They also have a much better safety net. Healthcare not being tied to employment is already massive.

I think a flat tax + UBI is the only way to go. The dream of AI should be a society where maybe 10% of people have to work. The nightmare is if the other 90% still need work but can’t find it.

When everyone is the same (genetics, background, culture, etc) there is very little structural inequality in a competitive market. In an empire like the US, so many groups exist in a hierarchy that government support is required. In such an environment bare competition simply reveals and highlights fundamental difference, which is not conducive to social cohesion or harmony.

What kind of things made you feel not good in the first four years? Just unfamiliarity, something else?

Maybe we can fix the things that make workers uneasy in the first few years.

Not just in employment; voting out incumbents improves economic growth for the majority: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766

Since the early 1980s, start of the Millennial generation, inflation is 300%; takes $800k/yr to have the buying power of $200k/yr in the 80s

Millennials and GenZ have only ever known austerity and oligarchy.

And that Exxon computed the min-max of the climate trend back in the 1970s just says they know, given all the data, they know.

GenX edge lords don't give shiiiit

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/style/gen-x-generation-di...

I have zero respect for people >50 especially any in official policy roles. Zero fucks for anyone but themselves this whole time; ignored reality just like religious nutters and presumed political dogma would be on their side

Jokes on them; Millennials are even more convinced it all just goes black with death, fewer young people going into elder care jobs, population decline crushing those jobs... GenX can enjoy hobbling to their toilet unassisted with bed sores and gout. Fuck them too then

Exactly like this.

Since a public option will never happen, maybe the most feasible fix we could do is to do a REAL version of the P in HIIPA - portability. Let employees stay in the group plan of any company, paying the full premium a la COBRA, but forever, and require companies to give a tax-deductible cash benefit equivalent to the premium subsidy they'd be entitled to in their new job, if they show proof they're in a COBRA plan (which for efficiency, should just be a flag in some government database since they're all up in our business now with the 1095 forms anyway, they ought to know).

Or hiring practices that can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent?

A competitive labor market doesn't automatically mean you switch jobs constantly though. You get choose which job you go to, and if you have better options available, and choose your optimal fit, that can give you more purpose, not less.

And while it is inefficient if a company has to constantly retrain employees, overall you can have a more efficient market when people are given options, since employees can find the best fit. If you're working a job that isn't the best possible fit (something that's harder to find when your limited by time and resources) that's worse overall for the economy.

Of course there's more nuance here, but this is the core debate of unemployment payments. More unemployment benefits incentivizes people to stay unemployed longer (bad), but when they do find eventually find employment, it's usually better employment (very good).

Competitive labor markets are FAR more efficient in terms of labor productivity, allocation, skill development, and spreading ideas around. One of the reasons the Industrial Revolution happened in England was because labor was more mobile than on the continent.

Job-hopping doesn't seem to have those downsides in Silicon Valley though? I think the "feeling like a cog" aspect has more to do with company size. Can you get a meeting with the CEO?

You're not simply hoping that corporations do the right thing though. Rather, you're making it more economically unfeasible for them to pay workers less.

That's good because you don't have to rely on corporations acting morally, and corporations who do act good out of moral obligation aren't punished fiscally for it.

And although the idea is sexy, it's far from a wet dream. It's actually the standard in the Scandinvan social democracies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity