The Biggest Companies Across America Are Cutting Their Workforces (msn.com) 190
U.S. public companies have cut their white-collar workforces by 3.5% over the past three years, marking a fundamental shift in corporate philosophy that views fewer employees as a path to faster growth. One in five S&P 500 companies now employ fewer people than they did a decade ago, according to employment data-provider Live Data Technologies.
The reductions extend beyond typical cost-cutting measures and coincide with record corporate profits at the end of last year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees Tuesday that AI will eliminate certain jobs in coming years, while Procter & Gamble announced plans to cut 7,000 positions to create "broader roles and smaller teams."
Bank of America reduced its workforce from 285,000 in 2010 to 213,000 today while revenues climbed 18% over the past decade. Managers have faced particularly steep cuts, with their ranks falling 6.1% between May 2022 and May 2025. Companies are flattening organizational structures and pushing remaining employees to handle larger workloads as executives track revenue per employee more closely.
The reductions extend beyond typical cost-cutting measures and coincide with record corporate profits at the end of last year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees Tuesday that AI will eliminate certain jobs in coming years, while Procter & Gamble announced plans to cut 7,000 positions to create "broader roles and smaller teams."
Bank of America reduced its workforce from 285,000 in 2010 to 213,000 today while revenues climbed 18% over the past decade. Managers have faced particularly steep cuts, with their ranks falling 6.1% between May 2022 and May 2025. Companies are flattening organizational structures and pushing remaining employees to handle larger workloads as executives track revenue per employee more closely.
Blue collar too (Score:5, Funny)
BNSF Railway laid off a couple hundred mechanical folks on Monday. They dumped about 450 mechanical folks a year and a half ago too.
It's not just white collar.
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The reductions extend beyond typical cost-cutting measures and coincide with record corporate profits at the end of last year.
Anybody else see this statement as being complete BS?
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No. Corporate profits are at record highs [reuters.com].
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Right. And the defined goal of For-Profit Corporations, particularly public companies, is to make as much profit as possible for the owners/shareholders. That means maximizing revenue while simultaneously reducing costs. Seems like these companies are able to do both even with reduced headcount.
I'm not saying people should like the above or not like it. I'm just saying that's how it is.
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the defined goal of For-Profit Corporations, particularly public companies, is to make as much profit as possible for the owners/shareholders.
Which makes corporations sociopaths. That's how we would describe someone who will do literally anything to make an extra dollar and has no values beyond money. They follow any of society's rules only to the extent that doing so will increase their financial return compared to the financial cost of getting caught violating them.
I went to a major grocery chain store yesterday. I used self-checkout and the price I was charged more than double the advertised price and the price on the shelf. I caught it becaus
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Since you didn't name the company (why?), I'll go out on a limb and say it was probably a Kroger's property as they are actively dealing with court cases regarding this issue. They are also dealing with a lot of labor issues at the moment. Kroger's and Albertson's are both dealing with the very real possibility of a strike by the workers. As a result, they are slashing hours, not replacing sick calls, etc, anything to save money for when a strike happens.
Obviously that's no excuse for improper pricing. What
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Only a handful of people (mostly department managers) are actually making a decent wage. It's a high school drop out job after all.
Is your argument the tired, old people shouldn't make a living wage regardless of where they work? You should work 3 jobs to survive? You dig coal? You deserve the black lung you got.
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If everyone job paid a "livable wage" how many people would waste a decade in school to get that glittery, high powered job? Why should my high school drop out job (I work in retail) offer a comfortable life? What would my incentive be to try harder?
The person that takes the time and energy to learn useful marketable skills should be more rewarded then the person that didn't bother to get education and does the bare minimum to get by.
If all my basic needs were met (free housing, free food, free water/electr
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You are equating the terms "livable" and "comfortable." They don't mean the same thing. Livable means enough income to be able to pay for a place to live, the attendant necessary utilities (water/electricity/heat) and sufficient food to eat.
With the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr (which, btw, hasn't changed since 2009), which equates to approximately $1250/mo before taxes ($7.25 x 40 x 4.3 = $1247), people are hard-pressed to meet those basic needs, and therefore, I wouldn't call that a livable wage.
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The federal minimum wage may be (probably is, I believe you) $7.25 but even in deep red states like Idaho, no one pays minimum wage. In fact, you can get a typical retail or fast food job for at least $15-$16 there, yet their minimum is also $7.25. Turns out, minimum wage could be zero and companies would still have to offer enough to get people to work there. Hence why I don't really feel we need a minimum wage. No one really makes that anyway.
So I don't really see anyone making the federal minimum wage, e
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even in deep red states like Idaho, no one pays minimum wage
Somewhere around 1% of wage earners are paid the federal minimum wage. Of course most places pay more than that because otherwise they would have very high turn over. But take away that floor and the wages they need to pay to avoid turn over would fall proportionally. Raising the minimum wage raises the wages of a lot of people who are being paid more than minimum.
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The person that takes the time and energy to learn useful marketable skills should be more rewarded then the person that didn't bother to get education and does the bare minimum to get by.
Why? Why do you think someone who has spent a decade working hard "deserves" to earn less than someone who spent that same decade going to school? Particularly when going to school is actually both fun and interesting and requires less real effort than working a paid job every day.
Re: Blue collar too (Score:2)
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Obviously that's no excuse for improper pricing. What you describe as active malice is much more likely overworked grocery workers making mistakes.
No, this is not an overworked grocery worker. The prices in the advertising and on the shelf were both the actual price that was supposed to be charged. The corporate computer was programmed to charge more under some circumstances. That was not done by some underpaid grocery store worker. It was not an accident, it was intentional. The reality is that no one is going to even investigate it.
Re: Blue collar too (Score:3)
If they were a small business the owners, they would face fraud charges.
No, they wouldn't. Price mistakes are common, even in small businesses. It sounds like you have it in your head that everybody is supposed to charge a certain price for any one thing, and any deviation is fraud. That isn't at all how it works. They list a price, they might even have a different price somewhere else. Most stores will honor the lower of what price is listed on the shelf vs what comes up on the till, in fact I doubt one wouldn't, but it's not necessarily illegal if they don't. If you don't lik
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Modded funny? Why? Were you going for funny? If so, could you explain the joke? If not, maybe you can speculate why it was so modded?
Pretty rare to see anything actually funny on Slashdot these years. I check most of the "active" stories.
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The only interpretation I can see is someone assumed "mechanical folks" referred to robots, not tradespeople involved in installing and servicing mechanical systems.
https://www.trains.com/trn/new... [trains.com]
"WASHINGTON â" The head of the Federal Railroad Administration has questioned Union Pacificâ(TM)s commitment to safety after the furloughs of shop workers who maintain the railroadâ(TM)s freight cars and locomotives."
"Although UPâ(TM)s engineering workforce declined by 700 seasonal positions i
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Oh gee ... the "employment for life" attitude gets top billing in this forum ... and lacking any detail as to where these layoffs took place. Systemwide? Just the shops in your Division? Give us details PLEASE.
Yes, I know what goes on in a BNSF Mechanical Department, from HQ in FTW down to the shops where the physical work is done.
If you have been paying attention to the economy and imports, sea can traffic out of the Ports in LA & LB are down 10 percent. I bet other ports are seeing a similar drop off
You can thank Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump is going to cause a recession. The massive amounts of uncertainty around his trade war coupled with the massive amounts of tax increases that trade war represents and inflation guaranteed a recession. But the on again off again is somehow worse. Remember folks markets hate uncertainty.
Now to add to all that he is getting us into a war with Iran with no clear objective and no exit strategy. And he's going to yank $800 billion out of the economy through Medicaid cuts, basically shut down every rural hospital in America and slash taxes on the 1% by somewhere between 5and 7 trillion
When those tax cuts hit they're going to spook the bond markets which is going to trigger sell-offs across the economy and tank the dollar. That may not even be a recession that might be a depression. It is of course scheduled to hit 2 weeks after the midterm election because of course it is. He knows what he's doing. Or rather his handlers do he's senile.
So companies are going to do layoffs so they can force us to work longer hours for less pay (or not pay us if you're one of the ones that gets fired).
That lets them stockpile cash so they can do massive stock BuyBacks when the economy tanks and manipulate their stock price.
We do have structural problems in our economy and civilization due to automation but we can work on those. The short-term immediate crisis is one entirely created by ourselves by letting Donald Trump win the presidency. It's a political problem not an economic one
Re:You can thank Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
You can thank Trump
From the article:
"U.S. public companies have cut their white-collar workforces by 3.5% over the past three years"
I'm sorry, who was President during that time?
These are permanent structural changes, a long time in coming. Predicted by many and blown off by many more.
Because of high interest rates (Score:5, Insightful)
It works like this. Borrowing money gets expensive, companies run their businesses extremely close to collapse so the owners can pull out as much cash as they can. A few major corporations who don't sit on the cash for stock BuyBacks.
This means companies rely on cheap loans in order to make it through minor downturns in business. If Borrowing isn't cheap they immediately turn to layoffs which cycles through the economy.
Jerome Powell has a video with senator Warren where he admits that he planned on 15 million layoffs with no plan to stop them. Biden didn't let him do it
Before Trump the interest rates were scheduled to go down. After the chaos of trump and the tariffs and taxes and everything else interest rates remain high.
So the minor layoffs from last year that were being held back by policy decisions from Joe Biden are now rapidly accelerating..
None of this is anything you will get from corporate media for obvious reasons. Honestly it was something I figured out slightly on my own and slightly from a combination of the associate press and the BBC with a little bit of commentary from left-wing pundits on the side. Very little because those left-wing pundits mostly suck and were busy screaming about Joe Biden causing genocide in the Middle East because he didn't bring peace immediately...
Electing Trump was a monumental mistake and bad things are going to happen now. We go through a cycle where we elect a Republican and they destroy everything and then we put a democrat in charge to fix things but we never keep them there long enough or give them enough votes in the senate. We usually flip the Congress to Republican in the midterms basically making the last 2 years of any Democratic president term useless.
I have watched the Republican party repeatedly try to crash the economy using the budget reconciliation process. Essentially economic terrorism. And the Democrats have to back down because those terrorists will happily shoot the hostage. If you haven't figured it out in this analogy you are the hostage.
So every year we lose a little more ground and every year of the propaganda coming from corporate media is a Little bit stronger and every year Americans are unable to grasp basic aspects of our economy like how high interest rates caused Mass layoffs which is how we regulate inflation...
And the end result is Trump and at best we are going to get a recession and at worst a depression. Only this time I don't think there will be an FDR to save us.
Re:Because of high interest rates (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think the tension between controlling inflation and maintaining employment was ever any sort of secret. The financial media talks about this all the time. Literally every time the Federal Reserve has a meeting they talk about it.
They talk about it in jargon (Score:5, Interesting)
It's balancing the books on the backs of the middle class and the working class and I follow news media to an unhealthy degree and I have never once seen it discussed without a fuck ton of jargon to make it incomprehensible to the average American
Remember it doesn't take much to lose the average american. One of the reasons Trump is so popular is that he speaks with words about a fourth or fifth grade level. He says gibberish but it's gibberish that doesn't include words people do not understand or know.
I don't say this to insult people I say this is a matter of fact and so that you can understand why Trump is so popular.
People can understand the words he's saying and although those words often mean basically nothing (seriously don't listen to what he says read a transcript it's crazy) even though those words mean nothing taken together people can ascribe whatever meaning they want because they know all the words.
It's like reading a religious text as a believer and not a scholar. It means whatever you want it to mean in the context of the time.
Re:They talk about it in jargon (Score:4, Informative)
They talk about it pretty directly on the "Marketplace" segment on NPR. I believe the host has even pressed Powell on that exact point. No jargon or innuendo at all.
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Yep. The fed's dual mandate.
https://www.marketplace.org/st... [marketplace.org]
"Since the late 1970s, the Federal Reserve has had two main jobs: ensuring stable prices and maximum employment. How often does it achieve both at the same time?"
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Two issues:
1) Lock in effect. People with cheap mortgages don't want to sell their homes. If you have a 3% mortgage from a few years ago, moving to a similar house with the same mortgage would result in a 50%+ increase in your payment. Low inventory of homes for sale means less supply for buyers.
2) Homebuilders need financing. More expensive money makes it more expensive for homebuilders to get money to build. There's long been issues with housing supply (especially in high-cost areas), and lack of building
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I think the story with low mortgage rates as a reason for low supply is still true, but people (who already paid off mortgages) die or those with mortgages have their lives change. For example, not everybody who got laid off in the last 3 years managed to find an equivalent job in the same area - these folks may have been forced to sell eventually... which means inventory will correct upwards as a result.
From Dec 2024:
https://www.housingwire.com/ar... [housingwire.com]
"As the year draws to a close, available unsold inventor
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The regular viewer is a moron that should go take an economics class then. Or heck, maybe read up on the Internet about it. I mean, people in USA are practically born with an Internet connected device in their hands. Information has never been more available.
If you are ignorant on a topic, there has been no better time in history to remedy that and for almost zero cost. You already got the phone and the Internet, now you just need to stop loading Tiktok and go read something. You can take college courses fo
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You will never find anyone in news media who will bluntly stay the purpose of high interest rates is the cause layoffs
Except for all the ones that have. This shouldn't be some kind of great revelation.
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Still I suspect we will just use prison labor. That's what Alabama did and it'll spread.
The real problem is going to be those tax cuts. It's going to freak the bond markets out and when that happens that's going to be a crash that'
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I see zero problem with making prisoners work the fields. You are put in jail because you couldn't control your behavior and have harmed someone else. The fact that the taxpayers (the victims of crime) typically are the ones to pay for the prison, guards, food, medicine, etc, just further cements my position that prisoners should be working to cover all the expenses of having to imprison them.
I would, however, be very open to prison reform. Right now, people generally come out worse then when they go in and
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I don't think the tension between controlling inflation and maintaining employment was ever any sort of secret.
No, but that is far different than people being clearly told that the way we control inflation is by people losing their jobs. And the reason raising interest rates reduces inflation is that it costs people their jobs.
But that isn't really entirely true. Raising interest rates also means businesses borrow less money and spend less money which reduces demand directly even if they don't lay anyone off.
Re: Because of high interest rates (Score:2)
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Good comment, but next time, don't forget to mention that Powell was a Trump appointee, confirmed by a Republican-majority Senate. It helps drive the point home of who is really responsible for all of this, and explains why Trump's damage to the economy didn't end when he left office.
True but Powell isn't anything special (Score:2)
And we could have gotten a lot worse than Powell.
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Biden could of re-appointed the position but didn't. The fact that both Trump and Biden administrations have been mad at the Federal Reserve for not reducing interest rates probably means the Federal Reserve is doing it's best and staying impartial as possible. I really appreciate that.
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Maybe the Democrats need to grow a pair and let the republicans shoot the hostages. Trust me, the only way people change how they vote is if they are feeling it in their wallet. That's what voting is. We are voting for people that we think will spend government money the way we would prefer them to do so. Or not spend, as may be the case.
So if the Republicans are always trying to crash everything, why are the Democrats so bent on protecting them from their own bad ideas? I say, let the Republicans hang them
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why are the Democrats so bent on protecting them from their own bad ideas?
Because those bad ideas can, and very well might, cause damage to long-running systems that don't turn on a dime (economy, health care, etc.) and literally millions of people can end up in the crosshairs.
You are asking for them to play the same craven politics that the GOP is - that power is all that matters. That's how we got here.
I'm glad that at least one of the political parties still gives a fuck about the results, rather than just attaining power.
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Without power, you can't put your ideas into play. So even if the Democrats have superior ideas (debatable), they now have zero power to do anything with those ideas.
As it stands, millions of people ARE ending up in the crosshairs as we speak. Hence why I say, the Democrats need to be braver and really push home their ideas when they get the chance. They don't though. So we'll never really know if their ideas are going to work because even when they are in power, they still won't pull the trigger.
Obviously
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That's not a given. And we haven't seen that in the current labor market. High interest rates suppress business growth by raising the cost of borrowing. This doesn't necessitate layoffs, although it can cause layoffs. In the current economy, we've generally seen reductions in job openings and reduced expansion plans. However, we've seen subdued growth nonetheless, coupled with maximum employment.
Can't lay everything at Trump's feet (Score:2)
Congress has essentially been the same for decades. And between racist anti-woke GOP and identity-politics abundance Democrats there's been really no opposition party. Two groups appearing diametrically opposed, but quick to sell your labor for cheap to the biggest donors.
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Re: You can thank Trump (Score:2)
What is the margin of error, 5%? How do you know you aren't measuring noise?
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So wages up 2% but inflation still riding around 2.5%. Sure, I guess I can appreciate that...wait no I can't. Life is getting more expensive across the board. I'll just have to work harder or accept lower standards. Of course, things could change and probably will. Only constant is change, after all.
Re:You can thank Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
More than half a century of verifiable facts that Trump is an incompetent businessman, a liar, a con-man and a narcissistic psychopath hasn't stopped you from believing that he would be the perfect candidate for the position of President of the United States (with the nuclear codes and all).
You're just like everyone else. The facts that contredict your tribalistic affiliation, you simply ignore.
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Re: You can thank Trump (Score:2)
The way Trump got elected is that republicans have been fucking up education since Reagan. You want to blame the Democrats?
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The Democrats run education. And I blame the Democrats for being unable to motivate their base to vote for team blue. It's very telling that Harris didn't get as many votes as Biden, despite how horrible Trump is.
So yes, I blame the Democrats for failing to mobilize their base. I voted against Trump twice and while a lot of people couldn't get off their ass to even vote once.
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Sigh. Tell me you didn't read my post without telling me didn't read my post. The Democrats didn't show up to vote. That's they lost. Biden got more votes then Harris, yet both ran against the same opponent.
So yes, I'm more mad at the people that didn't bother to show up to vote team blue for Harris then I am for the same set of people that voted for Trump 3 times in a row.
I don't blame Harris either. She wasn't given proper time to setup a campaign but that's also the DNC's fault and traditional media for
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The entire economic system was predicated on gainful employment and continued expansion.
Now we're looking at a huge reduction in employment and all the profits of AI going to the billionaires.
This will not end well.
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Too early to count your orange chickens. If we get into a war with Iran-and-friends, it could boost aerospace activity, and thus simulate the economy (for good or bad).
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$130 oil doesn't.
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but the rest of us have watched our salaries not keep up with inflation and our jobs have gotten cut.
Simply untrue. [statista.com]
Certainly it happened to some people- it always does. The mistake you're making is calling it systemic.
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Simply untrue. [statista.com] Certainly it happened to some people- it always does. The mistake you're making is calling it systemic.
That link doesn't actually show that. It appears to be measuring the increase in mean hourly wage, not the median. So its not at all clear that most people haven't seen a decline in their wages relative to inflation over the last 5 years. It shows that until 2023 wages were not increasing nearly as fast as inflation. Then inflation declined dramatically while wage increases declined more slowly. For the last year the increase in wages has been ahead of inflation.
From other sources, it appears that the mea
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No, Biden's planning was great and it was long term planning which rarely happens anymore. You probably would think the New Deal didn't work either. You invest in the bottom and it slowly builds upward to benefit everybody. The results are slow growing and now are being destroyed by Trump because destruction is extremely fast compared to building; especially infrastructure building.
That said, the real serious solutions are not even possible in the USA as reality, reason, facts, and education are all under
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China is not a success story.
They're growing, but their per-capita output is lower than the US has ever been in its entire history.
No thanks.
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Can you post anything that is not a question ?
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Why, are you getting an urge to make me drink hemlock? If I ask only questions, can I tell lies?
People get really pissy when we ask questions. Usually because it exposes hypocrisy. I have been known to ask questions purposely to piss people off.
It is enjoyable, educating, and in a group of people it shows others the truth about the person you're pissing off.
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Anti-bacterial soap is bad for you because it kills off the good germs as well. It also raises your resistance to anti-bacterial drugs that you may need one day. So you should avoid using anti-bacterial soaps for this reason. Regular soap with warm water is all you need.
Re: You can thank Trump (Score:3)
Re: You can thank Trump (Score:2)
Re: You can thank Trump (Score:2)
Re: You can thank Trump (Score:2)
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We don't want an Iran with money able to buy Russian equipment (bolstering that economy)
Iran buying? The bigger problem is the other way around. Iran is supplying drones, missiles, etc. that Russia is using in their war with Ukraine.
Re:You can thank Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, if we hadn't fucked with Iran back in the 1950s and 1960s, we would probably be allies with Iran. Instead, our CIA went in their made a mess, then the Iranian hostage crisis happened and Iran's current government formed in 1979. Of course Iran hates us, we were fucking with their oil industry to benefit us instead of benefiting everyone.
We could keep going back further to really explain things but really, we should of never gone along with the British with the Israel idea. Much of the middle east turmoil is quite literally the fault of the West taking tribal lands and giving it to Jews. Were the Jews wronged? Of course they were, but that doesn't mean you go wrong another group of people to benefit the Jews. Especially a group that wasn't part of the persecution of Jews in the first place.
If it wasn't for the oil, I'd recommend carpet bombing the entire area that makes up gaza, west bank, israel, etc. Unfortunately, most USA elected officials believe in sky fairies and their sky fairy bullshit some how thinks Jews need to be in control of Jerusalem so sky daddy can come back to earth or some stupid shit. None of this religious beliefs should be a basis for making decisions and yet, here we are. With a bunch of superstitious. self serving lunatics in charge.
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Iran in the 50s was violated the agreements they had made. The British and by extension a lot of American investors owned the stuff the prime minister was nationalizing. They were stealing! We did something about it. Simple as that.
What should other nation's do when another simply abandons its agreements? The options are
1) Shrug it off and move on
2) Go cry to some international body and hope you have influence to make a pariah out of them to the point they make good so they don't lose access to global tra
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We seemed to have chosen option 2 and 3. Look at all the turmoil that has caused, though I think taking occupied lands and setting up a Jewish state probably made things even worse.
Our best bet is probably bombing them back into the stone age since we aren't going to stop supporting Israel or being allies with Sunni majority middle east countries any time soon. I'm of the opinion that we should of made allies out of Iran and Syria (Shiites majorities) back then instead of what we did do.
Structural Unemployment Death Spiral (Score:2)
I started predicting a near future of software-induced permanent structural unemployment ~15 years ago on this and other discussion platforms, only to be deluged with "but, but... buggy whip manufacturers!!!!!!"
It's inevitable. It's not that there won't be any work. It's that there won't be enough work 8 billion humans are capable of doing or reskilling to within their lifespan, and the wages for the remaining unskilled labor will collapse below survivability. Especially because, even already in 2025, the j
the college system sucks for reskill and credits c (Score:3)
the college system sucks for reskill and credits can expire / do not have any transferring
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but if you are in the football team or basketball the college will make it happen even if the team needs = you missing class.
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I don't think your daughter's experience is typical. I've never heard of someone needing a formal interview for a 300-level course, especially if they are already in a major. I know for a fact no such policy exists at my alma mater (either then or today).
I'm guessing your daughter was interested in something very particular and specialized or was in a program that was way oversubscribed. Colleges want people to graduate because they are evaluated in part whether students graduated, and if it required a 3.8
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Yeah, I find it hard to believe half the stuff rsilvergun post as well. This same child took another 5 years post graduation to stand on her own. Like, wha? You graduated with at least a BA/BS and still can't afford to live on your own? That's pathetic and I don't think it's true, otherwise I strongly question why anyone would go into a 4+ year program only to get a job that doesn't afford you to live alone.
I work at a grocery store in San Diego and I can afford to live alone. I'm quite certain your average
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I started predicting a near future of software-induced permanent structural unemployment ~15 years ago on this and other discussion platforms, only to be deluged with "but, but... buggy whip manufacturers!!!!!!"
It's inevitable. It's not that there won't be any work. It's that there won't be enough work 8 billion humans are capable of doing or reskilling to within their lifespan, and the wages for the remaining unskilled labor will collapse below survivability.
The problem with a "knowledge economy" is that automation can basically take over 95 percent of it. You need a balance of services and manufacturing and agriculture, and the first world knowledge economies have been outsourcing the later two to cheaper third world countries and teaching their youth that getting their hands dirty is beneath them. Anytime someone brings up plumbing or welding or some construction work, there's a group here that always responds with "Back-breaking! No! Undignified!".
Fine. So s
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The problem with a "knowledge economy" is that automation can basically take over 95 percent of it. You need a balance of services and manufacturing and agriculture, and the first world knowledge economies have been outsourcing the later two to cheaper third world countries and teaching their youth that getting their hands dirty is beneath them. Anytime someone brings up plumbing or welding or some construction work, there's a group here that always responds with "Back-breaking! No! Undignified!".
Fine. So starve then. You're not getting your UBI or a lifetime welfare state. So I suggest you learn a skill that can't be replaced with a glorified Google script, or hope your parents have saved enough money to support you on their couch while you protest the indignities of spreading drywall or operating a backhoe.
Yep. In the 1998-2005 era I'll admit I was an idealist who thought Information Wants To Be Free and the automated future would be like Star Trek where molecular resources can be manufactured into anything on demand, leaving humans free to be poets and philosophers or whatever. By the end of that decade - 2010 - the trend extrapolations were unmistakable to anyone paying attention. If old industries can be "disrupted" and automated/distributed with appy apps that love apps, then after a short expansion perio
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No, is everyone just received $xx,000 a year. It just inflates the cost of rent, basic necessitates, and everything else.
If the government had full market price control, it could somewhat function. But you still run into people making poor choices with their money and spending it on gambling or drugs rather than food and their rent.
The government already offers jobs where they will give you room and board along with a paycheck. And if you stay in long enough you can get a pension. The problem is you need to
Re: Structural Unemployment Death Spiral (Score:2)
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This concept is usually called Negative Income Tax [wikipedia.org] and it's probably more politically viable than UBI currently.
Re: Structural Unemployment Death Spiral (Score:2)
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There's quite a bit of back and forth, each has plusses and minuses, UBI has the advantage of being universal so very simple to admin, very low overhead, very "fair" as everyone get's, universal systems are considered stickier in that it's more difficult to fuck with them or cut them down later, kindof how Social Security operates (and any UBI discussion has to involve consolidating all those programs under UBI, as in SS goes away)
Re: Structural Unemployment Death Spiral (Score:2)
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That's why UBI can't work without even more government control over things. Really, you don't give out cash. You give out a rent voucher (section 8), food voucher (SNAP) and maybe a utilities voucher. Government give you the basics, the rest is on you.
If you just try passing out $xx,000 people with poor financial skills and zero ability to look past today will continue getting shitty outcomes because they are just dumb. You can't legislate away dumb. The average person isn't dumb but they aren't rock stars
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Shh... you're supposed to ignore study after study that shows the majority of people living in poverty will remain in poverty due to bad decision making.
The fact this is repeated with no real evidence tells you something.There is study after study done by people with a conclusion and the findings all run in circles siting one another.
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>>[If] everyone just received $xx,000 a year. It just inflates the cost of rent, basic necessitates, and everything else.
Only if the supply of those things doesn't change. When more people can afford things, the economy will produce more of them. Henry Ford understood that the only way automobiles would be anything more than a toy for the rich was to pay his employees enough that they could afford to buy what they were building. More people with extra money = more demand = higher volume = lower cos
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>> More people with extra money = more demand = higher volume = lower cost.
So that's why the cost of property/rent, utilities, and food have all been surging. All that demand is causing construction of affordable housing, etc.
Don't even look the average new car price is in the US being over $50,000 with $700/month payments for seven years.
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It might be hard to believe, but more than one person can have opinions that you don't agree with coward.
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Such optimism! ;) (You are absolutely right, sadly)
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It's inevitable. It's not that there won't be any work. It's that there won't be enough work 8 billion humans are capable of doing or reskilling to within their lifespan
How is that? You don't think those people will find something useful to do? I doubt that is true and they will get paid for it because that is how we allocate/ration the goods produced in our system. You can't make money if there is no one to buy your product. So people have to get paid so they can buy stuff and people will get paid for whatever work they do.
Fixed that for ya (Score:3)
Most of the Big Companies across America are increasing their workforce
Four in five S&P 500 companies now employ as many or more people than they did a decade ago.
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And despite the layoffs, they also have quite a few job openings
Except those are fake listings to be able to hire H1-B illegal immigrants.
Make Your Bricks (Score:2)
No Straw For YOU!
cutting production (Score:2)
Cutting your workforce across the board is always done in order to cut production.
This scaling back can be for a variety of reasons, and rarely is a good sign for the economy.
I believe what we are seeing right now to be an move by the respective board of directors of each company to extract the wealth from their business and move it into the hands of shareholders. It is a contraction of business rather than the usual pattern of investment and growth.
For casual investors, do not give any of these companies y
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"No sign of any problem to operations."
Remember when Musk hosted the launch of Ron Desantis on Twitter and the whole thing failed? And in fact, there's been several similar instances of Twitter completely falling on its face when trying to host live events. Setting aside Musk's shady AI machinations, the company appears to have lost something like 75% of its value.
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Problem is he also took the company private so we no longer get access to any of those stats, how their revenue stream is, expansion, etc.
He also promised that X would be doing banking and several other features. No way to tell where those are at, i mean X is operating but is it doing well or just treading water? We don't know!
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Profits? That's so Reagan-era. The new rich just want big toys.
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Found the guy who doesn't understand free speech.
According to you, free speech doesn't include the right to choose where to speak. Why should companies be forced to advertise next to content they vehemently disagree with (i.e. racist bullshit, white supremacist takes, anti-LGBT rhetoric, etc.)?
Answer: they are not. If Twitter / X wants those advertising dollars so bad, then they should develop a platform that is advertiser friendly. Or they can try to be a bigger 4chan and cry about the negatives that br
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Tariffs, in theory, should cause a reduced demand for foreign goods and services, especially if there is a domestic option. For example, if a widget use to cost a $1 but now cost a $1.50, a percentage of customers of that widget will look to other options. This causes a decrease in demand for that widget.
I know when prices raise on things that are not mandatory, I often times won't buy them. Does that mean I go without? Sure, but as I said, it wasn't mandatory (food/water/electric) but rather, I choose to n