Hard Things

[ysabetwordsmith]

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Comments

Re: Thoughts

[technoshaman]

America would NOT go broke. We here in Seattle pay Mickey Dees burger flippers $15 per, and business is BOOMING. Even small businesses have figured out that when you pay your people, they stick around, do a better job, word gets around, and you end up having to expand.

Who would be affected? A bunch of C-level gold-hoarders that already don't pay any taxes. Trickle-down economics is not just a Ponzi scheme, it's a lie that there even is a scheme to be Ponzi'ed.

Re: Thoughts

[technoshaman]

There is one area where the wage thing can bite. Food production. *and* I'm wondering about that...

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's far from the only area. Many things cost more to do than most people are willing or able to pay for them. Food. Health care. Child care. Housing. &c&c

This is why I suggest a system of subsidized needs and privatized wants. Everyone should either be able to afford the basics, or have free choice of basics; and beyond that, if they want to work extra and pay more for luxuries, go for it. That means the basics must be decent quality, not crap.

I've seen the viciously shitty service that passed for government-paid health care here. Even the paid versions are often dangerously inadequate, enough to kill people waiting for someone to get around to fixing problems that used to get fixed the same day. So it makes me very dubious of the government's ability and willingness to care for its people. Nonprofit services, on the other hand, are often excellent and routinely outperform both government and capitalist competitors.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> America would NOT go broke. We here in Seattle pay Mickey Dees burger flippers $15 per, and business is BOOMING. <<

A living wage alone wouldn't break the economy, but would create substantial changes. One problem is the way people do it -- they let it go for years, then make a big increase, then complain about price bounces, which do happen. The way to fix that is to chain the minimum wage to inflation, so it rises gradually with minimal bounce. You also need to recalculate regularly -- at least every 10 years, and 5 is better -- what constitutes the minimum for a decent living based on survival needs plus expenses society demands (e.g. a fixed residence, food, health care, internet).

However, I also added in unpaid labor. That is a massive, world-shaking amount.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-more-unpaid-work-women-do-than-men-2017-03-07

http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/01/womens-unpaid-work-time-take-concrete-action/

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/08/household-labor-caring-labor-unpaid-labor.html

If we paid for all of that, it would break the current system. In my opinion, this is not a bad thing; the status quo sucks and needs to be replaced by something less evil. But most people prefer to keep it as it is, and will kill anyone who threatens it too seriously.

This is, by the way, a reason I support Universal Basic Income: to pay people for the work they are currently being forced to do for free, or punished if they refuse. It would make a different and healthier society.

That's also why capitalists abhor it. They need the threat of unemployment and starvation to force workers to endure abusive labor practices.

Re: Thoughts

[technoshaman]

Okay, I see you, and I agree with your methodology. (The going to $15 in Seattle? That's the way we did it. Gradually.)

Including UBI, yes. That would choke off the slavers' labour sources, and force in decent management.

That's why they want to kill us. Tough noogies, scheisskopfen. We're comin' for you.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>The going to $15 in Seattle? That's the way we did it. Gradually. <<

A problem with this approach: the $15 minimum was calculated years ago, around 2012, as the then-current wage required to keep someone above the poverty line. That line creeps upward every year. This means that a gradual introduction needs to include a gradual raise of the target. Otherwise you necessarily fall short.

Let us consider, as a reasonable standard of living, that most persons wish to obtain a companion with whom to live; and that a majority of said partnerships wish to procreate; and that as more people work from home, space for a home office becomes a common and compelling need even for single people. This requires a minimum of 2 bedrooms. Here is what it costs per state to afford such housing at the recommended responsible rate of 30% of income spent on housing. On average, an American household needs to earn at least $21.21 per hour to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Only at the lowest end ($14.49 per hour in West Virginia) would $15/hour suffice to meet even basic housing needs. On the high end ($35.20 in Hawaii) you would need more than twice the proposed living wage just to get by. The comparison to actual minimum wages is even more brutal.

>>That's why they want to kill us. Tough noogies, scheisskopfen. We're comin' for you.<<

An interesting point of history: over the long run, the fatcats ALWAYS lose. They can only win a battle, not the war. This is simple math: in order for some people to have more than others, the rich must be few and the poor must be many. It doesn't matter if your castle can repel 10:1 odds. The moment 11:1 people hate you, then you die. They will build a ladder of bodies to reach you so they can kill you.

Judging from things I've seen in the news, we're not all that far from that point now. Most people don't see it. But any historian can spot the pattern easily.

Re: Thoughts

[dialecticdreamer]

I spent most of my adult life as a homemaker. Read: UNPAID LABOR, because it was the only way that we could afford to have kids. We couldn't afford day care for one, let alone two, since the decent child care cost more than I would have brought in.

I wish I could find the actual articles, but someone calculated what it would cost Wal Mart, the 900-lb. gorilla, to pay $15 an hour minimum wage, PLUS proportional steps among the senior clerks and store management.

Take a wild, wild guess what the cost increase of each item in the average store would be. I dare you.

One.

Penny.

Per.

Item.

From milk to tires to a tube of diaper rash cream.