[snarf21]

I disagree completely. If we were satisfied with a lower standard of living, one parent could stay home to take care of the kids. Keynes predicted 15 hour work weeks but he missed that we would increase our standard of living faster than the productivity gains.

[tablespoon]

> I disagree completely. If we were satisfied with a lower standard of living, one parent could stay home to take care of the kids. Keynes predicted 15 hour work weeks but he missed that we would increase our standard of living faster than the productivity gains.

Is that productivity really needed/used for standard of living gains? Or do you need two incomes now because of a combination of capital taking bigger cut and dual-incomes bidding up the price of things.

Also you have the phenomenon of companies trying to increase sales by reducing the service life of their products, which just increases churn without increasing living standards.

[stocknoob]

If schooling were about actual education and not signaling, there would be competitive pressure to improve product quality (like any consumer good: TVs, computers, microwaves, cars…).

There is no competitive pressure to improve educational outcomes because society doesn’t really care. It’s a signaling mechanism for the top quintile and a childcare holding pen for the rest.

[beambot]

Service industries do not follow the same quality-cost trends as consumer electronics...

E.g. the cost and quality of your average bus driver has not changed appreciably in 4 decades.

[stocknoob]

The bus driver is just a component of the system; the quality of transportation system itself should be getting better (cost per mile, electrification, GPS tracking, etc.). I can pull up my bus schedule and its current location in an instant. A decade ago I'd be waiting in the cold for a bus that may never come.

In theory, the quality of the education system itself should be improving (online classes & evaluation, recorded lectures, more materials, sharing of the best techniques, etc.), of which the teachers are a single input. But, we know how that's turned out. Education is a political football and society doesn't actually care about the outcome.

[warkdarrior]

Not sure why that matters. The point is that parents want their kids in school and the current pandemic conditions restricts that, so parents are forced to be at home with their kids instead of working at a job.

[stocknoob]

It turns out the question isn't "what provides the best education for kids (at home/in person)", it's "what provides the most convenience for parents".

You could have parental-supervised online learning be 5x as good as in-person, but society demands we send kids to school to get them out of the house so a parent can work. We pay lip service to the actual education of the child.

No real point except pulling the veil from our revealed preferences.

[jessaustin]

If Keynes "missed" anything, it might have been that labor compensation would cease to have anything to do with productivity. The capitalists are consuming more and more, so there is nothing left for ever-more-productive labor.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

[gruez]

>The capitalists are consuming more and more, so there is nothing left for ever-more-productive labor.

That's a plausible explanation, but a bunch of charts with no analysis other than red arrows[1] pointing to the early 70s, makes for a terrible argument in support of it.

[1] https://xkcd.com/925/

[jessaustin]

Some people see those charts and immediately recognize something they already knew. It's fine that you didn't. It's not as though there are that many links in this whole thread. I appreciate anyone with the stones to counter an argument by data with an argument by xkcd.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synops...

[gruez]

>Some people see those charts and immediately recognize something they already knew

In other words, you know it's not trying to prove something, but rather reaffirm what some people already believe? I'm not sure that's any better. If anything that's worse, because you're knowingly engaging in lowering the quality of conversation on this forum.

>It's not as though there are that many links in this whole thread.

But why add a random site that does nothing but contribute to the noise?

>I appreciate anyone with the stones to counter an argument by data with an argument by xkcd.

The onus is on the person making the claim to prove it, not on the respondent to disprove it. If all you're presenting is a bunch of charts with arrows on them, I don't see why I have to debunk each individual chart[1]. It suffices to show that the argumentation style is flawed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

[jessaustin]

I don't consider the St Louis Fed to be "a random site", but perhaps you have some sort of special term for why citing government economists is also out-of-bounds. It almost seems as if you prefer to police rhetoric rather than actually engage with the argument.