aahhahahaaa

This is not true. You're completely pulling this out of your ass.

Your job isn't paying less and outputting more because video games exist. When cars were introduced pay didn't suddenly stop tracking productivity.

The top 10% of taxes should go up radically. They've been MUCH higher in the past.

I'll say it again because apparently no one's listening.

We're working more and getting paid less for that work. This isn't because of the standard of living. Standard of living can still increase while pay tracks productivity, and it does in other developed countries.

This is the most frustrating HN discussion I've seen in a while. People are coming here to peddle this "quality of life" argument with zero evidence. You're not even stopping for a second to consider that the US isn't the only country in the world.

If you compare the American GDP to other countries, the average individual is getting very little bang for their buck as far as quality of life goes.

You're working more and getting paid less than people did, 10, 20, 30 years ago... meanwhile the wealth gap has increased dramatically. Where do you think it's going? It's not hyperbole whatsoever.

This is false. I do not understand how so many people are coming in here peddling this theory with 0 sources. It doesn't even follow basic logic. You're positing that we're spending more while also earning less? Where's that money coming from then?

It's objective that productivity has increased while pay and leisure time have decreased. This isn't a result of any increase in material goods. People are spending less because simply because they're getting paid less.

In 1956 the federal minimum wage was $1 (roughly $10 adjusted for inflation). Today it's 3/4 of that at 7.25.

This is not true.

I'm talking about worker productivity within the US. Hour for hour we're outputting more and getting paid less. Before overseas labor you weren't less productive because you had to make your own clothes or something. That time had already long passed. I'm talking about what has happened since the 1950s, not the 1850s.

child labor still exists, literally kids operating sewing and mining machines

Walter You can go on and on, but you're talking about an illusion. You are literally working more and getting paid less than previous generations. It's objective data. People had cars and televisions. Your cellphone doesn't cost the lifetime of productivity gains that are being stolen from you.

Ouch, that's kind of like the lottery. Sorry you worked your ass off waiting for retirement, here's some cancer.

The thing is... you can have the choice. Sometimes you need the choice, things can go south for any of us. The choice can also free you to take risks... it makes it easier to start a business, it makes it easier to fail.

I've been literally working without an unemployment gap since I've been 14. I worked 60+ hours a week through most of my 20s. I didn't have a choice. It took me half of my life to reach financial stability and normalcy. I still get stressed about healthcare costs despite being healthy. It doesn't have to be this way for anyone.

Even if you want to work all the time, most people aren't being paid appropriately for the time they put in. None of us are really experiencing the benefits of society's dramatically increased productivity.

Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either?

Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in equal access and you reduce an extreme amount of bureaucracy and debate in the process.

>If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work.

WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK.

Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it. We've been having labor outright stolen from us for decades.

Having nearly unlimited free garbage removal is probably more than a problem than people realize.

UBI means you can actually evaluate the system you live in and determine what's necessary (and then pay more for it). At the moment it's all "jobs jobs jobs" - we have entire federal agencies that are essentially jobs programs (Homeland Security is a great example... they've done almost literally nothing).

Right not a bad point, but I was making the comparison to demonstrate Amazon's scale within ecommerce... not to compare the volume of sales across all commerce.

I personally think the distinction matters, but maybe I'm wrong.