I don't understand how to reconcile those like you who claim we are going to continue automating and adding more machines vs those who say that we have to reduce our energy expenditures because they come from extraction of fossil fuels that are either going to end up being too costly to us
Energy expenditure shouldn't be wasted on frivolity and pyramid schemes like Bitcoin, first. Second, energy usage will increase - electricity usage in particular - in the coming decades. That doesn't have to come from fossil fuels. Nuclear, wind, solar and (to a lesser extent) hydro are all green, renewable, non-carbon energy sources that can easily get us everything we need. Ontario already does it! [1]
We already have an army of robots. They work in data centers.
PS: I think this is not a stupid analogy, but instead helps to explain why the shift won't be sudden but steady, and it has already started a while back. It is a continuous development.
You're on point, I think. A thing doesn't need to look like R2D2 to be a robot, and our robots have already replaced a big chunk of human work: filing, analyzing, cataloguing, calculating, computing, plus all that sweet sweet business logic.
I see a parallel in the rise of cuneiform and silicon: both find their primary application in optimizing bureaucracies.
Western countries are getting a lot of free stuff from China through financial games, if that financial economy disappears, I wonder how much of that free automatic stuff is actually free and actually automatic.
And a political crisis, a lot of people who build things with their hands and that have been "deplorables" for the last few years would start earning a lot of money and becoming much more important. And a lot of people that live in certain cities and hold certain jobs would lose a lot of weight in society. We all saw how bad things got in Canada with the trucker protests, things would be more volatile politically if there was a higher percentage of jobs in the economy that held the same kind of disruptive power as the truckers.
My understanding is that the cost of making things in the US is roughly the same as China. In China labor is cheap but energy is expensive, whereas in the US labor is expensive but energy is cheap.
From what I can see for the time being, the profits of that automation don't really go into people's pockets. The Big Corporation is successfully paying less and less taxes...
Different country, but I'm basically one of those people who fit in the category of unemployed and not looking / don't want to work.
Why would I?
Why would anyone want to sacrifice one third of their life, if not more, only to still be short on rent for a studio appartment? Especially in my country where rents are through the roof and leases are 1 year max. There is no stability. I cannot build anything here. Not even a home.
Plus the older I get, the less interested I am in material things. I have a Toyota Yaris. It gets me from A to B reliably. I don't need, or want a Ferrari. It's the same with everything else that I own. They all do their jobs perfectly fine. I have no need for more 'stuff' so I have no need for more money to buy better and more stuff. I can't take any of that with me to the grave anyway.
If I don't care about this 'stuff' then why would I care to work for someone whose only goal is to acquire more of this stuff for themselves? Or why would I want to work for a company that only produces more of this stuff to sell to poor souls who find meaning in this meaningless stuff? Especially when most of it just serves to destroy our environment further.
I really don't care about work any more and for the first time, I feel free.
Basically my attitude too, although I do have a job. I don’t understand how people are so motivated by getting more stuff. I just like buying food and drink. I’m not sure for what reason we’re supposed to be working beyond that. I feel like I’m being gaslit into wanting more simply to convince me to work harder. There definitely isn’t some intrinsic push inside me to work harder
> If I don't care about this 'stuff' then why would I care to work for someone whose only goal is to acquire more of this stuff for themselves
That's a legitimate question. The "trick" is to either work for someone not trying to acquire more stuff for themselves, like a non-profit or a collective. And of course working something that is pleasurable to yourself, not random busywork with no real purpose.
Realising how that sounds, I'm not trying to convince or argue with you, just sharing a different perspective. Every person is different - some like material wealth ( i personally enjoy various stuff money can buy, although certainly not Ferrari-level stuff), some like wealth for the sake of it ( most billionaires still at it).
I’m currently sat under a lorry monitoring various video feeds of the jubilee (having set them up yesterday), it’s great fun, and something money can’t buy.
Excuse me for asking, but how do you expect then to pay the rent, that is already sky high, or service your car and pay for gas, or even buy basic necessities?
The short answer is, I have absolutely no idea. And that excites me.
The way I see it is I can slave away at a job I hate to barely afford the things I need to live and be miserable, or I can do away with all of that and still face the same level of uncertainty and miserableness. Might as well make it a bit easier on myself in the process.
I did that for a while. Word of caution: there's a point where you run out of savings and you hit bottom hard. Not wanting to work is one thing, but not wanting to work when you're without savings is much harder. Existential dread plus financial dread just plain sucks.
But it sounds like you have a lot in savings so maybe it won't be an issue?
> I did that for a while. Word of caution: there's a point where you run out of savings and you hit bottom hard. Not wanting to work is one thing, but not wanting to work when you're without savings is much harder. Existential dread plus financial dread just plain sucks.
OTOH, this is the only thing that consistently breaks me from stagnation.
I respect that. After all, whatever we do in life the end result will be the same. So not doing what you want is truly a waste, even if it seems irresponsible to society.
I'm a polar opposite from you. I enjoy working and actual feel depressed and anxious when not doing anything. I just have an excess of energy that needs to be spent.
I prefer spending that energy traveling, talking to people and meeting new people, hobbies, and the like.
These activities cost money so I'm fine with spending most of my days on a job that will earn me money to at least occasionally do what I love most.
But even without the possibility of doing anything that I truly love I would still have no issue spending 12 hours a day, every day, working. The alternative--not doing anything--horrifies me.
What do you mean by "doing nothing"? Even staying quite and still, there are a lot of inner space to explore through meditation.
Hustle and bustle is not the only way to do things. Actually frenetic laborious activities might just as well let some people feel like they are wasting their attention.
As the article point, the issue is largely led by a mindset.
I don’t mean one mindset is "better" than the other, but there are more than one way to experience life out there, and not all of them converge to maximize the GDP as an unquestionable holly quest.
Just a train of thought because that's what I'm doing:
Why not trying to buy your own land and build a small community around it?
Might be much more fulfilling with very little money required.
I live in Germany and everything just costs money but if you are in the USA, there are plenty of very cheap areas were you can easily life self sustainable?
In Germany you can get a small apartment paid for by the government if you're unemployed. I'm guessing OP was comparing working to rent a nice apartment vs. living on government support somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I mean Utah also has cheap homes (but no jobs) whereas California has great jobs (but no cheap homes).
Well 4 years ago the same poster was at university and struggling to complete the course. Do they've probably never actually had a job or are talking nonsense.
There is a very mid-20th-century idea that work, as in going to a certain place, doing something mildly productive for 8 hours, and getting money at the end of the month, is a good thing, and although this is practically dead, the idea is still alive in many people's heads. I took a leave for three months last summer, to wind down after the stress of the pandemic, and friends and family were part surprised, part frightened ("Doesn't he want to work anymore?") and part anxious that I wouldn't find a new job. Working regularly again since a couple of months, and I'm looking forward to saving enough money to have another long holiday.
Absolutely, the best thing I ever did. In Germany, the social democrats had a plan to pay people a large chunk of their salary for a year so that they can take a sabbatical after working a number of years (8 or 10, I'm not sure). Of course it was shelved quickly after they got elected and things went south with the Ukraine invasion and the economic downturn.
Had to google it again myself, they called it Grundeinkommensjahr (https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/lars-klingbeil-gr...) and the pay was much less than I remembered; it's 1000 bucks per month plus social security. You get one month per year of work.
It used to be normalized. It was called a sabbatical. The first company I ever worked for had mandated sabbaticals every 5 years. It was six weeks and you couldn't just add it to your vacation days, you had to take the six weeks all at once. Everybody felt fully refreshed after taking the six weeks off. Plus, their standard work week was 35 hours per week, 7 hours per day. Being a start up we did have periods during the year where we worked considerably longer, but those would be for 2-3 week periods a couple of times per year. This was back in the 1980's. Like I said, this definitely used to be part of our work culture.
Benefits I suppose? Benefits can take various forms. One person I know has been on subsidized housing for almost a decade after a low-paying stint, even though they now earn very well.
I'm still working as long as I can (I'm 35) so I have enough money to not work and spend a few years on building my own house/farm/greenhouse.
On the other hand I know the story from a few people getting rich fast (crypto and fang) who just sit at home and play the same game for years now.
Good for them (if that doesn't make them depressed) but normally not having any money makes life quite different.
I also think it's unfair for me to have this plan and being able to achieve it while on the other side of our planet people still work like 6 days a week for consumerism.
You aren't really out of material things. Do you produce your own gas and food and energy? If not, somebody else is paying for your material things - me and the girl from the grocery shop who sells you lettuce and the guy from the gas pump, we are paying your freedom with a little part of our earnings called "taxes". It's your decision which is affecting me and that girl and that other guy, a decision which siphons a little money from the hospital maintenance to your freedom. Do I mind? Not that much, but it bears saying: you are not free, just living off us.
I'm not sure that anecdotal data about you knowing a couple of antivaxxers explains why roughly four percent of the population are long-term unemployed. I can believe that some of those 2.6m are in that situation because of their position on covid vaccination, but it's a huge leap to assume this very new thing is the main reason especially given that Italy famously has a large number of officially unemployed people (which is trending down from its peak around 2015)
Given up on work? A lot of these people are barred from work. Its just demonisation of the group who refused to kneel and take those mandatory and sloppy injections. Mega corps and governments want to play God.
> Any theories on how supposedly inventing mafia makes this unsurprising?
Mafia is a parallel system with parallel jobs, off the books. It would be highly surprising if these 2.5M people didn't have a regular occupation they get paid with, except there's no legal paperwork.
> Any stats on how many of those 2½ million people actually didn't want the vaccine?
I would like to see these. And how many people took the vaccine just to keep their job.
I wonder how "gamified" are those numbers in other countries, and the unemployment numbers in general. Certain countries in Europe, at some point classify you as "unemployable" and give you some benefits so that you don't even show up on those numbers. Would be more interesting to see % of the population working and compare between different countries. Using "unemployment" numbers can mean very different things in different countries.
I'm not saying that Italy and Spain don't have the worst numbers, they probably do, but I am very suspicious about how real the "good" numbers are.
"According to the latest data from the office of the Commissioner for the COVID-19 Emergency, Italy currently has around 1.4 million unvaccinated citizens in this age category, of whom only 10% have medical exemption certificates. Up to 800,000 of them do not have a permanent job or are retired. Thus, the work ban may affect about half a million Italians."
mRNA are literally molecules that hold genetic code.
It's therapy that coerces your cells to create proteins based on an injected genetic code.
Sure the genetic code has only been observed to be transcribed into the nucleus under laboratory conditions. Even if it wasn't reverse transcribed into the nucleus, it is still genetic therapy. By definition.
It's not mentioned in the article, or I haven't seen it but Italy has introduced universal basic income for unemployed few years back.
This is seen as one of the major changes.
With the average net salary in Italy being around 1500€s per month, 800 is enough to get by, especially in the south where cost of living is much lower.
All low income or seasonal jobs now are just skipped by the recipients of the basic income, for two reasons:
1) there is no point anymore going to work for a salary that isn't significantly better.
2) in case they lose the job they will also not qualify for basic income for some time as well. So they don't take jobs to avoid losing the basic income.
I don't know what to think about it, I most definitely oppose basic income as it is. No point into having a basic income if you don't have a system that tries to lift people from it and put them in the job market.
In fact it's simply a poverty aid of ~600 euro that every other civilized state provides. But Italians complain about it (because media do) and no one complains about 600 euro wages for full-time workers (because media don't). That's what the article is about: lazy people in a otherwise perfect situation. It's a perpetual gaslighting that Italians go through daily. We are talking about 600 euro wages the 3rd economy of the EU and the ~10th of the world.
Actually it is worse than that, a not particularly qualified worker would hardly get more than 1000 maybe 1200 Euro/month (full time).
The "reddito di cittadinanza" (universal basic income), depending on a number of factors, is something in the range 500-800 Euro/month.
In theory this income is linked to a sort of unemployment office that should offer (quickly) actual jobs, you can refuse up to three of them and then you are out of the program, but in reality these jobs are never offered or are offered after several months and there are probably endless ways to workaround the limit.
Starting this year the "three strikes" rule becomes "two strikes", but even this stricter rule - while it may reduce the amount of people supported by this income - won't do anything about the actual issue (having more people working).
The two proposals have different limits:
1st proposal must be within 80 km from place of residence or however reachable with public transport in 100 minutes or less
2nd one can be anywhere in Italy
Both, particularly the second, are simply non-realistic for low wage/entry level jobs.
I write this on a lot of threads, but it’s likely another intended consequence of the Covid madness.
Millions of people were pushed out of their jobs and either can’t get back in, or choose not to and decide to cut their cloth accordingly.
The shutdowns and restrictions also killed a lot of materialism and led people to live cheaper and simpler lives etc with lower spend.
Then we have the inflationary effects of the money printing reducing the value of the cash people do earn and pushing things like houses further away from reach.
All 3 of the above apply to me some degree and I am also ambivalent towards working as a result.
Maybe these are all good things for the individual, society and the environment, but none are great for the economy.
This is an exasperating article. Where is the data on who these 2.6m people are, demographically speaking, what their reasons are for not seeking work, and how they supporting themselves if they don't work? 2.6m young people not working is very different from 2.6m people who've basically chosen early retirement, for example. It talks about a skills problem, but without giving real any numbers or context.
This stats are bad and this article doesn’t account for a few points:
- in Italy the amount of jobs that are carried illegally, without a contract, is huge. Particularly when you’re young or in certain sectors, having a contract is a dream. The state counts these illegal workers as unemployed.
- in general, the work market is toxic. There is no minimum wage and salaries are so low and work conditions so shitty that, sometimes, people feel it might not be worth it
Really, the country has so many structural problems that these stats can’t be just read in such a superficial way.
One of Spains hidden problems in that stat is that they have regressive taxation, you pay a large monthly amount to be able to work. So many people literally cannot afford to pay taxes because the taxes are more than they earn. Its crazy and needs to change. Result is a lot of pissed of low earners who have no interest in the recorded economy and work entirely in the black market. Many would love to be able to invoice legitimately but can't (economically) so lose good work, and that leads to huge lost opportunity for the country as a whole. Its madness. The government literally try to tax more than people earn. Clearly they rarely get money that doesn't exist, except some people who take a hit one month in the hope things pick up next month.
It's pretty much impossible to pay someone for a day's work. You have to either pay a full month (at which point the tax is reasonable), find black money to pay them, do no work, or do it yourself. Most people cant afford to pay someone a whole month's wage because that is what they are living off.
Some of that 20% is black market but most of it is lost opportunity.
As an Italian, I say that the top reason is not schooling or scarce attitude, it's humiliating salaries.
You work hours and hours and get peanuts for your efforts. While your employer buys the 5th Porsche.
I come from one of the richest regions, yet as an IT professional I felt appreciated only when I started working abroad. No matter how much I tried, most job offers in Italy are ridiculous.
I'm Italian, living in France but still with friends and relatives in Italy: the substantial reason is simple: offered wages is too low to live. So many prefer black jobs and subsides because with a normal not-so-qualified job they simply can't survive.
The actual government, as many others in the recent years, follow interests from USA in their geopolitical stanzas instead of Italian one (one of the reasons some Citizens accuse it of high treason, while the majority simply do not care) and the country slowly sinks on its own weight because a society can't prosper if there is a so deep difference between rich and poor and no mode middle class in between. That's is. Of course that's denied by most because neoliberals have drawn such society so it must be good. Right wings say the fault is in young and slackers who profit from the (demolished) social system to live as parasites, left-wings (dummy left, clerical in reality) say the fault is covid, Ukraine, grasshoppers and a bad quantum conjunction between a butterfly in the South Pacific and a shrimp fart but none want to admit that a functional society must be social with a difference between rich and poor, but not too much, with a social system, without being an actual fascio-Chinese system etc.
Many instead of considering the power of numbers and so create a simple and not-necessary-violent nationwide mass strike imposing government and their private accomplices going to trials for MANY crimes coming back to a Republic decide that's nothing to do because all others do nothing in a loop and left the world advance seeing evolution from the window. Some like me choose years ago to emigrate even though I still have to find an active population to a point of thinking back at classic aristocracy and bourgeois models...
Spaniard here. This has been the norm for decades in some parts of the country (p.e. South and the PER subside). I am Andalusian; don't beat me up with the PER thing. I know what I am talking about.
So, not sure if that's the reason for this huge 2.6M numbers in Italy.
Since subsides in Italy are a relatively new addition I suppose that they might have a role but not being the cause themselves. Since I have memory in Italy was and is the norm offering various kind of mixed legal and illegal work like "you formally work for two hours but in practice their are 8" or "dear customer if you want an invoice the price is 30+% more than without, choose as you wish". That's happen regardless of quality of life and economical momentum, from a rich dentist owner of many cabinets to a poor "I do anything small" worker, from rich to poor areas of the country etc.
Since taxes was and are NEVER fair, never used to keep the society egalitarian, avoiding too much difference between rich and poor most people see the State as an enemy, civil servant as thief, preferring to cultivate a personal garden than a whole common one. For all political opinions.
In the end if for instance a plumber do a bad job obtaining justice in court is somewhat possible but only after MANY years and only for far less than the real damage and only if in the meantime the bad enterprise have not change enough names to being a different legal entity and have economical capacity to pay the damage, .......... so most prefer surveil and ignore legal protection at a whole. Such behavior let many at all level committing various crimes including some at State level passing reforms against people/national interests with excuses while most simply ignore them.
In the VERY recent past Italy was a significant industrial power, self-demolished with the UK and USA help and local corruption, nowadays most young want to emigrate, and the once-almost-public big industrial system is teared apart. Qualified workers goes elsewhere, entrepreneurs of technical value works most with foreign third parties and private equity demolish the economical humus still there. It's not just Italy IMVHO but a global neoliberal phenomenon in a transition from industry to pure finance in the blind and criminal illusion that finance can rule nature, so far only (re)emerging global power (Russia and China) seems to have a bit of classic development behind to back their growth up. Unfortunately they are not exactly Democracies. Unfortunately people here allow local élites to copy JUST the non-democratic aspects of such emerging power like the actual neoliberal push toward a western-Chinese-alike society witch is itself as "socialist" as original nazi economy...
They're not "not working and not searching", they're working under the table to not pay taxes and they're officially unemployed to get the minimum income guaranteed by the State.
86 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 145 ms ] threadWe'll get UBI and robots eventually and this will be the status quo everywhere.
[1] https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
PS: I think this is not a stupid analogy, but instead helps to explain why the shift won't be sudden but steady, and it has already started a while back. It is a continuous development.
I see a parallel in the rise of cuneiform and silicon: both find their primary application in optimizing bureaucracies.
Why would I?
Why would anyone want to sacrifice one third of their life, if not more, only to still be short on rent for a studio appartment? Especially in my country where rents are through the roof and leases are 1 year max. There is no stability. I cannot build anything here. Not even a home.
Plus the older I get, the less interested I am in material things. I have a Toyota Yaris. It gets me from A to B reliably. I don't need, or want a Ferrari. It's the same with everything else that I own. They all do their jobs perfectly fine. I have no need for more 'stuff' so I have no need for more money to buy better and more stuff. I can't take any of that with me to the grave anyway.
If I don't care about this 'stuff' then why would I care to work for someone whose only goal is to acquire more of this stuff for themselves? Or why would I want to work for a company that only produces more of this stuff to sell to poor souls who find meaning in this meaningless stuff? Especially when most of it just serves to destroy our environment further.
I really don't care about work any more and for the first time, I feel free.
That's a legitimate question. The "trick" is to either work for someone not trying to acquire more stuff for themselves, like a non-profit or a collective. And of course working something that is pleasurable to yourself, not random busywork with no real purpose.
Realising how that sounds, I'm not trying to convince or argue with you, just sharing a different perspective. Every person is different - some like material wealth ( i personally enjoy various stuff money can buy, although certainly not Ferrari-level stuff), some like wealth for the sake of it ( most billionaires still at it).
Genuinely curios.
The way I see it is I can slave away at a job I hate to barely afford the things I need to live and be miserable, or I can do away with all of that and still face the same level of uncertainty and miserableness. Might as well make it a bit easier on myself in the process.
But it sounds like you have a lot in savings so maybe it won't be an issue?
OTOH, this is the only thing that consistently breaks me from stagnation.
I'm a polar opposite from you. I enjoy working and actual feel depressed and anxious when not doing anything. I just have an excess of energy that needs to be spent.
I prefer spending that energy traveling, talking to people and meeting new people, hobbies, and the like. These activities cost money so I'm fine with spending most of my days on a job that will earn me money to at least occasionally do what I love most.
But even without the possibility of doing anything that I truly love I would still have no issue spending 12 hours a day, every day, working. The alternative--not doing anything--horrifies me.
Hustle and bustle is not the only way to do things. Actually frenetic laborious activities might just as well let some people feel like they are wasting their attention.
As the article point, the issue is largely led by a mindset.
I don’t mean one mindset is "better" than the other, but there are more than one way to experience life out there, and not all of them converge to maximize the GDP as an unquestionable holly quest.
You can be certain you won’t be able to afford anything, and eventually be in deep shit.
Why not trying to buy your own land and build a small community around it?
Might be much more fulfilling with very little money required.
I live in Germany and everything just costs money but if you are in the USA, there are plenty of very cheap areas were you can easily life self sustainable?
And you only get it after all your riches are gone.
After that your Rente/retirement money will become a real struggle.
I don't envy anyone going this road but I also don't mind it.
Thanks for the checkin and reminder of how far I have come, though! :)
Yea, your story makes no sense
Oh man I’d love to spend my days productively, unfortunately I have to work.
It's primarily a good thing in regards of taxes as you pay less in that time.
Do you mean something different? Haven't heard a free sabbatical from spd
Never came across of it, tx.
Unfortunately in many places on earth you will have real problem continuing after such a holiday. Not from the same position you were in for sure.
Not to mention things change when you have a family of your own, old parents etc.
On the other hand I know the story from a few people getting rich fast (crypto and fang) who just sit at home and play the same game for years now.
Good for them (if that doesn't make them depressed) but normally not having any money makes life quite different.
I also think it's unfair for me to have this plan and being able to achieve it while on the other side of our planet people still work like 6 days a week for consumerism.
I'm not Italian but know some expats and they do indeed have family members that stopped legally working because they didn't want the Covid vaccine.
Claiming Italy invented the organized crime, i.e. - cosa nostra. The origins are deeper.
A talk is not a logical proof. A wrong phrase does not imply everything else following is wrong.
Seem silly to dismiss the 2nd phrase because you disagree with the 1st.
But sure, if you wrap it in fancy talk, it almost sounds like you are right.
Any theories on how supposedly inventing mafia makes this unsurprising?
Mafia is a parallel system with parallel jobs, off the books. It would be highly surprising if these 2.5M people didn't have a regular occupation they get paid with, except there's no legal paperwork.
> Any stats on how many of those 2½ million people actually didn't want the vaccine?
I would like to see these. And how many people took the vaccine just to keep their job.
I'm not saying that Italy and Spain don't have the worst numbers, they probably do, but I am very suspicious about how real the "good" numbers are.
https://theprint.in/world/unvaccinated-italians-50-and-over-...
It's therapy that coerces your cells to create proteins based on an injected genetic code.
Sure the genetic code has only been observed to be transcribed into the nucleus under laboratory conditions. Even if it wasn't reverse transcribed into the nucleus, it is still genetic therapy. By definition.
https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/44/3/73/htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qowDwaYx7vI
You can't see the forest for the trees with your vaxx propaganda.
This is seen as one of the major changes.
With the average net salary in Italy being around 1500€s per month, 800 is enough to get by, especially in the south where cost of living is much lower.
All low income or seasonal jobs now are just skipped by the recipients of the basic income, for two reasons:
1) there is no point anymore going to work for a salary that isn't significantly better.
2) in case they lose the job they will also not qualify for basic income for some time as well. So they don't take jobs to avoid losing the basic income.
I don't know what to think about it, I most definitely oppose basic income as it is. No point into having a basic income if you don't have a system that tries to lift people from it and put them in the job market.
That’s the whole idea anyway. Any salary should come on top of the basic income.
The "reddito di cittadinanza" (universal basic income), depending on a number of factors, is something in the range 500-800 Euro/month.
In theory this income is linked to a sort of unemployment office that should offer (quickly) actual jobs, you can refuse up to three of them and then you are out of the program, but in reality these jobs are never offered or are offered after several months and there are probably endless ways to workaround the limit.
Starting this year the "three strikes" rule becomes "two strikes", but even this stricter rule - while it may reduce the amount of people supported by this income - won't do anything about the actual issue (having more people working).
The two proposals have different limits:
1st proposal must be within 80 km from place of residence or however reachable with public transport in 100 minutes or less
2nd one can be anywhere in Italy
Both, particularly the second, are simply non-realistic for low wage/entry level jobs.
if you work a job that pays less than UBI it's almost per definition not enough to survive. why work and starve if you could just starve?
Millions of people were pushed out of their jobs and either can’t get back in, or choose not to and decide to cut their cloth accordingly.
The shutdowns and restrictions also killed a lot of materialism and led people to live cheaper and simpler lives etc with lower spend.
Then we have the inflationary effects of the money printing reducing the value of the cash people do earn and pushing things like houses further away from reach.
All 3 of the above apply to me some degree and I am also ambivalent towards working as a result.
Maybe these are all good things for the individual, society and the environment, but none are great for the economy.
Actual market is supposed to follow the trend and finally kill off the infinite growth myth.
- in Italy the amount of jobs that are carried illegally, without a contract, is huge. Particularly when you’re young or in certain sectors, having a contract is a dream. The state counts these illegal workers as unemployed.
- in general, the work market is toxic. There is no minimum wage and salaries are so low and work conditions so shitty that, sometimes, people feel it might not be worth it
Really, the country has so many structural problems that these stats can’t be just read in such a superficial way.
Some of that 20% is black market but most of it is lost opportunity.
You work hours and hours and get peanuts for your efforts. While your employer buys the 5th Porsche.
I come from one of the richest regions, yet as an IT professional I felt appreciated only when I started working abroad. No matter how much I tried, most job offers in Italy are ridiculous.
The actual government, as many others in the recent years, follow interests from USA in their geopolitical stanzas instead of Italian one (one of the reasons some Citizens accuse it of high treason, while the majority simply do not care) and the country slowly sinks on its own weight because a society can't prosper if there is a so deep difference between rich and poor and no mode middle class in between. That's is. Of course that's denied by most because neoliberals have drawn such society so it must be good. Right wings say the fault is in young and slackers who profit from the (demolished) social system to live as parasites, left-wings (dummy left, clerical in reality) say the fault is covid, Ukraine, grasshoppers and a bad quantum conjunction between a butterfly in the South Pacific and a shrimp fart but none want to admit that a functional society must be social with a difference between rich and poor, but not too much, with a social system, without being an actual fascio-Chinese system etc.
Many instead of considering the power of numbers and so create a simple and not-necessary-violent nationwide mass strike imposing government and their private accomplices going to trials for MANY crimes coming back to a Republic decide that's nothing to do because all others do nothing in a loop and left the world advance seeing evolution from the window. Some like me choose years ago to emigrate even though I still have to find an active population to a point of thinking back at classic aristocracy and bourgeois models...
Spaniard here. This has been the norm for decades in some parts of the country (p.e. South and the PER subside). I am Andalusian; don't beat me up with the PER thing. I know what I am talking about.
So, not sure if that's the reason for this huge 2.6M numbers in Italy.
Since taxes was and are NEVER fair, never used to keep the society egalitarian, avoiding too much difference between rich and poor most people see the State as an enemy, civil servant as thief, preferring to cultivate a personal garden than a whole common one. For all political opinions.
In the end if for instance a plumber do a bad job obtaining justice in court is somewhat possible but only after MANY years and only for far less than the real damage and only if in the meantime the bad enterprise have not change enough names to being a different legal entity and have economical capacity to pay the damage, .......... so most prefer surveil and ignore legal protection at a whole. Such behavior let many at all level committing various crimes including some at State level passing reforms against people/national interests with excuses while most simply ignore them.
In the VERY recent past Italy was a significant industrial power, self-demolished with the UK and USA help and local corruption, nowadays most young want to emigrate, and the once-almost-public big industrial system is teared apart. Qualified workers goes elsewhere, entrepreneurs of technical value works most with foreign third parties and private equity demolish the economical humus still there. It's not just Italy IMVHO but a global neoliberal phenomenon in a transition from industry to pure finance in the blind and criminal illusion that finance can rule nature, so far only (re)emerging global power (Russia and China) seems to have a bit of classic development behind to back their growth up. Unfortunately they are not exactly Democracies. Unfortunately people here allow local élites to copy JUST the non-democratic aspects of such emerging power like the actual neoliberal push toward a western-Chinese-alike society witch is itself as "socialist" as original nazi economy...
In the end, just see the source:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/11/trump-...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/nazis-based-th...
https://www.heritage-history.com/index.php?c=read&author=car... (see especially at the bottom of the page)
the classic two horse strategy that apparently works well all the time...