indyfabz

You are not in a lifeboat or in some protective bubble. We are all on the same boat, whether you are trying to plug the leaks or not. You reducing your carbon footprint won't save you if the earth ends up sinking. Sorry, but I have to believe you are just trying to pull peoples' legs. No one can be that off naturally. Or do you believe you are on another planet and THAT is what you mean being in a lifeboat?

Either way, it's time update the iggy list once again, doc.
__________________
"You keep lying when you ought to be truthing. You keep losing when you ought to not bet."--L. Hazlewood

Eric F 

Have you tried smaller tires?

genejockey 

While it's true that climate change will change the climate for everyone, it will hit some areas harder than others, and a lot of those areas are where the poorest people live. By contrast, people living in more affuent countries, and especially the more affluent people living in more affluent countries, are likely to be not only less impacted, but also able to afford moving to less affected areas.

BBB_Adrift

Terry Pratchett espouses a socially aware position on the politics of keeping people poor by making them buy cheap repeatedly. Worth a Google.

livedarklions

I'm not saying I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, but if I did, would that be a good anecdote?

BBB_Adrift

or the economy would change to become focused on important things? Good to see a fellow Klaatu aficionado.

BBB_Adrift

It depends on how you recount the episode. Factual, cold, emotional, long-winded. Etc....

Give it a go.

RCMoeur 

My newest bicycle was originally made in 1999, and I don't have much of an urge to get anything newer. What I have serves my needs.

I will neither confirm nor deny that I have hoarded curated a collection of spare parts for myself, my family, and maybe dozens of friends (if I had them). But nearly all of these parts are of the less-cutting-edge type - all the cranks are square taper and internal bearing, most of the chains and freewheels/cassettes are 6-7-8 speed, quill-type stems - you get the idea. Not fancy, not newish, but fully functional.

Earlier today, I dropped off half a truck load of patched tubes, refurbished parts, and even a reassembled bike for the Recycle Your Bicycle program. If RYB had to buy these items from a distributor, even at wholesale prices, this would cost the program thousands of dollars. Happy to spend some of my free time to help out this and other good programs.

But if you like or want carbon fiber, DI2, and all that fancy new stuff, great. Hope you have very fun rides on 'em.

No hurry in getting off my lawn.

genejockey 

The problem with that is, where does the money come from to provide goods and services for everybody?

I'm not saying that it's necessarily a good thing that the economy relies on overconsumption to enable full employment, but I have yet to see a workable counterproposal.

I wonder to what extent copyright law made Sam Raimi go with "Klaatu Verata Nikto" as opposed to that Klaatu REALLY said, which was "Klaatu BARADA Nikto"?

RCMoeur 

I'm beginning to suspect this particular issue is really getting your Gort.

Koyote

I don't want to set you off, but this is fallacious 'logic.' At least, the conclusion that this would be a 'bad' outcome does not logically follow. At all.

If everyone consumed less, we wouldn't need as many jobs and/or people with jobs wouldn't need to work as many hours. That's the logical consequence of people spending less: they don't need as much income and the economy is not called upon to produce as much stuff.

The nasty paradox is that this would suit many people: in survey after survey, many (perhaps most -- I'm not current in the literature) full-time workers indicate that they would prefer to have shorter workweeks and proportionately smaller paychecks -- but large segments of the economy are built around FT or even FT+ employment, since there are substantial fixed costs per worker (hiring, training, eventual separation, benefits, etc) and hence firms would prefer to have fewer workers putting in longer hours. In survey after survey, when people are asked to list the things they most enjoy, or the things on which they'd like to spend more time, things that cost money are never in the top few categories. They want more time to go to church, to spend with their families, to have sex...I'll bet many people on this forum would like more riding time. If the labor market were structured to allow that, many people would choose to work less and be happier. We wouldn't need as many jobs.

genejockey 

We don't need to argue logic here. We can simply look at how things actually work - A recession is what happens when everyone cuts back on their spending. Fewer man-hours are then required to produce all the goods and services that are consumed, and that leads to increased unemployment.

Note - this is how it works AS THINGS ARE NOW, that is, with the current economic system. It COULD work differently under a different economic system, but we don't have a different economic system.

genejockey 

There's what people say, and then there's what people DO. Church attendance has been falling for decades, for example. OTOH, people keep spending more money on stuff.

Koyote

You're not addressing my post. Not at all.

But I will respond. A recession is most commonly defined as a reduction in Real GDP that lasts for at least two quarters...So yes, if spending fell fast enough and far enough, there would be a recession. But if that is driven by people's preferences to consume less (and work less, and hence earn less -- which is compatible with consuming less), then unemployment would NOT increase. (Here I suspect that, like most people, you simply don't understand the actual definition of "unemployment." A person is counted as unemployed if she is not working and actually wants a job. If no job is sought, the person is not in the labor force.)

And by the way, none of this is incompatible with "the current economic system." We each make these decisions all the time -- decisions about whether (and, if we have the latitude, how much) to work...For example, when retiring, dropping out of the labor force to raise a family or pursue education, etc.

Your argument reflects the sort of capitalist indoctrination that we get from people with an introductory-level understanding of economics.

genejockey 

I'm sorry, but that's just nonsense. Here, let me quote it for you:

"Note - this is how it works AS THINGS ARE NOW, that is, with the current economic system. It COULD work differently under a different economic system, but we don't have a different economic system."

So, basically, if people were different, things would be different. Also, I know what the definition of "unemployment" is, *******.

Or, more accurately, actual observation of how things work, not how they'd work if unicorns farted rainbows people weren't who they are.

livedarklions

livedarklions

Shhhh, bad puns are grounds for planetary extinction.

Koyote

I'll try to break this down into the smallest chunks possible, but I suspect you're not open to actually thinking deeply about this.

1) If people prefer to spend less, that's compatible with working and earning less.

2) If people actually spend, work, and earn less, then the economy doesn't need to have as many jobs and doesn't need to produce as much stuff - because people are not buying as much.

3) Since this is driven by people's preferences (see #1, above), then an economy with fewer jobs and lower output actually reflects people's preferences.

4) An economic system that responds to people's preferences is called market capitalism. (Would you prefer a system that doesn't respond to people's preferences? Honest Q.)

5) This is precisely how the average hours per working year in the US were able to fall fairly steadily for a loong time, right up into the mid-twentieth century. As we became more productive, people worked less and didn't really suffer any more material deprivation. Again, that's how an efficient market works: it gives people what they want.

I don't know how to make it any simpler than this. In my experience, a reasonably bright (B- or better) introductory econ student can grasp this.

livedarklions

Wait, is Gort a supply side/trickle down economics guy?

livedarklions

#5 isn't consistent with the rest of your argument. People in the early to mid-20th century were working less but earning and consuming more (with the exception of the Great Depression) And speaking of the Great Depression, the crash of demand led to deflation, which discouraged investment, which caused unemployment which decreased demand which caused deflation which....

When demand crashed to its lowest, there was 25-50% unemployment. And people were definitely deprived.

You both seem to be carrying this to some pretty extreme conclusions.

genejockey 

Shorter Koyote: If people were different, things would be different.

I grasp all of what you wrote, but I'd observe that the world doesn't actually work that way. I mean, it's a lovely hypothesis, but empirical observation indicates otherwise. When demand falls in the real world, the people who leave the ranks of the employed generally don't do so by choice, and they aren't generally people who only worked to be able to buy more stuff. The worst hit are usually the ones whose jobs provide little beyond necessities. A bunch of people in the middle class decide to cut back on spending, and a lot of working class people find themselves out of work. You make it sound like the reduction in manhours worked is a beneficial thing, spreading across the workforce evenly, rather than wrenching dislocation for a significant chunk of the population and fear of the same happening to them for a larger chunk.

Plus, you really did the labor movement a considerable disservice with your description of how the work week was shortened in the first half of the 20th Century.

I understand what you're saying. It just doesn't comport well with how reality has worked for at least the length of my adult life.

genejockey 

I'm not sure my conclusion is that extreme. Let's say everyone decided to cut their spending by 10%. You'd dine out less, so the restaurants you frequent would have less cash coming in, so maybe they would have to lay off one or more people. The newly laid-off people now have even less income, so they spend less. And because a lot of businesses are seeing less demand, they're not hiring, and maybe are also laying off workers, meaning it takes longer for the laid off workers to find new employment, meaning their reduced spending lasts longer.

You see how it works? ONE PERSON being frugal is great. EVERYONE being frugal - especially all of a sudden - and you have a big disruption. The ideal thing is to be a frugal person in an economy of over-consumers.

terrymorse 

If everyone manages to life fulfilling lives without consuming so much stuff, maybe people won't need to work so much, and "full employment" will become a curios anachronism.

Also, it is definitely not a good thing that there is overconsumption, as that path is leading us towards an uninhabitable planet.

Koyote

How is that inconsistent? As I wrote, people chose (through union agreements, then later through gov't policy) to take part of their share of the 'productivity dividend' in the form of shorter working hours.

Again, there is nothing "extreme" in my argument. In fact, I wouldn't even characterize it as an argument. It is, however, rather extreme (or at least weird) to argue that people should have to work more than they want to -- for any reason. That's not an economy that I would find attractive.

Koyote

Yes, agreed. It would work best with substantial income redistribution...Which is quite common in many other advanced economies, but the US is indeed very different in that regard.

​​​​​​That was not really a focus of the explanation, so I didn't mention the mechanism through which working hours were reduced...but my response to livedarklions , above (which I posted before reading your latest) might make you happier.


Regarding your claim that I'm arguing that "if people were different, things would be different": I mentioned some survey data about the working lives that people actually want...and those results are not restricted just to highly-paid professionals. (Though they may not reflect the increasing number of very low-paid workers in our economy.) What prevents us from having a labor market which more effectively satisfies people's desires is (less work for some, higher wages [which bring the possibility of easier lives] for others), is capital's market power -- the power to prevent any change that reduces profits for a very small class of people.