Bummer Summer Jobs Disaster

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

The one thing I'm pretty sure of is the free market's solution: let people who can't work starve. The market doesn't care whether you or I live or die. It doesn't care whether jobs pay a living wage.

We can’t afford to keep so many people on the dole, or if we do, we’re going to have to import 30M workers into this country, and hope to god they don’t figure out how to abuse the system, too. Then again, I don’t really know how much of the social security budget comprises fraudulent claims, but at something like a quarter of our federal budget I think it deserves some scrutiny and better standards.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

The one thing I'm pretty sure of is the free market's solution: let people who can't work starve. The market doesn't care whether you or I live or die. It doesn't care whether jobs pay a living wage.

We can’t afford to keep so many people on the dole, or if we do, we’re going to have to import 30M workers into this country, and hope to god they don’t figure out how to abuse the system, too. Then again, I don’t really know how much of the social security budget comprises fraudulent claims, but at something like a quarter of our federal budget I think it deserves some scrutiny and better standards.

- Doc

Yeah, I don’t know how big a problem SS fraud is. It sounds harder to game than unemployment or disability. But it’s lots of money.

We keep treating people as disposable instead of investing in them. It makes no sense to me.

[Alf'Omega]

My sister was on disability when she got brain cancer a few years ago. She was recently divorced and had never really had a job because her husband provided. She was on disability for a short time but then her disability was denied after her chemo. Her boyfriend works for the IRS and is trying to appeal, but they've not been successful. The surgery left her face completely numb on one side due to the nerve damage from when they cut the tumor out from behind her ear. The nerve damage was so bad that they had to put a small weight on her eye lid to keep her eye shut so she could sleep at night. I don't know whether she can work or not, I only mention this to make the point that getting disability might be easy in places like the South where lazy Republicans in rural areas are able steal money from Ajax, but on the whole it isn't that easy at all. In fact only 22% of those who apply get accepted which means more than three quarters get denied. So clearly there is oversight when a judge is involved and ultimately decides, as opposed to just qualifying for food stamps, based on nothing more than income alone.

It is impossible to know how much of this is genuine fraud, but nothing in that NPR pieces suggested to me that it was a significant amount. Disability beneficiaries have grown in number over the years for a variety of reasons, not least of which, more people are disabled. I think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan caused a dramatic rise in disability over the past 20 years so maybe we should just cancel all their claims so Ajax can sleep better knowing he'll have that extra .30 cents a week in his bank account. Those confederate flags and white supremacist membership fees won't pay for themselves.

[Alf'Omega]

This is what I think of disability. This article pretty well aligns with my views of the program and why even after 6 years the program is in sore need of reform.

https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

Thanks for the reference. I think the article makes a good case for reforming the system. There are some backwards incentives in there that need to be changed. I'm not opposed to making changes to fix problems in programs -- just the opposite.

But it seems to me that the article identifies this as the fundamental problem:

Somewhere around 30 years ago, the economy started changing in some fundamental ways. There are now millions of Americans who do not have the skills or education to make it in this country.

So what should we do about that? With increasing automation, this is a problem that will only worsen as time goes on. So, what should we do about it?

Hard to imagine Ajax coming to the precipice of an actual discussion, but then pivoting away when asked a simple question. That's just so unlike him.

Of course, increased automation makes so many traditional jobs irrelevant and that trend is headed in only one direction. Someone smarter than me once said that eventually the only jobs available will be computer programming and then that will only last until we get computers to program themselves. This is why I think capitalism is doomed to fail in the long run and the only way we can survive as a species is to dramatically shift our economical concepts.

[canpakes]

Of course, increased automation makes so many traditional jobs irrelevant and that trend is headed in only one direction. Someone smarter than me once said that eventually the only jobs available will be computer programming and then that will only last until we get computers to program themselves. This is why I think capitalism is doomed to fail in the long run and the only way we can survive as a species is to dramatically shift our economical concepts.

This is an interesting point that isn’t often delved into. If market efficiency is a primary goal of capitalism, then capitalism can be a system that eventually seeks to reduce the number of jobs required for any given task, and within the economy as a whole, all other things being equal.

Obviously, this is an overly-simplified way of looking at it, but it’s still a potential long-term issue.

[Res Ipsa]

Thanks for the reference. I think the article makes a good case for reforming the system. There are some backwards incentives in there that need to be changed. I'm not opposed to making changes to fix problems in programs -- just the opposite.

But it seems to me that the article identifies this as the fundamental problem:



So what should we do about that? With increasing automation, this is a problem that will only worsen as time goes on. So, what should we do about it?

Hard to imagine Ajax coming to the precipice of an actual discussion, but then pivoting away when asked a simple question. That's just so unlike him.

Of course, increased automation makes so many traditional jobs irrelevant and that trend is headed in only one direction. Someone smarter than me once said that eventually the only jobs available will be computer programming and then that will only last until we get computers to program themselves. This is why I think capitalism is doomed to fail in the long run and the only way we can survive as a species is to dramatically shift our economical concepts.

I’m not sure I have any good ideas either. I gotta give Ajax props — I learned some things I didn’t know about in that article.

I hear you on the future. When you’ve got a small group of haves and an enormous group of (armed) have nots, you should expect trouble. I think anti-government capitalism is a sucker bet, but I probably won’t be around long enough to see whether I’m right.

[Res Ipsa]

Of course, increased automation makes so many traditional jobs irrelevant and that trend is headed in only one direction. Someone smarter than me once said that eventually the only jobs available will be computer programming and then that will only last until we get computers to program themselves. This is why I think capitalism is doomed to fail in the long run and the only way we can survive as a species is to dramatically shift our economical concepts.

This is an interesting point that isn’t often delved into. If market efficiency is a primary goal of capitalism, then capitalism can be a system that eventually seeks to reduce the number of jobs required for any given task, and within the economy as a whole, all other things being equal.

Obviously, this is an overly-simplified way of looking at it, but it’s still a potential long-term issue.

When it’s cheaper to perform a given task with capital than labor, then the owners of capital will substitute capital for labor. But the owners of capital also need customers. If all the workers are fired, who will buy goods?

It’s been a long time since my Marxian economics class, but I suspect this would be an example of an inherent contradiction in capitalism that would lead to its destruction. I thought Marx had some good critiques of capitalism. I just never have been able to buy into the magical withering away of the state.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I just never have been able to buy into the magical withering away of the state.

When I was in Tahoe last year, and talked to my very first Anarcho-syndicalist, who was very vocal about the problems in society and how people should work together to further their own interests, I was struck by his complete and utter lack of a plan to further his own interest by organizing other anarcho-syndicalists into a co-op where they could, by working together, bring about a business plan he dreamt of doing. When I suggested he and his co-op could pool their resources together under an incorporated body and then set about achieving their desired results, he insisted that was just furthering the state’s legitimacy, and that total revolution was in order.

He changed the topic.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

I just never have been able to buy into the magical withering away of the state.

When I was in Tahoe last year, and talked to my very first Anarcho-syndicalist, who was very vocal about the problems in society and how people should work together to further their own interests, I was struck by his complete and utter lack of a plan to further his own interest by organizing other anarcho-syndicalists into a co-op where they could, by working together, bring about a business plan he dreamt of doing. When I suggested he and his co-op could pool their resources together under an incorporated body and then set about achieving their desired results, he insisted that was just furthering the state’s legitimacy, and that total revolution was in order.

He changed the topic.

- Doc

Yeah. When you’ve met one anarchy, you’ve met… actually, I don’t know what you’ve met.

The last anarchists I had a sit down with had just come back to Seattle from New Orléans. After Katrina, they took abandoned bicycles, fixed them up, and then left them for people to use/take/whatever. I found that so interesting, I never asked them what they did for food, housing, etc. Maybe they were trust fund babies. I dunno.

Then there are the anarchists up here who take advantage of protests or marches to set police cars on fire and break windows. I’ve got no time or patience for them.

And then there are the talkers like the guy you described. If you want to accomplish some goal with a group of people in a decentralized, non-hierarchical fashion, there are all kinds of tools to do that in our existing system. But it takes imagination, planning and work. If you think you’ve got a better mousetrap, build the damn mousetrap and show people how it’s done. But I fear we have a surplus of complainers and not enough problem solvers.

[Alf'Omega]

While certain media has smaller minds focused on attacking poor people, we find out wealthy Americans, mostly white, underpaid taxes by more than $600 billion and the richest 1% underpaid taxes to a tune of $168 billion. Hmm. Sounds like a lot of money coming out of ajaxs check. Where's his outrage?


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/irs-tax- ... 53edb05fc1