.

-Dave

the UK just opened its first amazon grocery store, no cashier staff.
other retailers are beginning to see that amazon is going to be a rival. able to offer products cheaper not only just due to low labour but because of their automated fulfilment warehouses
yes amazon is slowly replacing warehouse labour with robot 'pickers'

and in the next decade other grocery chains will have to do the same to remain competitive

imagine it. a future where a store is like a large vending machine. no staff. just select your products let a machine provide it and pay.

the UK's main employers is retail with 15% in the retail industry.
this can easily be cut in half in the next decade

the next 2 categories are:
health and social work: 13%
admin/customer support: 9%

i can see health and social work increasing
i can see admin/support decreasing(UK call centres replaced by foreign callers or FAQ sites)

The key to get rid of work is automation. Once we reach full automation with no human input anymore the workers don't need to work anymore. It all depends on the robots. The initial cost of creating such factories and offices is quite high but once done so there can be a lot of money being saved. I think we will need less and less people to work in the future.

The amount of people that can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground unless a computer tells them so is getting smaller and smaller..

People that can actually do real work, actually figure things out on their own, use logic, understand even simple machines and structures, are getting more and more rare, and in many cases more valuable..

If anything bad happens in the world, the guy that can keep your car running, keep farming equipment running, keep the fuel flowing, and keep your house standing, are going to be the most valuable..

We don’t even need most “engineers”, much less data entry specialists..

You know what else it makes for?
People who are self sufficient and can take care of themselves..

One person might need to “work” 10 hours behind a computer in order to pay to have his car worked on, his house worked on, something installed, etc..
A person who can do these things doesn’t need to trade his labor for the labor of others..

Do you realize at all how much less you have to spend when you can take care of yourself?
You don’t need a lot of money if you don’t have to spend a lot of money..

If you can buy a badass $5,000 car with cash and take care of it yourself, you don’t need to buy a $30,000 lame grocery getter that you are going to lose $20,000 on plus maintenance..

Dude pulls up next to me jealous of my ride, wishing he was driving what I’m driving, while he has lost $20k+ on his car, and mine hasn’t lost a dime..
Why? Because he thought he was “playing it safe” and really had no idea about anything..

Yeah it’s “safe”.. Safe to assume your going to lose $20k but someone else will make sure your car isn’t going to break down..

What’s the value potential on buying a new F-150 right now and keep it like 5-7 years?
Even a truck, you are going to lose so much money in that time it’s insane..



You also realize that you have to pay taxes on your income, and then the guy you paid to do stuff has to pay income taxes on that!!
You are losing about 40% of your value right there!!

Imagine building out a property..
Clearing the land, making a driveway, building a house, installing your septic, (drilling water well excluded in most places)..

You paid taxes on all your income to pay to get all that stuff done and the guy doing them had to pay taxes on what you gave him..
If you do these things yourself you are instantly up like 40% because you aren’t taxed to pay yourself or taxed to get paid to do it..

“Building a house costs $100,000” for example..
No, not really..
It cost you $120,000 to pay $100,000 because you got taxed 20%, and the guy you give the $100,000 to really only gets $80,000 because he got taxed 20%..

So your really doing $120,000 worth of work in exchange for $80,000 worth of work..
DIY and you just instantly saved $40,000 just in taxes..


“But not everyone knows how to build a house” you might say..
Well look it up on the internet and learn, if you can’t do that, if you don’t have enough brain power to figure out how to read a tape measure and put some sticks together, then you probably deserve to work for minimum wage or less.. Sucks to be you..

Same as if you can’t figure out how to do basic maintenance on your own vehicle..
I surely hope your only too lazy, or I pity your intelligence level..

Or in the case you are one of those lucky folks who make a rediculous amount of money that you probably don’t deserve, then yeah whatever go pay someone else and all those taxes..

If you can make $300 an hour, then go ahead and pay $120 an hour to get your car worked on..
Congratulations.. 

While for many people side jobs are very important we shouldn't forget that how it was 50 years ago. People had one non their whoe life's, there was no need to switch work or you had to be afraid that machines would take over. But now with technology advancements more and more jobs are not needed anymore. Eventually the workforce will getting smaller and smaller while the population is growing.

Could get right rid of welfare too..

If you couldn’t hack it in the USA you could skirt your ass right back to where you came from, or learn some skills..

How is it possible that a person never learns any skills to improve their value?
Probably minimum wage and welfare.. Removing the need..

Right now I work for a company, but still do side jobs..
Usually I just live on side jobs, because low wages are a joke..

seems eddie is a self employed skilled contractor able to negociate and choose his jobs.
maybe he does realise(but does not consider) there are some folk like tvbcof that are not skilled and need to work as an employee for companies to avoid sounding like a welfare duck

i dont need to work nor claim welfare. but i atleast do consider there are people like tvbcof that fear the need of the welfare duck.

anyways..
yes when you call a plumber out, the expectation is that their hourly rate for a call out is 6x-12x min wage depending on job as the hourly rate. because trying to find a skilled plumber thats not already busy on other jobs is a thing. the emergency need to stop a leak causes a good premium

but 'employment' if unskilled is usually minimum wage. where there are say a hundred applicants just wanting to avoid the duck quacks of welfare.

think about it if welfare was equivalent to say $5.30 an hour(google: us missisipi). people would take $7.50 and the only negotiation becomes the number of hours needed
without a minimum wage employers would start at $5.30. because they know a couple people out of hundreds of applicants would still work for $5.30 just to avoid the welfare duck quack stigma that tvbcof suffers from/fears.

no minimum wage would cause a pay decrease in job applications where its equal/only marginally better than welfare

meaning even if there are 98 other applicants that wanna 'freemaket' negotiate their pay.. they aint gonna get the job as the 2 that would accept $5.30 got the job. and thats one of the many reasons minimum wage was put in. so employers cant low-ball applicants

eddie did raise just one good point about someones wage is not their final income. because when you take into considerations that an 9 hour paid job is actually more like 10hours work related activity(travel and uniform laundry and lunch prep' aswell as the costs of travel and laundry and lunch makes a $90 for 9 hours actually become a ~$80 for 10 hours(then tax/insurance deductions to be even less)

so imagine that if the pay was $5.30/h. the end result is not $47.70 for 9 hours.. but $37.30 for 10 hours
making employment worse than welfare quacking unless you negotiate alot of hours

this is why the government have the 3 budgets of
welfare, survival(min), living wage
~$5.30    $7.50              $15
because they know that without min wage, employers would still take people on at welfare budgets

and if you think people wont take that low pay.
well it looks like that other states get something like $378 a week welfare($9.45 an hour equivelent) but still decide to work for only $7.50.. or enen lower at under $5+tips just to avoid the welfare duck stigma

I don’t think governments should set anything..
No minimum wage and no overtime laws..


Did YOU not negotiate your pay where you work? Would you have taken your job at minimum wage?

I’d lmao at an interviewer trying to offer me minimum wage..

That’s the problem.. NPCs just take the first job offer they get at whatever it pays, and then don’t keep job shopping..
The promise of tiny raises keep them..

I don’t feel lucky to have a job.. I feel the company I work for is lucky that I applied and accepted the wage we negotiated on..
And if they screw me around, I’ll quit at the drop of a hat.. I don’t really care..

They are now wanting to promote me/increase my scope of work duties..
I won’t do it unless they pay me more.. I’ll just say no.. Simple as that..
It’ll probably be another “minimum wage” on top of what I already make..


I can make more and spend less that I would if I was working minimum wage basically just dicking around on my own..

Most people don’t even consider what it costs them TO work..
Drive back and forth every day, maintain car for all that driving, gas, eating out, gear/clothes/attire/PPE..


Like this girl I talked to just now “I made $90 a day in a few hours” she says..
I say “no you don’t, lol”, “how much does it cost you to go do that?”
She makes like $50 a day after considering expenses..


I just quoted a job for her landlord (side job).. She thought I was crazy to quote more than double the cost of materials..
I’m like.. “I’m not even going to THINK about this job for free.. I’m charging time for just for figuring out what to charge.. If they don’t like it they can just say no..”

Property owner didn’t even negotiate.. “yeah, buy all new stuff and do it”

Am I lucky for getting the work? Or are they lucky for getting me to do the work?
Probably them.. I’ll charge them more next time, lol.. Maybe enough to try to get them to start negotiating atleast..

Bid it at about 4X min wage.. Might try something like 6X min wage with them next time..


Anti work?
I can work like 1 week a month and be fine..
Charge more..

How anyone takes a minimum wage job boggles my mind..


I just bid a $12,000 side job the other day.. I didn’t do it because it was a now or never type thing and they had to wait a month.. Told em “OK never mind then”..
Might do it for a couple thousand $ because it’ll cost me more to do it on their schedule than on mine..
Probably won’t even bother..

If it looks like a welfare queen and quacks like a welfare queen...

funny part is i dont claim any welfare.
there is this thing. called bitcoin(maybe you heard of it. but seeing as you want to support the FIAT currency seems not). and if you have enough of it. you dont have to work. you can afford to travel and get to see the world. yep i am supported by bitcoin not welfare
maybe you should try it.

that said when it comes to taxes. that money should be used to help those in need.
if your against taxes going to people in need. im guessing you prefer taxes going to corporations that want.

thats the issue with capitalist countries. they cry that businesses should be unregulated and businesses should be supported by government.. then they cry that businesses are unregulated and businesses are supported by government.

you can spot the idiot flip flop capitalists that have no clue because they are usually fed their narrative from conspiracy sites promoting to be anti-gov anti-pharma. whilst secretly telling people to stop funding citizens needs and start buying pharma supplements

you know. when millions can die of things. they dont want people having healthcare or cures. they just want to see poor people die so that they can pretend to be the exception.... and then cry when its their il health at risk that there is no healthcare/support for them..

...pfft.. capitalism only works for those at the top of the pyramid

Not needing to work for real money is itself a lot of work for people who find themselves in such a situation because usually they got to where they are by being habitual workers.

For most people I would suggest to take a cue from franky1.  Just live in a welfare state where society will give you enough of a life to spend all day in your hovel feverishly typing on your cell phone.  Until the Grim Vaxxer come knocking at least.

You don't love it "EXPLICITELY", but you still love it as you love the benefits of having money. You are just trying to dig yourself out by saying you don't but you DO.

the issue with government subsidised pay is this.

say you earn $300 a week for 40 hours at $7.50 and a government scheme is invented where they will subsidise your pay $1:$1 if your hours went down.
you take the offer and work 30 hours and get paid $225 from work and $75 from UBI
meaning you still get $300

however if your boss asks you to work over time. your physical labour is then not compensated.
your in a life style of 30hours for $300 now. but if you work an extra 5 hours. your boss pays you $37.50 but your UBI goes down by $37.50.so you ended up working an extra 5 hours. plus the extra cost of travel to work/laundry for work. but you have not earned an extra penny for them 5 hours.

UBI does not help people. it helps businesses reduce its labour costs

in the UK there is a social benefit scheme where the very day you get a job your benefits stop meaning you have to find money to cover all your costs of getting to work and stretch it until your work finally puts you on their pay roll and pays your wage.
they have another benefit for those that are disabled. where their benefit decreases by 0.60 for every 1. meaning if you work 10 hours at 7.5. your benefit decreases so that you are only 45 better off not 75 better off
where this extra 45 is then taken into consideration to deduct other schemes like local government(council) tax discounts due to increased earnings.
yep earning another 45 then become 36 due to paying more council tax
you also have to pay national insurance
then there is the cost of getting to work which can be 5 a day. so a 2 day shift of 5 hours each is 10. meaning its now 26 extra.

would you go to work for 10 hours and after all bills and taxes and expenses related to that work increase. only to have 26 extra to your name

so how about if the ubi was 1:1 and you get nothing extra. but then end up spending more just to work overtime


this makes people not want to find jobs for:
<16 hours (cost-profit balance makes them only truly better off at about 17hours+ if in uk disability .60:1)
or never profitable for any hours in a 1:1 ubi(work 0 hours=$300 work 40 hours=$300)

On the other hand in Switzerland the government offered to their people to not work and get like 2k francs monthly and they refused it as they like going to work. 

and on that note this guy is nuts...
.. im out

Well, no. I don't love money explicitly. I enjoy the comforts of life that money buys -- like food, water, shelter, heating, clothing, etc.


Let me take your statement and change it to another "law".

No, murder and homicide laws should be abolished. A serial killer should decide when a person should live or die. State sponsored murder has leader to international geopolitical issues which causes a struggle between demanding public and the politicians, which doesn't make sense because neither the public nor the politicians should decide who to legally murder. It should be 100% up to the individual serial kill.

Enabling state sanction murders leads to populism, military occupations, and promises of peace and security that never work.

What most serial killers do when they have to increase their quota of murders to keep up with state sanction murders? They have to get to work.

^^^ Of course the market decides. And if you need a higher wage, just cry. Because if you strike, we'll shut down and open up under a new name somewhere else. Or we'll simply hire some homeless people who are ready to work for what we want to pay.

The market decides, right?

the market can and does decide what a person with a certain skillset should be paid
the min wage barrier is just that.. a MINIMUM wage barrier. so that businesses cant be too abusive and pay people too little

a better solution is if the job application just wants someone with no skills, no talent and just someone who can turn up and do untalented work gets min wage. but any stipulation of qualification requirements or previous experience should be above min wage. getting higher based on how much requirements are needed,

the issue is not min wage being a barrier to 'market decisions' its the fact that the market wants to pay people min wage even while also requiring people of a certain standard above minimum

EG if college debt is meant to be paid off in 10 years. and a business needs someone with 2 years college. then that 2x$10k college qualification cost. would equate to $2k a year in income requirement to pay it off. and so the business should offer a job role requiring 2 year college at $2k a year higher salary above a job that doesnt require the college experience/qualification

its not rocket science

No, minimum wage should be abolished. The market should decide what a person with a certain set of skills should be paid. Minimum wage manipulations lead to an unnecessary struggle between a demanding public and politicians, which doesn't make sense since neither the public nor the politicians should decide on what an employer should pay his employee. It should be 100% up to the employer.
Increasing minimum wages leads to populism, buying votes with promises of higher wages that never work.
What most employers do when they have to increase minimum wages because the government said so? They let some people go and divide their wages between the rest.

The number is besides his argument (if I understand what he's saying). It's an argument for some sort of UBI with basic expenses covered (whatever the number is). You don't even have to go that far to argue against UBI.

If you're talking about the numbers though, look at this - https://www.thebalance.com/breakdown-of-average-monthly-household-expenses-4687519

Easily thousands of dollars a month person. So minimum wage would need to be possibly more than 15 dollars for a single person to pay for food, rent, electric, whatever there is. So you're no longer talking about a minimum wage increase, it's just a UBI under the guise of a minimum wage increase.

Minimum Wage is needed to be increased, but I don't see any necessary measurements needed to diminish the old system of 40 hrs a week, cause there are still works that doesn't need you to work 40 hrs a week. But if you want that work, you must work a lot bigger that 40 hrs to make it happened, and that is the reality.

You hate work, but you love money, and for you to have both, you need to compromise one way or another.

you still have not given an answer

governments have done budgets of necessities to live on

but here is the thing. what one person thinks is necessary another person thinks is not enough

so come on what is the monetary level of your 'necessity.
seeing as you want to define exact ratios of math and you want to be pin point specific.
please show your budget calculation of need
whats the shelter allowance
whats the food allowance
whats the utility /service charge allowance
whats the entertainment allowance
whats the hobby allowance
whats the clothing allowance
whats the disposable income allowance
whats the total

then when you account for the obvious inflation on goods/services caused by the basic increase. would your allotted amount STILL be enough?

I'm not sure how you determine which jobs should go first and which Americans should be given everything they need in life for free. Seems like you're talking about a UBI that will subsidize the cost of living for anyone that doesn't make enough -- but the question is why should anyone else pay for that?

If someone goes to college and earns more than someone with a primary education, why would it make sense to boost the pay of someone without diversified skills? Would it not incentive everyone to not putting in the extra work?

Work is all that is to life, if you don't work you won't find life easy and would just be a problem to society. Its the way it is, hating work simply means you finding other ways of surviving, you might consider it easy but, your still going to brain storm and that in itself is work.

The richest man in the world and other employers of labor works as hard as a common laborer on the streets. How?
You might not be involved in the physical handy jobs, but the stress you put yourself through to ensure the supervise the managers and contemplating on decisions that would help and expand the your organization is work as well. I tell you consumes much energy in going through papers and brain storming as you do while exercising too. So, you can't take work out of the picture ever, its always going to be there! You can hate an aspect but, don't hate work!

Don't work hard but, work smart!

Work is activity. Activity is life. Stop being active, and you die.

The problem isn't the work. The problem is when there is slavery or attempted slavery involved. Note that a person who volunteers himself into slavery, with full knowledge of what he is doing, isn't really a slave, even though his self-imposed slavery is stressful at times.

If anybody wants to outlaw voluntary slavery, he is taking away the rights of the person who wants to be enslaved. There are more people that want self-imposed slavery than one would think. In fact, it might be close to 99% of the free people in the Americas and Europe... as they willingly bow to their leaders' wishes.

You can already work less if you want to. I don't see a reason to mandate to work less. I think the society would be better off if people worked more and facetwitted less but hey, free country.

Activism is how change is made towards these sort of systems. Rather it be through unionization or through occupying varying levels of government, change can be made to improve from the status quo is the primary topic of the thread

oh stop crying
instead read it.
you quoted it so now i re quoted it so now take time to read it
there is no ratio's mentioned, there is no law or rule or mention that it says strictly and forcely linked 1:1
2x was the example.. not the rule

its a basic example where the context says increase the income=increase the expenditure.

seems YOU are the one implying its a hard rule of 1:1 just so that you can cry that its not a 1:1
your basically fighting your own implications.

anyway the point is and ill emphasise it in as basic ELI-5 as you can understand
increasing income  will = increase in expenditure.

anyway. back to the topic.
point is increasing income/reducing hours just causes prices and spending to go up. which can then cycle to needing to increase hows to reattain level of living standard or increase income..
repeat repeat repeat

Ah yes, make sure never to take this user's word seriously because they can't even remember it a few min later.

nope. never mentioned anything about wage freezes=inflation freezes. nor did i mention wage decreases=inflation decreases.

i think you over simplified what i said for YOU to imply it meant something else.
the actual examples context was about pushing the minimum income up.. pushes the expenditure up
it did not imply the opposite nor the stagnant nor that other expenditure pushes did not exist
the implication was not 1:1
i mentioned no ratios or strict rules
i did not imply the opposite was not true or true.. no implications were made at all

now go cry somewhere else if the content is too complex to understand

You tied wage to cost of living increases as a 1:1 ratio in your previous post.

Put it another way, in your original statement, if wages fell by 50%, would goods and services not fall by 50%? Or does your microeconomic theory only work in on direction?

i never said if wages stagnate inflation equally stagnates.. you said that

but the magical logic is the governments GDP has risen due to more money in circulation due to the mortgages creating money meaning while people are not using their income. and instead getting credit cards and mortgages to buy things.. companies see this as the hidden 'disposable' money increases. and so they increase their fee's/charges. even if true salary income has not increased..
..so yes if no salaries increased. the inflation still would increase as just explained..
..but if you then 2x salaries the inflation would also 2x ontop of the GDP based inflation from credit/debt currency flows
.. basically no escaping or outrunning the inflation game

the other complexes are that in play is that minimum wage is not the same as living wage.
and not the same as minimal social security benefits

the power that be actually do budget calculation.
for instance they look at the cheapest utility companies. and set that as the expenditure for social security benefits. they take the median 5 utility companies and average their charges and set that as the mini wage budget. they then take all the utility companies and average that for the living wage budget.

3 different budgets
survival budget (social security) productive budget(min wage) and the content/comfort budget(living wage)


same with food budget. they look at the cheapest ownbrand baked beans, bread, pasta. and work out the basic nutrition cost for social security budget.
they take the median 5 brand produce and set a budget for min wage. and then take al the brands and work out a budget for living wage.
what makes this complex. is to tweak the inflation to seem less apparent is that they subsidise big grocery retailers to offer certain produce extra low. just so that they dont have to tweak the national budgets of social security/minimum wage
yep its why you see certain food basics like own brand baked beans seem to be sold too cheap.
its why some utility companies charge $0.12/kw while they try to push one utility company to offer 0.05/kw for people on low income schemes
(yep if they know low income scheme people can access electric at 5c/kw(same as national average years ago) they dont have to increase social security budget to new national average of 12c/kw)

same goes for the as said grocery. it doesnt matter that the bread nd beans are tasteless. as long as grocery stores provide dirt cheap food thats been subsidised. the government then doesnt have to increase social security budgets

so not only is the game of removing cheap cars out of circulation. but also making the food 'essentials/basics' dirt cheap.
ud be surprised when you start to see which items are on governments 'basic basket' shopping list used for calculations. and then look at how unsurprisingly the markets for them specific items dont move the same way other produce does
.. in short it should be no surprise that own brand baked beans has not moved by 2% a year while everything else has moved by more than 2%.

good research reveals cheese was on the government 'basic basket' shopping list. which is why when importing proper cheddar cheese increased in cost. the government started supplying 'american cheese' cheap.
things like basic chicken (water injected to add weight) seems dirt cheap. all to keep the inflation hidden to not require increasing minimal budgets

So, I think min wage should be set where a household income on a single earner can provide a livable means. That means, the income should be able to cover food, water, electricity, shelter, internet, health insurance, transportation, a good education, and pretty much the other required necessities of modern society entirely with a tiny bit to spare to save.

For Americans, considering productivity vs wage growth, we could probably aim for around $20-25 USD / hr. $15 is a good start though -- easier to double than to triple.

Low skill work should be eliminated. That should be the goal. Once we start eliminating work en mass, we can start to consider programs such as guaranteed minimum income and such. However, I don't believe work will ever fully go away. I don't think people realize how difficult some jobs are to automate, but I fully embrace more automation.

According to wikipedia, 5% of America goes on less than $14,999 (min wage at 40 hours a week would be $14,500/yr).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Distribution_of_household_income

---


By your magical logic, if $10 min wage stays $10, then all goods and services also stay the same price?

Because that's not reality buddy -- considering the federal min wage hasn't gone up in a decade+ 

Macroeconomics is a rather complex topic to start with, once you start to pull in international geopolitical measures with fiat market manipulation it gets even more complex quickly.

if say a 'living wage' was $400 ($10x40hours) then you might think that having min wage at $15 means you only have to work ~26 hours to get the same $400.

problem is. working only 26 hours means you have more free time and more time to spend money

think about it working 8 hours a day means your home entertainment system, heating is not used for 8 hours
but working just 5hours 20 minutes means your electric will increase by ~3 hours or 12.5%

you will probably decide to want to go out and do stuff. new hobbies.
in the end you find your 'living' cost becomes $500 and suddenly your missing $100 which you have to fill by working another 10 hours.(2 hours a day)
so now you are back to working atleast 7hours 20minutes a day instead of 5hours 20minutes.
which is pretty much nearly the same work effort as working 8 hours previously.

...
if you could change the system where a 5hours a day or 3 day week could provide you with enough income to over all costs. all that will happen is companies notice that households have excess 'disposable income' and they increase their bill charges/fees.

its why bread in some countries is only $0.15 where all the calculations worked out that its all the country can afford to pay for bread on balance. yet its $2.50 in other countries where they work out they can afford to pay more

yep if 'living wage' was $10 and minimum wage went from $10 to say $20. all that will happen is price of goods and services will increase by 2x also.

once you start to see the game. you realise how much work is needed to change it.
even things like government subsidising the destruction of old cars.. yep if they can get rid of the old cheap cars people then have less cars to choose from and have to spend a lil extra to get their first cheap car
(good old supply vs demand))

So ofc US politicians are advocating for a 15 dollar minimum wage and it seems like it will be successful. Minimum wage in EU countries tends to vary. But a question - how do you determine what the minimum wage should be set at? You said you want it higher, what is reasonable? Do you not think low skilled jobs will just be eliminated once businesses realize it's cheaper just to automate?

The federal minimum wage in America is a bit over 7 bucks, but how many people in the US actually make that?

So, the system is really geared towards a 40 hour work week which was set nearly a hundred years ago.

I'm an advocate for increasing wages while decreasing overall hours worked. If raised the min wage to $15 an hour and set the hours worked to 30 hours (overtime at 1.5x until 40 hours, 2x after that), I think society would be *much* better off than just raising the min wage to $15 an hour.

Ideally, we'd raise the min wage higher than $15 an hour, but that seems to be the message currently and is already double federal min wage in America.

Uhm... you don't have to work a fixed amount of hours. You can work part time or freelance or just wing it and live under a bridge.

The rest of your post makes zero sense. Set a 20-hour work week and then... live on half the income? Or expect to be paid the same?

I had a boss who was into shortcuts. He made far more work for himself attempting the shortcuts, than if he had simply gone out and done the work in the first place.

tldr; activism requires work

I hate work. I absolutely hate it. The idea that we *must* sell our bodies for a fixed amount of hours per week, set by people who have been dead longer than I've been alive, is an absolutely disgusting concept to begin. The system that was meant to be ended up even worse than when implemented primarily due to lack of raising min wages for the last decade.

I live in the USA. A very capitalistic society. If I was born rich -- with capital -- I'd be set. Zero work required for a boatload of income. Actually, it's not even considered "income" when the investments are older than a year [capital gains] -- which being born into wealth, all the investment would be older than a year.

There's a reason why capital gains taxation rates are separate from income tax -- because it benefits the rich. 0% taxation rate for the first $40,000 (single filer, $80k joint filing). That's enough money to live pretty easily (in a lower cost of living area) without lifting a single finger -- just cashing out *profits* from previous investments and paying the federal government **ZERO** in taxes.

Anti-work exists. It just exists for those *with* everything.

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With that in mind, to summarize the system is rigged *for* those that have, and rigged **against** those who do not have.  The problem is where many people **think** they have, but they do not. Or even worse, those who **believe** they will *eventually* have.

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

I believe that plays true today, rather it be based upon wealth, race, class, sex, gender. A scapegoat to hate to be 'better' than, to feel superior to another to feel better about themselves; to feel 'lucky' that they're not the ones worse off.

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USA is a democracy. Those who *have* are absolutely outnumbered by those that do not have.

An individual is limited on how many seats they can occupy and the system is set to where no single individual seat has the authority to change the entire system. No individual person has the unilaterally authority to force progress on this specific issue (regardless of what the mass media implies when it comes to Presidential powers).

Going back to my title, it takes a lot of work to create no work. We can only force the changes together. With a supermajority of any parliament, rather it be US Congress, state assemblies, local councils, associations (such as state BAR (legal), unions, hell, even Parent-Teacher Association); anything is possible.

When like minded folks start to occupy these seats, we can make real change. In Germany, auto unions have been able to get a 28 hour work week.

If majority the of members on a city or village council held antiwork ideologies, they'd be able to set all local government employee work weeks to 20 or 30 hours if they desired. Local change made within the communities they live; while it's not solving 100% of the problem, it's solving part of the problem.

If the antiwork individuals were to run and occupy local school board, board of education seats, and similar; they'd be able to set 30 hour long class weeks to create shorter school weeks for teachers and perhaps even students.

There's a lot of change that can be made at any level of organization, but it takes work and effort to become members of these associations -- to engage in these activities -- to become active.