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Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jdhn on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:12AM (#17506244)
"That money won’t disappear, of course—it will go into the pockets of workers, and then find its way back into the coffers of corporate America via higher sales."

Do people really go out and spend money immediately if they get raises? Personally, if I get a raise, I may treat myself to something nice, but then I immediately go back to my old spending habits so I have more money to save.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by Talyen42 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:15AM (#17506257)
The average person spends almost exactly as much as they make as income rises. It's a hedonic treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by HenryBemis on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:27AM (#17506305)
For anyone who hasn’t already, I would strongly suggest that you read/listen the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. It speaks of the “Rat Race”, where once you increase your income by a fraction, you almost immediately and subconsciously adjust your needs to absorb that increase.

I think this is one of the books that everyone over the age of 15-17 should read as it gives a crash-course on the fine art of making money.

This book, together with the minimalists’ work influenced me to change my work style and other habits and now I feel more focused, clutter free, and with significantly more €$£¥ in my pocket.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by dwater on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:25AM (#17506641)
I have read this book and I would recommend as an alternative "The Richest Man In Babylon." It is more clearly a book of parables about building wealth and less about the route one person took to financial success.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by pnut on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:46AM (#17506411)
I'm not saying there isn't usable advice in that book, which I have read, but in full disclosure, the book's author, Robert Kiyosaki, fictionalised most of the anecdotes contained within it.

Additionally, he operates a real estate "investing" school that advocates and instructs semi-legal, morally questionable predatory practices.

It is openly modelled after Trump University, Trump being Kiyosaki's business mentor and aspirational avatar. They have authored at least one book together.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by taneq on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:01AM (#17506491)
> Additionally, he operates a real estate "investing" school that advocates and instructs semi-legal, morally questionable predatory practices.

Yeah, it's 90% trivial platitudes about "buy low, sell high" and "invest your money wisely", and then a few pages about how he actually made his money (if that part is true, anyway): Haunt foreclosure auctions to flip the houses. Skeezy.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by yjftsjthsd-h on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:10AM (#17507518)
So he says to buy low and sell high, and he made his money by buying real estate cheap and then selling it higher? I have absolutely no background on the guy, but that doesn't sound "skeezy" or even inconsistent; what am I missing?
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by JamesBarney on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:28PM (#17511745)
No he made his money selling books explaining to people how to become rich. To my knowledge he wasn't wealthy before his book.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by AnimalMuppet on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @07:52PM (#17511171)
Why is that skeezy? If the house is at a foreclosure auction, it's being sold whether he buys it or not. If he buys it, he's paying more than anyone else was willing to.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by SuperNinKenDo on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:50AM (#17506433)
I assume anybody reading that book understands that "Rich Dad" is mostly literary device, probably loosely based on an actual figure(s) and a few key events or experiences.

Nobody remembers conversations they had word for word an hour afterward, let alone decades.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by SuperNinKenDo on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:46AM (#17506412)
It's definitely an insight that has given me a lot of insight into the ways people make themselves suffer around me.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by niyikiza on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:50AM (#17506830)
Any good books or articles on minimalism you'd recommend?
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bungie4 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:24AM (#17506288)
Thanks HN, I didn't realize this phenomena was named. Learn something new everyday.

I always just said, expenses rises to meet income, + 25%.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by HenryBemis on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:31AM (#17506321)
..and the “Rat race” I mentioned on a previous comment above is that exactly perpetual effort to cover that +25% as you very correctly stated of “more expensive lifestyle” that we impose to ourselves.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by matte_black on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:47AM (#17506413)
As a counter argument, never forget you can be a responsible saver one day, only to be dead and buried the next.

If you want to guarantee an expensive lifestyle, it’s best to obtain it as immediately as possible.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by aplummer on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:11AM (#17506552)
Thank god somebody said it. We are in the golden age of cheap travel and leisure, perhaps the golden age of all ages (and certainly of all past).

People spend your easy money and enjoy youth IMO.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by stone-monkey on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:43AM (#17506760)
It doesn't really make sense to say it because it's not as if there's a general cultural tendency towards shrift. Most people aren't saving enough, what's the point in popularizing the message that we should continue on that same course?
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by matte_black on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:04AM (#17506963)
Saving never really makes you happy, it makes you feel secure. Seeing a number in an account rise over the years is great, but also a constant reminder of money you’ll never get to touch until you are old and gray, if you even make it that far. And even if you do, what if the world of the future is no longer worth exploring or even living in?

Is it more important for people to feel happy, or secure?

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bluGill on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:37AM (#17507739)
Security is a part of happiness. It is finding the right balance.

Modern medicine is advancing all the time. You could be old an grey for many years. You could live to be 170. If you live to 170 and save well you could retire at 65 and live the last half of your life with more income from savings to enjoy life than if you work until 170 and spend every penny as you make it.

Of course you could also die in the next few minutes. You need to find that balance.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by taneq on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:02AM (#17506494)
I'm not sure how much room for hedonic advancement there is when average wage raises are almost exactly equal to inflation.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by adventured on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:42AM (#17506744)
That's not actually what's happening.

Drop natural population growth toward zero. Import one million low skill, very low income persons per year.

Welcome to the non-merit, non-point based immigration system treadmill of never getting anywhere because you perpetually flood your system with cheap replacement labor.

Tens of millions of Americans moved from the middle class into the top two economic tiers since 1970. And we replaced them with vast amounts of low cost imported labor. If you keep doing that, you will not see meaningful wage growth at the median, you'll only see it in the top tiers.

Most other developed nations are once again correct: the US should move to a common sense points based immigration system. We could merely exactly copy Canada on immigration, and that would dramatically improve the conditions for workers at or below the median.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by taneq on Thursday July 12, 2018 @03:14AM (#17512782)
Your argument doesn't seem to disagree with mine - I said wages aren't growing, you suggested a (quite plausible) explanation as to why.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by quantdev on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:27AM (#17506302)
I don't think the hedonic treadmill or that link has anything to do with your statement "the average person spends almost exactly as they make as income rises." The hedonic treadmill says that happiness is eventually independent of income and savings. So, eventually, whether someone makes $1mm/year, saves none of it, makes $1mm/year, saves $500k, or makes $30k/year, saves none of it, s/he'll have the same happiness.

Also, your statement is false. The average higher-income person saves both more money on an absolute basis ($ amount) and on a percent-of-his/her-income basis.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jimbofisher1 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:19AM (#17507582)
Not that I disagree with the idea but do you have evidence that the average person is actually increasing spending every time they get a raise?
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by AnimalMuppet on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:31AM (#17507690)
An individual employee may do almost anything. But most of them won't decrease spending when given a raise. Some may spend exactly the same as before. The rest will spend more. Do those who spend more outnumber those who spend less? I have no data, but I would be astonished if those who spent less outweighed those who spent more.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jimbofisher1 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @12:09PM (#17507995)
Sure and I basically agree with that. But saying that the actual Average person is spending nearly 100% of any income gains is a pretty bold claim.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by AnimalMuppet on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @12:13PM (#17508030)
That's not a claim that I make, nor one that I think is relevant.

What would I do with more income? Well, I'd probably save some of it, use some of it to pay down debt, and spend some of it. I don't have to be spending 100% of my current income for that to be true.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jimbofisher1 on Thursday July 12, 2018 @02:43PM (#17517439)
You must be lost. OP made precisely that claim...

>The average person spends almost exactly as much as they make as income rises.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by oblio on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:05AM (#17506515)
I find this is way more prevalent in the US than in Europe.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by annabellish on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:29AM (#17506309)
For most people? Yes, absolutely. Most people aren't paid enough to cover their needs + enough of their wants to keep them happy, never mind savings. We have a very different perspective to the average worker in tech, where we're usually paid well above our needs + many wants.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jdhn on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:38AM (#17506357)
I guess my experience differs. Before I moved into the tech world I worked at a law firm for peanuts. When I got a $1/hr raise I went out, bought a bottle of whiskey to celebrate, and then didn't increase my spending at all. Any money I got from that raise went right to my savings account.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by annabellish on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:17AM (#17507574)
When you say "peanuts", do you mean "peanuts relative to what we get paid in tech" or "peanuts relative to the actual average wage"? For reference, the overall average wage is in the range of $6-800/week.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by jdhn on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:34AM (#17507717)
Both. I started off at $10, got a bump up to $11.
Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by segmondy on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @10:28AM (#17507183)
Don't buy that. I think it's the media. There are so many reality TV shows and the participants are living in nice houses, driving nice cars. Even movies are fucking unrealistic, you can watch a movie about someone earning minimum wage, yet they live in NYC, in a massive apartment with high ceiling or drive a nice car. The rubbish on TV, both fiction and nonfiction are so far from reality. Yet most consumers desire for that false reality and spend more than they ought to.

Looking at my companies parking lot, I see BMWs, Mercedes, Range Rovers, Escalades, Maserati, Porsches, and tons of new cars, etc I'm in Detroit of all places. We're not getting paid like that!

Most people have new iphones, ear pods, the other day I was in a meeting with about 12 people, 9 of them where wearing iwatch. I can assure you that for the majority it's a fashion statement more than a need.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by annabellish on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:10AM (#17507513)
Fancy phones and watches are, given the current state of most carriers, not actually _that_ much more significant an expense than a cheaper device month to month.

You can "buy" that explanation or not, but there's a lot of research and evidence backing up the idea that a huge fraction of the western world lives essentially paycheck to paycheck, and it's not because all of them are less financially savvy than you or I, who just happen to get paid well above average too.

A good TV and nice phone are not usually the kind of expenses that drive people into having no savings. If I go grab an example from t-mobile...

A brand new, shiny iphone x for somebody with good credit is gonna run us $30/m. That's kinda pricy, so let's go a few generations back and get a refurbished iphone 6s plus - they won't let me go to older generations. That'll cost $22/m. So sure, yes, that cost adds up - but $8/m extra in savings is not going to be the difference between somebody living paycheck to paycheck or suddenly being flush with savings.

Never mind reality TV - _actual_ reality is that a large percentage of the population of basically every first world, western, developed country is paid at such a level that any raise is just going to go directly back into the economy because they aren't paid enough for savings to be a high enough priority to happen. This isn't financial illiteracy - both of us put a _lot_ before savings, it just happens that once we've done that we still have a bunch left over. Lots of people don't.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bluGill on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @11:52AM (#17507852)
My advice is you make sure you have your savings in gear and then live paycheck to paycheck. That is you fund your 401k (IRA, HSA, ...), and set aside some emergency savings. However unless you have a specific short term goal in mind you should be spending everything else and enjoying life to the best of your remaining income.

Of course that $8/month difference isn't much savings, but it is a lunch out vs heating leftovers one day. Or you can eat leftovers everyday, save that $8/month on the phone and use all of that savings to buy membership at a golf club. This is your life and your choice, what do you want?

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by annabellish on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @12:16PM (#17508056)
>My advice is you make sure you have your savings in gear and then live paycheck to paycheck

People don't live paycheck to paycheck by choice, usually. Savings first is not an option if it means not paying rent, bills, or food.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by bluGill on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @05:31PM (#17510458)
yes and no. Most people do live that way by choice, but they don't really realize they are making a choice. You need to pay rent, but very few people live in the cheapest apartment they can find. You have to pay bills, but you can make them much cheaper (it means you hang out in local parks because there is no TV, internet, and you avoid even so much as turning on a light). You need to eat, but beans and rice are cheap.

How much savings you need is an open question of course. To live as above without income doesn't require a lot of savings, so you start saving less and add some luxury.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by geezerjay on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:09AM (#17506538)
> + enough of their wants

Placing your wants in check does wonders to keep cash in your pocket. If some people burn through their cash to feed their conspicuous consumption then obviously that doesn't mean they are poor or in need.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by misja111 on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:47AM (#17506420)
You're right, that line doesn't make sense, although not for the reason that you are giving.

It doesn't really matter if you spend your raise or not. If you put your raise in the bank, the bank will spend it by either lending out more money or investing it.

For the same reason, for the economy it doesn't matter much if the company spends its money on employees or on shareholders.

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by gaius on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @08:42AM (#17506388)
so I have more money to save.

Unless you are saving in the mattress, the money is still in the economy

Re:Employers will do almost anything to find workers except ... by icebraining on Wednesday July 11, 2018 @09:05AM (#17506516)
Yes, but not as higher sales.