"Nobody wants to work anymore."

[Jericho Z. Barrons]

Anyway, I agree, talk of solutions to the ennui regarding hustle culture and lack of ambition for consumerism would be better. I made this thread hoping to have THAT discussion. Like, I can't tell if people actually agree that there is a problem with how minimum wage business views its employees as expendables or not. We don't need to get as complicated as communism or privilege determined by the dollar amount. It's cultural-econimics, what we're talking about.

If I were offered more money to do a cashiering or stocking job, I might feel it's worth my devotion. I at least wouldn't feel like I'm trying to climb out of a hole I'm being buried in. I also like the idea of employees getting profit share opportunities. I also like the idea of changing the work week expectations to where 3 or 4 days off a week is normal. I don't think spending every day at work, constantly, missing out on family and other fulfilling activities is good for people.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

All work deserves dignity and that requires all work to pay a living wage. Regardless of who does it or where.

That is a fundamental truth to my ideology and any system that fails by it does not deserve to exist.

 

[Queen of hearts]

My husband makes $14.75 an hour which is above the Ohio State minimum wage, his paychecks are around $543+. Depends on weather or not it's a Holiday weekend etc. After we pay our rent our car insurance and whatever bills we have due were lucky if were left with $325+ to spend on at least a week or two worth of groceries! He's a laborer, was working from 7-3 five days a week and has had the same job since he was fifteen-sixteen years old because he was literally fathered into it once his father bought the company. He gets paid every Friday, his older brother is Salary because he's the vice president of the company so he probably makes $25+ a week, his wife is an emergency room nurse so she also brings in an income. They have three kids, are in debt due to taking multiple mortgages out on their house. But my point is they make ends meet better then my husband and I do' we've been struggling since we've been together.

 

[Passion]

I've been promoted several times, and I found out I'm now making what desperate fast food locations are starting at. Not saying fast food doesn't deserve more, but kinda a slap in my face for my effort and to my title. Still, despite all that, still not enough money to survive off of.

 

[Kiki]

If I remember correctly, "communism" in Russia began after the Tzar's and his family's death.

In China, it started as WWII was tearing China into pieces, so the allies had to come and help. This brought the conflict of who should rebuild the country, Communism or Nationalism. I might be wrong but I think thay when Mao got in power a lot of the religion and older traditions just disappeared. SUPPOSEDLY (don't take my words as facts) Mao even wanted to eliminate chinese letters and replace them with the latin alphabet.

Again, take this with a grain of salt

actually communism start with Paris commune after France was wrecked in the Franco Prussian war, basically the government had yet another huge failure and the commune was a extreme reaction, so extreme it sent Marx back to the drawing board.

for Russia, basically the Romanovs have been driving the country into the ground with participation in the Great War and just general incompetence.

In China, yeah basically Japan did leave china a wreck and Mao was the one leader who kinda salvaged the mess.

basically in all cases late empire, failed wars and failure of rulership and political class is what led to the rise of these totalitarian regimes and this is not limited to communism, facism works much the same way when you look at Italy and Germany.
America is hitting that late empire point right now...

 

[Kiki]

But rather than banter blame and flaws back and forth I'm more interested in what you folks see as a potential solution?

I mean its gonna have to boil down to what we all want society to be. the imperial model has broken and due to land population and environmental limitations capitalism is going to break too unless managed.

basically its going to have to break down to the following. the cold war is over, stop acting these made up economic systems are religions, they are social constructs, means they are fictions that we live with, so rather than treat then as gospel, lets apply them where they make sense.

you need innovation that needs to be pushed and have guaranteed funding? socialize it. need services required for general we being and upward improvement for society as a whole? socialize it. need tech to be streamlined and proliferated? Privatize it. need to produce general consumer goods and luxuries? privatize.

basically build your sectors around the intended outcome you want and if you jsut make it for one group and one class, you WILL hit late empire like all the hundreds of historical examples. again, Equador, Germany, Japan, the Nordic countries, Switzerland (most of the time) seem to be headed in the new more sensible direction, but we still seem stuck in Adam Smith land more out of tradition than anything else.

 

[Kiki]

I've been promoted several times, and I found out I'm now making what desperate fast food locations are starting at. Not saying fast food doesn't deserve more, but kinda a slap in my face for my effort and to my title. Still, despite all that, still not enough money to survive off of.

well I was working in a skilled profession doing electrical work making less than 15 an hour, when fast food workers started making 15 I jsut took it as. "man! I am being under paid" also I worked in the restaurant industry its brutal too.

 

[Xanaphia]

I don't think there's any way for the poor and middle class to win, because the system will always just rearrange our wealth and evaporate it rather than have the rich CEO simply pay us more and not charge more for the product.

I mean, we know it doesn't have to cost much more to support $15 minimum wage, because we can compare prices for fast food in different parts of the country, and it's a minimal difference. Heck, we can even compare it place in Europe, with a much higher minimum wage and other perks that are unheard of in the US, and see that there is very little difference.

One of the only ways we can fight back against the tide of low wages and shitty benefits is to unionize. A single worker doesn't have much of a voice compared to a corporation, but if a large portion of their workers stood together, their voices hold weight. It's not easy, mind you, but there is a reason that Amazon fought so hard and broke the law to prevent its workers from unionizing recently. And trust me, it wasn't to protect its workers.

 

[Kiki]

well, there are several large strikes going on across the nation right now. maybe this might be labor winning back some power finally.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

Nurses over in Massachusetts, Coal Miners in West Virginia and Kellogg factory workers across a couple states, because who wants their pay and benefits cut when you're working 16 hour days for a hundred straight days while the corporation reports record profits.

We are definitely in late stage capitalism and it will be socialism or barbarism.

 

[Kiki]

Nurses over in Massachusetts, Coal Miners in West Virginia and Kellogg factory workers across a couple states, because who wants their pay and benefits cut when you're working 16 hour days for a hundred straight days while the corporation reports record profits.

We are definitely in late stage capitalism and it will be socialism or barbarism.

we had that same crossroad in the 30s, my question is how many people WANT the barberism vs another new deal?

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

The New Deal while it did a lot of good only kicked the can a little ways down the road and only managed to lift certain segments of society up.

As an aside else where on one of my discords someone made a comment along the lines of:

All this talk of "Nobody wants to work no more" sounds awfully similar to "No chicks date nice guys".

 

[TheCorsair]

So all of this got me thinking. And that led me to do some math, which showed me something interesting. Amazon.com has EPS (TTM) of $57.38 as of 6/30/2021. If you aren't familiar with this, it is "calculated by dividing the Company Reported GAAP earnings available to common stockholders for the trailing twelve months by the trailing twelve month diluted weighted average shares outstanding."

To put that into perspective, Amazon has 506,441,000 common shares outstanding. This means that the earnings available to common shareholders amounts to $29,509,584,580 from 7/31/2020 to 6/30/2021.

Now, Amazon also has 1,297,000 employees. If they gave every single one of them a $10,000 per year raise, this would cost them $12,970,000,000. (This would represent a $4.63 per hour raise, bringing the average starting salary at Amazon to $22.63, or $48,880.80 per year.)

So, yeah. $12,970,000,000 is a huge chunk of change. It would reduce their total earnings available to common shareholders to "only" $16,539,584,580, which results in a revised EPS (TTM) of… wait for it…

$32.65

What does that mean? Well, the industry average EPS (TTM) is $35.15. So, by taking this action, they'd look marginally less profitable than the industry average. But I strongly suspect that the positive press they'd generate - not to mention the fierce employee loyalty this move could generate - would offset this.

 

[Kiki]

The New Deal while it did a lot of good only kicked the can a little ways down the road and only managed to lift certain segments of society up.

As an aside else where on one of my discords someone made a comment along the lines of:

I mean the reasoning was using socialism to save capitalism since crashes like this are garunteed under this system. the powel memo was the start of everything getting reverse.

 

[Kiki]

So all of this got me thinking. And that led me to do some math, which showed me something interesting. Amazon.com has EPS (TTM) of $57.38 as of 6/30/2021. If you aren't familiar with this, it is "calculated by dividing the Company Reported GAAP earnings available to common stockholders for the trailing twelve months by the trailing twelve month diluted weighted average shares outstanding."

To put that into perspective, Amazon has 506,441,000 common shares outstanding. This means that the earnings available to common shareholders amounts to $29,509,584,580 from 7/31/2020 to 6/30/2021.

Now, Amazon also has 1,297,000 employees. If they gave every single one of them a $10,000 per year raise, this would cost them $12,970,000,000. (This would represent a $4.63 per hour raise, bringing the average starting salary at Amazon to $22.63, or $48,880.80 per year.)

So, yeah. $12,970,000,000 is a huge chunk of change. It would reduce their total earnings available to common shareholders to "only" $16,539,584,580, which results in a revised EPS (TTM) of… wait for it…

$32.65

What does that mean? Well, the industry average EPS (TTM) is $35.15. So, by taking this action, they'd look marginally less profitable than the industry average. But I strongly suspect that the positive press they'd generate - not to mention the fierce employee loyalty this move could generate - would offset this.

I'll cry when they pax taxes.

 

[Xanaphia]

All this talk of "Nobody wants to work no more" sounds awfully similar to "No chicks date nice guys".

The workers have friendzoned capitalism.

 

[Light-Fox]

The workers have friendzoned capitalism.

They should be blocking capitalism while also filing for a restraining order against capitalism and friend requesting socialism. Socialism is where the workers can thrive. Late stage capitalism is a toxic and abuse relationship, even in the friend zone.

 

[Sync]

Socialism is where the workers can thrive.

Ask the folk in Venezuela or Cuba how socialism is working for them, then get back to me.

 

[Xanaphia]

Ask the folk in Venezuela or Cuba how socialism is working for them, then get back to me.

Yeah, because I am sure neither of their situations have anything to do with interference from the US or western powers. Just the socialism.

 

[Sync]

Yeah, because I am sure neither of their situations have anything to do with interference from the US or western powers. Just the socialism.

So was the failure of Socialism in Soviet Russia due to US and/or western interference as well, or was that just socialism that failed?

The challenge is always there: name one country where socialism has worked.

 

[Xanaphia]

So was the failure of Socialism in Soviet Russia due to US and/or western interference as well, or was that just socialism that failed?

The challenge is always there: name one country where socialism has worked.

Seeing as I am not actually advocating for pure socialism, I am going to pass. However, mixed economies with strong social safety nets are among the happiest countries in the world.

 

[Sync]

Seeing as I am not actually advocating for pure socialism, I am going to pass. However, mixed economies with strong social safety nets are among the happiest countries in the world.

Mixed economies, sure. If the economy is robust enough to be able to afford the socialism-related aspect, then go for it. A free-market economy is the one that generally drives inventions and improvements that can then be used to support the socialism-related elements.

But finding that balance isn't easy, and there are always those wanting to abuse one side or the other.

 

[Nihilistic_Impact]

You do know that we actually invaded Russia after WW1?

We also ruined their economy by forcing them into an arms race where we were able to out spend them. Like Russia fucked up a lot of things; but to say that America had nothing to do with their collapse is just ignorant to an extreme.

There's also no such thing as a free market, it is a myth.

 

[Light-Fox]

The USSR, like the Nazi party in Germany, despite having socialist in it's name wasn't actually socialist. The workers didn't actually own anything. The government did.

 

[Glass Eye]

So was the failure of Socialism in Soviet Russia due to US and/or western interference as well, or was that just socialism that failed?

The challenge is always there: name one country where socialism has worked.

Brazil, Turkey, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Peru, Ecuador, Netherlands, Tunisia, Bolivia, Portugal, Sweden, Serbia, Nicaragua, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Finland, (edit: I listed Finland twice on accident, which invalidates everything I have to say, so you can ignore everything I have to say after this; this one simple mistake gives away the whole game that I have zero knowledge, analysis, or education. I have been caught out as a fool, a shill, a paltroon) Croatia, Moldova, Armenia, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Greenland.

You're welcome.

The USSR wasn't socialist. It claimed to be socialist, however, it also claimed to be working towards socialism. When Stalin took power by exploiting weaknesses in the Marxist-Leninist political structure that centralized power in the bureaucratic/political General Secretary role it could not be socialist, because democracy is baked into socialism. Pointing this is out is why Trotsky was exiled, continuing to make noise about it was why Trotsky was assassinated. The internal propaganda claimed that by going with the system then the USSR would attain a communist paradise. Externally, it claimed that it was a communist paradise.

I bring this up because it appears you have fallen into the trap of thinking socialism = communism (it doesn't) and that socialism = dictatorship (it doesn't) or even that socialism = liberalism (it doesn't). In the countries I listed, all social democracies, you can see a wide geographic, linguistic, cultural, and economic spread. Socialism appears to be working to various degrees and embodying various degrees of right and left thought. Turkey and Brazil, for instance, currently have their executive control by right wing theocratic groups. On the other end of the spectrum Portugal's current ruling party is a left wing technocratic party.

But I mean, I guess we could just say that these are all failed states, right? It wouldn't be true, honest or even borderline respectful to say that all of these countries are failed states. As a matter of fact, most of them are places I would be willing to live.

Ultimately, though, I don't imagine this will change your mind or that you'll stop parroting FOX News/NewsCorp talking points. It's much easier to be told than to ask, after all.