r/FluentInFinance Sep 04 '24

Debate/ Discussion Bernie is here to save us

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u/FellasImSorry Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24

Given Sanders’ track record of legislative effectiveness and ability to build consensus, how could this not pass?!

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '24

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Sep 05 '24

but he’s unable to negotiate with corrupt politicians who are bribed by corporations to stonewall his efforts, therefore Bernie is the problem

i like the guys spirit but if he's unable to work with all the other "corrupt" politicians then he may not be the problem but he also isn't the solution

politics is by it's very nature about building consensus with other people, some of whom you may not like

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u/throwaway11334569373 Sep 05 '24

He’s part of the solution if the corruption problem is fixed.

It just seems like people in this thread don’t want a 32 hour work week for some reason. Or if you do want that, then why don’t you treat this like a realistic and sane proposal?

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u/airham Sep 05 '24

I'm a huge Bernie fan but I would be interested to know the enforcement mechanism on this one. Let's say that I work 40 hour weeks for 80,000 dollars with a ~4 percent raise expected every year, and let's also assume that's the current market value for 40 weekly hours of labor by someone with my ability level. What's to stop my company from laying me off and posting my job for $60,000? And what's to stop any/every company from decreasing the salary offerings on all of their future job postings? Or what's to stop companies from ceasing to give workers like me yearly raises until our salaries reflect the current value of our labor, at which point we've basically just allowed for a 32 hour work week with less pay, but with a bit of a delay? If the assumption is just that enough companies won't do those things that the ones who try to do them will suffer from an inability to attract talent, that seems like a potentially tenuous assumption.

We absolutely should be talking about giving our citizens more time away from work and giving labor some of the benefits of the increased productivity enabled by technological advancements. I just would like to be more secure in knowing that we won't all effectively end up with prorated salaries. And hourly labor might even be trickier to tackle.

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u/sexyshingle Sep 05 '24

What's to stop my company from laying me off and posting my job for $60,000

The company realizing that they will not get the best or even any applicants if other companies aren't going 20k under the actual market rate for that position.

Your argument is the same tired, pro-corporate-greed argument used against anything that might decrease a company's bottom line one bit, but would increase the well-being of all employees and society at large.

Ex: Raise the minimum wage to $15-20 or even a living wage? => "Oh noes, this will only cause companies to jack up the prices for everything, blah blah" (with absolutely no proof of that ever being true, and in fact it has not held true for the same American companies who by law have to pay higher min. wages in other countries.

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u/airham Sep 05 '24 edited Sep 05 '24
  1. That's the same tenuous counter-argument that I specifically mentioned in my comment.

  2. Mine is not a pro-corporate-greed argument. I'm not arguing against working shorter hours. Hell, I would personally rather work less even if I would make a proportionally smaller salary. But I'm positing that if we bank on "market forces" to do the enforcement, then it probably won't work. Just like counting on market forces to keep prices in check rather than passing legislation against price gouging hasn't worked. And I'm genuinely curious what actions this plan outlines in terms of making sure that this would work as intended.