We should all put in the most amount of time to our lives and passions, but to maintain a comfortable life should not consume 100% of our available productive hours. (assuming productive hours == 8/day, 5 days/week)

If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?

If you can't do without what amounts to luxuries to 75% of the world population, discussing how many hours a week you "should" work is a non-starter.

Shop at the Dollar Store, Goodwill, Aldi, etc. Look for foreclosed, abandoned, and other dirt cheap real estate; search Zillow.com for sub-$1000 properties (not a typo). Plant a garden. Move. No excuses.

Meat is very expensive so generally people eating frugally avoid it nearly entirely, but depending on where you live it may be cheap and practical to raise some chickens if you really feel you need it.

Wow. Now why was that necessary?

Poster makes a valid point – $10 daily will buy you an existence that looks positively palatial to some, and near a pauper to others. You will be living well, relative to any number of other humans, but lacking the things you want.

For example, you probably stop living in the Bay Area.

Regardless, if you actually have an interest in low cost living, hit up Joey Hess. He, in this country, pays something around $4-5 a day in rent/utilities. Using the remaining money frugally for food and other needs is fairly trivial.

source: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154371

If you want to live in the bay area, you have to work for it. If you want to live on $10 a day, the point is you dont want to work for it. You can't have both.

Living on $10 a day can be done. Go build an earthship in Taos.

Gosh, are you sure? I've said tons of lame things – not sure this even nudges the needle.

Wow, HN has dropped this low?

Here were I live the standard household income is around $600 USD a Month. A family of 4 can (parents and two children) can live with that.

Of course, I want more. The guy next door has a Range Rover and a Porsche. But I know there are literally billions of people who cannot imagine the luxury in which I live.

If you are a programmer, you can't just decide to work 10 hours a week for $25k and live a $25k lifestyle. If you want to earn $25k, you'll probably still have to work full time to do it. Regardless of the comforts we enjoy, we are still slaves to the workweek (there's not enough contract work for every programmer or designer to go freelance), and that is why it's right to complain.

We may have more "things" per person than Arthur himself, yet we lack the freedom and status of being royalty.

If you refuse to leave, then we cannot get on to the next lesson of choosing cheap, even free, real estate.

But, like the koan of the full cup...

Too many naysayers don't realize how ridiculous their local cost of living is, and how a simple move can cut that by orders of magnitude.

The key is being willing to move. Once you are, options abound. Get busy on http://zillow.com and search regions and price ranges; to get in the mindset, start by searching whole states for properties under $1000 (not a typo).

I've noticed (at least grokking it more than usual) of late "it costs to live" is a very popular, and deeply misguided, and financially devastating, frame of mind. Yes, of course, on its face the statement is true ... but it belies an existence which is completely ruled by our advertising-driven culture, in an ultimately self-destructive (in a "keep the host alive as long as possible" way) manner. The mindset places spending as the top priority; doesn't matter what the income is, what orders-of-magnitude-cheaper alternatives there are, or the long-term financial consequences, so long as swiping plastic gets results then spend we shall because "it costs to live."

Thus we have a nation saddled with $54K debt per person, and intelligent productive people getting obscenely abusive about the suggestion that living in one of the most expensive places in the world probably isn't a good idea.

Right now in arm's reach on my desk I have a can with enough seeds in it to plant an acre. Being non-hybrid/GM seeds, the $40 cost amortizes to $1/year to feed a family of four for the rest of my life. Yes, it "costs to live" - but you're loading the phrase with far more baggage than necessary.

Bad assumption.

> If maintaining a living (comfortable or not) requires 100% of our productive work time (40 hours/week) then how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?

What is "subsistence" about it? I understand subsistence living to mean "having just enough to survive."

It seems to me this is exactly the point being made. You can live on a lot less money than whatever you currently consider "normal", but not necessarily in your current location or at your current level of consumption.

Whatever it costs you to live comfortably in SV with kids, it probably costs me half that to live comfortably in Denver with kids. I know of families living on less than half of what I do in places like Japan, who would consider themselves quite comfortable.

If financing your current lifestyle leaves you with no free time to enjoy life, you're a slave to that lifestyle -- whether it's on $5k or $500k a year. If "living in Silicon Valley" is non-negotiable, it's going to take a lot more earning power to get out of that type of "slavery" than if you're willing to live in Belize.

That's a horrible comparison. The difference in potential salaries, potential connections, business opportunities and so on would put make Denver the expensive one IMO (costs half as much as SV to have none of those advantages? wtf!).

If you're one of those near the top of the spectrum, making 25 or more times the median salary or starting up a business that truly blows up, perhaps. In which case you wouldn't be complaining that it's hard to raise kids in SV.

If you're an average joe coder, or even fairly above average, you're making 10% less in Denver and you have fewer options for tech companies (but still plenty locally, and some decent remote options). But you can buy a nice house here for well under $200k and live ten minutes from work. For the vast majority of people, it's far less expensive.

The point here is not to convince you, personally, to move to Denver. Just to clarify that there's a whole spectrum of places to live at all sorts of prices, with all sorts of advantages and disadvantages. The GGP post implied that "live a normal life in SV" was the only option, which is of course absurd. There are advantages to living in SV, but they do not come without costs.

By design, the Valley's zoning laws create an artificial shortage of housing units. It costs a lot to live a "normal life" in order to keep out the riff raff.

Every person on HN should realize that they are worth more than $10/hr. Stop defending living in poverty as an exploit of others.

Should we? Is that the ultimate goal here? The problem with trying to tell people what their life is about, is that you are wrong as soon as you start.

> how are you not a slave to that subsistence lifestyle?

Subsistence is 'surviving' (like, not dying, not not unable to pay rent).

No, the best that the government can do for startups and the economy is just get out of the way.

Edit: That being said, government can get involved in the wrong ways and cause problems with subsidies and bad regulation.

Yes, it's true that you can't get the nice properties of a free market without some conditions being met. Specifically, you need the government to be the arbiter of physical force between people. Otherwise, you have gang warfare (anarchism).

All economic discussions of free markets that I have ever heard have implicitly or explicitly stated that one of the necessary oversights of government is to break up or regulate natural monopoly-prone industries.

It's just that it's a false concept that doesn't actually exist.

Take electricity, for example.

First, there are many large companies that could raise the necessary capital to build power plants and electric transmission lines.

Second, people can always get together and form a non-profit power company if the normal market isn't providing stable, competitive prices. (By "people" I mean, say, the people of an entire US state.)

Third, having deregulated electricity systems would open up the field to innovation, such that we'd probably all have small nuclear reactors at our houses, or wireless power transmission, or something.

So, in conclusion, a "natural monopoly" is not a true monopoly. It's a false concept.

You have the benefit of the doubt from me, but your specific arguments leave out the installation phase of the electrical grid, which I'm sure you are very familiar with.

>>>First, there are many large companies that could raise the necessary capital to build power plants and electric transmission lines.

Agree, but capital isn't the only thing. You have to put the electrical lines into the ground, disrupting traffic. The costs and capital of the electrical system are not what makes it a natural monopoly, the physical reality of our current technology does (pending wireless transmission as you mention later).

The current physical reality is solved by having the government own the last mile(for some definition of mile), while electrical providers can connect at hubs. This is how it works in places where the population understands the specifics of natural monopolies.

>>>Third, having deregulated electricity systems would open up the field to innovation, such that we'd probably all have small nuclear reactors at our houses, or wireless power transmission, or something.

The biggest problem is that these technologies do not yet exist. Maybe in the future they will be stymied by regulation, but if they were invented today I can't think of an electrical grid regulation that would stop them. Remember, consumers can hook up power generating technology to the grid already: solar panels.

>>>Second, people can always get together and form a non-profit power company if the normal market isn't providing stable, competitive prices. (By "people" I mean, say, the people of an entire US state.)

Businesses are in the business of making money. When a corporation thinks it can make money by suing municipalities that form broadband networks, they do so. Like in Lafayette.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/60150 http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/...

Want to know why this isn't all over the news, with the competing ISPs and cable companies badmouthing these bad corporate actions? Because the cable companies and the ISPs and the media companies are largely owned by the same people, and collude monopolistically. This is a very recent accomplishment: regulations existed to prevent it but were overturned by the deregulation achieved through the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownershi...

A better solution would be to have the "last mile" owned by the people who own properties, but that may be nit picking. And I think that's probably how things would have eventually developed without government intervention.

Now, I think that in reality, power companies (in the US, at least) almost always are regulatory monopolies, i.e., government-granted ones. But, because of the "last mile" solution, they don't _need_ to be.

In summary, I feel like my point that natural monopolies don't exist is still supported.

When a corporation thinks it can make money by suing municipalities that form broadband networks, they do so. Like in Lafayette.

You can't (logically) use one abuse of government power to justify other government power that counteracts it, which seems to be your argument.

In the example you gave, the abuse is being able to win invalid lawsuits, and that is being used to justify government regulation of arbitrary industries (telco, in this specific case).

Better to just make it so you can't win invalid lawsuits.

Because the cable companies and the ISPs and the media companies are largely owned by the same people, and collude monopolistically.

They do collude monopolistically: the telcos have government-granted regulatory monopolies.

deregulation achieved through the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Given that the telco industry is 100% made up of government-granted regulatory monopolies, this act clearly did not implement deregulation.

I do not think it is controversial to say that deregulation is the act or process of removing or reducing state regulations. I have checked several dictionaries and encyclopedias, on line and dead-tree.

So a slight reduction in the regulatory laws that contributed to the formation of "government-granted regulatory monopolies" is deregulation. Therefore, the 1996 telecommunications Act of 1996 is deregulation, since it reduced and removed some, but not all, regulatory laws.

If we can agree on this, I will reply to the rest of your comment. If we disagree I can still reply, but the definition is really important to my argument.

I think that many people act as if and/or think that a proper definition of "deregulation" is "reducing regulation."

However, I see no point in arguing about definitions. I propose that we just use the terms "complete deregulation" and "partial deregulation" from here on out, so as to be non-ambiguous.

Given this, let me state my stance on partial deregulation. I thought about stating it earlier, but it seemed just barely too tangential.

I think partial deregulation is often much worse than regulation.

For example, regulation may take the form of "Cable company X has the exclusive right to lay coaxial cable in our city. In return, cable company X must allow our city to have our own special channel where we can post public announcements; and, it must lay wire to all areas of the city, regardless of income level; and, it must allow the city to set rates that subscribers can be charged."

Under partial deregulation, X may be allowed to set whatever rates it wants, but still have the exclusive right to lay coaxial cable. So, it can gouge customers.

In this case, partial deregulation didn't correct a situation in which the government was overstepping its bounds. It partially corrected it, and in doing so, made things worse.

I think this is overwhelmingly the kind of thing that happens with partial deregulation, and I think partial deregulation is overwhelmingly what happens these days when politicians talk about deregulation.

Sorry, I know you just wanted me to agree/disagree with your definition rather than adding a bunch of new intellectual content... but I figured the above would be helpful (and likely similar to what you were thinking).

Agreed. All dictionaries disagree, but I'm not talking to any of them.

I believe that all reasonable people agree that history has shown that monopolies are inefficient in a capitalist system(see the 1920s for example). I feel that government-granted regulatory monopolies are also inefficient in a capitalist system. From your comments, I assume that you agree with both of these things, please let me know if you have a different view.

My understanding of the invention of regulations is this: Full deregulation of business seems like the best possible solution, until the point that companies become so big that they form monopolies that stifle competition. Then the government has to come in and regulate them until they are no longer monopolies. From your comments, I assume that you agree with this, let me know if you have different views.

I have to go eat but I have a comment written up about natural monopolies with relation to telcos ready to be edited and then posted.

Well, I don't think natural monopolies exist (as we discussed previously), only regulatory monopolies.

So, I don't think companies can become so big that they become natural monopolies.

I had written about some example cases that help support this (IBM, MS, Bell Telephone), but it was too long and probably not worth it, so I removed them.

Wow, way to punctuate a diatribe of ignorance with equating anarchism with gang warfare.

But for anyone else who might happen on this comment and be truly curious, here's a good starting point: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-edi...

It's heavily cited so you can go as deep as you care to.

P.S.: The short answer is: the "gang warfare" scenario comes from bartering, whether with money or direct bartering (e.g. trade 100 loafs of bread for a bicycle). For Anarchism to work, you'd need to get rid of capitalism and bartering completely. Think Star-trek.

Also note, I'm not arguing for anarchism but rather against ignorance. I personally don't think the world is ready for anarchism but at least I know what it actually is.

We've tried that and it failed. Does the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire ring any bells?

I'm not advocating anarchism.

I ask, because this argument about the "proper role" of government tends to start growing all kinds of exceptions that expand the role of government the moment someone starts taking it to its logical conclusion and argues for removing protections of exclusive access and use of land in particular, as a means of maximising liberty by removing government enforcement of artificial monopolies.

Most countries even today do have substantial exceptions to private property rights for the purpose of increasing liberty for society as a whole (e.g. granting access to natural resources to society as a whole).

I think government should enforce all private property rights, although perhaps at an indirect level (e.g. you still have to lock your door, but the government ultimately will punish people who break in).

However, the question of what is a property right and what is not is germane.

argues for removing protections of exclusive access and use of land in particular

If two people can do something simultaneouly without one initiating force against the other, then property rights don't apply. Sometimes it falls to the legal system (e.g. convention) to stipulate the precise boundaries.

For example, if a utility company wants to run power lines below my land, then unless that prevents me from doing something underground that I'm already doing, I think they have the right to do so, as long as the lines can be installed without causing me significant inconvenience (and with proper forewarning).

So, basically, you establish property rights by actually using the property in a certain fashion.

have substantial exceptions to private property rights for the purpose of increasing liberty for society as a whole

I think that's a false example. Society is just composed of individual people. If you take away one person's rights, it may increase somebody else's access to something (e.g., say, birth control), but it does not increase _liberty_.

(e.g. granting access to natural resources to society as a whole)

I don't really see how natural resources _wouldn't_ be available to society as a whole.

That's where you'll get disagreements; your reasoning doesn't apply if the exclusive access and use of land isn't considered an artificial monopoly. Particularly, 'artificial' is usually defined as something man-made, yet property rights are extremely common among other animals as well, even if they haven't developed a moral framework to justify them.

Today working around 40 hours a week is an important prerequisite for a great many important things such as the traditional suite of full-time employee benefits (health insurance, for example).

Additionally, social security and medicare taxes take 14% of income right off the top, and then federal and state income tax adds onto that. Such high tax burdens make it much more difficult for people to build up their own savings, and it's no surprise that savings rates have plummeted over the years. Lack of savings results in greater dependence on employers and less negotiating capability for non-traditional work hours.

Here's a graph of overall tax burden since 1960 broken down by income group: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunda...

Only the top 1% has seen a dramatic change in tax burden over that time frame, for everyone else taxes have either stayed steady or gone up overall. The most important parts of this graph are the middle, second, and top quintiles, who should be the most capable of putting money aside. However, their federal tax burdens all rose substantially. And the recent reduction in tax rates has only occurred during a massive economic contraction so there hasn't been a true opportunity for most people to make use of the lower rates yet.