conservatives/libertarians position on the minimum wage might charitably be termed 18th century
Vid...@tcq.net
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
Posted on Tue, Oct. 17, 2006
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Economists' call for higher wage challenges candidate's reasoning
Michele Bachmann, candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 6th District,
has never pretended to economic acumen. However, on Oct. 11 her extreme
positions on various issues of social policy, such as gay marriage,
were outdone by her espoused position on the minimum wage. On that day,
more than 650 economists, including five Nobel Prize winners, called
for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 from $5.15, where
it has stayed since 1997. The earning power of the wage at this level,
according to the economists, is "fully eroded." They went on: "We
believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the
well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects
that critics have claimed."
The simple economics of the minimum wage are that the "equilibrium" or
market-clearing wage - the place where the supply and demand curves
for labor intersect - is already above $7.25. Therefore, raising the
minimum wage to this level will have virtually no effect on average
wages or employment.
Bachmann's position on the minimum wage might charitably be termed 18th
century. Testifying in the Minnesota Senate against a bill to raise
Minnesota's minimum wage (which now stands at $6.15) on Jan. 26, 2005,
Bachmann said, "If we took away the minimum wage - if conceivably it
was gone - we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment
because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level."
Belittling a proposed increase to $7 (below the level recommended by
the economists), Bachmann said, "If raising the minimum wage to $7 an
hour is a good idea, then why don't we just raise it to $20 an hour,
that must be even better."
Finally, in the same testimony, she said, "I was wondering, if most
employers are already doing this anyway, isn't minimum wage really just
superfluous? Why do we even have one?"
Now she has an answer. As the written statement from the economists
noted, "most of the beneficiaries are adults, most are female, and the
vast majority are members of low-income working families." That's a
pretty large category of U.S. citizens and Minnesotans for whom
Bachmann seems to care less. The economists went on, in direct
contradiction to Bachmann: "Modest increases in the minimum wage have
had very little or no effect on employment," and that a wage of $7.25
would benefit "the labor market, workers and the overall economy."
Bachmann's views are not only contradicted by the economists'
evaluation of the evidence - she actually argues that we should
abolish the minimum wage. And if it was gone, and workers could be
paid, say, $1 or $2 an hour (which is apparently what she meant by
"whatever level"), "we could virtually wipe out unemployment." Think of
all those people who would be grateful to work for a dollar an hour!
In this, as in so many ways, Bachmann reveals not only extreme
political views, but extreme ignorance of the economic reality of
workers' lives. Like Marie Antoinette (1755-93), her proposal amounts
to the modern equivalent of "let them eat cake." In Marie's case, her
views were an invitation to a beheading. In Bachmann's, the voters will
decide.
C. Ford Runge is Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Applied
Economics and Law at the University of Minnesota. This article
represents the author's views, not those of the University of Minnesota.
Robert Bunn
<Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:1161143873.8...@i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
>
> Posted on Tue, Oct. 17, 2006
> email this
> print this
> Economists' call for higher wage challenges candidate's reasoning
> Michele Bachmann, candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 6th District,
> has never pretended to economic acumen. However, on Oct. 11 her
> extreme
> positions on various issues of social policy, such as gay marriage,
> were outdone by her espoused position on the minimum wage. On that
> day,
> more than 650 economists, including five Nobel Prize winners, called
> for an increase in the federal minimum wage to $7.25 from $5.15, where
> it has stayed since 1997. The earning power of the wage at this level,
> according to the economists, is "fully eroded." They went on: "We
> believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the
> well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects
> that critics have claimed."
It is worth noting here that there is certainly disgreement among
professional economists on this issue, with credible and respectable
representatives on both sides.
http://www.swlearning.com/economics/policy_debates/increase_minimum.html
There's a nice sampler of the debate. Especially note the conclusion of
research in California that real harm was done to the working poor by
the 1996 raise. Unfortunately, this is too clouded an issue for
clear-cut answers. Bachmann's position may well be too close to "let
them eat cake", but minimum wage may also be too much of bread and
circuses. It is politically inexpedient to oppose minimum wage
increases, regardless that the majority of the population doesn't even
understand the economic issues involved well enough to be entitled to an
opinion.
It's not even clear whether those five Nobel Prize winners have
sufficient information to be entitled to an opinion, though I certainly
credit that they're acting in good faith. Minimum wage, as an issue, is
far more a political than an economic one. I'd like to see a good
cross-discipline study by a team with political scientists, economists,
sociologists, and historians.
In short, while Bachmann's attitude is unforgiveably cavalier and 18th
century, enlightened and honest disagreement over minimum wage laws is
certainly alive and well.
Robert Bunn
D. Mark Wilson, "Raising the Minimum Wage: Rhetoric v. Reality"
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/EM590.cfm
D. Mark Wilson argues against an increase in the minimum wage in this
April 23, 1999 Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum. He argues that
a higher minimum wage would:
a.. not have a direct effect on poverty,
b.. make it more difficult to move people from welfare to work,
c.. reduce the amount of job training received by workers,
d.. raise teenage unemployment rates, and
e.. encourage teenagers to drop out of school.
That ought to make it a great bipartisan effort. The Democrats want
everybody on welfare, the Republicans want everyone who isn't on welfare
to be a poorly trained drone, and they both want the average American to
be too poorly educated to realize that the Two Parties are symbiotes to
each other and parasites to the people.
Nospam
> It is worth noting here that there is certainly disgreement among
> professional economists on this issue, with credible and respectable
> representatives on both sides.
That is when politics take over economists. It is strange to see so many
economists prostituting themself on the right wingers side.
What is very clear, is that polarization it is harmfull for the economy:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/dragonomics/polarization1.pdf
Minimum wage increase can help to reduce polarization.
That by itself can be good enough for the economy.
Les Cargill
It will not make any difference whatsoever. As soon as the minimum
wage rises, the stuff people who make minimum wage buy goes up
proportionally.
--
Les Cargill
ccr
Cato Institute if you want right wing economic statements unbacked by any
scientific data?????
Raising the minimum wage has never had any of the effects claimed by the
Heritage lies. In fact, studies, based in the real world, have shown them to
be fabrications.
But that's OK keep spouting the clueless right wing drivel, it suits you.
You are an idiot.
--
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of
fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison
"Robert Bunn" <ada...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
news:C8kZg.62730$uH6....@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
Day Brown
about is the welfare of children of working moms, then we need to
abandon the nuclear family model, which for them, is down to mom & kid,
no dad. We need to appraise women of the risk they face that the dads're
not going to be there to help support the kids.
But both they and we know that their biological clocks are running, and
that we will need the workers they mite bear to support the retirement
of the next generations. Given global competition, it better be more
*competent* workers than the women now receive at the hands of stud muffins.
Related to this are a few new genera of women's literature besides the
classic 'romance' novels. There's now the revenge tales where she gets
back at him after being dumped for a trophy bimbo. There's the college
girls that get their advanced degrees, and then set out to find the
perfect... job. And then the professional women, who in their 30's see
the window of family life shutting, and when they look around at the
successful men they mite consider as mates... he's already married to an
airhead bimbo. And following that, the thankless tasks of trying to
raise the stepchildren a successful mate mite already have, draining the
energy she'd like to devote to having her own kids. Which are the ones
we need in the gene pool.
Moreover, monogamy has proved a disaster since birth control came in.
Many honorable faithful husbands had wives who bore them no sons, and
are now out of the gene pool, while the philanderers have left bastards
to be raised on welfare all over the county.
All these problems can be mitigated by persuading women to move into
communal households with each other. This so reduces the cost of living
that low minimum wages are not nearly the problem, and far less likely
to result in their jobs being shipped to Mexico.
They need to begin pre-natal health care *before* conception; use DNA to
identify the risks of cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia,
schizophrenia, etc... and then examine the markers in Y chromosome lines
to avoid genetic problems and increase the likelihood of conceiving kids
that are talented, charismatic, sociable, and who will at maturity, be a
blessing, not a burden, to their moms.
Who the women have recreational sex with is their business. but if you
want the future of your own kids to be spent productively, rather than
doing case work for what airheads are putting out now, we need to find
ways of offering such women, who do in fact have perfectly adequate
mothering instincts, children who will do right by them.
Communal living provides live-in childcare so that the moms can accept
jobs that pay less. then we can let the free market work its will, and
not see jobs outsourced and downsized... which we know will happen if
the minimum wage is increased.
Nospam
> It will not make any difference whatsoever. As soon as the minimum
> wage rises, the stuff people who make minimum wage buy goes up
> proportionally.
1. Yes, they will rise since the demand increase. But not "as soon".
Prices do have an inertia often called "stickiness". The period betwen the
rise of the wages and the rise of the prices it is a net gain for people.
That period, will count with a less disparity in income, fueling up the
economy.
2. Yes, they will rise since the demand increase. But not as much.
You were correct here, they rise proportionally but the proportionality
coefficient it is less than 1 since the minimum wages are not the single
component into the disposable income. The people living out of dividends
will get a bit less, while the wave that will make all the bigger wages to
grow proportionally with the minimum wage increment will take quite some
time.
1.+2. =
Increasing minimum wage will be helpfull for the economy how long it is done
slowly and steadily and not waiting too much to be required a big step to be
taken, that can quake the businesses.
I propose an increment on yearly basis, at least with the inflation for the
year.
But now, since it lag for long, it have to be increased a bit harder and
this might generate some adjustment troubles.
But that is a lesson important to be learned by the businesses:
When the idiot radical right wingers get the power, they always do harm to
people, to businesses and to the nation.
Les Cargill
> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not go
> up as much.
It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do
with the fact that more people have more money to chase
goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
> And given that only a portion of workers work minimum
> wage, only some products may go up.
I do not wish to knock anybody, but minimum wage is a "safety
net" subsidy. This is pretty clear; almost nobody actually works for
minimum wage ( outside of very poor regions ). Around here, there's
a defacto minimum wage of about $7.50.
> And given that in many
> circumstances raising the price could result in less sales to the
> point of less profits - the company/boss may rationally decide to eat
> the cost from profits and not raise prices.
>
Depends on the good, and who wants to be the price leader.
> Other than that and a few thousand other reasons why it's not true,
> your description is accurate.
>
How many minimum wage hikes have you lived through? Next time,
watch beer prices. They go up exactly by the proportion that
minimum wage goes up.
>
> ________________
> I am human; nothing in humanity is alien to me.
> Terence
--
Les Cargill
RG
just give the woman an IQ test. If it's below the mean,
sterilize her. Then she and the stupid men she would have
chosen as partners can have all the sex they want and not burden
society.
Les Cargill
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
> wrote:
> >
>
>>>And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not go
>>>up as much.
>>
>>It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do
>>with the fact that more people have more money to chase
>>goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
>
>
>
> Or manufacturers will decide to capture the increased demand by
> producing more.
That's always possible. It's always possible that a relatively
different new equilibrium will be reached, too.
It's just not likely. Te central tendaency will very
much be the previous equilibrium, with a new set of
price points. It's not like 7-11 cannot project accurately
the effect of the change...
> You seem intent on only working your favorite variable
> at a time.
>
Emphasis on "favorite" - in the horse race sense ( most likely ).
> ________________
> "You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an
> argument for it." Noam Chomsky
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
> wrote:
> >
>
>>>And given that only a portion of workers work minimum
>>>wage, only some products may go up.
>>
>>I do not wish to knock anybody, but minimum wage is a "safety
>>net" subsidy. This is pretty clear; almost nobody actually works for
>>minimum wage ( outside of very poor regions ). Around here, there's
>>a defacto minimum wage of about $7.50.
>
>
> Of course its a safety net issue.
But that's why an increase does not generally create unemployment.
And as subsidies go, it's one of my favorites - it helps
people who might not otherwise seek employment.
I'm optomistic about these things because I spent my early
20's during the "Repo Man" era of the early '80s. Turned
out fine - but it was looking *scary* then.
But 14 million out of a work force
> of about 140 million is not "almost nobody".
> http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts
>
Nice website.
That's not 14 million at minimum wage - that's 14 million
at a wage level expected to be perturbed by minimum wage.
Even if it *were* 11%, that just means that for
a work-life of 50 years, a person can expect
to spend 5/0.9 of them at minimum wage - which
seems roughly about right.
> Another 8.3 million work slightly above minimum wage and would likely
> see increases as well.
>
I do have to wonder if the statement "A minimum wage increase would help
reverse the trend of declining real wages for low-wage workers." is
true, though.
I agree - we're probably due for one, though.
I do hate this: "Today, the minimum wage is 31% of the average hourly
wage of American workers, the lowest level since the end of World War II."
Why? Because it's beter interpreted that market wages
are pulling away from minimum wage. That's a good thing.
Robert Bunn
<retro...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:9hddj25n0pgv61esk...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
> wrote:
> >
>>> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not
>>> go
>>> up as much.
>>
>>It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do
>>with the fact that more people have more money to chase
>>goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
>
>
> Or manufacturers will decide to capture the increased demand by
> producing more. You seem intent on only working your favorite variable
> at a time.
>
Suppose I am all the manufacturers in the country. If I can capture all
of the income in the country by producing at my current level, why
should I increase my production just because more dollars are available?
I can still capture all of the income in the country just by raising my
prices, without incurring any added expenses.
for it."
(retro: sorry for the misdirected email response you're getting right
now. Wrong button.)
Robert Bunn
"Les Cargill" <lcar...@cfl.rr.com> wrote in message
news:LEzZg.26375$fe2....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
> retro...@comcast.net wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>>
>>>>And given that only a portion of workers work minimum
>>>>wage, only some products may go up.
>>>
>>>I do not wish to knock anybody, but minimum wage is a "safety
>>>net" subsidy. This is pretty clear; almost nobody actually works for
>>>minimum wage ( outside of very poor regions ). Around here, there's
>>>a defacto minimum wage of about $7.50.
>>
>>
>> Of course its a safety net issue.
>
> But that's why an increase does not generally create unemployment.
> And as subsidies go, it's one of my favorites - it helps
> people who might not otherwise seek employment.
Competition for minimum-wage jobs is already pretty keen, and you
characterize inducing more workers into the market for it as a good
thing?
>
> I'm optomistic about these things because I spent my early
> 20's during the "Repo Man" era of the early '80s. Turned
> out fine - but it was looking *scary* then.
I remember the 80s. I was better off then. But I spent most of them in
school.
>
> That's not 14 million at minimum wage - that's 14 million
> at a wage level expected to be perturbed by minimum wage.
Oh, I estimate almost 150 million workers at a wage level that will be
perturbed by minimum wage. I would bet a nickel right now that there
isn't a single person in the US who doesn't spend at least some portion
of his income on goods or services provided by minimum-wage workers.
Nearly all restaurant wait staff -- even at the most high-end
restaurants -- are paid minimum wage. Most hotel staff, too. Labor isn't
a large cost for a hotel, but for a restaurant it's pretty significant.
In fact, it's probably safe to say most restaurants will have to either
raise prices or cut jobs to stay in business. So, nearly everyone who
goes out to dinner at least once a year can expect their real income to
be affected within the first year a minimum wage hike takes effect.
> I do have to wonder if the statement "A minimum wage increase would
> help reverse the trend of declining real wages for low-wage workers."
> is true, though.
You're not alone. The majority of economists would decline to endorse
that statement. Not the 5 and the 650, but the majority in the country.
Robert Bunn
"Nospam" <nos...@example.com> wrote in message
news:105582992....@example.com...
> Les Cargill wrote:
>
>> It will not make any difference whatsoever. As soon as the minimum
>> wage rises, the stuff people who make minimum wage buy goes up
>> proportionally.
>
> 1. Yes, they will rise since the demand increase. But not "as soon".
> Prices do have an inertia often called "stickiness". The period betwen
> the
> rise of the wages and the rise of the prices it is a net gain for
> people.
> That period, will count with a less disparity in income, fueling up
> the
> economy.
This period is a net gain for minimum wage earners. To get an idea how
sticky prices are, observe how long it took for gas prices to rise at
the commencement of the war in Iraq. Once prices start to rise, this
translates directly into lower real income for people working above
minimum wage, whose wages were unaffected by the hike. This period is a
net loss for those people, who account for at least 80% - 90% of wage
earners in America.
Wages are far stickier than prices. After all, isn't your whole argument
in favor of raising the minimum wage based on the fact that it's going
to require government coercion? And in general, the people arguing in
support of minimum wage hikes are also arguing that the wages of *all*
workers are lagging behind profits. Therefore, I feel completely
justified in taking it as a given that the wages not mandated for
increase by minimum wage will take far longer to rise than the prices
do.
So, you want to pay for a short-term and transitory minor benefit to a
relatively small class of workers with a long-term and persistent cost
to nearly all the rest of the workers. The net effect will be higher
corporate profits during the extended adjustment of the labor market.
Promising to raise the minimum wage is an excellent way for politicians
to mobilize the masses to vote for making the rich richer.
>
> 2. Yes, they will rise since the demand increase. But not as much.
> You were correct here, they rise proportionally but the
> proportionality
> coefficient it is less than 1 since the minimum wages are not the
> single
> component into the disposable income. The people living out of
> dividends
> will get a bit less, while the wave that will make all the bigger
> wages to
> grow proportionally with the minimum wage increment will take quite
> some
> time.
Ah, so I have your own explicit expectation that the wage level will be
slow to adjust. I'm glad there won't be any controversy over that point,
then.
>
> 1.+2. =
>
> Increasing minimum wage will be helpfull for the economy how long it
> is done
> slowly and steadily and not waiting too much to be required a big step
> to be
> taken, that can quake the businesses.
Rather than "will be helpful", say "will not be noticeably hurtful."
This is the best endorsement economists are willing to give --
*including* the 5 and the 650.
>
> I propose an increment on yearly basis, at least with the inflation
> for the
> year.
Pegging wages to prices has the potential -- not guaranteed, but
certainly not negligible -- to cause an inflationary spiral. Every time
wages go up, prices have to go up somewhere. If prices going up is
sufficient to cause wages to go up, a positive feedback linkage occurs.
>
> But now, since it lag for long, it have to be increased a bit harder
> and
> this might generate some adjustment troubles.
>
> But that is a lesson important to be learned by the businesses:
> When the idiot radical right wingers get the power, they always do
> harm to
> people, to businesses and to the nation.
>
It doesn't matter *who* is in power. It matters that the plan is
inconsistent and unpredictable. If your carpool had to change drivers at
every intersection regardless of what color the light is, and the
drivers had vastly different opinions of the best route to take -- and
didn't even necessarily have the same destination in mind, for that
matter -- then your morning commute would be very interesting. It's
possible that either party, given uninterrupted control of the tools of
fiscal policy for a very long time, could achieve remarkable goals that
everyone would laud. It's also possible that either party could end up
causing monstrous ruination due to an unquestioned but dangerously false
belief about economic reality. What's certain is that as long as there
are frequent changes, each camp will spend most of its tenure at the
reins trying to undo whatever progress the other has made toward its
goals. This is why we really ought to tell the government to keep its
nose out of economic policy. It's not because they are ruinously inept,
it's not because they are evil on either side, but because as a nation
we have no clear concensus on where we'd like to go or how to get there.
Nospam
> This period is a net gain for minimum wage earners. To get an idea how
> sticky prices are, observe how long it took for gas prices to rise at
> the commencement of the war in Iraq.
The oil prices is a very bad example. There isn't a real competition on the
oil market as on many others. Well, the advent of multinational
corporations try to destroy the competition in everything else too, but
this is another subject.
In general, if you have real competition the prices are going to be pretty
sticky. Just loot that despite the fact that oil prices grew almost 2 times
in last 6 years, the prices of goods manufactured from or with a lot of oil
didn't. If they grew, they did 5..20% not 100% as the oil/gas did.
Nice try, but not quite. The competition can keep prices sticky.
This is the core reason we should oppose all these mega-mergers that happen
in the last 5 years. They are clear anticompetitive actions taken to
destroy the market competition.
> Wages are far stickier than prices.
Correct. Especially if you let them driven exclusively by the employer's
will (aka job market).
But once you rise the minimal wage a wave will start to propagate:
1. You rise the minimum wage from 5.15 to 7.30
2. The guy that now have a 7.30 job at 10 miles from home will switch it for
the new minimum wage (7.30) near by home.
3. The employer that payed the 7.30 have to increase the offer to 9 if he
need workforce since now his old wage is in competition with minimum all
over the place.
4. People getting 9 at 20 miles from home will go for a 9 at half distance.
ETC....
> Ah, so I have your own explicit expectation that the wage level will be
> slow to adjust. I'm glad there won't be any controversy over that point,
> then.
Well, yes. The adjustments in other wages will take some times, longer for
the higher wages. As for the guess that it will be slower than the growth
in prices, ..... this is just a guess. I don't have as of this moment any
strong argument for it to be slower or faster that the prices growth.
> Pegging wages to prices has the potential -- not guaranteed, but
> certainly not negligible -- to cause an inflationary spiral.
Possibly.
> Every time
> wages go up, prices have to go up somewhere. If prices going up is
> sufficient to cause wages to go up, a positive feedback linkage occurs.
Quite possible. But you can try to compensate for that by ...... increasing
competition. Like breaking monopolies or taxing big businesses to get money
to help creation of new small businesses to make competitions to big ones.
> It doesn't matter *who* is in power. It matters that the plan is
> inconsistent and unpredictable.
I find at least strange that the so called" right wing economists" always
look at keeping the wages low the measure to combat inflation and never
look at the other side.
1. Disposable income is generated by wages and dividends. If you increase
the wages you can cut the dividends to compensate and keep the average
income the same. Well, this administration however choose the other path:
they cut taxes on dividends and capital gain (inflationist measure) and now
they fight to keep minimum wage low as an antiinflationary measure.
Just do the reverse as they did and the inflationary results will be the
same.
2. What I find completely ridiculous in this administration is that they
fight to keep wages low to compat inflation but ON THE SAME TIME
they bless every single mega-mergers betwen large corporations to undermine
the competition on the market. The competition is the biggest reason a
company won't inflate the prices at will.
This are the reasons I call this administration politics: RIP & RUN
economics. They are not pro business but pro looters.
maxw...@my-deja.com
> <retro...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:9hddj25n0pgv61esk...@4ax.com...
>
> > On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> >>> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not
> >>> go
> >>> up as much.
> >>
> >>It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do
> >>with the fact that more people have more money to chase
> >>goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
> >
> >
> > Or manufacturers will decide to capture the increased demand by
> > producing more. You seem intent on only working your favorite variable
> > at a time.
> >
>
> Suppose I am all the manufacturers in the country. If I can capture all
> of the income in the country by producing at my current level, why
> should I increase my production just because more dollars are available?
But the key here is "if". What if some of that money is saved for
investment capital?
Robert Bunn
<maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1161225534.1...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>> <retro...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:9hddj25n0pgv61esk...@4ax.com...
>>
>> > On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > >
>> >>> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will
>> >>> not
>> >>> go
>> >>> up as much.
>> >>
>> >>It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to
>> >>do
>> >>with the fact that more people have more money to chase
>> >>goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
>> >
>> >
>> > Or manufacturers will decide to capture the increased demand by
>> > producing more. You seem intent on only working your favorite
>> > variable
>> > at a time.
>> >
>>
>> Suppose I am all the manufacturers in the country. If I can capture
>> all
>> of the income in the country by producing at my current level, why
>> should I increase my production just because more dollars are
>> available?
>
> But the key here is "if". What if some of that money is saved for
> investment capital?
Ah. I see you are a stranger to the form of the syllogism in which one
leg is left unspoken because it is either self-evident or follows from
context. Let me rephrase.
* If I am all of the manufacturers in the country, then I produce all
the goods produced in the country.
* If a dollar is spent on goods manufactured in the country, I get that
dollar.
* At my current level of production, therefore, I get all dollars spent
on goods manufactured in this country.
* If a larger number of dollar bills are available, I will still produce
all goods produced in the country.
* If a larger number of dollar bills are available, therefore, I will
still get all dollars spent on goods manufactured in this country.
* I can capture all dollars spent on goods manufactured in the country
at my current level of production, regardless of how many actual dollar
bills are in circulation.
Therefore:
Les Cargill
> "Les Cargill" <lcar...@cfl.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:LEzZg.26375$fe2....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
>
>>retro...@comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
>>>wrote:
>>> >
>>>
>>>>>And given that only a portion of workers work minimum
>>>>>wage, only some products may go up.
>>>>
>>>>I do not wish to knock anybody, but minimum wage is a "safety
>>>>net" subsidy. This is pretty clear; almost nobody actually works for
>>>>minimum wage ( outside of very poor regions ). Around here, there's
>>>>a defacto minimum wage of about $7.50.
>>>
>>>
>>>Of course its a safety net issue.
>>
>>But that's why an increase does not generally create unemployment.
>>And as subsidies go, it's one of my favorites - it helps
>>people who might not otherwise seek employment.
>
>
> Competition for minimum-wage jobs is already pretty keen,
Um... where?
> and you
> characterize inducing more workers into the market for it as a good
> thing?
>
It is a good thing by the Luther canon. Idle hands and all that. No,
seriously, the US has been terrified of roving gangs of the unemployed
since the Depression. That's the basis for "The Road Warrior".
>
>>I'm optomistic about these things because I spent my early
>>20's during the "Repo Man" era of the early '80s. Turned
>>out fine - but it was looking *scary* then.
>
>
> I remember the 80s. I was better off then.
I think you *think* you were better off.
> But I spent most of them in
> school.
>
It was a near thing, then. Steve Earle wrote "Back To The Wall " then.
http://steveearle.net/lyrics/ly-coppe.php#backtothewall
I was grinding it out on the road then. It was desperate in some
places - we toured Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois during the height
of the rust belt. At least we avoided Ohio and Pennsylvania.
You were in school. You didn't see it. Detroit was...
something ... else. Ooooh, crackheads. Micheal Moore
ain't kidding. but to me, it's like the place was...
overforested. It was a victim of too many people
thinking the way out of the halvsies was a
union job with Mr. Ford. It ties into Woody Guthrie
for me, that way.
Then I ran into all those people from Michigan (the
Black Tag People ) in Dallas in the late '80s.
>
>>That's not 14 million at minimum wage - that's 14 million
>>at a wage level expected to be perturbed by minimum wage.
>
>
> Oh, I estimate almost 150 million workers at a wage level that will be
> perturbed by minimum wage.
That's half. I don't beleive that. The median income is not
2 times minimum wage. THAT S THE MOTHA FORGING POINT, BY THE
WAY.
> I would bet a nickel right now that there
> isn't a single person in the US who doesn't spend at least some portion
> of his income on goods or services provided by minimum-wage workers.
Sure. But that doesn't mean anything.
> Nearly all restaurant wait staff -- even at the most high-end
> restaurants -- are paid minimum wage. Most hotel staff, too.
And tips.
> Labor isn't
> a large cost for a hotel, but for a restaurant it's pretty significant.
True.
> In fact, it's probably safe to say most restaurants will have to either
> raise prices or cut jobs to stay in business.
Bummer.
> So, nearly everyone who
> goes out to dinner at least once a year can expect their real income to
> be affected within the first year a minimum wage hike takes effect.
>
Probably not, since restuaranting is such a frigging sausage grinder.
>
>>I do have to wonder if the statement "A minimum wage increase would
>>help reverse the trend of declining real wages for low-wage workers."
>>is true, though.
>
>
> You're not alone. The majority of economists would decline to endorse
> that statement. Not the 5 and the 650, but the majority in the country.
>
>
>
I see a lot of people who complain a lot on here. I don't think most
of them have been hungry very often ( I got pneumonia one winter from
eating beans, ketchup and onions* ) ,or had to work very hard ( I've
done river-stone removal while a guy in a 40-horse Ford tractor pulled
on 2-ton rocks ) .
Or seen companies come and go.
*this will give you a *great* appreciation for whoever invented bacon.
Because bacon probably saved my life.
Every time I've had visibility into the upper reaches of the
econmic strata ( and I've had a few ), I see more desperation,
more stress, more people obsessed and losing themselves in
something they cannot possibly control.
God he'p me. I see artistry.
I am raised of the child of a pioneer, of somebody who grew up
with snow on his blanket, who sometimes had to eat what he could
run down. I *know* how close we all are to simple insufficiency of
caloires daily, in the greatest of countries.
So excuse me if I claim that the very recent conquest of the
simple 1500 calories a day barrier *somehow* changes all the factors
leading to that. I. Don't. Buy. It.
But there is 200 *years* between what most of you know, and what
I've figured out. But next time you see a sammich, tell it thank you for
me. Okay?
--
Les Cargill
Les Cargill
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:28:27 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
> wrote:
> >
>
>>>Of course its a safety net issue.
>>
>>But that's why an increase does not generally create unemployment.
>>And as subsidies go, it's one of my favorites - it helps
>>people who might not otherwise seek employment.
>>
>>I'm optomistic about these things because I spent my early
>>20's during the "Repo Man" era of the early '80s. Turned
>>out fine - but it was looking *scary* then.
>
>
> Ah we largely agree. I misunderstood.
>
Well, yeah. I'm like an Okie and.. Woody Guthrie,
M'mkay?
I am not inventing this out of a whole cloth. I got
footnotes and...
>> But 14 million out of a work force
>>
>>>of about 140 million is not "almost nobody".
>>>http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts
>>>
>>
>>Nice website.
>>
>>That's not 14 million at minimum wage - that's 14 million
>>at a wage level expected to be perturbed by minimum wage.
>>
>>Even if it *were* 11%, that just means that for
>>a work-life of 50 years, a person can expect
>>to spend 5/0.9 of them at minimum wage - which
>>seems roughly about right.
>>
>>
>>>Another 8.3 million work slightly above minimum wage and would likely
>>>see increases as well.
>>>
>>
>>I do have to wonder if the statement "A minimum wage increase would help
>>reverse the trend of declining real wages for low-wage workers." is
>>true, though.
>>
>>I agree - we're probably due for one, though.
>>
>>I do hate this: "Today, the minimum wage is 31% of the average hourly
>>wage of American workers, the lowest level since the end of World War II."
>
>
>>Why? Because it's beter interpreted that market wages
>>are pulling away from minimum wage. That's a good thing.
>
>
> Not entirely. If you take minimum wage at the old levels and adjust
> for inflation it's lost a lot of ground.
>
But only if you *insist* on relative, and not absolute terms.
You people know fsck all 'bout sales, do you? The Moast Precious
Meme is the one where the meme-carriers have to continue.
How muthaFscking hard is *that*.
> ________________
> "You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an
> argument for it." Noam Chomsky
yet you don't even need Noam Chomsky at all.
--
Les Cargill
Robert Bunn
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>
>>
>> Competition for minimum-wage jobs is already pretty keen,
>
> Um... where?
Here in central New York, anyway. I held one until about a year ago, and
the general pattern was that you had to work pretty hard to keep them,
because you could always be replaced by any of the hundreds of other
interchangeable cogs out there waiting to do your work. There is
certainly always a steady stream of applicants, even at places that
aren't hiring.
>
>> and you characterize inducing more workers into the market for it as
>> a good thing?
>>
>
> It is a good thing by the Luther canon. Idle hands and all that. No,
> seriously, the US has been terrified of roving gangs of the unemployed
> since the Depression. That's the basis for "The Road Warrior".
Current unemplyement rate is 5.5% -- which probably represents about the
equilibrium level, give or take.
>
>>
>>>I'm optomistic about these things because I spent my early
>>>20's during the "Repo Man" era of the early '80s. Turned
>>>out fine - but it was looking *scary* then.
>>
>>
>> I remember the 80s. I was better off then.
>
> I think you *think* you were better off.
No, really, I was. Since I was still a minor until '87, and my mother
was a fairly well-paid computer professional, all my needs and most of
my non-extravagant wants were provided for me, with my only "labor"
being to go to school and "clean up that damned mess" in my room.
>
>> But I spent most of them in school.
>>
>
> It was a near thing, then. Steve Earle wrote "Back To The Wall " then.
>
> http://steveearle.net/lyrics/ly-coppe.php#backtothewall
>
> I was grinding it out on the road then. It was desperate in some
> places - we toured Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois during the height
> of the rust belt. At least we avoided Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Really? I was in Ohio. It didn't seem bad to me. I never saw a great
deal of violence, wasn't afraid to be on the streets after dark, didn't
think twice about leaving the door unlocked and was never burglarized. I
know anecdotal evidence is pretty meaningless in the sense of overall
conditions, but ... well, I'm pretty sure I *was* better off in real
terms.
>>>That's not 14 million at minimum wage - that's 14 million
>>>at a wage level expected to be perturbed by minimum wage.
>>
>> Oh, I estimate almost 150 million workers at a wage level that will
>> be perturbed by minimum wage.
>
> That's half. I don't beleive that. The median income is not
> 2 times minimum wage. THAT S THE MOTHA FORGING POINT, BY THE
> WAY.
That's *all*. *Everyone* consumes something the price of which will be
affected by minimum wage.
>
>> I would bet a nickel right now that there isn't a single person in
>> the US who doesn't spend at least some portion of his income on goods
>> or services provided by minimum-wage workers.
>
> Sure. But that doesn't mean anything.
It means everyone spends a portion of his income on the product of
minimum wage labor.
>
>> Nearly all restaurant wait staff -- even at the most high-end
>> restaurants -- are paid minimum wage. Most hotel staff, too.
>
> And tips.
Yes, but the restaurant doesn't get any of those, nor does it pay any of
those, so they are completely neutral in the restaurant's price-setting
decisions.
>
>> Labor isn't a large cost for a hotel, but for a restaurant it's
>> pretty significant.
>
> True.
>
>> In fact, it's probably safe to say most restaurants will have to
>> either raise prices or cut jobs to stay in business.
>
> Bummer.
>
>> So, nearly everyone who goes out to dinner at least once a year can
>> expect their real income to be affected within the first year a
>> minimum wage hike takes effect.
>>
>
> Probably not, since restuaranting is such a frigging sausage grinder.
Yes, definitely, because if the amount of goods you can buy for a given
number of nominal dollars goes down, then even if nominal wages stay the
same, real income goes down. So if eating a meal at a restaurant costs
more, and you eat at least one meal at a restaurant in the course of a
year, then by driving up the cost of a meal at a restaurant, the minimum
wage hike has perturbed your real income.
>
>>
>>>I do have to wonder if the statement "A minimum wage increase would
>>>help reverse the trend of declining real wages for low-wage workers."
>>>is true, though.
>>
>>
>> You're not alone. The majority of economists would decline to endorse
>> that statement. Not the 5 and the 650, but the majority in the
>> country.
>>
>
> I see a lot of people who complain a lot on here. I don't think most
> of them have been hungry very often ( I got pneumonia one winter from
> eating beans, ketchup and onions* ) ,or had to work very hard ( I've
> done river-stone removal while a guy in a 40-horse Ford tractor pulled
> on 2-ton rocks ) .
Framing houses in Raleigh in 105F heat. Lifting 4x8 sheets of 3/4" OSB
two at a time is a great way to get in shape, by the way.
> Or seen companies come and go.
I've seen a lot of banks come and go. I've seen a lot of small
businesses take turns occupying some pieces of property for a few months
at a time -- including my first employer.
>
[...]
Having been poor doesn't give anyone any special power to repeal the
nature of economics. I see nothing in what you present that tends to
invalidate any of my conclusions.
maxw...@my-deja.com
You can't make that deduction from my question based on your
earlier statement.
> * If I am all of the manufacturers in the country, then I produce all
> the goods produced in the country.
> * If a dollar is spent on goods manufactured in the country, I get that
> dollar.
> * At my current level of production, therefore, I get all dollars spent
> on goods manufactured in this country.
> * If a larger number of dollar bills are available, I will still produce
> all goods produced in the country.
> * If a larger number of dollar bills are available, therefore, I will
> still get all dollars spent on goods manufactured in this country.
> * I can capture all dollars spent on goods manufactured in the country
> at my current level of production, regardless of how many actual dollar
> bills are in circulation.
This is not a rephrase of what you said earlier. However, I don't
disagree with anything you have said here, but you seem to
have a habit of changing what you say and saying it is the same.
Capturing "all income in the country" is not the same as
"capturing all dollars spent on manufactured goods"
If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
is no change in prices.
>
> Therefore:
Your conclusion is wrong.
Day Brown
> just give the woman an IQ test. If it's below the mean, sterilize her.
> Then she and the stupid men she would have chosen as partners can have
> all the sex they want and not burden society.
days. But archeology provided an alternative by bringing modern forensic
tools into obscure Transylvanian museums and identifying the residues in
pots used by ancient witches.
Turns out that there are lotsa plants and fungi that evolved a defense
against herbivores developing a taste for them by causing sterility and
abortions. So, there's a *reason* "Blessed Thistle" is blessed, and why
"Bachelor Button" is so named. I also know of wild yam, Cornflower, and
Motherwort.
the abortion debate is over. Modern 'witches' have found out about this,
and are in email with each other on private lists, and now provide
abortions on demand. No appointment, no clinic, no protester line, no
adoption sermon, no doctor, no bill, no prescription, no problem with
pharmacists, no parental consent.
While I would not ignore an IQ test, I would want better data on the DNA
since we now know that dietary deficiency & environmental contamination
have powerful effects on mental development, or the lack thereof.
We should also look for the markers on depression, alcoholism,
schizophrenia, cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, and many
more that I am not up on that create disability cases rather than
productive workers. I'm perfectly content to leave these decisions in
the hands of matrons who already had their kids, and are now concerned
about whether their kids will have to support more welfare cases.
Certainly, it is all our interests, for our benefit, and those of the
kids we care about, to reduce the burdens they will face because of the
unfit breeding. Given global competition, I'd move the IQ up to 120. As
you move past 140, the risk of mental pathology increases along with the
chance of genius, and better genealogy data would be preferred.
Nevertheless, moving these airheads into a communal house under the care
of a mature matron would enable the girls to give birth and raise kids
that have the talents and character we need to compete in the global
market. Mothering instincts are powerful enough to provide what kids
need to mature properly. This means that the talented professional egg
donors can stay on the job, making the high incomes to pay the taxes to
support social security and Medicare for your parents and grandparents.
The rough & tumble such kids would face growing up in a communal house
like that would also prepare them for the competition in business.
Unlike the nuclear family with only 1-2 kids, they dont grow up thinking
the world revolves around them.
MP
> http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
[...]
> The simple economics of the minimum wage are that the "equilibrium" or
> market-clearing wage - the place where the supply and demand curves
> for labor intersect - is already above $7.25. Therefore, raising the
> minimum wage to this level will have virtually no effect on average
> wages or employment.
Gross economic ignorance. If this *average* market-clearing wage
applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
leave the job undone.
Robert Bunn
<maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1161258388.1...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>
>> * If I am all of the manufacturers in the country, then I produce all
>> the goods produced in the country.
>> * If a dollar is spent on goods manufactured in the country, I get
>> that
>> dollar.
>> * At my current level of production, therefore, I get all dollars
>> spent
>> on goods manufactured in this country.
>> * If a larger number of dollar bills are available, I will still
>> produce
>> all goods produced in the country.
>> * If a larger number of dollar bills are available, therefore, I will
>> still get all dollars spent on goods manufactured in this country.
>> * I can capture all dollars spent on goods manufactured in the
>> country
>> at my current level of production, regardless of how many actual
>> dollar
>> bills are in circulation.
>
> This is not a rephrase of what you said earlier. However, I don't
> disagree with anything you have said here, but you seem to
> have a habit of changing what you say and saying it is the same.
> Capturing "all income in the country" is not the same as
> "capturing all dollars spent on manufactured goods"
The sum of the incomes in society is the sum of the production in
society. The only difference between "capturing all incomes in society"
and "capturing all dollars spent on manufactured goods in society" is
the amount of personal savings, which corporations already capture
anyway as capital investment. The money they borrow is the money you put
in the bank.
> If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
> increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
> goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
> then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
> is no change in prices.
Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the value of X
dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if you made
some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then you may
still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
To clarify our assumptions and try to find where exactly they differ,
what do you suppose would happen if Congress passed a law mandating a
40% wage increase for every wage earner, to be financed by printing
additional money and mailing it directly to the wage earners each pay
period?
Nospam
> Gross economic ignorance. If this *average* market-clearing wage
> applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
> candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
> simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
> the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
> squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
> leave the job undone.
So you believe that they can squeeze more even now and they don't due to
their charitable souls ?
Do you want to buy an acre of land on (former planet ) Pluto ?
ro...@telus.net
>Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
>
>> http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
>[...]
>> The simple economics of the minimum wage are that the "equilibrium" or
>> market-clearing wage - the place where the supply and demand curves
>> for labor intersect - is already above $7.25. Therefore, raising the
>> minimum wage to this level will have virtually no effect on average
>> wages or employment.
>
>Gross economic ignorance.
Yep. Yours.
>If this *average* market-clearing wage
>applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
>candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
>simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
>the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
>squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
>leave the job undone.
But that claim has been falsified empirically.
-- Roy L
Nospam
> just give the woman an IQ test. If it's below the mean,
> sterilize her. Then she and the stupid men she would have
> chosen as partners can have all the sex they want and not burden
> society.
But if you do that, in 18 years there will be no new Republican nor
Libertarians voters. Do we really want to destroy the democratic
competition ?
maxw...@my-deja.com
I didn't say anything about putting it in a bank. It may very well be
in a piggy bank or rainy day fund or maybe it is used to pay off
debt. Try to root your thinking in realilty and the equations will
become easy.
>
> > If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
> > increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
> > goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
> > then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
> > is no change in prices.
>
> Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the value of X
> dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if you made
> some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then you may
> still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
Yes I see what you are trying to say but you only want to view
certain variables and your logic is full of assumptions. Again think
reality corporations right now have more in cash at nearly anytime
in history and it isn't doing much for wages.
>
> To clarify our assumptions and try to find where exactly they differ,
> what do you suppose would happen if Congress passed a law mandating a
> 40% wage increase for every wage earner, to be financed by printing
> additional money and mailing it directly to the wage earners each pay
> period?
I am through with your non-sense. You are not an economist and
no good at pretending to be one.
Robert Bunn
<maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1161298511.1...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Most rational savers save in a bank, because a bank pays interest.
Currency holdings depreciate with inflation.
Paying off debt is still consumption spending.
>>
>> > If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
>> > increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
>> > goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
>> > then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
>> > is no change in prices.
>>
>> Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the value
>> of X
>> dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if you
>> made
>> some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then you may
>> still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
>
> Yes I see what you are trying to say but you only want to view
> certain variables and your logic is full of assumptions. Again think
> reality corporations right now have more in cash at nearly anytime
> in history and it isn't doing much for wages.
What assumption(s) do you percieve in my logic that prove out false?
What good are cash holdings to a corporation? And what's your source for
the claim about the size of corporate cash holdings?
>>
>> To clarify our assumptions and try to find where exactly they differ,
>> what do you suppose would happen if Congress passed a law mandating a
>> 40% wage increase for every wage earner, to be financed by printing
>> additional money and mailing it directly to the wage earners each pay
>> period?
>
> I am through with your non-sense. You are not an economist and
> no good at pretending to be one.
>
I take it you're not interested in finding the real point of
disagreement. Either that's a shame because it means we'll never find
the truth, or that's a pity because you won't admit you know where the
disagreement is and it's one of your assumptions that turns out to be
ridiculous if said out loud.
Robert Bunn
maxw...@my-deja.com
Weren't we talking about people making minimum wage?
Sure they may have a bank acount but they aren't
earning interest in a checking about are they? What
percentage of minimum wage earners do you think have
savings accounts?
>
> Paying off debt is still consumption spending.
Nope the consumption spending is already done. What
drove prices in the past doesn't drive prices now that only
debt is being paid. The theories you have presented
in all of our discussion have no respect to time. You
seem to think that it isn't factor and that is only way
you can make any sense of any of them, but they
are still lacking in logic.
>
> >>
> >> > If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
> >> > increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
> >> > goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
> >> > then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
> >> > is no change in prices.
> >>
> >> Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the value
> >> of X
> >> dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if you
> >> made
> >> some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then you may
> >> still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
> >
> > Yes I see what you are trying to say but you only want to view
> > certain variables and your logic is full of assumptions. Again think
> > reality corporations right now have more in cash at nearly anytime
> > in history and it isn't doing much for wages.
>
> What assumption(s) do you percieve in my logic that prove out false?
You have this tendency to say if A = B then B must = C. In nearly
every case you have presented you do this.
For starters when did any more dollars get added to the mix? That
has nothing to do with what we were talking about. The context of
the debate was a simple redistribution. No additonal dollars were
added.
>
> What good are cash holdings to a corporation? And what's your source for
> the claim about the size of corporate cash holdings?
Have you been asleep?
>
> >>
> >> To clarify our assumptions and try to find where exactly they differ,
> >> what do you suppose would happen if Congress passed a law mandating a
> >> 40% wage increase for every wage earner, to be financed by printing
> >> additional money and mailing it directly to the wage earners each pay
> >> period?
> >
> > I am through with your non-sense. You are not an economist and
> > no good at pretending to be one.
> >
>
> I take it you're not interested in finding the real point of
> disagreement. Either that's a shame because it means we'll never find
> the truth, or that's a pity because you won't admit you know where the
> disagreement is and it's one of your assumptions that turns out to be
> ridiculous if said out loud.
I don't think you are every going to make any real points.
Vid...@tcq.net
Gross economic ignorance. If this *average* market-clearing wage
applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
leave the job undone.
ok, i will bite. gross ignorance on how a modern economy works is
simply outrageous in todays world.
it is not how technical a job is, or is not. the employer will always
downplay any skilled job no matter what level of education, grunt,
sweat, or whatever it takes to do the job because there are no real
market driven mechanisms that allow labor to have any leverage at all
except in rare instants.
so there is almost always a labor glut at all times. if we ran our
economy on what a job is worth, well, we would have what we have now.
brain surgeons working for pennies in india.
we decided that to have a modern economy, work should pay no matter
what the job entails. and what a novel idea, once you are paid a
minimum of what it takes to live in a modern economy, that worker can
then consume some of the products and services that our country
produces.
otherwise we would be running out of consumers as more and more fall
into poverty. and the fed runs out of ways to extend credit.
wait a minute, that is what we have today.
when i got out of high school i bought a new car on minimum wages, try
that today.
your statement above is either said in total ignorance, or you are
parroting a complete bald face lie.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/37935/
In truth, the evidence indicates that small businesses benefit from a
higher wage. A report by the Center for American Progress and Policy
Matters Ohio found that the "11 states with a minimum wage above the
federal minimum of $5.15 per hour had higher rates of small business
growth between 1997 and 2003." A recent report from the Wisconsin
Department of Workforce Development said last year's increase in that
state's hourly rate produced $175 million in additional payroll and a
$3 million boost in tax revenue, without creating job loss.
Moreover, the evidence indicates higher wagers will not result in fewer
jobs. A 1998 Economic Policy Institute report found that unemployment
and poverty rates fell after the 1997 increase in the federal minimum
wage, and economists David Card and Alan Krueger noted that increases
in the minimum wage in various states in the late 1980s and early 1990s
did not result in increased unemployment.
Robert Bunn
<maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1161309241....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>> <maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>> news:1161298511.1...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> > Robert Bunn wrote:
>> >> <maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:1161258388.1...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> >> > Robert Bunn wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> * If I am all of the manufacturers in the country, then I
>> >> >> produce
>> >> >> all
>> >> >> the goods produced in the country.
>> >> >> * If a dollar is spent on goods manufactured in the country, I
>> >> >> get
>> >> >> that
>> >> >> dollar.
note this part:
>> >> >> * At my current level of production, therefore, I get all
>> >> >> dollars
>> >> >> spent
>> >> >> on goods manufactured in this country.
>> >> >> * If a larger number of dollar bills are available, I will
>> >> >> still
>> >> >> produce
>> >> >> all goods produced in the country.
>> >> >> * If a larger number of dollar bills are available, therefore,
>> >> >> I
>> >> >> will
and this part:
>> >> >> still get all dollars spent on goods manufactured in this
>> >> >> country.
and this part:
>> >> >> * I can capture all dollars spent on goods manufactured in the
and observe what we are talking about.
>> >> >> country
>> >> >> at my current level of production, regardless of how many
>> >> >> actual
>> >> >> dollar
>> >> >> bills are in circulation.
>> >> >
>> >> > This is not a rephrase of what you said earlier. However, I
>> >> > don't
>> >> > disagree with anything you have said here, but you seem to
>> >> > have a habit of changing what you say and saying it is the same.
>> >> > Capturing "all income in the country" is not the same as
>> >> > "capturing all dollars spent on manufactured goods"
>> >>
>> >> The sum of the incomes in society is the sum of the production in
>> >> society. The only difference between "capturing all incomes in
>> >> society"
We are talking about:
>> >> and "capturing all dollars spent on manufactured goods in society"
>> >> is
>> >> the amount of personal savings, which corporations already capture
>> >> anyway as capital investment. The money they borrow is the money
>> >> you
>> >> put
>> >> in the bank.
>> >
>> > I didn't say anything about putting it in a bank. It may very well
>> > be
>> > in a piggy bank or rainy day fund or maybe it is used to pay off
>> > debt.
>>
>> Most rational savers save in a bank, because a bank pays interest.
>> Currency holdings depreciate with inflation.
>
> Weren't we talking about people making minimum wage?
> Sure they may have a bank acount but they aren't
> earning interest in a checking about are they? What
> percentage of minimum wage earners do you think have
> savings accounts?
No, we weren't talking about people making minimum wage. We were talking
about all dollars spent on consumption, which are spent by maybe 10% of
the people, and account for a damned sight less than 10% of the dollars.
>>
>> Paying off debt is still consumption spending.
>
> Nope the consumption spending is already done. What
No. The *consumption* is already done. It hasn't yet been paid for. The
servicing of debt is consider consumption.
> drove prices in the past doesn't drive prices now that only
> debt is being paid. The theories you have presented
> in all of our discussion have no respect to time. You
Maybe you've missed me talking about time, but I certainly understand
it's a factor. That doesn't explain how you think the passage or
non-passage of a certain amount of time invalidates anything I've said.
> seem to think that it isn't factor and that is only way
> you can make any sense of any of them, but they
> are still lacking in logic.
Demonstrate this. Pick any point of mine and identify the fallacy.
>>
>> >>
>> >> > If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
>> >> > increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
>> >> > goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
>> >> > then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
>> >> > is no change in prices.
Fallacy: implicit unwarranted assumption. You have assumed that a dollar
is a measure of value. It is not. It is a unit of currency.
>> >>
>> >> Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the
>> >> value
>> >> of X
>> >> dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if you
>> >> made
>> >> some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then you
>> >> may
>> >> still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
>> >
>> > Yes I see what you are trying to say but you only want to view
>> > certain variables and your logic is full of assumptions. Again
>> > think
Identify any specific assumptions you feel are false, and I will either
retract the assumption, demonstrate its correctness, or detail the
effect of variations in that assumption to show that it is a convenient
but not necessary simplification.
>> > reality corporations right now have more in cash at nearly anytime
>> > in history and it isn't doing much for wages.
>>
>> What assumption(s) do you percieve in my logic that prove out false?
>
> You have this tendency to say if A = B then B must = C. In nearly
> every case you have presented you do this.
> For starters when did any more dollars get added to the mix? That
I didn't. Someone else did. The basis of this discussion, some number of
posts ago, was
| It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do
| with the fact that more people have more money to chase
| goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
(Les Cargill)
> has nothing to do with what we were talking about. The context of
> the debate was a simple redistribution. No additonal dollars were
> added.
But the redistribution was intended to be from saving to consumption.
Specifically, it was meant to redistribute from the saving of people who
earn the profits of capital to the income of people who don't. People
who don't earn profits from capital by definition are people who don't
save, excepting your irrational currency hoarders.
>>
>> What good are cash holdings to a corporation? And what's your source
>> for
>> the claim about the size of corporate cash holdings?
>
> Have you been asleep?
No, I haven't. If you can't provide a citation, I'll simply assume you
are lying. I know that corporate profit earnings are at an all time
high. I genuinely don't know what a corporation could possibly want with
large cash holdings, except if we're talking about banks. Even then,
banks try to keep there currency reserves as low as possible, generally
about the minimum legally required. Cash doesn't earn anything.
>>
>> >>
>> >> To clarify our assumptions and try to find where exactly they
>> >> differ,
>> >> what do you suppose would happen if Congress passed a law
>> >> mandating a
>> >> 40% wage increase for every wage earner, to be financed by
>> >> printing
>> >> additional money and mailing it directly to the wage earners each
>> >> pay
>> >> period?
>> >
>> > I am through with your non-sense. You are not an economist and
>> > no good at pretending to be one.
>> >
>>
>> I take it you're not interested in finding the real point of
>> disagreement. Either that's a shame because it means we'll never find
>> the truth, or that's a pity because you won't admit you know where
>> the
>> disagreement is and it's one of your assumptions that turns out to be
>> ridiculous if said out loud.
>
> I don't think you are every going to make any real points.
>
If you don't think I'm going to make any real points, then answer the
question. What do you think would happen if the government just gave
everybody extra dollars fresh of the printing press every time they got
paid?
Robert Bunn
<Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:1161310642.6...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>
> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/37935/
>
> In truth, the evidence indicates that small businesses benefit from a>
> higher wage. A report by the Center for American Progress and Policy
> Matters Ohio found that the "11 states with a minimum wage above the
> federal minimum of $5.15 per hour had higher rates of small business
> growth between 1997 and 2003."
How much of that is from people in desperation starting their own small
businesses because they can't find jobs? How many of those businesses
last one year? Three? five?
> A recent report from the Wisconsin
> Department of Workforce Development said last year's increase in that
> state's hourly rate produced $175 million in additional payroll and a
> $3 million boost in tax revenue, without creating job loss.
At whose expense did all this come?
>
> Moreover, the evidence indicates higher wagers will not result in
> fewer
> jobs. A 1998 Economic Policy Institute report found that unemployment
> and poverty rates fell after the 1997 increase in the federal minimum
> wage, and economists David Card and Alan Krueger noted that increases
> in the minimum wage in various states in the late 1980s and early
> 1990s
> did not result in increased unemployment.
>
That study was widely criticized by other economists for too short a
time frame and too narrow a sample. Results in California, on the other
hand, showed real harm directly attributable to that minimum wage hike.
ccr
<maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1161309241....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>> I take it you're not interested in finding the real point of
>> disagreement. Either that's a shame because it means we'll never find
>> the truth, or that's a pity because you won't admit you know where the
>> disagreement is and it's one of your assumptions that turns out to be
>> ridiculous if said out loud.
>
> I don't think you are every going to make any real points.
I PLONKED Bunn after his post on how he'd destroy some of his property to
beat the tax liability. That showed him for what he is.
ccr
"MP" <m...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:1161295286....@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I love the irony when a clueless moron like you calls someone else grossly
ignorant. You finish your bullshit comment with two major economic
fallacies. It has been demostrated time and again that a higher minimum wage
does not add to unemployment. How long until clowns like you get the
message? Also, no employer in the efficient capitalist system you seem to
believe in would not already be squeezing every bit of productivity out of
each employee. Get a clue.
--
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of
fighting a foreign enemy." James Madison
Vid...@tcq.net
How much of that is from people in desperation starting their own small
businesses because they can't find jobs? How many of those businesses
last one year? Three? five?
(that is always the case no matter what kind of economy we are in.
people try their hand at entrepreneurial skills even if they are
employed in a good job.
your statement is a red herring, and america has always churned out
new business's in good times, as well as in bad times. besides, you did
not read the small print, they said small business activity actually
increased, which is a good thing.)
At whose expense did all this come?
(again, you did not read the small print. higher wages led to increased
small business activities, so the small business person got some of it
back, and made more money because the tax base increased, another good
thing.
besides major corporations are the main employers of minimum wage, or
close to minimum wage earners. so the money came from the walmarts, and
the mcdonalds, another good thing.)
That study was widely criticized by other economists for too short a
time frame and too narrow a sample. Results in California, on the other
hand, showed real harm directly attributable to that minimum wage hike.
(that is another myth. it was not only proven once to be right, but it
was rechecked again, and found to be right. your study was done by a
free market type ideologue who lie, and distort, and would not know the
truth if it bite him.
Another myth now being peddled by the right is a study by David Neumark
of the University of California, Irvine, that estimates poverty rates
increase between 3 percent and 4 percent for every 10 percent increase
in the minimum wage by depressing employment of low-skill workers. But
Neumark's claim belies historical evidence. Since President Bush took
office, the number of Americans living in poverty has increased by 5.4
million. As Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute has
argued,
The evidence unequivocally supports the view that increases in the
minimum wage, by increasing the earnings of low-income workers without
diminishing their employment opportunities, have historically helped to
lower poverty rates.
http://utahamicus.blogspot.com/2006/08/debunking-myths-about-raising-minimum.html
MYTH #4: Raising the minimum wage is bad for the economy and will lead
to higher unemployment.
Wrong. Raising the minimum wage has no negative impact on jobs,
employment or inflation. In the four years after the last minimum wage
increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in
decades, as more than 11 million new jobs were added (at a pace of
232,000 per month) and inflation was stable. The low-wage labor market
also saw improvements through lower unemployment rates, increased
average hourly wages, increased family income, and decreased poverty
rates. Further, studies of state-level minimum wage increases show that
the increases did not produce unemployment or slow jobs. [EPI, Minimum
Wage Issue Guide.
MYTH #5: Raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses.
Wrong, again. A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 86 percent of small
business owners do not believe that an increase in the minimum wage
would hurt their business. Three out of four maintained that a 10
percent increase would have no affect on them, and nearly half of small
business people polled thought that the minimum wage should be
increased. [Gallup Poll, "Minimum Wage Has No Impact on Small
Business," 5/9/2006] New economic models observe that employers absorb
the costs of wage increases with higher productivity, lower turn-over
costs, decreased absenteeism and increased worker morale. [EPI, Minimum
Wage Issue Guide, 01/06]
http://ashleymac.econ.vt.edu/ashley/2006sum2000/DandSstuff/minwage.htm
A Moderate Increase in the Minimum Wage Does Not Cost Jobs
The standard criticism of the minimum wage is that it raises employers'
costs and reduces employment opportunities for teenagers and
disadvantaged workers. However, several studies have found that the
last two increases in the minimum wage had an insignificant effect on
employment. Furthermore, an extension of the time-series studies that
had previously been used to claim that raising the minimum wage
decreases employment, no longer finds a significant impact.
In a recent review of the literature, Professor Richard Freeman of
Harvard, a widely respected labor economist, wrote: "At the level of
the minimum wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did
not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher
employment in some locales."
In discussing the minimum wage, Robert M. Solow, a Nobel laureate in
economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently told
the New York Times, "The main thing about (minimum wage) research is
that the evidence of job loss is weak. And the fact that the evidence
is weak suggests that the impact on jobs is small.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp150
The national perspective
The connection between minimum wages and unemployment looks even weaker
when all 12 states with minimum wages above the federal level are
considered (see Table 1):
Many states without minimum wages set above the federal level
(including Michigan, Illinois, South Carolina, and Texas) also had high
unemployment rates in December 2003.
Hawaii, Delaware, and Vermont, three states with higher minimum wages,
were among the 15 states with unemployment rates less than 5% (the
national average was 5.7%).11
Of the 12 states with higher minimum wages, eight saw a smaller
increase in unemployment between 2000 and 2003 than the national
average.
In other words, high state minimum wages fail to correlate to poor
labor market outcomes, let alone have a causal relationship. Similarly,
the pattern in job growth by state shows little relation to whether a
state has a minimum wage. As shown in Figure 5, five states with
minimum wages above the federal rate have seen job growth while the
nation is still in the hole. An additional two states, California and
Vermont, have seen job loss, but less severely than the nation as a
whole.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp150
The New Jersey/Pennsylvania minimum wage studies
Numerous studies have tested the competitive model by examining the
impact of minimum wages on employment. Most of these studies have used
broad aggregate data such as the employment rates of teenagers or
adults without high school diplomas. While earlier studies tended to
find significant employment effects, more recent studies using improved
econometric methods have found small, insignificant, or immeasurable
employment effects.
The most famous studies regarding the impact of the minimum wage on
employment are a set of three studies that analyzed the impact of the
New Jersey minimum wage increase in 1992. The 1992 increase in the New
Jersey minimum wage created fecund ground for economic research for a
number of reasons. First, the increase occurred during a stagnant labor
market, making it unlikely that the disemployment effects of the
increase were swamped by a growing economy. Second, there was a natural
experimental situation because the economy of New Jersey is closely
linked to the economy of eastern Pennsylvania, where the minimum wage
did not increase. Finally, a series of political events lessened the
probability that employers were preparing for the minimum wage increase
ahead of time (Card and Krueger 1994, p. 773).
These studies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania are particularly important
because instead of using broad aggregate data, they use data collected
at the firm level. In addition, these are the studies most frequently
cited in the public policy debate. Taken as a whole, the evidence from
these studies clearly shows that the minimum wage increase in New
Jersey did not yield the negative effects predicted by some. Yet
opponents of minimum wage increases continue to focus on the one study
that did claim to find a negative impact, despite the fact that highly
questionable data render such a claim fatally flawed. The studies
reaching the opposite conclusion, however, are based on data of much
higher quality.
The first study of the New Jersey minimum wage increase was published
in 1994 in the American Economic Review, a well-regarded economics
journal, and was written by David Card and Alan Krueger, two economists
from Princeton University (Card and Krueger 1994). They followed a
relatively straightforward methodology, performing a phone survey of a
sample of over 400 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania
both before and after the increase went into effect, gathering
information on the number of employees working at each restaurant.
(Fast-food restaurants were chosen because they are in an industry with
a pay scale that is significantly affected by changes in the minimum
wage.) They then compared the changes in employment in New Jersey to
the changes in employment in Pennsylvania. Card and Krueger found that
the increase in the New Jersey minimum wage did not lead to any
measurable impact on employment (Card and Krueger 1994, p. 792).
The Card and Krueger study received wide attention not only within
economics circles but also among policy makers and activists. It
received almost immediate criticism from the Employment Policies
Institute (EmPI), an organization funded in large part by low-wage
employers, including restaurants. The primary criticism was the use of
a phone survey for data collection, which sparked concern that
responses given over the phone might not be wholly accurate.17 A better
source, according to EmPI, would be payroll records collected directly
from restaurants. EmPI collected payroll data from 71 fast-food
restaurants (a far smaller sample than that used in the Card and
Krueger study). Based on these data, EmPI concluded that the Card and
Krueger study was "worse than flawed" (Berman 1995).
Two economists, David Neumark and William Wascher, received access to
the EmPI data. To this, they added additional data and reevaluated the
Card and Krueger results. In the final version of their study, also
published in the American Economic Review, Neumark and Wascher state
the opposite conclusion to Card and Krueger-that the minimum wage
increase in New Jersey probably did reduce employment in New Jersey
relative to Pennsylvania (Neumark and Wascher 2000, p. 1,390).
It is not uncommon to hear the Card and Krueger results dismissed by
opponents of the minimum wage as having been disproved by the Neumark
and Wascher study. However, an objective review of all the material
from both sets of authors leads to the conclusion that the New Jersey
minimum wage increase had no measurable impact on employment in
fast-food restaurants. As discussed on the following pages, a number of
factors support the Card and Krueger findings and call into question
the results of the Neumark and Wascher study: 1) the questionable data
collection methods used by Neumark and Wascher; 2) a reexamination of
the Card and Krueger study using unbiased government records; and 3)
the carefully worded conclusions in the final version of the Neumark
and Wascher paper.
Questionable data collection methods
Opponents of minimum wage increases frequently comment on the use of
"payroll records" in the Neumark and Wascher study as being superior to
the phone survey in Card and Krueger. In fact, the data used by Neumark
and Wascher are of a highly questionable pedigree for the reasons noted
below:
All of the data used by Neumark and Wascher were collected after the
results of the Card and Krueger study had been widely publicized (and
criticized by restaurant industry groups and EmPI). In fact, the
researchers acknowledge that most restaurant owners knew about the
study and "were familiar with the debate" (Neumark and Wascher 2000, p.
1,392).
The data collected by EmPI are especially questionable as they seem to
have been collected informally and rely heavily on personal contacts.18
The data collected by Neumark and Wascher were gathered using a letter
explaining that they were working with EmPI, "a restaurant-supported
lobbying and research organization" and that the data would be used to
"reexamine the New Jersey-Pennsylvania minimum wage study" (Neumark and
Wascher 2000, p. 1,395). This information could very well have
influenced whether or not a restaurant responded to the survey. In
statistics, this is known as "self-selection bias."19
When Card and Krueger reviewed the data used by EmPI/Neumark and
Wascher, they found that only the data collected originally by EmPI
(arguably the most questionable data) indicate a significant decline in
employment in New Jersey relative to Pennsylvania (Card and Krueger
1994, p. 1,413). Moreover, Card and Krueger suggest that the Neumark
and Wascher results are driven by data supplied to EmPI by a single
franchisee in Pennsylvania (Card and Krueger 1994, p. 1,414).
Reexamination using government records
The best data for looking at the impact of the minimum wage on
restaurant employment are ES-202 data, which are routinely collected by
state governments for the unemployment compensation program. These data
are likely more accurate than the phone survey originally performed by
Card and Krueger and would not be subject to the same biases as the
EmPI/Neumark and Wascher data. For confidentiality reasons, ES-202 data
is generally not available to the public except in the form of broad
aggregate data. Card and Krueger, however, received access to
establishment-level data, which allowed them to reevaluate their
original study using an accurate and unbiased source.
The results of this study were published in the American Economic
Review alongside the results of Neumark and Wascher (Card and Krueger
2000). The updated conclusion of Card and Krueger was identical to
their first study: that the "increase in New Jersey's minimum wage
probably had no effect on total employment in New Jersey's fast-food
industry and possibly had a small positive effect" (Card and Krueger
2000, p. 1,419).
Neumark's and Wascher's own conclusions
Based solely on their own research-using highly questionable
data-Neumark and Wascher concluded that the minimum wage had a
negative impact on employment. They did, however, acknowledge that many
of their results are not statistically significant. Even more telling,
after reviewing the results of the second Card and Krueger study that
used government data and combining that with their own findings,
Neumark and Wascher hedge by saying that they can only decisively
conclude that "New Jersey's minimum wage increase did not raise
fast-food employment in that state" (Neumark and Wascher 2000, p.
1,391). From the point of view of a voter or policy maker, this is not
an indictment of increased state minimum wages because the rationale
for raising the minimum wage is improving the lives of minimum wage
workers, not increasing employment at fast-food establishments.
Ultimately, the difference between the final Neumark and Wascher
conclusion and that of Card and Krueger may be of interest to labor
economists and statisticians, but not to low-wage workers and policy
makers. Even if, based on Neumark's and Wascher's research, the
suggestion of "a small positive effect" is removed from Card and
Krueger's findings, the evidence still suggests that states can raise
minimum wages without hurting employment in fast-food restaurants. That
being the case, it is even more difficult to believe that a state's
minimum wage can be the cause of statewide labor market distress in
industries far less affected by minimum wages than the fast-food
industry.
Conclusion
Despite very strong evidence to the contrary, those opposed to minimum
wage hikes continue to claim that such policies have and will eliminate
jobs. Nonetheless, the number of states with minimum wages above the
federal rate has more than doubled since the last time the federal
government raised the minimum wage in 1997. This year, legislators will
be voting on state minimum wage boosts in states such as New York and
Minnesota. A governor's task force made up of business, labor,
legislative, and education leaders recently recommended raising the
Wisconsin minimum wage by $1.35, and voters may be asked to vote on a
minimum wage increase at the ballot this fall in Florida and Nevada.
The question of whether moderate minimum wage increases have an
insignificantly positive or insignificantly negative impact on
particular segments of the labor market will continue to be fruitful
work for economists. In the meantime, policy makers should be aware
that the facts clearly show that the benefits of such increases
outweigh any potential costs.)
Nospam
>> Moreover, the evidence indicates higher wagers will not result in
>> fewer
>> jobs. A 1998 Economic Policy Institute report found that unemployment
>> and poverty rates fell after the 1997 increase in the federal minimum
>> wage, and economists David Card and Alan Krueger noted that increases
>> in the minimum wage in various states in the late 1980s and early
>> 1990s
>> did not result in increased unemployment.
>>
>
> That study was widely criticized by other economists for too short a
> time frame and too narrow a sample. Results in California, on the other
> hand, showed real harm directly attributable to that minimum wage hike.
By _some_ economists. As times goes and economists learn more .... economics
fewer and fewer oppose the rise of minimum wage.
maxw...@my-deja.com
It is a good thing you have these mementos to look at to remember.
And if you go back a little further then you will see how this
discussion was about the rise in minimum wage and its effect
on prices. I don't deny there will be some change but you
seem to conclude that any increase in the wage will result in
all of that increase being captured because all of the increase
will be spent on manufactured goods. I say that you are wrong.
Either this was our discussion or you have convienently changed
it into another topic.
> >> >> and "capturing all dollars spent on manufactured goods in society"
> >> >> is
>
> >> >> the amount of personal savings, which corporations already capture
> >> >> anyway as capital investment. The money they borrow is the money
> >> >> you
> >> >> put
> >> >> in the bank.
> >> >
> >> > I didn't say anything about putting it in a bank. It may very well
> >> > be
> >> > in a piggy bank or rainy day fund or maybe it is used to pay off
> >> > debt.
> >>
> >> Most rational savers save in a bank, because a bank pays interest.
> >> Currency holdings depreciate with inflation.
> >
> > Weren't we talking about people making minimum wage?
> > Sure they may have a bank acount but they aren't
> > earning interest in a checking about are they? What
> > percentage of minimum wage earners do you think have
> > savings accounts?
>
> No, we weren't talking about people making minimum wage. We were talking
> about all dollars spent on consumption,
Which are not the same as all dollars that make up income.
> which are spent by maybe 10% of
> the people, and account for a damned sight less than 10% of the dollars.
If you can't provide a cite for that that then I will assume these
numbers to be false. However if they are true they do nothing to
support your earlier claims but they strongly support mine.
>
> >>
> >> Paying off debt is still consumption spending.
> >
> > Nope the consumption spending is already done. What
>
> No. The *consumption* is already done. It hasn't yet been paid for. The
> servicing of debt is consider consumption.
You are making progress. That is right it hasn't been paid for, so
when the person that has used up their credit pays on their
debt that money being paid to service the debt is no longer driving
production of manufactured goods, houses etc. The money
that drove the production is the debt and the person that
sold the product has already received that money.
Think in real terms, look at the housing market and look
at the auto industry. Do I need to tell you what has been
happening with them?
>
> > drove prices in the past doesn't drive prices now that only
> > debt is being paid. The theories you have presented
> > in all of our discussion have no respect to time. You
>
> Maybe you've missed me talking about time, but I certainly understand
> it's a factor. That doesn't explain how you think the passage or
> non-passage of a certain amount of time invalidates anything I've said.
When you try to explain your way out of your previous claims
maybe the answer will come to you.
>
> > seem to think that it isn't factor and that is only way
> > you can make any sense of any of them, but they
> > are still lacking in logic.
>
> Demonstrate this. Pick any point of mine and identify the fallacy.
The one where you tried to demonstrate that taxes are not
part of the cost of business but other cost can be part.
>
> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> > If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
> >> >> > increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
> >> >> > goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
> >> >> > then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
> >> >> > is no change in prices.
>
> Fallacy: implicit unwarranted assumption. You have assumed that a dollar
> is a measure of value. It is not. It is a unit of currency.
Replace dollar with value and the argument still stands.
>
> >> >>
> >> >> Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the
> >> >> value
> >> >> of X
> >> >> dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if you
> >> >> made
> >> >> some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then you
> >> >> may
> >> >> still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
> >> >
> >> > Yes I see what you are trying to say but you only want to view
> >> > certain variables and your logic is full of assumptions. Again
> >> > think
>
> Identify any specific assumptions you feel are false, and I will either
> retract the assumption, demonstrate its correctness, or detail the
> effect of variations in that assumption to show that it is a convenient
> but not necessary simplification.
Either you have changed the topic into something about adding money
supply in the economy which seems to be what you are saying
or you fail to see that a redistribution of a fixed amount of
dollars in an economy doesn't change the value based on
redistribution which is what we were talking about.
>
> >> > reality corporations right now have more in cash at nearly anytime
> >> > in history and it isn't doing much for wages.
> >>
> >> What assumption(s) do you percieve in my logic that prove out false?
> >
> > You have this tendency to say if A = B then B must = C. In nearly
> > every case you have presented you do this.
> > For starters when did any more dollars get added to the mix? That
>
> I didn't. Someone else did. The basis of this discussion, some number of
> posts ago, was
>
> | It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do
> | with the fact that more people have more money to chase
> | goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
> (Les Cargill)
>
> > has nothing to do with what we were talking about. The context of
> > the debate was a simple redistribution. No additonal dollars were
> > added.
>
> But the redistribution was intended to be from saving to consumption.
> Specifically, it was meant to redistribute from the saving of people who
> earn the profits of capital to the income of people who don't. People
> who don't earn profits from capital by definition are people who don't
> save, excepting your irrational currency hoarders.
Here is an example of your assumptions; capital owners save money.
While I agree it is many times true it proves my point I have been
making that this doesn't support wage increases the way spending
it would . You also assume that every increase a wage earner
gets is spent on consumption and not saving or paying off debt.
>
> >>
> >> What good are cash holdings to a corporation? And what's your source
> >> for
> >> the claim about the size of corporate cash holdings?
> >
> > Have you been asleep?
>
> No, I haven't. If you can't provide a citation, I'll simply assume you
> are lying. I know that corporate profit earnings are at an all time
> high. I genuinely don't know what a corporation could possibly want with
> large cash holdings, except if we're talking about banks. Even then,
> banks try to keep there currency reserves as low as possible, generally
> about the minimum legally required. Cash doesn't earn anything.
But it does buy back stock and if you have paid attention to the
world of business this is what a lot of companies are doing now
with their cash. But first it has to be cash.
>
> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> To clarify our assumptions and try to find where exactly they
> >> >> differ,
> >> >> what do you suppose would happen if Congress passed a law
> >> >> mandating a
> >> >> 40% wage increase for every wage earner, to be financed by
> >> >> printing
> >> >> additional money and mailing it directly to the wage earners each
> >> >> pay
> >> >> period?
> >> >
> >> > I am through with your non-sense. You are not an economist and
> >> > no good at pretending to be one.
> >> >
> >>
> >> I take it you're not interested in finding the real point of
> >> disagreement. Either that's a shame because it means we'll never find
> >> the truth, or that's a pity because you won't admit you know where
> >> the
> >> disagreement is and it's one of your assumptions that turns out to be
> >> ridiculous if said out loud.
> >
> > I don't think you are every going to make any real points.
> >
>
> If you don't think I'm going to make any real points, then answer the
> question. What do you think would happen if the government just gave
> everybody extra dollars fresh of the printing press every time they got
> paid?
Of course the dollar would devalue, but how is this relevent to a
discussion about raising minimum wage? The government doesn't
start printing more money and provide the increase.
It will have no bearing on an argument supporting or not supporting
a minimum wage You still don't make a point.
Les Cargill
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>
>
>>This period is a net gain for minimum wage earners. To get an idea how
>>sticky prices are, observe how long it took for gas prices to rise at
>>the commencement of the war in Iraq.
>
>
> The oil prices is a very bad example. There isn't a real competition on the
> oil market as on many others. Well, the advent of multinational
> corporations try to destroy the competition in everything else too, but
> this is another subject.
>
> In general, if you have real competition the prices are going to be pretty
> sticky. Just loot that despite the fact that oil prices grew almost 2 times
> in last 6 years, the prices of goods manufactured from or with a lot of oil
> didn't. If they grew, they did 5..20% not 100% as the oil/gas did.
>
> Nice try, but not quite. The competition can keep prices sticky.
> This is the core reason we should oppose all these mega-mergers that happen
> in the last 5 years. They are clear anticompetitive actions taken to
> destroy the market competition.
>
>
Yet, time and time again - we see megamergers producing *lowered*
prices. And the oil markets are classic futures markets - the price
is whatever's been bid before as a contract price.
This is *slightly* more complex that saying "more players means
more competition, therefore lower prices". But the actual
price curves depend on the product/servcie in question.
<snip>
>
>
> I find at least strange that the so called" right wing economists" always
> look at keeping the wages low the measure to combat inflation and never
> look at the other side.
>
Nothing strange about it - it's completely and totally necessary to
atract the AARP voting bloc. And the ravages of inflation are vastly
overstated.
> 1. Disposable income is generated by wages and dividends. If you increase
> the wages you can cut the dividends to compensate and keep the average
> income the same. Well, this administration however choose the other path:
> they cut taxes on dividends and capital gain (inflationist measure) and now
> they fight to keep minimum wage low as an antiinflationary measure.
> Just do the reverse as they did and the inflationary results will be the
> same.
>
> 2. What I find completely ridiculous in this administration is that they
> fight to keep wages low to compat inflation but ON THE SAME TIME
> they bless every single mega-mergers betwen large corporations to undermine
> the competition on the market. The competition is the biggest reason a
> company won't inflate the prices at will.
>
>
But that process will still result in fewer companies, as they
hit a cash flow squeeze.
> This are the reasons I call this administration politics: RIP & RUN
> economics. They are not pro business but pro looters.
>
--
Les Cargill
maxw...@my-deja.com
That pretty much sums it up on him. He seems to want to
migrate every discussion into something else as if it supports
his claim.
MP
> MP wrote:
Not due to their charitable souls, but because squeezing has its own
costs to employers (monetary and otherwise). Glad I could clear that up
for you.
MP
[Answered in another post.]
> And some jobs are only worth ten cents an hour.
A job is worth what the market is willing to pay for it ... and in some
cases that's ten cents an hour.
MP
> On 19 Oct 2006 15:01:26 -0700, "MP" <m...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> >Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
> >> http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
> >[...]
> >> The simple economics of the minimum wage are that the "equilibrium" or
> >> market-clearing wage - the place where the supply and demand curves
> >> for labor intersect - is already above $7.25. Therefore, raising the
> >> minimum wage to this level will have virtually no effect on average
> >> wages or employment.
> >Gross economic ignorance.
> Yep. Yours.
Flaccid tu quoque.
> >If this *average* market-clearing wage
> >applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
> >candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
> >simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
> >the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
> >squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
> >leave the job undone.
> But that claim has been falsified empirically.
Evidence?
MP
> "MP" <m...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1161295286....@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
> >> http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
> > [...]
> >> The simple economics of the minimum wage are that the "equilibrium" or
> >> market-clearing wage - the place where the supply and demand curves
> >> for labor intersect - is already above $7.25. Therefore, raising the
> >> minimum wage to this level will have virtually no effect on average
> >> wages or employment.
> > Gross economic ignorance. If this *average* market-clearing wage
> > applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
> > candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
> > simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
> > the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
> > squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
> > leave the job undone.
> It has been demostrated time and again that a higher minimum wage
> does not add to unemployment.
Evidence?
> Also, no employer in the efficient capitalist system you seem to
> believe in would not already be squeezing every bit of productivity out of
> each employee.
Squeezing carries its own costs to employers (monetary and otherwise).
MP
> the employer will always
> downplay any skilled job no matter what level of education, grunt,
> sweat, or whatever it takes to do the job because there are no real
> market driven mechanisms that allow labor to have any leverage at all
> except in rare instants.
That's silly. Labor has the same leverage employers do: refusing to
enter into an employment contract they find unsatisfactory.
> so there is almost always a labor glut at all times
Also silly. If your premises were true, the expected outcome would be
full employment at lower wages.
> if we ran our
> economy on what a job is worth, well, we would have what we have now.
> brain surgeons working for pennies in india. [...]
Sillier still. Who do you know who's gone to India for brain surgery?
> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/37935/
>
> In truth, the evidence indicates that small businesses benefit from a
> higher wage. A report by the Center for American Progress and Policy
> Matters Ohio found that the "11 states with a minimum wage above the
> federal minimum of $5.15 per hour had higher rates of small business
> growth between 1997 and 2003." A recent report from the Wisconsin
> Department of Workforce Development said last year's increase in that
> state's hourly rate produced $175 million in additional payroll and a
> $3 million boost in tax revenue, without creating job loss.
>
> Moreover, the evidence indicates higher wagers will not result in fewer
> jobs. A 1998 Economic Policy Institute report found that unemployment
> and poverty rates fell after the 1997 increase in the federal minimum
> wage, and economists David Card and Alan Krueger noted that increases
> in the minimum wage in various states in the late 1980s and early 1990s
> did not result in increased unemployment.
None of these studies appear (based on your summary) to have compared
trends before and after changes in minimum wage. It may well be that,
for instance, those 11 states always enjoy higher business growth,
which gives them greater leeway to indulge in practices like
higher-than-federal minimum wages.
Nospam
>> So you believe that they can squeeze more even now and they don't due to
>> their charitable souls ?
>
> Not due to their charitable souls, but because squeezing has its own
> costs to employers (monetary and otherwise). Glad I could clear that up
> for you.
And is there any particular reason to believe that this costs will just
vanish away by a miracle if the minimum wage is increased ? :-)
Nospam
>> And some jobs are only worth ten cents an hour.
>
> A job is worth what the market is willing to pay for it ... and in some
> cases that's ten cents an hour.
There are 3 categories of jobs:
a) jobs that are productive less than 5.15, but the employer keep them for
other reasons not having any connection with productivity.
If this is the value these jobs create for the employer, then the employer
is an idiot to keep them and pay the current minimum wage, unless the other
reasons are strong enough not to be able to drop them..
The productivity, obviously do not have any influence in the decisions to
keep this jobs. Therefore, the increase in minimum wage won't affect them.
b) jobs that are productive over 7.25 but the employer pays them with
minimum wage. This jobs will not be affected since they still produce more
that what are payed for therefore are still proffitable for employer, but
not as much as before.
c) Jobs that are productive OVER 5.15 but LESS OR EQUAL than 7.25.
Yes, this CAN be affected, because the rise in minimum wage make them
unproductive. BUT ....
The jobs of a) type are possibly an insignificant part of them and they can
be safely ignored. The jobs of type b) are arguably the biggest category.
Even if for the category c) the rise in minimum wage makes them
unproductive, the extra income comming in from the workers in the category
b) will actually increase the sales/demand for the companies. This will
bring more money into businesses, making them able to afford the category
c) again.
Looking at this, we can actually have a clear way to figure out how much is
the maximum increase in minimum wage that will be easily affordable:
The breaking point will be when the extra income brought in by category b)
will be over the extra costs with the category c).
Any increase that still let more workers in category b) than in c) will be
affordable for the businesses.
Nospam
> Yet, time and time again - we see megamergers producing *lowered*
> prices.
Like the lower prices of oil after OPEC was formed compared with before :-)
> And the oil markets are classic futures markets - the price
> is whatever's been bid before as a contract price.
- you oppose free market competition to keep the prices down
- you oppose government controll to keep the prices down
> This is *slightly* more complex that saying "more players means
> more competition, therefore lower prices". But the actual
> price curves depend on the product/servcie in question.
It is even more complicated that that, but again you ignore what is not
convenient for your ideology.
Whenever cheaper labor was not easily available, the companies had to push
for technologies to improve productivity and in the long run this boosted
their proffits more than if they had access to cheap labor.
Megamergers reduce the employees opportunities (and in many cases fire a
large part of them) and this put pressure on labor to become.....cheaper.
As mater of fact, when a company is involved into a megamerger or
offshoring , that company should be regarded as a company in decline,
unable to compete on the market and therefore they want to squish the
market by size or ultra cheap labor. A stupid, inefficient zombie that will
better die than allowed to dominate the market.
Any mentally sane government will oppose megamergers and will fight to break
them down.
Robert Bunn
<maxw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1161347716.9...@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
An increase in the wage does not translate into an increase in
production. It just means more dollars have to move around for the same
amount of production to occur. If more dollars have to be paid out to
make the production occur, more dollars have to be taken in to pay for
the production.
This point is addressed below.
>
>> which are spent by maybe 10% of
>> the people, and account for a damned sight less than 10% of the
>> dollars.
>
> If you can't provide a cite for that that then I will assume these
> numbers to be false. However if they are true they do nothing to
> support your earlier claims but they strongly support mine.
Whoa. Mistype big time. "We were talking about all dollars spent on
consumption, *of which those spent by minimum wage earners* are spent by
maybe 10% of the people, and account for a damned sight less than 10% of
the dollars."
>
>>
>> >>
>> >> Paying off debt is still consumption spending.
>> >
>> > Nope the consumption spending is already done. What
>>
>> No. The *consumption* is already done. It hasn't yet been paid for.
>> The
>> servicing of debt is consider consumption.
>
> You are making progress. That is right it hasn't been paid for, so
> when the person that has used up their credit pays on their
> debt that money being paid to service the debt is no longer driving
> production of manufactured goods, houses etc. The money
> that drove the production is the debt and the person that
> sold the product has already received that money.
> Think in real terms, look at the housing market and look
> at the auto industry. Do I need to tell you what has been
> happening with them?
Actually, you're right about that. Paying down debt is not consumption
spending, it is saving. However, you have just demonstrated that income
used to pay down debt is in fact captured by producers anyway, which is
all I was trying to establish.
You still have hoarded currency and the purchase of existing durable
goods with inherent value as forms of saving which don't go to the use
of the producers. However, I don't see their significance to the
discussion.
>>
>> > drove prices in the past doesn't drive prices now that only
>> > debt is being paid. The theories you have presented
>> > in all of our discussion have no respect to time. You
>>
>> Maybe you've missed me talking about time, but I certainly understand
>> it's a factor. That doesn't explain how you think the passage or
>> non-passage of a certain amount of time invalidates anything I've
>> said.
>
> When you try to explain your way out of your previous claims
> maybe the answer will come to you.
It hasn't come to me. Are you trying to say that the increase in prices
won't happen because I haven't said how long it will take? If I had to
guess, I'd say more than two years but less than ten for prices to
equalize. My basis for this estimate is, the last time minimum wage was
raised because it wasn't enough to live on was about ten years ago, and
now it's not enough to live on again because all prices have
subsequently risen.
>
>>
>> > seem to think that it isn't factor and that is only way
>> > you can make any sense of any of them, but they
>> > are still lacking in logic.
>>
>> Demonstrate this. Pick any point of mine and identify the fallacy.
>
> The one where you tried to demonstrate that taxes are not
> part of the cost of business but other cost can be part.
I honestly don't recall making that claim, and can't find any such claim
in the back posts. You may be paraphrasing, and if so, I suspect your
paraphrase has altered the meaning of what I said. The closest thing I
remember saying that you might have interpreted as meaning this is, that
all taxes are paid by consumers. This doesn't mean that they aren't part
of the cost of business; rather, the opposite, because all costs are
paid by consumers. Think about it: producers don't produce because
they're bored, they produce in order to make money. They set the amount
of money the production must return to them. That amount plus all other
costs of production equal the final price.
>>
>> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> > If X dollars were spent on manufactured goods before an
>> >> >> > increase in income and X dollars are spent on manufactured
>> >> >> > goods after an increase in income with the balance in cash
>> >> >> > then there is no change in productivity and likewise there
>> >> >> > is no change in prices.
>>
>> Fallacy: implicit unwarranted assumption. You have assumed that a
>> dollar
>> is a measure of value. It is not. It is a unit of currency.
>
> Replace dollar with value and the argument still stands.
No it doesn't. That merely exchanges the fallacy for one of circular
reasoning. You are asserting that the value of a dollar remains
constant, which is precisely the assumption I deny. What do you think
inflation is?
If you read this as "assume manufactured goods have a value V measured
in terms of an hour of labor before an increase, and after an increase
in worker pay have an absolute value such that the income of V is
sufficient to purchase all of the same goods and have some left over"
then in fact that statement says productivity has increased, because the
only way an hour of labor can have more value in goods is if an hour of
labor produces more goods.
>
>>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Yes, but if suddenly D more dollars are put into the mix, the
>> >> >> value
>> >> >> of X
>> >> >> dollars before is now X / (X + D) dollars. That is to say, if
>> >> >> you
>> >> >> made
>> >> >> some amount of wages W before, and it remains constant, then
>> >> >> you
>> >> >> may
>> >> >> still get W, but it is only worth W * (X / (X + D)).
>> >> >
>> >> > Yes I see what you are trying to say but you only want to view
>> >> > certain variables and your logic is full of assumptions. Again
>> >> > think
>>
>> Identify any specific assumptions you feel are false, and I will
>> either
>> retract the assumption, demonstrate its correctness, or detail the
>> effect of variations in that assumption to show that it is a
>> convenient
>> but not necessary simplification.
>
> Either you have changed the topic into something about adding money
> supply in the economy which seems to be what you are saying
> or you fail to see that a redistribution of a fixed amount of
> dollars in an economy doesn't change the value based on
> redistribution which is what we were talking about.
I was not talking about adding money supply. I was talking about
increasing the number of dollars spent on consumption with the amount of
production held constant. I adopted from your side of the argument the
assumption that those extra dollars are coming from profiteering
capitalists who are simply hoarding wealth and not contributing to
either consumption or production, and am demonstrating the consequences
of that assumption.
Saving is a method of exchanging current consumption for future
production, because saving makes dollars available to invest in capital.
Capital improvements are what cause productivity gains. Productivity
gains are what increase the value of a worker's output, and what
increase real income. So, you have it exactly backwards. Consumption
does not support wage increases. Saving does.
>>
>> >>
>> >> What good are cash holdings to a corporation? And what's your
>> >> source
>> >> for
>> >> the claim about the size of corporate cash holdings?
>> >
>> > Have you been asleep?
>>
>> No, I haven't. If you can't provide a citation, I'll simply assume
>> you
>> are lying. I know that corporate profit earnings are at an all time
>> high. I genuinely don't know what a corporation could possibly want
>> with
>> large cash holdings, except if we're talking about banks. Even then,
>> banks try to keep there currency reserves as low as possible,
>> generally
>> about the minimum legally required. Cash doesn't earn anything.
>
> But it does buy back stock and if you have paid attention to the
> world of business this is what a lot of companies are doing now
> with their cash. But first it has to be cash.
This argument can carry no weight because you have based it on an
unsupported assertion. I will not entertain fancies built on dubious
claims with no evidence.
Okay, how about this. What would happen to prices if the government
arbitrarily confiscated 25% of gross revenues from every business?
Robert Bunn
well. It makes your posts difficult to follow.
<Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:1161319102.9...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> How much of that is from people in desperation starting their own
> small
> businesses because they can't find jobs? How many of those businesses
> last one year? Three? five?
>
> (that is always the case no matter what kind of economy we are in.
> people try their hand at entrepreneurial skills even if they are
> employed in a good job.
> your statement is a red herring, and america has always churned out
> new business's in good times, as well as in bad times. besides, you
> did
> not read the small print, they said small business activity actually
> increased, which is a good thing.)
They said small business activity increased. This is an empirical
observation. To say that's a good thing all by itself is a value
judgement, and questionable. I have questioned it, and those questions
are valid.
>
> At whose expense did all this come?
>
> (again, you did not read the small print. higher wages led to
> increased
> small business activities, so the small business person got some of it
> back, and made more money because the tax base increased, another good
> thing.
Again, an increase in "small business growth" does not mean the small
businesses actually made any money. Thousands of new small businesses
may have been started on credit, and taken in millions of dollars in
revenue, and still lost money. Every employee of a new small business
could be someone made unemployed but the last minimum wage hike. The
statements made are weak and of questionable significance.
> besides major corporations are the main employers of minimum wage, or
> close to minimum wage earners. so the money came from the walmarts,
> and
> the mcdonalds, another good thing.)
Depleting the capital of existing employers is not automatically a good
thing.
> That study was widely criticized by other economists for too short a
> time frame and too narrow a sample. Results in California, on the
> other
> hand, showed real harm directly attributable to that minimum wage
> hike.
>
> (that is another myth. it was not only proven once to be right, but it
> was rechecked again, and found to be right. your study was done by a
> free market type ideologue who lie, and distort, and would not know
> the
> truth if it bite him.
So ... people who like free markets are liars, ideologues, and
all-around bad guys? What do you suggest, that we switch to a
regulated-economy communist system?
>
> Another myth now being peddled by the right is a study by David
> Neumark
>
> of the University of California, Irvine, that estimates poverty rates
> increase between 3 percent and 4 percent for every 10 percent increase
> in the minimum wage by depressing employment of low-skill workers. But
> Neumark's claim belies historical evidence. Since President Bush took
> office, the number of Americans living in poverty has increased by 5.4
> million. As Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute has
> argued,
>
> The evidence unequivocally supports the view that increases in the
> minimum wage, by increasing the earnings of low-income workers without
> diminishing their employment opportunities, have historically helped
> to
>
> lower poverty rates.
The evidence doesn't unequivocally support any such thing. Most
economists identify a number of reasons minimum wage is a bad idea.
>
> http://utahamicus.blogspot.com/2006/08/debunking-myths-about-raising-minimum.html
>
> MYTH #4: Raising the minimum wage is bad for the economy and will lead
> to higher unemployment.
>
> Wrong. Raising the minimum wage has no negative impact on jobs,
> employment or inflation. In the four years after the last minimum wage
> increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in
> decades, as more than 11 million new jobs were added (at a pace of
> 232,000 per month) and inflation was stable. The low-wage labor market
> also saw improvements through lower unemployment rates, increased
> average hourly wages, increased family income, and decreased poverty
> rates. Further, studies of state-level minimum wage increases show
> that
> the increases did not produce unemployment or slow jobs. [EPI, Minimum
> Wage Issue Guide.
Can you provide an exact cite in the form of a URL? The Employment
Policies Institute doesn't have a "Minimum Wage Issue Guide" that I
could find, and has a number of empirical studies showing serious harm
from minimum wage hikes. In particular, check out Santa Fe.
http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=91
> MYTH #5: Raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses.
>
> Wrong, again. A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 86 percent of small
> business owners do not believe that an increase in the minimum wage
> would hurt their business. Three out of four maintained that a 10
> percent increase would have no affect on them, and nearly half of
> small
> business people polled thought that the minimum wage should be
> increased. [Gallup Poll, "Minimum Wage Has No Impact on Small
> Business," 5/9/2006] New economic models observe that employers absorb
> the costs of wage increases with higher productivity, lower turn-over
> costs, decreased absenteeism and increased worker morale. [EPI,
> Minimum
> Wage Issue Guide, 01/06]
Great. Let's raise the minimum wage to $50/hr.
>
> http://ashleymac.econ.vt.edu/ashley/2006sum2000/DandSstuff/minwage.htm
>
>
> A Moderate Increase in the Minimum Wage Does Not Cost Jobs
>
> The standard criticism of the minimum wage is that it raises
> employers'
> costs and reduces employment opportunities for teenagers and
> disadvantaged workers. However, several studies have found that the
> last two increases in the minimum wage had an insignificant effect on
> employment. Furthermore, an extension of the time-series studies that
> had previously been used to claim that raising the minimum wage
> decreases employment, no longer finds a significant impact.
The longer you extend the time frame, the more the economy has a chance
to adjust prices to support the higher wages.
>
> In a recent review of the literature, Professor Richard Freeman of
> Harvard, a widely respected labor economist, wrote: "At the level of
> the minimum wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did
> not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher
> employment in some locales."
Without any explanation of the mechanism why, the merits of these claims
are impossible to evaluate.
>
> In discussing the minimum wage, Robert M. Solow, a Nobel laureate in
> economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently told
> the New York Times, "The main thing about (minimum wage) research is
> that the evidence of job loss is weak. And the fact that the evidence
> is weak suggests that the impact on jobs is small.
>
> http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp150
>
Sure, that's a respectable opinion. He's a respectable economist, and
he's entitled to it. However, it isn't proof, and the majority of
economists, who are also entitled to their opinions, disagree. Their
opinions are also respectable.
[...]
> the pattern in job growth by state shows little relation to whether a
> state has a minimum wage.
So? Jobs can still grow at a constant rate and be depressed below their
equilibrium level by a constant amount over time.
> It is not uncommon to hear the Card and Krueger results dismissed by
> opponents of the minimum wage as having been disproved by the Neumark
> and Wascher study.
[...]
This is all old ground. There's much more recent research being done.
And you go on about it at tiresome length -- or rather quote a tiresome
amount of other people's material. I'm not here to read anthologies.
Make your own points succinctly, and tell me where to find the
documentation if I want to, and I'll continue to read.
ccr
"Nospam" <nos...@example.com> wrote in message
news:61129489....@example.com...
I guarantee "MP" will miss the point of your question. He's not the
brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.
Vid...@tcq.net
> the employer will always
> downplay any skilled job no matter what level of education, grunt,
> sweat, or whatever it takes to do the job because there are no real
> market driven mechanisms that allow labor to have any leverage at all
> except in rare instants.
That's silly. Labor has the same leverage employers do: refusing to
enter into an employment contract they find unsatisfactory.
(of course you are kidding correct? if not, how old are you, and what
kind of life experiences have you had? i question your maturity.)
> so there is almost always a labor glut at all times
Also silly. If your premises were true, the expected outcome would be
full employment at lower wages.
(not true. we only have the wage we have because of government
standards.
without standards, the employer would simply work you till death at
slave wages, then replace you with the many starving mass's.
again i question your maturity.)
> if we ran our
> economy on what a job is worth, well, we would have what we have now.
> brain surgeons working for pennies in india. [...]
Sillier still. Who do you know who's gone to India for brain surgery?
(i again question if you are a shielded person with no real life
experience. have you watched t.v. lately?)
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/37935/
> In truth, the evidence indicates that small businesses benefit from a
> higher wage. A report by the Center for American Progress and Policy
> Matters Ohio found that the "11 states with a minimum wage above the
> federal minimum of $5.15 per hour had higher rates of small business
> growth between 1997 and 2003." A recent report from the Wisconsin
> Department of Workforce Development said last year's increase in that
> state's hourly rate produced $175 million in additional payroll and a
> $3 million boost in tax revenue, without creating job loss.
> Moreover, the evidence indicates higher wagers will not result in fewer
> jobs. A 1998 Economic Policy Institute report found that unemployment
> and poverty rates fell after the 1997 increase in the federal minimum
> wage, and economists David Card and Alan Krueger noted that increases
> in the minimum wage in various states in the late 1980s and early 1990s
> did not result in increased unemployment.
None of these studies appear (based on your summary) to have compared
trends before and after changes in minimum wage.
(incorrect, they took into account employment before, than after. are
you stable?)
It may well be that,
for instance, those 11 states always enjoy higher business growth,
which gives them greater leeway to indulge in practices like
higher-than-federal minimum wages.
(again, did you read it, and if so, where is you critical thinking
skills to absorb logic? they said economic activity increased after the
wage raise.
plus you just made my argument, yes they now enjoy greater equitable
economic growth because of a higher minimum wage, than their
conservative neanderthals fellow state, and federal governments.)
Vid...@tcq.net
Your newsreader doesn't demarcate or attribute quoted material very
well. It makes your posts difficult to follow.
(it works fine for me, and i like it this way.)
<Vide...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:1161319102.9...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> How much of that is from people in desperation starting their own
> small
> businesses because they can't find jobs? How many of those businesses
> last one year? Three? five?
> (that is always the case no matter what kind of economy we are in.
> people try their hand at entrepreneurial skills even if they are
> employed in a good job.
> your statement is a red herring, and america has always churned out
> new business's in good times, as well as in bad times. besides, you
> did
> not read the small print, they said small business activity actually
> increased, which is a good thing.)
They said small business activity increased. This is an empirical
observation.
(good god, no really!!!!!!!!! evidence, my god, something that
conservatives have a hard time understanding.)
To say that's a good thing all by itself is a value
judgement, and questionable.
(are you crazy!!!!! i have been self employed now for almost a quarter
of a century, and have worked retail almost my whole life starting in
my teens!!!
to say increased business is questionable, my god, what have i gotten
myself into, all these years i have been striving to increase my
business, when if i knew what you know, all then i would have to do is
sit back, let the business slide, and reap the profits. my god man, ARE
YOU A ADULT?.)
I have questioned it, and those questions
are valid.
(if you are insane, yes they are valid questions. do you know where,
and what madison avenue is, and what they do? in your world they would
be a waste of money.)
> At whose expense did all this come?
> (again, you did not read the small print. higher wages led to
> increased
> small business activities, so the small business person got some of it
> back, and made more money because the tax base increased, another good
> thing.
Again, an increase in "small business growth" does not mean the small
businesses actually made any money.
(WOW, MORE TRAFFIC COMING THRU THE DOOR SPENDING MONEY, WHO WOULD HAVE
EVER THOUGHT THAT SOMEONE LIKE ME WOULD BE DUMB ENOUGH TO THINK THAT
THAT WOULD HELP THE BOTTOM LINE!!!!
PLUS GROWTH MEANS YOU GREW, WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS?)
Thousands of new small businesses
may have been started on credit, and taken in millions of dollars in
revenue, and still lost money.
(yes, that has always been the case regardless of what, or if there was
a minimum wage.)
Every employee of a new small business
could be someone made unemployed but the last minimum wage hike.
(bullshit, most small business startups are just that, small as in
small.)
The
statements made are weak and of questionable significance.
(yes i know, its the middle of the afternoon, but you see only
darkness. otherwise its known as
"libertarians/conservatives will never allow reality to trump
ideology:")
> besides major corporations are the main employers of minimum wage, or
> close to minimum wage earners. so the money came from the walmarts,
> and
> the mcdonalds, another good thing.)
Depleting the capital of existing employers is not automatically a good
thing.
(WOW, WALMART IS CLOSE TO STARVATION, WHAT A IDIOT. YOU REFUTE NOTHING,
BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOTHING, ERR, EXCEPT A 18TH CENTURY MENTALITY.)
> That study was widely criticized by other economists for too short a
> time frame and too narrow a sample. Results in California, on the
> other
> hand, showed real harm directly attributable to that minimum wage
> hike.
> (that is another myth. it was not only proven once to be right, but it
> was rechecked again, and found to be right. your study was done by a
> free market type ideologue who lie, and distort, and would not know
> the
> truth if it bite him.
So ... people who like free markets are liars, ideologues, and
all-around bad guys?
(if they rig the test to show their wretched ideology works, well if
the shoe fits, you know the rest correct?)
What do you suggest, that we switch to a
regulated-economy communist system?
(red baiting will get you no where except you look very small. america
has a regulated standard rule of law. you do know that correct?)
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> Another myth now being peddled by the right is a study by David
> Neumark
> of the University of California, Irvine, that estimates poverty rates
> increase between 3 percent and 4 percent for every 10 percent increase
> in the minimum wage by depressing employment of low-skill workers. But
> Neumark's claim belies historical evidence. Since President Bush took
> office, the number of Americans living in poverty has increased by 5.4
> million. As Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute has
> argued,
> The evidence unequivocally supports the view that increases in the
> minimum wage, by increasing the earnings of low-income workers without
> diminishing their employment opportunities, have historically helped
> to
> lower poverty rates.
The evidence doesn't unequivocally support any such thing.
(YOU ARE A CHILD.)
Most
economists identify a number of reasons minimum wage is a bad idea.
(lapdogs for the rich.)
- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
> http://utahamicus.blogspot.com/2006/08/debunking-myths-about-raising-...
> MYTH #4: Raising the minimum wage is bad for the economy and will lead
> to higher unemployment.
> Wrong. Raising the minimum wage has no negative impact on jobs,
> employment or inflation. In the four years after the last minimum wage
> increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in
> decades, as more than 11 million new jobs were added (at a pace of
> 232,000 per month) and inflation was stable. The low-wage labor market
> also saw improvements through lower unemployment rates, increased
> average hourly wages, increased family income, and decreased poverty
> rates. Further, studies of state-level minimum wage increases show
> that
> the increases did not produce unemployment or slow jobs. [EPI, Minimum
> Wage Issue Guide.
Can you provide an exact cite in the form of a URL? The Employment
Policies Institute doesn't have a "Minimum Wage Issue Guide" that I
could find, and has a number of empirical studies showing serious harm
from minimum wage hikes. In particular, check out Santa Fe.
http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=91
(did you click on the high lighted words? i have not tried it yet, and
the santa fe one is a city wide mandate. not a state wide one. i know
people who will drive for miles in heavy traffic to cross a city line
to save pennies on a city wide tax. crossing a state line is much
harder in most cases.
it still does not refute that the minimum wage was updated from its
beginnings on a regular basis, and we prospered quite nicely all thru
the 40-s.till the free market took over in 1973.)
> MYTH #5: Raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses.
> Wrong, again. A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 86 percent of small
> business owners do not believe that an increase in the minimum wage
> would hurt their business. Three out of four maintained that a 10
> percent increase would have no affect on them, and nearly half of
> small
> business people polled thought that the minimum wage should be
> increased. [Gallup Poll, "Minimum Wage Has No Impact on Small
> Business," 5/9/2006] New economic models observe that employers absorb
> the costs of wage increases with higher productivity, lower turn-over
> costs, decreased absenteeism and increased worker morale. [EPI,
> Minimum
> Wage Issue Guide, 01/06]
Great. Let's raise the minimum wage to $50/hr.
(you are being silly, or immature?)
> http://ashleymac.econ.vt.edu/ashley/2006sum2000/DandSstuff/minwage.htm
> A Moderate Increase in the Minimum Wage Does Not Cost Jobs
> The standard criticism of the minimum wage is that it raises
> employers'
> costs and reduces employment opportunities for teenagers and
> disadvantaged workers. However, several studies have found that the
> last two increases in the minimum wage had an insignificant effect on
> employment. Furthermore, an extension of the time-series studies that
> had previously been used to claim that raising the minimum wage
> decreases employment, no longer finds a significant impact.
The longer you extend the time frame, the more the economy has a chance
to adjust prices to support the higher wages.
(yes, and the santa fe one was done right away, before there was any
adjustments.)
> In a recent review of the literature, Professor Richard Freeman of
> Harvard, a widely respected labor economist, wrote: "At the level of
> the minimum wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did
> not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher
> employment in some locales."
Without any explanation of the mechanism why, the merits of these
claims
are impossible to evaluate.
(how can i get you to open your closed mind! 11 states have had
employment increase's)
> In discussing the minimum wage, Robert M. Solow, a Nobel laureate in
> economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently told
> the New York Times, "The main thing about (minimum wage) research is
> that the evidence of job loss is weak. And the fact that the evidence
> is weak suggests that the impact on jobs is small.
> http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp150
Sure, that's a respectable opinion. He's a respectable economist, and
he's entitled to it. However, it isn't proof,
(11 STATES HAVE PROSPERED, WHAT MORE CAN BE DONE FOR YOU TO GET
IT!!!!!)
and the majority of
economists, who are also entitled to their opinions, disagree. Their
opinions are also respectable.
(not if they are lying lapdogs for the rich)
[...]
> the pattern in job growth by state shows little relation to whether a
> state has a minimum wage.
So? Jobs can still grow at a constant rate and be depressed below their
equilibrium level by a constant amount over time.
(did you read about the part that the states who did not raise there
wage, actually lost jobs! of course you did, you just completely
ignored it.)
> It is not uncommon to hear the Card and Krueger results dismissed by
> opponents of the minimum wage as having been disproved by the Neumark
> and Wascher study.
[...]
This is all old ground. There's much more recent research being done.
(yea i know. greed and selfishness never sleeps.)
And you go on about it at tiresome length -- or rather quote a tiresome
amount of other people's material.
(you are of course stupid, that is why you need to be flooded with
information, you never know, some might sneek thru your defenses.)
I'm not here to read anthologies.
Make your own points succinctly, and tell me where to find the
documentation if I want to, and I'll continue to read.
(yes, i see, we do not need any of that pesky empirical evidence
getting in the way.
i to am tired of you. you are a imbecile.)
Nospam
> Your newsreader doesn't demarcate or attribute quoted material very
> well. It makes your posts difficult to follow.
>
> (it works fine for me, and i like it this way.)
Well, actually here "the Bunn" is right.
There are some quotation standards everybody expects. And it is usefull to
use the quotation most people expect, in order to make your idea easily
understood. If no, many will just skip without reading what you have to
say. And isn't it bad for some potential vary valuable idea to get lost
because of ... quotation ?
The second thought. The attitude:
"(it works fine for me, and i like it this way.)"
it is rather a libertarian attitude. Do you really want to be associated
with this kind of "human Ferengi" ?
What people expects is to quote starting with a > at the beginning of each
quoted line, and the subject line to be a nice summary of up to 15 words,
or anyhow, never ever to exceed 25 words.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> ok, i will bite. gross ignorance on how a modern economy works is
> simply outrageous in todays world.
Glad you admit you defeciencies in that area.
--
regards , Peter B. P. - http://titancity.com/blog
http://markedspartiet.dk
http://macplanet.dk
http://siad.dk
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> "Nospam" <nos...@example.com> wrote in message
> news:61129489....@example.com...
> > MP wrote:
> >
> >>> So you believe that they can squeeze more even now and they don't due to
> >>> their charitable souls ?
> >>
> >> Not due to their charitable souls, but because squeezing has its own
> >> costs to employers (monetary and otherwise). Glad I could clear that up
> >> for you.
> >
> > And is there any particular reason to believe that this costs will just
> > vanish away by a miracle if the minimum wage is increased ? :-)
>
> I guarantee "MP" will miss the point of your question. He's not the
> brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.
Well, he's certainly a lot brighter than a dumbfuck like you who thinks
thar arguments can be freely exchanged for profanity and ad hominems.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
>
> > That study was widely criticized by other economists for too short a
> > time frame and too narrow a sample. Results in California, on the
> > other
> > hand, showed real harm directly attributable to that minimum wage
> > hike.
> >
> > (that is another myth. it was not only proven once to be right, but it
> > was rechecked again, and found to be right. your study was done by a
> > free market type ideologue who lie, and distort, and would not know
> > the
> > truth if it bite him.
>
> So ... people who like free markets are liars, ideologues, and
> all-around bad guys? What do you suggest, that we switch to a
> regulated-economy communist system?
Maybe not outright communist, but reading enough of Video61's drivel
will convey the knowledge to you that he is a staunch socialist.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
None. This is one of the areas where Roy is talking out of his ass.
Expecting that employers will hire people and operate at a loss is
crazy.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> > MYTH #5: Raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses.
> >
> > Wrong, again. A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 86 percent of small
> > business owners do not believe that an increase in the minimum wage
> > would hurt their business. Three out of four maintained that a 10
> > percent increase would have no affect on them, and nearly half of
> > small
> > business people polled thought that the minimum wage should be
> > increased. [Gallup Poll, "Minimum Wage Has No Impact on Small
> > Business," 5/9/2006] New economic models observe that employers absorb
> > the costs of wage increases with higher productivity, lower turn-over
> > costs, decreased absenteeism and increased worker morale. [EPI,
> > Minimum
> > Wage Issue Guide, 01/06]
>
> Great. Let's raise the minimum wage to $50/hr.
Oh stop being so humble. Lets raise it to $1000/hr!
Nospam
> Robert Bunn <ada...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>> > MYTH #5: Raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses.
>> >
>> > Wrong, again. A recent Gallup Poll revealed that 86 percent of small
>> > business owners do not believe that an increase in the minimum wage
>> > would hurt their business. Three out of four maintained that a 10
>> > percent increase would have no affect on them, and nearly half of
>> > small
>> > business people polled thought that the minimum wage should be
>> > increased. [Gallup Poll, "Minimum Wage Has No Impact on Small
>> > Business," 5/9/2006] New economic models observe that employers absorb
>> > the costs of wage increases with higher productivity, lower turn-over
>> > costs, decreased absenteeism and increased worker morale. [EPI,
>> > Minimum
>> > Wage Issue Guide, 01/06]
>>
>> Great. Let's raise the minimum wage to $50/hr.
>
> Oh stop being so humble. Lets raise it to $1000/hr!
Because this will definitely make the more c) jobs than b) jobs and this
generate a breaking point.
I already gave you this explanation but you conveniently (and typical
libertarian) "overlooked it":
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.economics/msg/ec6f897eeb459b8f
Robert Bunn
> this
> generate a breaking point.
>
> I already gave you this explanation but you conveniently (and typical
> libertarian) "overlooked it":
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.economics/msg/ec6f897eeb459b8f
>
The problem is, the existence of your "b" jobs supposes a monopsonistic
labor market for low wage jobs. After the Card and Krueger study, a lot
of research went into the proposition and found no evidence that such
exists. Therefore, the reasonable opinion is that there are *no* "b"
jobs.
Vid...@tcq.net
hi nospam,
it works fine for me because i cannot separate what has been said once
i hit the respond button. i cut copy and paste the raw text into a text
editor, do my responses, then cut, copy and paste it, then hit the
response button, then erase the text, and insert my copy.
well why? because i can barely see, i have borderline glaucoma, i wear
bifocals, but my doctor says i need trifocals but my weak eyes cannot
take them, plus i am dyslexic which means i need to go over and over
what i type to look for errors, even then i am sure you can tell, i
miss many. no excuses here, just the facts. so yes it works well for me.
Vid...@tcq.net
as usual, nothing.
Vid...@tcq.net
laugh laugh, here is a guy who has not one original thought of his own
except the ability to insult. also he will not fight for his ideology.
why is he afraid to go to somalia to fight to keep it government free?
to fat from the nanny state perhaps ?
Nospam
> The problem is, the existence of your "b" jobs supposes a monopsonistic
> labor market for low wage jobs.
Your assertion is based on .............. what ?
You don't need a single buyer to drive wages down. It is enough to have
a job market where the supply is bigger that demand (aka unemployment >0)
And this was always the case in US.
> After the Card and Krueger study, a lot of research went into the
> proposition and found no evidence that such exists.
Since you have more that one company that pays minimum wage jobs, it is at
chicken's mind that there is no monopsonistic labor market for low wage
jobs. You don't need any study to show this, just look around.
> Therefore, the reasonable opinion is that there are *no* "b"
> jobs.
Since your argument is based on completely false assumption the conclusion
is not just not reasonable but entirely false.
You want more proof: In the last 6 years the productivity kept growing while
the real wages went down. The slice that went to proffits grew constantly
while the slice that went to labor declined in last 6 years.
Based on this facts, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that most of the
current jobs are of the category b). Not the nonsense you just said.
Nospam
> well why? because i can barely see, i have borderline glaucoma, i wear
> bifocals, but my doctor says i need trifocals but my weak eyes cannot
> take them, plus
Well, sorry to hear that.
Vid...@tcq.net
hey no problems. if i was upset, you would have known it:)
Robert Bunn
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>
>> The problem is, the existence of your "b" jobs supposes a
>> monopsonistic
>> labor market for low wage jobs.
>
> Your assertion is based on .............. what ?
> You don't need a single buyer to drive wages down. It is enough to
> have
> a job market where the supply is bigger that demand (aka unemployment
> >0)
> And this was always the case in US.
This is precisely the assertion that was tested: that the supply of
labor was sufficiently greater than the demand to give employers the
power to *act* as a monopsony even though they are technically not.
If, however, you want to start with the assumption of a glut on the
labor market keeping wages low, well, that's a classical expectation
when you set a binding price floor. Thus, the existence of your "b" jobs
is a categorically predictable consequence of minimum wage.
>
>> After the Card and Krueger study, a lot of research went into the
>> proposition and found no evidence that such exists.
>
> Since you have more that one company that pays minimum wage jobs, it
> is at
> chicken's mind that there is no monopsonistic labor market for low
> wage
> jobs. You don't need any study to show this, just look around.
In fact, the existence of a labor market that acts in monopsonistic
fashion is only a specific way of expressing what you said: that
employers pay employees less than they are worth because they can get
away with it. If you are willing to stipulate that the labor market is
competitive rather than monopsonistic, you have stipulated that there
are no "b" jobs; if there were, a competitor in the labor market would
offer marginally higher wages and hire away the employees.
>
>> Therefore, the reasonable opinion is that there are *no* "b"
>> jobs.
>
> Since your argument is based on completely false assumption the
> conclusion
> is not just not reasonable but entirely false.
The assumption you claim false is the one that supports your contention
that these "b" jobs exist.
>
> You want more proof: In the last 6 years the productivity kept growing
> while
> the real wages went down. The slice that went to proffits grew
> constantly
> while the slice that went to labor declined in last 6 years.
First, these facts can be characterized as evidence that minimum-wage
labor was overpriced, and as inflation caused it to regress toward an
equilibrium level, more minimum-wage jobs became available, resulting in
greater productivity.
Second, without quantification of the respective labor share and capital
share in production, these statistics are in a vacuum. If a given piece
of capital causes a worker's production to triple, then that gain in
productivity is rightly the profits of capital.
>
> Based on this facts, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that most of
> the
> current jobs are of the category b). Not the nonsense you just said.
>
You don't appear to have a firm grasp on what facts support your
argument and what facts oppose it. You have focused on disproving the
assumptions necessary to make your claim reasonable.
Robert Bunn
<Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:1161405635.8...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
There is a difference in "increased business for one firm" and "an
increase in the aggregate level of small business activity." It is
possible to have an increase in the aggregate level of small business
activity (which is the quantity that was actually measured) caused by a
flood of unprofitable businesses which subsequently fail. Presumably you
remember the dot-bomb incident; there was a tremendous growth in
internet business activity during "the bubble." Most of it was not
profitable, and most of it failed. Thus my statement that merele
"increased activity" is not of itself a good thing.
>
>
> I have questioned it, and those questions
> are valid.
>
>
> (if you are insane, yes they are valid questions. do you know where,
> and what madison avenue is, and what they do? in your world they would
> be a waste of money.)
Yes, it's in downtown Toledo between Jefferson and Adams. That's about
where most of the government buildings are located. They certainly are a
waste of money, alright.
I suspect, though, that you mean the whole upscale goods and marketing
industry. There is arguably a certain amount of value in branding and in
luxury. They are of little value to me, but they are an excellent way to
take money from rich people and put it into circulation.
>
>
>> At whose expense did all this come?
>
>> (again, you did not read the small print. higher wages led to
>> increased
>> small business activities, so the small business person got some of
>> it
>> back, and made more money because the tax base increased, another
>> good
>> thing.
>
> Again, an increase in "small business growth" does not mean the small
> businesses actually made any money.
>
> (WOW, MORE TRAFFIC COMING THRU THE DOOR SPENDING MONEY, WHO WOULD HAVE
> EVER THOUGHT THAT SOMEONE LIKE ME WOULD BE DUMB ENOUGH TO THINK THAT
> THAT WOULD HELP THE BOTTOM LINE!!!!
> PLUS GROWTH MEANS YOU GREW, WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MEANS?)
See the above explanation of the difference between individual and
aggregate levels. I.e., going from ten customers a day split between two
barbershops to 20 customers a day split between 20 barbershops is an
increase in the amount of barbershop activity. It isn't necessarily good
for any of those barbershops, and may be very bad for them all.
> [...]
And, of course, the rest is merely ranting and namecalling.
Nospam
> This is precisely the assertion that was tested: that the supply of
> labor was sufficiently greater than the demand to give employers the
> power to *act* as a monopsony even though they are technically not.
No, no no. It is not a monopsony. It is JUST the natural outcome of every
single unbalanced trade.
This is what very very few understand. The free market it is a pretty
unstable system as mater of fact. Small inballanced can result in snowball
effect if there are no other forces to damp the system.
> In fact, the existence of a labor market that acts in monopsonistic
> fashion is only a specific way of expressing what you said: that
> employers pay employees less than they are worth because they can get
> away with it.
Again it have nothing to do with a monopsony. This is the natural way a
company work. A business is working for proffit, just in case you missed
that point. That means that from what the employee produce a part is given
to himself as wage and a part is taken by owner as proffit. Unless you have
a company working with proffit 0 or losing money, then the employees are
definitely producing more than their wages.
> If you are willing to stipulate that the labor market is
> competitive rather than monopsonistic, you have stipulated that there
> are no "b" jobs;
What are you smoking man, what is all this nonsense you are talking here ?
Are you a libertarian by any chance ?
The simple fact that a company have proffit imply that there are b) type
jobs.
> if there were, a competitor in the labor market would
> offer marginally higher wages and hire away the employees.
IF AND ONLY IF THE DEMAND IS HIGHER THAN THE SUPPLY.
How long you have out of work people with the desired skills that
and unsatisfied with their welfare income, the wages are not going to grow.
For the wages to grow, it is required that when the employer advertise for
the minimum wage nobody come. Then he is forced to offer more in order for
an employed guy to make the switch.
That is. How long there is unemployment > 0, free market will NEVER EVER
push the minimum wage up.
And BTW, this is another good point you get from rising minimum wage.
It is possible that you have today in welfare some people that consider the
5.15 to be too low for them to join the workforce. But for the same people
the 7.25 may be attractive. So by increasing the minimum wage you can also
reduce the people in welfare.
> The assumption you claim false is the one that supports your contention
> that these "b" jobs exist.
Not at all. The prof for existence of b) type jobs is the existence of
corporate proffits.
Don't try to spin the facts.
>> You want more proof: In the last 6 years the productivity kept growing
>> while
>> the real wages went down. The slice that went to proffits grew
>> constantly
>> while the slice that went to labor declined in last 6 years.
>
> First, these facts can be characterized as evidence that minimum-wage
> labor was overpriced, and as inflation caused it to regress toward an
> equilibrium level, more minimum-wage jobs became available, resulting in
> greater productivity.
This is just plain and simple ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense.
If what you claim were true, that meant the corporations didn't made any
proffits AT ALL until the balance was reached. If the employees are payed
MORE or EQUAL with what they produced, from where in the whole world do you
expect the proffits to came from ?
Do you guys believe that money grows on the tree waiting for business owners
to pick them up to pay wages or what?
> If a given piece
> of capital causes a worker's production to triple, then that gain in
> productivity is rightly the profits of capital.
Nope. Into a mentally sane society it will be rightly to the inventor.
Inventor which was also payed a ridiculous wage by another greedy
corporation who pickpocketed all the proffits somebody else created.
Keep in mind that a corporation will never ever invent/create anything.
Peoples do. The same inventor if given the capital to work on his own
would invest the same thing or better. The same company without engineers
and scientists will be just a pile of trash waiting for the land to be
cleared.
But because none of his previous employers payed him decently enough to have
capital he was economically coerced to allow another company to loot his
creation. Then, this company accumulate capital and pays inventor a
ridiculous wage that won't allow him to accumulate capital to start on
their own. As a result, the guy will be economically coerced to stay
employed with a company and allow their work to be looted again and again.
Jeffrey Turner
>
> I do hate this: "Today, the minimum wage is 31% of the average hourly
> wage of American workers, the lowest level since the end of World War II."
>
> Why? Because it's beter interpreted that market wages
> are pulling away from minimum wage. That's a good thing.
The median wage in the U.S. has changed very modestly in the last 35
years while productivity has shot through the roof. Wages aren't
pulling away from anything except providing a middle class existence.
--Jeff
--
Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance,
is the death of knowledge.
-Alfred North Whitehead
Vid...@tcq.net
yea day is night, and night is day, blah, blah, blah. growth, what
does that mean, i don't know, you tell me.
it don't get any plainer than this,
In truth, the evidence indicates that small businesses benefit from a
higher wage. A report by the Center for American Progress and Policy
Matters Ohio found that the "11 states with a minimum wage above the
federal minimum of $5.15 per hour had higher rates of small business
growth between 1997 and 2003." A recent report from the Wisconsin
Department of Workforce Development said last year's increase in that
state's hourly rate produced $175 million in additional payroll and a
$3 million boost in tax revenue, without creating job loss.
and you read it, and still do not understand it, so a few well chosen
descriptions of your logic abilities are quite appropriate.
The Trucker
news:f9yZg.29947$Tq3....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
> retro...@comcast.net wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 20:21:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>>
>>>Nospam wrote:
>>>
>>>>Robert Bunn wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>It is worth noting here that there is certainly disgreement among
>>>>>professional economists on this issue, with credible and respectable
>>>>>representatives on both sides.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>That is when politics take over economists. It is strange to see so many
>>>>economists prostituting themself on the right wingers side.
I can't imagine why you would think this "strange".
>>>>What is very clear, is that polarization it is harmfull for the economy:
>>>>
>>>>http://www.angelfire.com/planet/dragonomics/polarization1.pdf
>>>>
>>>>Minimum wage increase can help to reduce polarization. That by itself can be
>>>>good enough for the economy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>It will not make any difference whatsoever. As soon as the minimum
>>>wage rises, the stuff people who make minimum wage buy goes up
>>>proportionally.
>>
>>
>> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not go
>> up as much.
"they" meaning prices will not go up as much.
> It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to do with the
> fact that more people have more money to chase
> goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
If more people have more money and they chase goods, then how can
you say that "demand is the same"? The recipients of the money
must attempt to spend the money, as opposes to save it, or the
demand and the prices will not rise.
>> And given that only a portion of workers work minimum
>> wage, only some products may go up.
>
> I do not wish to knock anybody, but minimum wage is a "safety
> net" subsidy. This is pretty clear; almost nobody actually works for minimum
> wage ( outside of very poor regions ). Around here, there's
> a defacto minimum wage of about $7.50.
You are both probably wrong in that the minimum wage is the wage
at the margin that sets all other wages. Hence, an increase in min
wage will probably bring an increase in all wages.
>> And given that in many
>> circumstances raising the price could result in less sales to the
>> point of less profits - the company/boss may rationally decide to eat
>> the cost from profits and not raise prices.
>
> Depends on the good, and who wants to be the price leader.
>
>> Other than that and a few thousand other reasons why it's not true,
>> your description is accurate.
>>
>
> How many minimum wage hikes have you lived through? Next time,
> watch beer prices. They go up exactly by the proportion that
> minimum wage goes up.
If all wages rise and all prices rise then there has most certainly been
a change and it has made a difference. i.e. that money stuffed in
your mattress or held in the form of fixed rate government bonds
will have lost some of its purchasing power.
--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org
The Trucker
news:b0AZg.8580$0L1....@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
>
> <retro...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:9hddj25n0pgv61esk...@4ax.com...
>
>> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>>>> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not
>>>> go
>>>> up as much.
>>>
>>>with the fact that more people have more money to chase
>>>goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
>>
>>
>> producing more. You seem intent on only working your favorite variable
>> at a time.
>>
>
> Suppose I am all the manufacturers in the country.
Then we have the perfect Republican economy, don't we.
> If I can capture all
> of the income in the country by producing at my current level, why
> should I increase my production just because more dollars are available?
You won't. And that is why there MUST be competition or regulation
on capital and why natural resources should not be "owned".
> I can still capture all of the income in the country just by raising my
> prices, without incurring any added expenses.
> for it."
Yep. Republican heaven.
The Trucker
news:1hnkfx2.ql1ifp14nft3sN%pe...@DIESPAMMERDIE.dk...
> MP <m...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ro...@telus.net wrote:
>> > On 19 Oct 2006 15:01:26 -0700, "MP" <m...@rocketmail.com> wrote:
>> > >Vid...@tcq.net wrote:
>>
>> > >> http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/15774825.htm
>> > >[...]
>> > >> The simple economics of the minimum wage are that the "equilibrium" or
>> > >> market-clearing wage - the place where the supply and demand curves
>> > >> for labor intersect - is already above $7.25. Therefore, raising the
>> > >> minimum wage to this level will have virtually no effect on average
>> > >> wages or employment.
So why would you object????
>> > >Gross economic ignorance.
>>
>> > Yep. Yours.
>>
>> Flaccid tu quoque.
I do not believe that the "supply/demand curve" for this sort of labor
is already higher than this. And again: Why do you then object?
>> > >If this *average* market-clearing wage
>> > >applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
>> > >candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
>> > >simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
>> > >the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
>> > >squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
>> > >leave the job undone.
Well either all the wages are above the threshold or they are not. You
can't claim they are and then claim that increasing the min will cause
dislocation. Pick one or the other.
>> > But that claim has been falsified empirically.
>>
>> Evidence?
>
> None. This is one of the areas where Roy is talking out of his ass.
> Expecting that employers will hire people and operate at a loss is
> crazy.
I would not trust any "statistics" that you would conjure up anyway. Let
us do it logically or not at all. Please make a coherent case.
Robert Bunn
"The Trucker" <mik...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:eheij...@news4.newsguy.com...
> "Robert Bunn" <ada...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:b0AZg.8580$0L1....@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
>>
>> <retro...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:9hddj25n0pgv61esk...@4ax.com...
>>
>>> On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 22:46:35 GMT, Les Cargill <lcar...@cfl.rr.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>>>> And since wages are not the only component of prices they will not
>>>>> go
>>>>> up as much.
>>>>
>>>>It has nothing to do with this as a component of prices. It has to
>>>>do
>>>>with the fact that more people have more money to chase
>>>>goods with. The demand is the same, so price adjusts.
>>>
>>>
>>> Or manufacturers will decide to capture the increased demand by
>>> producing more. You seem intent on only working your favorite
>>> variable
>>> at a time.
>>>
>>
>> Suppose I am all the manufacturers in the country.
>
> Then we have the perfect Republican economy, don't we.
You missed. I'm not Republican.
>
>> If I can capture all
>> of the income in the country by producing at my current level, why
>> should I increase my production just because more dollars are
>> available?
>
> You won't. And that is why there MUST be competition or regulation
> on capital and why natural resources should not be "owned".
We already have competition for capital; it's called interest rates. And
natural resources not being owned leads to "the tragedy of the commons."
>
>> I can still capture all of the income in the country just by raising
>> my
>> prices, without incurring any added expenses.
>> for it."
>
> Yep. Republican heaven.
No, simple economic reality. If the amount of currency available to
spend on consumption changes without any change in the capacity for
production, prices will simply adjust to the new amount.
Robert Bunn
Yes, exactly. That is the total extent of the change to be expected, in
the long run.
Robert Bunn
> I would not trust any "statistics" that you would conjure up anyway.
> Let
> us do it logically or not at all. Please make a coherent case.
...
That's just ... amazing. How do you expect a coherent, logical argument
to be constructed without any reference to the actual values of the
variables under discussion? How do you expect logical discussion of a
subject when the only way to affirm or dispute thoeretical models is by
comparison of their predictions to empirical evidence, if you refuse to
examine said evidence? I'm ... completely ... flabbergasted that you
could suggest this with a straight face.
"Let's reason out how much fishing we can do in the lake on a sustained
basis."
"Okay, but we're not allowed to count how many fish are in the lake now,
or look at reports about how many fish have been caught in the lake in
the past, because those are statistics, and I don't trust them."
Just ... amazing.
Robert Bunn
<Vid...@tcq.net> wrote in message
news:1161479918.1...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
>
> yea day is night, and night is day, blah, blah, blah. growth, what
> does that mean, i don't know, you tell me.
> it don't get any plainer than this,
> In truth, the evidence indicates that small businesses benefit from a
> higher wage. A report by the Center for American Progress and Policy
> Matters Ohio found that the "11 states with a minimum wage above the
> federal minimum of $5.15 per hour had higher rates of small business
> growth between 1997 and 2003." A recent report from the Wisconsin
> Department of Workforce Development said last year's increase in that
> state's hourly rate produced $175 million in additional payroll and a
> $3 million boost in tax revenue, without creating job loss.
>
Okay. Once more, from the top.
There is no inherent relationship between the aggregate quantity "small
business growth" and the success of individual small business firms. An
increase in the aggregate quantity called "small business growth" can be
the result of excessive numbers of startups, most of which will
subsequently fail.
Increased payroll and tax revenue are mentioned, but no comparative
mention of average prices are made. These raw numbers are not related to
the magnitude of the quantity which changed. $175 million dollars in
payroll would be a large change for a previous statewide payroll of $100
million dollars, but insignificant for a previous statewide payroll of
$100 billion dollars.
> and you read it, and still do not understand it, so a few well chosen
> descriptions of your logic abilities are quite appropriate.
>
I am quite capable of understanding the import of the quote. I am also
quite capable of distinguishing between its statements of fact and its
unsupported value judgements. Personal attacks are never appropriate in
a rational discussion. Would you like to have a rational discussion, or
are you looking for someone who will claim you have a little wee-wee and
whack off to pictures of Hitler?
Robert Bunn
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>
>> This is precisely the assertion that was tested: that the supply of
>> labor was sufficiently greater than the demand to give employers the
>> power to *act* as a monopsony even though they are technically not.
>
> No, no no. It is not a monopsony. It is JUST the natural outcome of
> every
> single unbalanced trade.
If a trade is unbalanced, then either the buyer or the seller has more
power in the market. If either the buyer or the seller has more power in
the market, the market is not perfectly competitive. If the buyer has
more power in the market, the tendency is toward monopsony. If the
seller has more power in the market, the tendency is toward monopoly.
Saying, then that there is unbalanced trade in the labor market, in
favor of the employers (the buyers of labor) is *exactly the same thing*
as saying there is a tendency toward monopsony in the labor market.
>> In fact, the existence of a labor market that acts in monopsonistic
>> fashion is only a specific way of expressing what you said: that
>> employers pay employees less than they are worth because they can get
>> away with it.
>
> Again it have nothing to do with a monopsony. This is the natural way
> a
> company work. A business is working for proffit, just in case you
> missed
> that point. That means that from what the employee produce a part is
> given
> to himself as wage and a part is taken by owner as proffit. Unless you
> have
> a company working with proffit 0 or losing money, then the employees
> are
> definitely producing more than their wages.
Yes. This is because they use capital (i.e., machines and equipment) to
assist their production. Not all of the value of goods is due to the
labor of the workers. Workers who have better equipment produce better
goods, or more goods, or both.
>
>> If you are willing to stipulate that the labor market is
>> competitive rather than monopsonistic, you have stipulated that there
>> are no "b" jobs;
>
> The simple fact that a company have proffit imply that there are b)
> type
> jobs.
You have neglected that the use of capital increases productivity. A
company has a profit because it owns the capital the workers use. That
profit is the compensation of the company for allowing the use of its
capital.
>
>> if there were, a competitor in the labor market would
>> offer marginally higher wages and hire away the employees.
>
> IF AND ONLY IF THE DEMAND IS HIGHER THAN THE SUPPLY.
At equilibrium price in a competitive market, supply is equal to demand.
If this is the case, and there are workers who are being paid less than
the amount of value they contribute to production, another firm will pay
higher wages to increase production and gain a larger share of the
market.
If demand is higher than supply, then firms will raise their prices or
increase production until supply and demand are equal.
If supply is higher than demand, then firms will reduce their prices or
lower production until supply and demand are equal.
So regardless of the current relative level of supply and demand, when a
long-run equilibrium is reached, there will be no "b" jobs in a
competitive labor market.
>
> How long you have out of work people with the desired skills that
> and unsatisfied with their welfare income, the wages are not going to
> grow.
> For the wages to grow, it is required that when the employer advertise
> for
> the minimum wage nobody come. Then he is forced to offer more in order
> for
> an employed guy to make the switch.
Yes. I agree completely. This is saying that wages above the minimum
wage will not be offered unless the minimum wage is less than the market
rate for the desired skills.
>
> That is. How long there is unemployment > 0, free market will NEVER
> EVER
> push the minimum wage up.
This is inaccurate. There will always be a certain amount of
unemployment > 0. People entering the workforce for the first time are
counted as unemployed until they get their first jobs. People who leave
jobs to move to different locations, without first finding jobs, are
counted as unemployed while looking for a new job -- and some people do
this. A specific example is the spouse of someone accepting a transfer
to a new location, when the spouse desires work.
>
> And BTW, this is another good point you get from rising minimum wage.
> It is possible that you have today in welfare some people that
> consider the
> 5.15 to be too low for them to join the workforce. But for the same
> people
> the 7.25 may be attractive. So by increasing the minimum wage you can
> also
> reduce the people in welfare.
You have said:
*as long as there are unemployed people, the market will never raise the
wage.
=supply of labor is greater than demand for labor
*increasing the minimum wage will urge people to leave welfare and work
=raising the minimum wage will increase the supply of labor
*This is a good thing
=More competition for the same jobs will suddenly result in full
employment for everybody
I don't follow your line of reasoning on that last point.
>
>> The assumption you claim false is the one that supports your
>> contention
>> that these "b" jobs exist.
>
> Not at all. The prof for existence of b) type jobs is the existence of
> corporate proffits.
No, the existence of corporate profits is proof that capital increases
productivity.
>>> You want more proof: In the last 6 years the productivity kept
>>> growing
>>> while
>>> the real wages went down. The slice that went to proffits grew
>>> constantly
>>> while the slice that went to labor declined in last 6 years.
>>
>> First, these facts can be characterized as evidence that minimum-wage
>> labor was overpriced, and as inflation caused it to regress toward an
>> equilibrium level, more minimum-wage jobs became available, resulting
>> in
>> greater productivity.
>
> This is just plain and simple ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense.
>
> If what you claim were true, that meant the corporations didn't made
> any
> proffits AT ALL until the balance was reached. If the employees are
> payed
> MORE or EQUAL with what they produced, from where in the whole world
> do you
> expect the proffits to came from ?
From the ability to produce more goods, better goods, or both by using
capital in addition to labor.
>> If a given piece
>> of capital causes a worker's production to triple, then that gain in
>> productivity is rightly the profits of capital.
>
> Nope. Into a mentally sane society it will be rightly to the inventor.
> Inventor which was also payed a ridiculous wage by another greedy
> corporation who pickpocketed all the proffits somebody else created.
So, just by inventing something, I have rights to all the product of the
labor of the people who actually build the invention? What you're saying
is, in effect, that all of a pizza delivery boy's tips should belong to
the estate of Henry Ford, because without the capital ownership of the
automobile, he wouldn't be able to earn them. Never mind that he owns
the automobile, he didn't invent it, so he has no right to earn a profit
from it.
>
> Keep in mind that a corporation will never ever invent/create
> anything.
> Peoples do. The same inventor if given the capital to work on his own
> would invest the same thing or better. The same company without
> engineers
> and scientists will be just a pile of trash waiting for the land to be
> cleared.
Yes, people invent things. Some people invent things and sell the
intellectual property rights to corporations who have the ability to
utilize them. Some people invent things and the intellectual property
rights belong to the corporation as soon as they do, because they used
the capital of the company to enable them to do the research that
resulted in the invention. Some people invent things and form their own
corporations to reap the benefits.
However, no matter who owns the rights to the design, once a piece of
equipment is built and becomes physically the property of somebody,
whoever owns it has a right to enjoy the benefits of its use.
>
> But because none of his previous employers payed him decently enough
> to have
> capital he was economically coerced to allow another company to loot
> his
> creation. Then, this company accumulate capital and pays inventor a
> ridiculous wage that won't allow him to accumulate capital to start on
> their own. As a result, the guy will be economically coerced to stay
> employed with a company and allow their work to be looted again and
> again.
If and only if there is no money available for financing. An inventor
with a valuable invention and a sound business plan can get financing.
That's really the entire purpose of the banking system: to facilitate
the financing of people with ideas that need to be funded by loaning out
the dollars of people who want to save. (Consumer credit is a later
addition.) Plenty of inventors start their own companies, and get rich.
Henry Ford was one of them. So was Bill Gates, in a way -- he wasn't
particularly wealthy before he started Microsoft.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> >> > But that claim has been falsified empirically.
> >>
> >> Evidence?
> >
> > None. This is one of the areas where Roy is talking out of his ass.
> > Expecting that employers will hire people and operate at a loss is
> > crazy.
>
> I would not trust any "statistics" that you would conjure up anyway. Let
> us do it logically or not at all. Please make a coherent case.
Get a grip, Trucker. You're embarrasing all Geoists by behaving such as
you are.
Nospam
> Yes. This is because they use capital (i.e., machines and equipment) to
> assist their production. Not all of the value of goods is due to the
> labor of the workers. Workers who have better equipment produce better
> goods, or more goods, or both.
Correct. The problem is that most of the workers do not have the equipment
required to do on their own because of the system itself.
Not having enough capital they are forced (economically coerced) to accept
a job offer that pays way below what they could do. As a result the skilled
individual is prevented to accumulate enough capital to start on his own
while the capital owner accumulate more capital.
That is. The system it is designed in such a way that the capital owner
keep itself in business regardless of his skills or abilities, by
economically coercing skilled people to be dependent on him.
The businessmen are not successfully by doing something usefull, but by
preventing others to do it for themselves. The reason this is possible is
because the capital is more scarce than labor. And the capital is scarce
because we allow unlimited accumulation of it without any penalty for
economically coercing others.
This must change !!! Whenever you have workforce not finding opportunities
because of lack of a decent offer, you have economic coercion at work. You
keep resources underutilized and inflict sufferings because an obsolete
system.
Let assume the following free market economic system.
All the created wealth (and decision power) is given to labor while the
capital owners compete on the free market to lend their assets to the
labor. The only change this will required in today's corporations is that
instead of CEO and management team to be appointed and report to
shareholders they are appointed and report to labor. And instead of looking
to negotiate to keep the wages low, they have to negotiate to keep the rent
to shareholders low.
The single reason we have the current system (capital owned businesses)
instead of the second (labor owned businesses) it is exclusively due to
historic reasons: capitalism evolved from feudalism by giving more rights
to labor, which evolved from slavery based system by giving more rights to
labor. This is the natural way the society evolved.
The next natural step will be again: more rights to labor.
The first step to be taken will be for the labor to have a voice in the
political arena, and keep the wages high.
The next stem will be migration toward a post capitalist society, where the
companies are labor owned.
Possibly not yet the 100% labor owned system, we may be to far away of it
due to historical reasons, but an equal share of it.
That is. The management team have to be 50% appointed by labor and 50%
by capital owners and the resulting proffits to be shared.
> You have neglected that the use of capital increases productivity. A
> company has a profit because it owns the capital the workers use. That
> profit is the compensation of the company for allowing the use of its
> capital.
You have neglected that the capital is also the production of labor.
New technologies do not rain from the sky, neither are invented by a
businessman :-)
> At equilibrium price in a competitive market, supply is equal to demand.
> If this is the case, and there are workers who are being paid less than
> the amount of value they contribute to production, another firm will pay
> higher wages to increase production and gain a larger share of the
> market.
Not if you have unemployment. If you have unemployment the other firm just
have to offer the same as first and the jobs will be occupied.
Far away from being a monopsony (you have multiple buyers) yet there is no
reason for competition how long the supply is higher than demand.
In absence of a minimum wage legislation, the second firm can even offer
less than the first and get it. Then the first one seeing that, can fire
some of his workers and re-hire at a lower rate. It is the standard race
to the bottom, that is is happening right now due to offshoring.
Some companies offshored sone jobs and they got a competitive edge over the
others. To save their companies they had to offshore too. This prompted
more offshoring from the first and so on. Once US consumers reach their
credit limits and get no more credit cards or loans, the whole economy is
going to go down the toillet.
It is not and if, it is a how far away we are from that.
> If demand is higher than supply, then firms will raise their prices or
> increase production until supply and demand are equal.
Demand higher that supply on labor market imply unemployment = 0.
This is not the case.
> If supply is higher than demand, then firms will reduce their prices or
> lower production until supply and demand are equal.
O yes. You can be 100% sure of that.
Wait for the debt to reach the point where the creditors will lose
confidence that their customers have enough income to pay back the loans.
Customers both as US population and as US government.
The corporate greed is guarantee to bring the Great Depression 2.0.
Then everything will collapse and US become a third world country at the
same level of life as the countries we export jobs to.
That is the only way free market will come to a ballance again.
> So regardless of the current relative level of supply and demand, when a
> long-run equilibrium is reached, there will be no "b" jobs in a
> competitive labor market.
A b) job imply that he produce more than he is payed.
If into a company proffit is > 0 there are b) jobs there.
Because to get the proffit from the revenue you already substract the
rent for the capital investments and ALL other costs. That has been taken
care of, don't try to foul around.
If proffit is >0 then there are b) type jobs.
>> That is. How long there is unemployment > 0, free market will NEVER
>> EVER
>> push the minimum wage up.
>
> This is inaccurate. There will always be a certain amount of
> unemployment > 0. People entering the workforce for the first time are
> counted as unemployed until they get their first jobs.
If the demand is over the supply they get the job immediately.
If they don't, then the demand is not big enough.
> People who leave
> jobs to move to different locations, without first finding jobs, are
> counted as unemployed while looking for a new job -- and some people do
> this.
If the supply is bigger than demand they will find jobs right away.
Supply > demand means there are jobs waiting for people and not people
waiting for jobs. Get it ?
> You have said:
> .......................
> =More competition for the same jobs will suddenly result in full
> employment for everybody
I never said the last statement. You make it up.
> So, just by inventing something, I have rights to all the product of the
> labor of the people who actually build the invention?
No. By inventing something you should be the owner of the invention.
The company you worked for must not have exclusive rights over your
invention. Since they are your employer the legislation can ask you to
allow them to use your invention in exchange for the wages, but there
should be no right for the company to disallow the inventor to negotiate
and sell this invention to everybody else.
Taking ownership of the invention/innovation of employees should be deemed
as robbery and punished accordingly.
The benefits of extra productivity generated by a invention actually should
be shared betwen the labor and the business owners as the single practical
approach.
> What you're saying
> is, in effect, that all of a pizza delivery boy's tips should belong to
> the estate of Henry Ford, because without the capital ownership of the
> automobile, he wouldn't be able to earn them. Never mind that he owns
> the automobile, he didn't invent it, so he has no right to earn a profit
> from it.
Nope !!!
What I am saying is to use your brain to imagine a society 50 years from
now, when the autonomous robotics it is evolved enough to perform ALL the
production and services jobs required by society.
That is. A society where the demand for human labor it is almost ZERO.
A few multinational corporations with a owners/management team totaling
less than 1% of the globe population own all the capital while the 99% of
the population own nothing.
This polarization happen due to the fact that as it is today (and as you
like it) all the extra revenue brought in by new capital goes exclusively
to capital owners. The demand for labor will continuously decline pushing
wages down and down. Even middle class folks that own some shares will lose
them since by losing their income they have to sell them to survive.
This is how the free market works, and this is going to be the natural
outcome.
Now you have a society with 1% ultrarich, maybe 1% poor employed people in
jobs that robots can not do (they are poor due to excessive competition)
and 98% of the population unemployed and with no revenue. There is no
reason for the robots owners to keep the common folk alive since there is
at no use for them. You will most likely get a bloodshed, either the 98%
kill the 1% due to number, either the top 1% kill the 98% due to
technology. This is the outcome of a radical right wing society as you
envision.
And the trend started already in US. Replace robots with Indians and Chinese
and you see that it started. Now we move jobs offshore for cheapper labor
and fire at home. This generated the constant decline in real wages in last
6 years. If in a couple of years the Chinese and Indians earn "too much"
the jobs will move in Africa for next decade. And in 20 years or more the
autonomous robots I was talking about are here.
Yes, we are facing the next step in the social evolution. The point of no
return where the free market capitalism is obsolete and have to be changed
with something better. Something better involve stronger democratic control
over economic power. And the humble beginning on that will be a tightly
controlled minimum wage rise.
Bob Kolker
>
> The next stem will be migration toward a post capitalist society, where the
> companies are labor owned.
> Possibly not yet the 100% labor owned system, we may be to far away of it
> due to historical reasons, but an equal share of it.
> That is. The management team have to be 50% appointed by labor and 50%
> by capital owners and the resulting proffits to be shared.
If the past is any guide to the future criminal racketeers will control
labor. The major labor unions have a very close relationship to
organized crime.
Bob Kolker
>
Jeffrey Turner
> "The Trucker" <mik...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>"Les Cargill" <lcar...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>>>retro...@comcast.net wrote:
>>>
>>>How many minimum wage hikes have you lived through? Next time,
>>>watch beer prices. They go up exactly by the proportion that
>>>minimum wage goes up.
>>
>>If all wages rise and all prices rise then there has most certainly
>>been
>>a change and it has made a difference. i.e. that money stuffed in
>>your mattress or held in the form of fixed rate government bonds
>>will have lost some of its purchasing power.
>
> Yes, exactly. That is the total extent of the change to be expected, in
> the long run.
Claptrap and flapdoodle. A lawyer is not going to raise her rates in
lockstep with the minimum wage. Nor is an engineer making 70K going to
get a raise when the minimum wage rises. And your beer-drinking
friend's hazy memory notwithstanding, no prices go up in lockstep with
the minimum wage either. This stuff doesn't happen in theory, and it
doesn't happen in practice. It only happens in the imaginations of
wealthy conservatives.
Jeffrey Turner
>
>
> I find at least strange that the so called" right wing economists" always
> look at keeping the wages low the measure to combat inflation and never
> look at the other side.
How many of them go out of their way to keep their own wages low?
That's how you know you can't trust them, they break their own rules.
Jeffrey Turner
> On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 18:44:02 -0400, Nospam <nos...@example.com> wrote:
> >
>
>>MP wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Gross economic ignorance. If this *average* market-clearing wage
>>>applied to *every* sector of the economy, then there would (as the
>>>candidate said) be no need for a minimum wage. In fact, some jobs are
>>>simply not worth $7.25/hour, or even $5/hour, for an employer ... and
>>>the higher the miminum wage, the more unemployment as employers either
>>>squeeze more productivity out of fewer such employees, automate, or
>>>leave the job undone.
>>
>>So you believe that they can squeeze more even now and they don't due to
>>their charitable souls ?
>>
>>Do you want to buy an acre of land on (former planet ) Pluto ?
>
>
>
> And some jobs are only worth ten cents an hour.
Conservative economists?
Robert Bunn
> Robert Bunn wrote:
>
>> Yes. This is because they use capital (i.e., machines and equipment)
>> to
>> assist their production. Not all of the value of goods is due to the
>> labor of the workers. Workers who have better equipment produce
>> better
>> goods, or more goods, or both.
>
> Correct. The problem is that most of the workers do not have the
> equipment
> required to do on their own because of the system itself.
>
You're right. The answer is for every auto worker to own his own
factory, obviously.
Robert Bunn
"Jeffrey Turner" <jtu...@localnet.com> wrote in message
news:12jn69s...@corp.supernews.com...
> Nospam wrote:
>>
>>
>> I find at least strange that the so called" right wing economists"
>> always
>> look at keeping the wages low the measure to combat inflation and
>> never
>> look at the other side.
>
> How many of them go out of their way to keep their own wages low?
> That's how you know you can't trust them, they break their own rules.
>
Ad hominem is ... ah, you probably know and don't care. Try a little
intellectual honesty sometime. Pay attention to the arguments
themselves.
Robert Bunn
Nobody said anything about lockstep. I said long run. Please take your
straw men elsewhere. They're cluttering up the place.
Jeffrey Turner
Doesn't that depend who owns them? Fly-by-night corporations and those
only interested in this quarter's or this year's balance sheet tend to
be as or more abusive of things than no owner at all. And public
ownership, with joint control and regulation, can be the most
responsible of all - as long as the people control the gov't.
>>>I can still capture all of the income in the country just by raising
>>>my
>>>prices, without incurring any added expenses.
>>>for it."
Nonsense - unless you own the water - nothing has that perfect an
elasticity.
>>Yep. Republican heaven.
>
> No, simple economic reality. If the amount of currency available to
> spend on consumption changes without any change in the capacity for
> production, prices will simply adjust to the new amount.
People don't have to buy the same things.
Jeffrey Turner
If you work for da boss, and da boss wants to hear that keeping wages
low is good for the economy, that's what you tell him. Just don't be a
sap and keep your own wages low. But da boss man'll pay you plenty to
tell him what he want to hear, whether it true or not.
Jeffrey Turner
OK, then you're just making a profession of faith. Nothing else stays
constant enough "in the long run" to justify the assertion. In the
short run, a raise in the minimum wage helps out people on the lowest
rungs of the pay scale.
Vid...@tcq.net
so in your world, we must control the price of everything, after all a
raise in the price of everything would devastate all business's. so you
see, some will be affected, some will not, some will raise their
prices, others will look for new ways to do things.
otherwise we would have had no business's left by the end of the
1930's, wait a minute, we rebounded in the 1930's big time with a ever
growing minimum wage, something is not right here with your faith based
view.
your narrow view on growth is pathetic. its like beating a dead
horse, wait. its like watching a moron beat a dead horse, something i
would never do, but i have seen lots try it.