At "0.000133 bitcoins a day" it would take 7518 days (more than 20 years) to make one bitcoin.
At "0.0004 bitcoins" per video it would take 2500 videos to watch to make one bitcoin.
The amount of wasted human capital is insane. Why don't these people get jobs? There are tons of posts on Craigslist for jobs that don't require any education - delivery, waiters, busboys, cleaning, etc.
* The economy crashed a while ago. We still haven't recovered all the jobs we lost, by either absolute or percentage.
* Increased automation and efficiency is slowly removing those jobs you just described. Exec, a YCombinator app, makes a more efficient and automated solution to craigslist cleaning jobs. This is happening in every sector in this country. These changes ELIMINATE JOBS, these jobs will never come back. And the jobs they create do not replace the ones they removed, not in quantity, or in aggregate tax quality (i.e. one well paid programmer does not replace the amount of tax revenue from 4 people splitting the same salary. Let alone the fact that executives often take a cut of that increased productivity for themselves. Let alone the fact that it puts more load on welfare for the 3 lost jobs).
* Every single one of those jobs you just listed likely requires a number of things in today's saturated jobs market: High-school or college education (too many people, not enough jobs, means overqualified hiring requirements), a permanent address (hard when you are homeless), a certain appearance (hard when you are poor, without a place to live or bathe), some sort of experience (hard to get in this job market, especially when under educated, in poor health [mental or physical], and every other reason here), transport to and from work (or even for the work), ect.
I think you need to take a step back and look at the whole picture, it's a dire one.
There are always enough jobs.
There aren't enough jobs that people are willing to do for the money others are willing to pay.
If I knew someone near me was living on <$1/day, I would raise their pay to $5 to do something mundane. If that person could find 15-20 of me, they are above the poverty line. My standard of living has gone up and so has theirs AND they now can circulate that money to others in their service - and so it goes on.
The problem isn't a lack of jobs, it's the draining of capital flow that happen when the monetary system dries up. Whether you believe that to be unfairness or just some players being so adept at the game... that doesn't matter.
The ball needs to move or people who want to play the game will be sitting out. If the ball is kept moving, even artificially, anyone who wants to play will get to play. The only ones left out would be willingly out or mentally/physically unable to play at all.
Right now, we let the game rules be such that some smart shits helped some lucky shits collect the ball and now the dumbshits think the pile of "money" is worth something when not in circulation. Look at all my symbols of currency! Doesn't matter if it's dollars, metals/commodities, or the butcoin... without a functioning-thriving ebb and flow of currency, everyone is poorer.
Spend like death with 0 is the goal. Don't take on debt or get greedy. We'll all live better.
"There are always enough jobs." That's patently rubbish as can be seen all around the (1st) world at the moment.
However, I don't agree with the parent's comment that technology causes a lack of jobs - also obviously untrue if you look around you.
Currently we're on the tail-end of a recession, thus money isn't moving around, thus it's harder to insert one's self into the money stream.
As people start spending, jobs pick up. This is already happening in most of the richer parts of the recession hit world. Here in the UK, unemployment has been dropping steadily. New small businesses are appearing fast. Manufacturing's on the way up.
FWIW, I agree with everything after your very first sentence.
> The problem isn't a lack of jobs, it's the draining of capital flow that happen when the monetary system dries up. Whether you believe that to be unfairness or just some players being so adept at the game... that doesn't matter.
> The ball needs to move or people who want to play the game will be sitting out. If the ball is kept moving, even artificially, anyone who wants to play will get to play. The only ones left out would be willingly out or mentally/physically unable to play at all.
What you're saying may be true now, but surely it won't always be true? Who's to say that every mundane task won't (relatively soon) be automated? We need to start thinking about how we should deal with this.
>There are always enough jobs. There aren't enough jobs that people are willing to do for the money others are willing to pay.
Nice. "Work willing to be done for others willing to pay" is what defines a job. It only took you two sentences to make the rest of your post into rubbish capitalist handwaving.
>If I knew someone near me was living on <$1/day, I would raise their pay to $5 to do something mundane.
Please do this actually. Someone near you is living on <$1/day.
"It's not practical!" you'll say. That's because nothing you're saying is actually practical enough to be realistic.
Oh yeah? Running $0 worth of income through a SNAP benefits calculator tells me that an individual with no job is entitled to $200/month. That's one anti-poverty program that blows past your <$1/day by almost an order of magnitude.
Generally ABAWDS between 18 and 50 who do not have any dependent children can get SNAP benefits only for 3 months in a 36-month period if they do not work or participate in a workfare or employment and training program other than job search. This requirement is waived in some locations.
With some exceptions, able-bodied adults between 16 and 60 must register for work, accept suitable employment, and take part in an employment and training program to which they are referred by the local office. Failure to comply with these requirements can result in disqualification from the Program.
For people without kids or other family responsibilities who can't even be bothered to show up for free, government-funded work-training?
That doesn't sound like being forced to live on $1/day to me. Yes, of course I can voluntarily not accept the money and goods being offered to me, but that's not really the point.
My point was simply that it's a wild exaggeration to assume there are more than a handful of people in the United States who are involuntarily living on <$1/day. Whether it's "arbitrary" or not, it's not even close to reality.
It's been my experience the jobs are there. They aren't necessarily falling out of the sky, but just two and a half years ago I worked on projects for a man who payed $10/hr and couldn't find enough (good) help. He told me workers were not hard to find (as he really only needed unskilled labor), but people with a good work ethic were.
I am currently homeless. I am not looking for a job because I am medically handicapped. I walked away from a job with a Fortune 500 company that was helping to keep me ill. My condition is very expensive, thus my job amounted to a net loss in income. Since quitting and sleeping in a tent, I have paid down thousands of dollars in debt incurred during the years I had that job. I am currently trying to declare bankruptcy, but being homeless and having chronic health issues means everything is frustratingly slow.
I have alimony, I do a little freelance work online and I have websites I am trying to develop. As a homeless woman, I have damn little credibility and cannot get people to take me very seriously. If you would like to see me stop being a total fucking loser, I could use help developing and promoting my web projects.
A lot of people on the street are medically or mentally ill. Most of them are less well educated than I am. I have made substantial progress towards resolving my underlying problems which are the root cause of my homelessness. Many others do not know how to do that. I need an income that does not keep me sick. That's quite a tall order to engineer while recovering physically and living on the street, but it is my only hope of ever making my life work.
But for the tons of unskilled craigslist jobs, in these depressed areas, they will get hundreds of resumes. In most places around the US, the reality is multipointed:
* Nobody who would want to hire someone has the capital to do so, or the resources to handle the absurd regulation surrounding hiring an employee.
* The economic cycles in a lot of these areas are not producer ones, so they don't see job growth even when people need basic necessities. The kinds of work in most areas of the US is dwindling, and often specialized and requiring either a degree, or no need to be self sustaining (ie, walmart clerks or mcdonalds staff, because you don't earn a living wage on minimum wage).
* Anyone with money has better, less risky options (usually created through law and false economics) that investing in small town startups that would hire the millions of unemployed as service workers. Because we already know they will never be hired as producers, because we already optimized production into factory farms and automated warehouses. The capital holders get plenty of returns on their investments by operating in an economic cycle outside most of the US, and they do so not for missed opportunity - everyone understands not utilizing the human capital of some 60 million people is wasteful - but because it is much safer to keep playing wal-street with federal bailouts than to try entrepreneurship.
I can't help but feel sorry for all these chaps that are arguing. Do you all live in a fantasy land? I feel like almost nobody here has truly started from the bottom, but rather like to observe from the tower they were born in.
Why is it that I was able to live on part-time minimum wage ($10/hr) that covered rent (rented a room for $500), food ($100 a month and I ate like a king, never ate outside, always home cooked), and my drinking? I was living fine. If you can't manage your money, that's your problem. Sure I couldn't buy the latest boots or iphone, but who gives a fuck? Buy a book, it'll cost ya $5 and last you for far longer than that stupid phone you slaved a month away working for.
If you manage your money well you will save little, by little, and you will invest that capital into bettering yourself and moving up. I saved money for online courses.
If you don't get out into the real world and hustle, you will get nowhere. Reading a lot of HN I can't help but feel that most HN'ers want their computer to be their absolute portal into real life.
It isn't. It's like, 1% of real life. Real life is face to face. Real life is personal relationships with people, it's respect, it's keeping your word, it's keeping calm, it's keeping your mind in a good state, it's building relationships that benefit both people, it's not being a bitch. It's not about you. It's about them, and when you enforce that attitude, that attitude spreads and starts to work in your favour. You start meeting people, and keeping those people. Nothing has ever changed anything for me than buckling down, making myself presentable, and being confident. It's hard, but it needs to get done.
I invested PURELY IN KNOWLEDGE. I then sold that knowledge. That's how you make money. You trade knowledge, for cash. I buy gourmet food now, because I can't cook it myself. I pay for university, because it's far easier to learn something from a professional in 4 years than ripping through books my entire life. This entire world is built upon this foundation.
I fucking hate seeing people argue this shit like it's black and white. The problem isn't the money, it's the people and the decisions they make. If you play your cards right you'll get to where you want to be.
I could have acted like a cynical poor ass like the world was working against me, and it was, but you need to rise above the victim mentality.
> Why is it that I was able to live on part-time minimum wage ($10/hr) that covered rent (rented a room for $500), food ($100 a month and I ate like a king, never ate outside, always home cooked), and my drinking? I was living fine.
Were you supporting a family at the time? If not, you might consider the possibility that what was a living income for you might not be sufficient for everyone else.
But then that brings me to the question, why are you packing on more than you can handle.
Disclaimer: I'm not talking about people who developed their lives in a different class, then lost everything. I'm talking about people that time and time again make dumb decisions, don't realize it, then blame their problems on either the system, or some other scapegoat when 90% of the time it's you that screws you.
Poor people want to have kids just like most of the rest of us. The idea that only people with means have the right to have kids goes beyond unreasonable and is actually inhumane.
And women often make decisions without realizing that the men in their lives are going to run away from responsibility, get arrested, develop a drinking or drug problem, crumble under the stress of trying to raise a family, or any number of other things. So they end up getting stuck with the necessity of raising their kids on their own in poverty.
Except in the case of medical problems and disabilities, poor two-parent families are typically the working poor, and they tend to have houses and such, and work multiple jobs if those jobs are available, since the jobs available to the working poor typically cap out at 30-35 hours a week with no benefits. And if they're not working, it's generally because they, just like middle class families, made decisions when they expected there would be jobs, and lost those jobs.
Yeah, the notion of personal responsibility in the current form has to go. Genetics and environment is absolutely huge influence and I cant blame a person for poor money management skills if he or she was in a toxic environment all his life.
Plus "60 cents a day" of income is going to be eaten up by transaction fees when they need actual cents to buy lunch (I don't think online delivery services or trendy cafes accepting bitcoin payments cater for the homeless end of the market; there's only so many gyft-funded $10 Papa John's pizzas one can afford)
The whole thing reeks of a PR stunt to the point where I can easily see the people involved's actual "job" - whether genuinely homeless or not - was to sit outside a library waiting for the tipped-off journalist to turn up and interview them.
Yeah, I'd be pretty unsurprised if this story turned out to be a hoax. Making 60 cents a day then spending that on pizza delivery? They get paid to do odd jobs in Bitcoin because they worry about carrying actual money (while they somehow sleep in the rough without their new-looking laptops or bikes getting stolen)? Doesn't add up.
When I hear about "wasted capital" I imagine some central planner in a uniform from 1950s. Or North Korea.
These guys do have jobs: they are doing work for money. Even if the work is to sit on a street panhandling. Those who donate buy themselves some good feelings. If you don't like that trade, don't do it or pay for it. Simple.
Why don't you get up at 5 AM and work till midnight like Tim Cook? What a waste of resources.
I had read that Tim Cook is an early riser, but didn't know about being up that late regularly. I think the super early riser is a cultural in south Alabama. My mother's parents grew up within an hour of Robertsdale, Alabama. My grandfather, in particular, was always up at 4:30 AM. Even into his older years when he had not lived on a farm for decades.
Charging their laptop at a library intended for use by the public (which they are a part of) burns less energy than someone who leaves their air conditioner running while they go get groceries.
Most homeless people go out of their way to not waste public resources and services because they are used to criticisms like this, usually issued from a vantage point of indifference and ignorance.
I believe the actual resource being referred to is the aforementioned human capital. The article mentioned that he was a network engineer, a career path that can easily command $60K/year on the low end.
Network engineers that show up to work and crank out widgets don't get to stay in that position. Those that seek to learn and grow, while reliably performing there jobs are typically the last on the chopping block and if they do get RIF-ed, have a strong market to fall back on. This is a good use of his time. Figuring out ways to mindlessly click/watch garbage resources on the Internet to scrape up an occasional pizza is laughable, when compared to his potential. Based on the information presented in the form it was, this looks more like a failure of the person than the system.
Speaking of information presented, I see no reason to think you have any more insight into a homeless person's motivation than you do for passive-aggressively insinuating the poster you are responding to is indifferent and ignorant.
You're asking a rational question of irrational people. When someone has a fundamental problem - depression, addiction, anxiety, etc. they often don't make rational decisions.
"At 0.0004 bitcoins per video it would take 2500 videos to watch to make one bitcoin."
You seem confused by the divisibility of bitcoin.
His goal is not to make one whole bitcoin, but probably to watch ~100 videos (3-4 hours total?) which is 0.04 bitcoins which is enough to buy a meal (~$5).
Also the article is poorly worded but it sounds like the homeless guy is not taking advantage of the 0.000133 btc per day offer (it says "he can beef up..." but should be "he could beef up...")
I just glanced at the FAQ on the services website, and it sounds like the offers pop up from time to time, so you might not be able to watch one video after the other, you have to wait for them to come in. My guess is that the $0.60 day that they quoted is an average of sorts, with some days a bit higher and some lower. Regardless, that is not a lot of money, could take you two weeks of work to buy one pizza.
At "0.000133 bitcoins a day" it would take 7518 days (more than 20 years) to make one bitcoin.
At "0.0004 bitcoins" per video it would take 2500 videos to watch to make one bitcoin.
The amount of wasted human capital is insane. Why don't these people get jobs? There are tons of posts on Craigslist for jobs that don't require any education - delivery, waiters, busboys, cleaning, etc.