Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work

Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by jhancock on Saturday October 29, 2011 @11:08PM (#3173532)

How would you renegotiate the social contract? Do you have a draft of a plan? If we keep our monetary/debit systems similar to what we have, do you feel there is a need to redistribute equity/money/capital? If so, how would we go about this?

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by sp332 on Saturday October 29, 2011 @11:28PM (#3173557)

For a very simple start, people who have money are just sitting on it instead of investing it in companies that actually hire people. That means that money tends to go up the ladder and never comes back down. Maybe we can change the "social contract" to get rich people to hire working-class people again.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by natrius on Sunday October 30, 2011 @12:47AM (#3173660)

I've never understood this claim. I presume rich people don't shove money under their mattresses. They invest the money in companies, loan the money to companies, or put the money in banks that loan money to companies and individuals. How is that sitting on money?

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by drumdance on Sunday October 30, 2011 @01:05AM (#3173688)

Exactly. Even buying treasury bonds is helpful because much of the money pays federal employees and the military, and the rest goes to the private sector in the form of contracts.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by Tycho on Sunday October 30, 2011 @06:31AM (#3174053)

Not to mention, the recent financial crisis stems to a large extent from banks being 'under-capitalized,' i.e. not enough rich people just leaving their money in an account.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by snowwindwaves on Sunday October 30, 2011 @01:08PM (#3174795)

or the banks lending out every cent they do have

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by sp332 on Sunday October 30, 2011 @08:08AM (#3174165)

Currently, it's hard for people to get loans. So if rich people buy bonds, the banks won't lend out much of the money. Interest rates are so low, banks wouldn't make much money on the loans, so there's not much incentive to make more loans. And since the inflation rate is hovering around 0, the bank isn't really losing money by just sitting on it, There just isn't any incentive for the banks to make a lot of loans.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by matwood on Sunday October 30, 2011 @10:09AM (#3174408)

Currently, it's hard for people to get loans.

It's hard for people with bad credit to get loans, as it should be. People who are unlikely to pay the loans back should not be given them in the first place. In fact, many people who are in trouble now are blaming banks for giving them the money. So which is it? Should money be given freely to anyone or should creditors be selective with who they give loans?

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by notatoad on Sunday October 30, 2011 @01:01AM (#3173680)

Why not embrace actual socialism, instead of trying to shoehorn it into capitalism? If your society relies on the rich to hire staff who don't add value, it is essentially privatized welfare.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by sp332 on Sunday October 30, 2011 @11:18AM (#3174549)

People in a society have to take care of each other. Otherwise, why have a society at all? Anyway I'm libertarian, but I'm pro-private welfare. (I'm against government welfare.)

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by ramchip on Sunday October 30, 2011 @01:05AM (#3173689)

Aren't almost all rich people rich in stocks? Take the richest billionaires: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires . All these people are rich through owning companies; they don't have loads of actual currency, they just own stocks in companies that employ people.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by yummyfajitas on Sunday October 30, 2011 @08:48AM (#3174236)

Simple way to do this: make hiring easier.

I know a person who wanted to hire a part time personal assistant, but didn't because the paperwork was ridiculous. The economics weren't great either - you pay tax, spend what's left on a personal assistant, who then winds up paying tax again.

One way to boost the economics of hiring would be to allow individuals to hire other individuals (this would mostly be domestic labor) with pre-tax dollars with a commensurate reduction in paperwork. It would cost the government a lot less per job created than most stimulus schemes I've seen proposed.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by matwood on Sunday October 30, 2011 @10:14AM (#3174421)

Simple way to do this: make hiring easier.

Exactly. Right now hiring and firing is hard and expensive. One of the pieces of software I've written for my company attempts to put total costs on attrition and it's staggering from a resource perspective. One of the main drivers of outsourcing isn't the employee wage, but the cost of getting rid of a bad employee.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by econ101 on Sunday October 30, 2011 @01:02PM (#3174786)

It is odd that we've settled on a system that taxes upwards of 30% percent on things that increase wealth and provide social stability (hiring, working) rather than tax at 1% or 2% things that don't increase wealth and cause social unrest (large private fortunes)

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by protomyth on Sunday October 30, 2011 @01:30PM (#3174848)

Large private fortunes provide capital needed to start businesses or local governments bonding to do infrastructure. No capital, no business. Check the FDR taxes on certain types of wealth for serious historic failure and unintended consequences.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by econ101 on Sunday October 30, 2011 @10:28PM (#3176126)

FDR taxes were largely about raising income taxes to punitive levels. The opposite of what I was suggesting. The increase in capital generation brought on from 0% income tax would more than compensate for any destruction of existing capital.

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by protomyth on Sunday October 30, 2011 @11:25PM (#3176245)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undistributed_profits_tax

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Re:Our Unpaid, Extra Shadow Work by econ101 on Monday October 31, 2011 @02:18AM (#3176557)

Thanks. That's an interesting link, but it describes an income tax. It is just the kind of tax I'm arguing against. Its aim seems to have been to prevent individuals from delaying payment of income tax that was held within companies.

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