minimum wage
jim blair
Robert Westbrook wrote:
> Minimum wage is to guarantee labour a baseline purchasing power. Goods
> and services required for basic living essentials will be met by
> minimum wage. .
Hi,
If that really were the objective, the way to to it would be eitc, not a
minimum wage. One obvious response to a higher minimum wage is to hire
fewer people; it only guarantees labour a baseline purchasing power to
people who HAVE jobs. A generous eitc by contrast, would encourage
employment.
Remember when there were "full service" filling stations? And elevator
operators? And actual people to answer your phone calls? And laundries
instead of laundromats? There are many ways to reduce employment, either
by (expensive) machines, or by having the customer do some of the work.
I think a higher minimum wage accelerates this process. Is that GOOD? And
especially, is it GOOD for someone with no special skills or experience
who is looking for a first job?
My web page has a MINIMUM WAGE section and a file on eitc.
--
,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___( O O )___ooo_______________
(_)
jim blair (jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu) For a good time call
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834
Gary Forbis
jim blair wrote:
>
> Robert Westbrook wrote:
>
> > Minimum wage is to guarantee labour a baseline purchasing power. Goods
> > and services required for basic living essentials will be met by
> > minimum wage. .
>
> Hi,
>
> If that really were the objective, the way to to it would be eitc, not a
> minimum wage. One obvious response to a higher minimum wage is to hire
> fewer people; it only guarantees labour a baseline purchasing power to
> people who HAVE jobs. A generous eitc by contrast, would encourage
> employment.
>
> Remember when there were "full service" filling stations? And elevator
> operators? And actual people to answer your phone calls? And laundries
> instead of laundromats? There are many ways to reduce employment, either
> by (expensive) machines, or by having the customer do some of the work.
>
> I think a higher minimum wage accelerates this process. Is that GOOD? And
> especially, is it GOOD for someone with no special skills or experience
> who is looking for a first job?
>
> My web page has a MINIMUM WAGE section and a file on eitc.
Yes I think an acceleration of the process towards automation and
customer
provided services is good. I'd prefer a flat disbursement to all
enfranchised
inviduals rather than an eitc. I'd fund such a disbursement from a
sales tax.
I don't think income tax is the right source for funding basic living
essentials.
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
jim blair
jim blair:
My web page has a MINIMUM WAGE section and a file on eitc.
Gary Forbis wrote:
> Yes I think an acceleration of the process towards automation and
> customer
> provided services is good. I'd prefer a flat disbursement to all
> enfranchised
> inviduals rather than an eitc. I'd fund such a disbursement from a
> sales tax.
> I don't think income tax is the right source for funding basic living
> essentials..
Hi,
I am all for automation, but I think that when it is at the expense of
the bottom workers, and not even economic, then it is not so good. And
service? That is what is lost when workers are replaces so the customer
must do it themself. As in pump gas, laundromats, and the growing number
of self service resturants.
A distribution of government to the "enfranchised"? What about the
"disenfranchised"? Aren't we supposed to care for them? I don't know just
what you mean here, but is would probably be better than a minimum wage.
And given the complex income tax code today,(and the really complicated
additions just made to it by Congress), and the way the IRS operates
today, I am not going to say anything in favor of the income tax as we
know it.
Gary Forbis
jim blair wrote:
>
> jim blair:
> My web page has a MINIMUM WAGE section and a file on eitc.
>
> Gary Forbis wrote:
> > Yes I think an acceleration of the process towards automation and
> > customer
> > provided services is good. I'd prefer a flat disbursement to all
> > enfranchised
> > inviduals rather than an eitc. I'd fund such a disbursement from a
> > sales tax.
> > I don't think income tax is the right source for funding basic living
> > essentials..
>
> Hi,
>
> I am all for automation, but I think that when it is at the expense of
> the bottom workers, and not even economic, then it is not so good. And
> service? That is what is lost when workers are replaces so the customer
> must do it themself. As in pump gas, laundromats, and the growing number
> of self service resturants.
I know. In a fully automated economy there will be automation and self
help.
Humans will be pushed out of production and distribution and into
concept
formation and consumption. I think this is good. Services provided by
the consumer carry no profit for the provider of goods and result in a
more egalitarian society.
> A distribution of government to the "enfranchised"? What about the
> "disenfranchised"? Aren't we supposed to care for them? I don't know just
> what you mean here, but is would probably be better than a minimum wage.
There will always be voting restrictions. Some restrictions will
continue
to be based upon age and some on residency and time in residency. While
we can care for others it should not preclude putting our house in
order.
> And given the complex income tax code today,(and the really complicated
> additions just made to it by Congress), and the way the IRS operates
> today, I am not going to say anything in favor of the income tax as we
> know it.
OK.
--
--gary
for...@accessone.com
jim blair
Robert wrote:
Have you seen any of the so-called new studies on min wage? I
havent so Im curious about it. Up until recently only the really
populist/Leftist advocacy non-economist types pushed the rise of the
min wage. In fact many of the "real" economists who called themselves
Liberal like Princeton's Alan Blinder who recently served with the FED
was against it too....
Hi,
My web page has a MINIMUM WAGE section and a file on eitc. There is some
reference to Card & Krueger who are mostly the ones associated with these
new studies. The not only "prove" that higher min wages don't reduce
employment, they also "prove" that a raise in price does not reduce
sales. There is no empirical bases for "supply & demand"!
See also my file on "The Use of Statistics", on how to "prove" things.
Hey, you didn't give a return address.
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
Rob...@Johnson.com (Robert) writes:
>On Thu, 25 Sep 1997 08:58:23 -0700, jim blair
><jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
>>Robert Westbrook wrote:
> Have you seen any of the so-called new studies on min wage? I
>havent so Im curious about it. Up until recently only the really
>populist/Leftist advocacy non-economist types pushed the rise of the
>min wage. In fact many of the "real" economists who called themselves
>Liberal like Princeton's Alan Blinder who recently served with the FED
>was against it too.
> Everything Ive read seemed to agree that min wage increases
>reduced employment for the unskilled and just provided more money for
>those who were lucky enough to be employed after the increase. It had
>and still seems to have an unassailable logic behind it. The basic
>market mechanism. However, suddenly I started hearing some Liberals
>who started claiming some "new studies" had been done and that even
>Alan Blinder had changed his view on it. Of course Alan Blinder is a
>Liberal so maybe he was at the margin and easily persuaded. However,
>Im still curious about the "new studies". It was brought up suddenly
>when Clinton psuhed for the min wage increase.
I am guessing that these "new studies" that are being referred to
are the ones by Card and Krueger. Their book, Myth and Measurement
collects most of them. Most studies that I have seen are done with time
series data. That is, a comparison is made between how high the employment
of some group (usually teens) was during periods of high real minimum wage
vs. how big is was during periods of low real minimum wage. The comparison
method is usually some form of least squares, but that is just a technical
(but important) matter. Card and Kruger used a different method and got
different results. Not just different numbers, but numbers that either
didn't appear to be significantly negative, or were even significantly
positive. Many have reviewed these works. Some have loved them, others
have attacked them. Having read their book (except for like the last few
chapters) I feel that it is an interesting but deeply flawed application
of a good method. I would like to see it run again where the flaws could
be avoided.
Jim in Boulder
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>Robert wrote:
> Have you seen any of the so-called new studies on min wage? I
> havent so Im curious about it. Up until recently only the really
> populist/Leftist advocacy non-economist types pushed the rise of the
> min wage. In fact many of the "real" economists who called themselves
> Liberal like Princeton's Alan Blinder who recently served with the FED
> was against it too....
>Hi,
>My web page has a MINIMUM WAGE section and a file on eitc. There is some
>reference to Card & Krueger who are mostly the ones associated with these
>new studies. The not only "prove" that higher min wages don't reduce
>employment, they also "prove" that a raise in price does not reduce
>sales. There is no empirical bases for "supply & demand"!
You are mischaracterizing their work. They never question supply
and demand, and in fact they never deny that increases in the minimum wage
CAN decrease employment, just that it MUST do so. While I don't think much
of the data that they had to work with, they did an admirable job with-in
those constraints.
>See also my file on "The Use of Statistics", on how to "prove" things.
This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty. I am a
student of econometrics and even I can barely stand how much analysis they
go into. They were carefull, they were innovative, I just think that they
were done in by their data.
Jim in Boulder
jim blair
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
They not only "prove" that higher min wages don't reduce
employment, they also "prove" that a raise in price does not reduce
sales. There is no empirical bases for "supply & demand"!
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
> You are mischaracterizing their work. They never question supply
> and demand, and in fact they never deny that increases in the minimum wage
> CAN decrease employment, just that it MUST do so. While I don't think much
> of the data that they had to work with, they did an admirable job with-in
> those constraints.
Hi,
I think it implied. With the higher prices that the NJ fast food stores
charged after the wage increase, the "fact" that they needed just as much
help indicated that they did as much business as before. Contrary to the
"law of supply & demand".
See also my file on "The Use of Statistics", on how to "prove" things.
Yes, I add that to a lot of posts. I think it is a good essay :-)
> This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
> accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty.
Not dishonest, just that Penn is not a control for NJ, ESPECIALLY during
the summer. But with so many things going on at once, I question the
meaning of such empirical data. Similar. I think, to the CO2/Global
warming debate. Theory says it should happen. Critics say, show the
warming.
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
Robert@Johnson (Robert) writes:
>On 1 Oct 97 04:20:24 GMT, elm...@rastro.Colorado.EDU (ELMORE DANIEL
>JAMES) wrote:
>>
>> You are mischaracterizing their work. They never question supply
>>and demand, and in fact they never deny that increases in the minimum wage
>>CAN decrease employment, just that it MUST do so. While I don't think much
>>of the data that they had to work with, they did an admirable job with-in
>>those constraints.
>>
>>>See also my file on "The Use of Statistics", on how to "prove" things.
>>
>> This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
>>accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty. I am a
>>student of econometrics and even I can barely stand how much analysis they
>>go into. They were carefull, they were innovative, I just think that they
>>were done in by their data.
>>
>> Jim in Boulder
> I dont think he was questioning there honesty. The stat bit is a
>tag which he always appends to his posts. I think he was just saying
>its very common - the misuse of statisitcs, as everyone notes.
That is why I was carefull to not say that he was impuning their
honesty. I just stated that his section of his handling data was only
relevant IF he was (though I guess it would also be relevant if he was
just saying they screwed up).
> To me - a non-economist, it seems to fly in the face of the logic
>of supply and demand too. Even Professor Blinder in a book forcefully
>outlines the logic of why we shouldnt just raise the min wage (as I
>posted , he seems to have changed his mind now). Most people who argue
>that we shouldnt seem to always argue it on the basis of its
>irrefutable logic , rather than any empirical basis - thats why to me
>its so startling.
You raise an interesting issue, and I certainly have to word from
God to hand on to you, but I will add one thing. I don't think that the
divide between logic and empirical work is as wide as one might think.
Come up with 100 regressions that show that increasing the minimum wage
doesn't decrease employment and you have a minimum chance of getting
published. Present the 100 regressions with a model that shows why it
happened and your chances go up noticeably. My point is that logic is
sometimes come up with to justify the empirical work.
> Maybe, in the studies of economics one finds literally millions
>of market imperfections based on empirical studies making my surprise
>naive. But to me its very surprising. In Krugman's book he describes
>the Philips Curve and how there was never a satisfactory theoretical
>grounding for it - that it was accepted on empircal grounds. He also
>says some economists always found something "fishy" about it and that
>it turned out to be an illusion. You say you find the data sort of
>wanting. Is it still up in the air then ? The claim about raising the
>min wage and how it doesnt always increase unemployment among the
>unskilled segment of workers?
I suspect (and that is all I can do) that the question of exactly
when and by how much and how often an increase in the minimum wage will
reduce employment is up in the air, but that there is a general tendency
for this to happen.
Jim in Boulder
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
> They not only "prove" that higher min wages don't reduce
>employment, they also "prove" that a raise in price does not reduce
>sales. There is no empirical bases for "supply & demand"!
>
>ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
>
>> You are mischaracterizing their work. They never question supply
>> and demand, and in fact they never deny that increases in the minimum wage
>> CAN decrease employment, just that it MUST do so. While I don't think much
>> of the data that they had to work with, they did an admirable job with-in
>> those constraints.
>Hi,
>I think it implied. With the higher prices that the NJ fast food stores
>charged after the wage increase, the "fact" that they needed just as much
>help indicated that they did as much business as before. Contrary to the
>"law of supply & demand".
>
There analysis didn't say anything about how much labor the fast
food joints NEEDED after the raise, just how much they used. And again,
they never attacked the law of supply and demand in whole, or even the
part that says that, all other things held constant, the more something
costs, the less is demanded. They just said that it may not hold all the
time and gave their attempt at an explanation of when it would and
wouldn't hold in the back of their book.
Jim in Boulder
Derek Nalecki
In article <343290...@facstaff.wisc.edu>, jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> says:
>
>jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>
> They not only "prove" that higher min wages don't reduce
>employment, they also "prove" that a raise in price does not reduce
>sales. There is no empirical bases for "supply & demand"!
>
Actually there is a wealth of empirical data, as well as theory (try
George Reisman's "Capitalism") offering conclusive proof for validity
of supply and demand, and insidentally that higher minimum wage creates
mass unemployment.
>
>ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
>
>> You are mischaracterizing their work. They never question supply
>> and demand, and in fact they never deny that increases in the minimum wage
>> CAN decrease employment, just that it MUST do so. While I don't think much
>> of the data that they had to work with, they did an admirable job with-in
>> those constraints.
>
>Hi,
>I think it implied. With the higher prices that the NJ fast food stores
>charged after the wage increase, the "fact" that they needed just as much
>help indicated that they did as much business as before. Contrary to the
>"law of supply & demand".
That would of course depend on whether there was a comparable (as far as
convienience for example) outlets existed which charged lower prices.
If the same governemnt which mandated the higher minimum wage (and thus
higher prices) also outlawed competition which could offer lower price
(through lower wages), than you cannot look narrowly to NJ and declare
that supply and demand did not work. The effect of the law simply manifested
itself farther down the line - among suppliers, goowers, manufacturers,
etc.
Sorry, _your_ analysis is childishly simplistic and therefore invalid.
>
>See also my file on "The Use of Statistics", on how to "prove" things.
Try it yourself? ;-)
>
>Yes, I add that to a lot of posts. I think it is a good essay :-)
>
>> This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
>> accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty.
>
>Not dishonest, just that Penn is not a control for NJ, ESPECIALLY during
>the summer. But with so many things going on at once, I question the
>meaning of such empirical data. Similar. I think, to the CO2/Global
>warming debate. Theory says it should happen. Critics say, show the
>warming.
Again icorrect or perhaps "merely";-) simplistic and narrow. There is
no theory which meets the rigors of scientific validation that agrees
with the so-called "global warming".
Reliable critics of G-W question not only lack of empirical evidence but
the validity of the claim itself (see Ronald Bailey's "Eco-Scam").
derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
"Never initiate force against another. _That_ should be the underlying
principle of your life. But should someone do violence to you, retaliate
without hesitation, without reservation, without quarter, until you are
sure that he will never wish to harm - or never be capable of harming
- you or yours again."
(F. Paul Wilson - 'THE SECOND BOOK OF KYFHO; Revised Eastern Sect Edition')
********************* MY OTHER COMPUTER IS A LAP-TOP *******************
Robert Vienneau
> Robert@Johnson (Robert) writes:
> > To me - a non-economist, it seems to fly in the face of the logic
> >of supply and demand too. Even Professor Blinder in a book forcefully
> >outlines the logic of why we shouldnt just raise the min wage (as I
> >posted , he seems to have changed his mind now). Most people who argue
> >that we shouldnt seem to always argue it on the basis of its
> >irrefutable logic , rather than any empirical basis - thats why to me
> >its so startling.
I am not an economist either. However, those people are mistaken. The
basis for their logic has been questioned recently. The question of
whether in a competitive economy wages could be determined by supply
and demand is currently a subject of debate. Here's an example of
somebody who doubts it:
The idea of an inverse relation between wages and employment is
central to the marginalist or neoclassical wage theory. In that
context it depends on the possibility of substitution between
production factors (direct substitution) and consumer goods
(indirect substitution) following changes in distribution. It is
argued that when, for example, the labor supply increases, the
fall in wages due to competition among workers will make it
advantageous for employers to use more labour-intensive production
techniques, and this, other things being equal, will bring an
increase in employment (and vice versa if wages rise).
[Footnote 15:] Recently economists have tended to construct
'short-period' demand curves for labour, which assume given
equipment, rather than the type of substitution described
in the text - based on a change in production methods and in
the type of machinery used - which takes a longer time to
carry out. This way of dealing with the demand for labour,
however, meets the following problems, described by Hicks:
'one of the cooperating factors - capital - is, at any
particular moment, largely incorporated in goods of a certain
degree of durability [...] the change in conduct which
follows from the change in relative profitability cannot
immediately be realised. [...] In the short period therefore
it is reasonable to expect that the demand for labour will
be very inelastic, since the possibility of adjusting the
organization of industry to a changed level of wages is
relatively small [...] Since the whole conception of marginal
productivity depends upon the variability of industrial methods,
little advantage seems to be gained from the attempt which is
sometimes made to define a 'short period marginal product' the
additional product due to a small increase in the quantity of
labour, when not only the quantity, but also the form, of the
cooperating capital is supposed unchanged. It is very doubtful
if this conception can be given any precise meaning which is
capable of useful application' (Hicks, 1932, pp. 19-21).
In addition, it is argued that (in the same situation) a drop in
wages will reduce the prices of those goods whose production
requires relatively more labour. On the basis of the marginalist
theory of consumer behavior this will lead to an increase in demand
for such goods compared to those whose production is less labour-
intensive. This will result in increased employment in the economy
as a whole.
[Footnote 16:] Both of these substitution mechanisms are subject
to serious difficulties and criticisms, which I shall not go into
here; suffice it to mention that both direct and indirect
mechanisms fail because, as was shown by Sraffa and then during
the 1960s in the debate on capital theory, relative prices do not
necessarily change in the direction predicted by marginalist
theory following variations in distribution: if wages fall the
prices of more labour-intensive products may actually go up
rather than down, and the more labour-intensive techniques may
become *less* advantageous. The marginalist theory of demand
also meets serious problems in demonstrating that changes in
relative prices really do lead to substitution in consumption
favoring goods whose relative price has fallen; on the latter
point see Kirman, 1989.
If these arguments are accompanied by the idea that competition means
unlimited downward flexibility of wages when there is unemployment,
we have a tendency for the labour market to adjust automatically
towards full employment.
[Footnore 17:] Of course, downward sloping labour demand curves
and wage flexibility ensure a tendency to the full employment of
labour only if there are no obstacles to the adjustment of
investments to full employment savings, such as persistent
rigidities in the interest rate.
-- Antonella Stirati, _The Theory of Wages in Classical
Economics_, Edward Elgar, 1994.
This book is translated from Italian and based on a successful PhD
thesis supervised by P. Garegnani.
Notice that the argument summarized in Footnote 16 is not that
a downward sloping labor demand function would exist if other things
were not unequal; rather it is that there is no good logical
justification for arguing that a downward-sloping labour demand
function exists on marginalist principles.
Last month I create a numerical example to illustrate this thesis. I
repeat it below with one minor change in wording:
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Here is another concrete example in which the imposition of a
minimum wage higher than the going market wage leads to more workers
being hired.
2.0 QUANTITY FLOWS
Consider a firm that manufactures widgets. Each year the firm makes
1,000,000 widgets which sell for $10 dollars per widget. This firm
knows two techniques for making a million widgets, both of which require
three years to complete.
WORKERS HIRED EACH YEAR
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Technique 1: 400 Workers 300 Workers 432 Workers
Technique 2: 300 Workers 530 Workers 300 Workers
Suppose the firm uses the first technique. How many workers will be
employed per year? Keep in mind that the firm is producing the
same output year after year. So employees working side by side in
any given year will be working on each of the three phases of the
technique. The yearly quantity flows are like so:
YEARLY QUANTITY INPUT FLOWS FOR TECHNIQUE 1
1997 1998 1999 2000 ...
... 432 Workers
... 300 Workers 432 Workers
400 Workers 300 Workers 432 Workers
400 Workers 300 Workers 432 Workers
400 Workers 300 Workers ...
400 Workers ...
Totals: 1132 Workers 1132 Workers 1132 Workers 1132 Workers ...
If the firm uses the first technique year after year, this firm will
employ 1,132 workers per year. A similar argument shows that a firm that
uses the second technique will employ 1,130 workers per year. Which
technique the firm chooses to adopt depends on prices.
2.0 STARTING PRICES
Suppose the firm can hire workers at $7,000 per year and faces an
interest rate of 24.7906%. Recall that the price of a widget is $10.
Let's compare costs and revenues for the two techniques. Both techniques
result in revenues of $10 million per year. Assuming the workers
are paid at the end of the year, the costs are
INITIAL COSTS
Technique 1: 400 x 7,000 x (1.247906)^2 + 300 x 7,000 x 1.247906 + 432 x 7,000
= $10,004,957
Technique 2: 300 x 7,000 x (1.247906)^2 + 530 x 7,000 x 1.247906 + 300 x 7,000
= $9,999,997
Notice that I have included interest charges, like any good accountant
should. The intelligent firm will choose the cheapest technique. So when the
wage is $7,000 per year, this firm will employ 1,130 workers.
Notice that, within round-off error, this firm makes zero economic profit.
So this could be a situation of long-run equilibrium.
2.0 A TEMPORARY POSITION
Suppose the workers throughout the economy use the democratic process
to impose a minimum wage of $7,500 per year. Firms cannot expect to make
the same rate of profit with higher labor costs. Banks share these
expectations and cannot expect interest rates to remain unchanged.
Suppose the interest rate falls to 17.2079% as a result of these
expectations. This firm still makes the same revenues since neither the
price of widgets nor the quantity sold are assumed to change. But the
costs are now:
NEW COSTS
Technique 1: 400 x 7,500 x (1.172079)^2 + 300 x 7,500 x 1.172079 + 432 x 7,500
= $9,998,485
Technique 2: 300 x 7,500 x (1.172079)^2 + 530 x 7,500 x 1.172079 + 300 x 7,500
= $9,999,995
This firm can save over $1,000 by switching to the first technique and
hiring two additional workers. The result of a government-imposed
higher wage is for this firm to hire more workers.
3.0 FINAL STATE
Since the firm is making pure economic profits above, the position
shown cannot be a long-run equilibrium position. Apparently, the market
has overestimated the fall in the rate of profit resulting from a higher
wage. Suppose the interest rate rises to 17.2242%. The costs are now:
NEW COSTS
Technique 1: 400 x 7,500 x (1.172242)^2 + 300 x 7,500 x 1.172242 + 432 x 7,500
= $9,999,998
Technique 2: 300 x 7,500 x (1.172242)^2 + 530 x 7,500 x 1.172242 + 300 x 7,500
= $10,001,502
Within round off error, the firm using the first technique no longer makes
a pure economic profit, as expected in equilibrium. Switching back to
the second technique would cause the firm to incur a loss.
4.0 CONCLUSION
I have presented another concrete example in which employment is compared
at a lower and higher wage. The firm in this example chooses how many
workers to hire on the usual cost-minimizing/profit-maximizing criterion.
Ignoring transient effects, the profit-maximizing firm chooses to hire
more workers at the higher wage in this example.
It is simply wrong to state that economic theory gives a priori
reasons for thinking a higher minimum wage will result in lower
employment.
--
Robert Vienneau Try my Mac econ simulation
r game, Bukharin, at
v
i ftp://csf.colorado.edu/econ/authors/Vienneau.Robert/Bukharin.sea
e
Wh n ether strength of b m ody or of mind, or wisdom, or virtue,
are @ always found...in o proportion to the power or wealth of
a ma f n [is] a questi c on fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves
in th u e hearing of . their masters, but highly unbecoming to
reason t able and fr e ee men in search of the truth.
u p -- Rousseau
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ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
Robert@Johnson (Robert) writes:
>On 5 Oct 97 22:52:23 GMT, elm...@rastro.Colorado.EDU (ELMORE DANIEL
>JAMES) wrote:
>>Rob...@Johnson.com (Robert) writes:
>>
>>>On 5 Oct 1997 11:57:38 GMT, rv...@see.sig.com (Robert Vienneau) wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>>>> Robert@Johnson (Robert) writes:
>>
>>>I purchased "Mathematical Economics"by Takayama, its described as
>>>"accessible and intuitive" but I find it incomprehensible.
>>>How does one go from an undergraduate text book - to a book like this?
>>
>> One buys a book by Alpha Chiang (sp). I don't recall the title
>>right now, but if you ever find a fairly thick white book by this author,
>>then you have found the perfect book for making the transition.
>>
>>>Ive read the "Making Of An Economist" in which they describe the
>>>general leap from undergraduate economics to postgraduate economics as
>>>a chasm. In fact they say undergraduate economics does little to
>>>prepare you for postgraduate economics , because the latter is so math
>>>intensive.
>>
>> Chiang was my only help when I made the jump, but it was enough.
>>
>> Jim in Boulder
>Thanks Ill look for it. I noticed a curious thing. You are at Colorado
>, so is Robert Vienneau and reading the heated exchange between
>Krugman and James Galbaith in SLATE - I noticed one of the articles by
>James Galbraith was archived at Colorado under a directory by Jamie
>Galbraith.
> Does Colorado represent a certain "School of thought" like they
>always say Chicago, MIT and other schools?
Not really. The macro side of things is pretty much in the grips
of the real business cycle school of thought, but that changes from year
to year. In fact, it looks like this year the New Keynesian school is
dominant. It depends on who is teaching what.
Jim in Boulder
jim blair
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
> If they charged higher prices and didn't loose any customers, I would
> say that, unless there was some other countering effect going on like
> increasing incomes in Jersey, then this is indeed a blow against supply
> and demand. However, the whole point is moot, since the Card and Kreuger
> study seemed to show that they didn't raise prices.
Hi,
Well I am at a disadvantage here since I don't have a copy of Myth &
Measurment (I returned it to our library). But I remember then saying
that the NJ fast food stores DID raise prices, did not have lower
profits. and did not reduce employment.
Of course a big difference between NJ and PA in the summer is the Jersey
shore summer tourist influx.
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
>> If they charged higher prices and didn't loose any customers, I would
>> say that, unless there was some other countering effect going on like
>> increasing incomes in Jersey, then this is indeed a blow against supply
>> and demand. However, the whole point is moot, since the Card and Kreuger
>> study seemed to show that they didn't raise prices.
>Hi,
>Well I am at a disadvantage here since I don't have a copy of Myth &
>Measurment (I returned it to our library). But I remember then saying
>that the NJ fast food stores DID raise prices, did not have lower
>profits. and did not reduce employment.
>Of course a big difference between NJ and PA in the summer is the Jersey
>shore summer tourist influx.
I recall that there was no price increase, but I haven't looked at
that section recently, so I'll have to dig out my copy. Also, while your
point about the shore having an influx of tourists in the summer is
interesting and may well warrant some investigation, however, as I recall
(and this is a section that it has been even longer since I read) that
they broke down NJ by district and saw that there was little differenct
across section. So unless tourists are staying in West NJ while they
vacation in east NJ as often as they stay in the east, then I would say
that this explanation has problems (unless I AM mis-remembering).
Jim in Boulder
jim blair
Earlier comment: (about my reference to my "Use of Statistics"
web page file).
>> This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
>> accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty.
>
>Not dishonest, just that Penn is not a control for NJ, ESPECIALLY during
>the summer. --jeb
Hi,
And to emphasize the point: I am NOT suggesting that they (Card or
Krueger)
are dishonest, or that they are TRYING to reach a false conclusion. But
I think that when people look at data and draw a conclusion that they
just
KNOW is absurd, they look again to see where they went wrong. But if they
reach an unorthodox conclusion that they think MIGHT be right, they want
to get it published so if it does prove correct, they will get the
credit.
>But with so many things going on at once, I question the
>meaning of such empirical data. Similar. I think, to the CO2/Global
>warming debate. Theory says it should happen. Critics say, show the
>warming.---jeb
Derek:
Again icorrect or perhaps "merely";-) simplistic and narrow. There is
no theory which meets the rigors of scientific validation that agrees
with the so-called "global warming".
Reliable critics of G-W question not only lack of empirical evidence but
the validity of the claim itself (see Ronald Bailey's "Eco-Scam").
I agree that the empirical evidence is not convincing (yet!). But I think
the "theory" is clear. It is well established that CO2 adsorbs the IR
energy radiated by the earth. It is clearly established that human
activity is increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Adsorbing more energy makes things "warmer". Only the exact way that
extra energy will be distributed, and what the impact on climate will
be, is not certain from theory. See my file on "CO2 and Global Warming"
(environment section)
Recall what I think is a similar situation: CFC's (Freons). The theory
predicted that they would destroy the upper ozone layer, and the treaty
to limit/ban them was passed years before there was conclusive evidence
that they were indeed actually harming the ozone. Good thing we did NOT
wait for the evidewnce!
Robert Vienneau
In article <3439c61b...@news2.ibm.net>, ........... wrote:
> Does Colorado represent a certain "School of thought" like they
> always say Chicago, MIT and other schools?
My news server seems to be missing articles. I have no idea how comments
on my previous post transitioned to here.
Physically, I am not in Colorado, but in Rome, NY. Once again, economics
is only a hobby with me.
There are certain schools of thought represented in cyberspace resources
made available by the Communications for a Sustainable Future (CSF):
I happen to like Post Keynesianism:
The graduate program at Colorado State University seems to be open
to heterodox economics.
James (Jamie) Galbraith is not at Colorado either. He is a professor
in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and Department of
Government, University of Texas at Austin. The economics department
at the University of Texas has an Institutionalist tradition, although
I believe it may have been under attack recently. James Galbraith's
father, John Kenneth Galbraith, is important in the institutionalist
tradition.
--
Robert Vienneau Try my Mac econ simulation
r game, Bukharin, at
v
i ftp://csf.colorado.edu/econ/authors/Vienneau.Robert/Bukharin.sea
e m
n o Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom,
@ c or virtue, are always found...in proportion to
d . the power or wealth of a man [is] a question
r e fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the
e p hearing of their masters, but highly unbecoming
a a to reasonable and free men in search of the
m c truth.
s -- Rousseau
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>Earlier comment: (about my reference to my "Use of Statistics"
>web page file).
>>> This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
>>> accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty.
>>
>>Not dishonest, just that Penn is not a control for NJ, ESPECIALLY during
>>the summer. --jeb
>Hi,
>And to emphasize the point: I am NOT suggesting that they (Card or
>Krueger)
>are dishonest, or that they are TRYING to reach a false conclusion.
Fair enough.
>But
>I think that when people look at data and draw a conclusion that they
>just
>KNOW is absurd, they look again to see where they went wrong. But if they
>reach an unorthodox conclusion that they think MIGHT be right, they want
>to get it published so if it does prove correct, they will get the
>credit.
So you are saying that it might be true that the minimum wage
increased and there was no reduction in the demand for employment? This
seems to be somewhat of a departure from one of your earlier post where
you equated this will being an attempt to refute the law of supply and
demand.
Anyways, a result of no effect isn't absurd at all, at least not
from the standpoint of empirical analysis. Both in my own thesis work on
this topic and in my reading of the literature I find that half or more of
the models find no effect. And that is not too suprising since what is
being measured isn't the employment of minimum wage earners (reliable data
this way not being available), but that of teens, and since most teens
have historically made more than the minimum wage, the negative effectect
may just being getting statistically lost by including so many non-minimum
wage earners in the data.
I appreciate the Card and Kreuger approach, I dislike their data
set, but in the end, there really wasn't anything all that shocking about
their results. I guess that there uncorrected regression results, where
they found a significant POSITIVE effect was surprising, but all their
regression corrected results found were so effect, and as I said, in the
literature regressions that return a result of "no effect" are about as
rare as catholics in Vatican City.
Jim in Boulder
Bernard Rooney
In article <elmore.8...@rastro.Colorado.EDU>,
elm...@rastro.Colorado.EDU (ELMORE DANIEL JAMES) wrote:
>Rob...@Johnson.com (Robert) writes:
>
>>On 5 Oct 1997 11:57:38 GMT, rv...@see.sig.com (Robert Vienneau) wrote:
>
>>>
>>>> Robert@Johnson (Robert) writes:
>
>>I purchased "Mathematical Economics"by Takayama, its described as
>>"accessible and intuitive" but I find it incomprehensible.
>>How does one go from an undergraduate text book - to a book like this?
>
> One buys a book by Alpha Chiang (sp). I don't recall the title
>right now, but if you ever find a fairly thick white book by this author,
>then you have found the perfect book for making the transition.
>
>>Ive read the "Making Of An Economist" in which they describe the
>>general leap from undergraduate economics to postgraduate economics as
>>a chasm. In fact they say undergraduate economics does little to
>>prepare you for postgraduate economics , because the latter is so math
>>intensive.
>
> Chiang was my only help when I made the jump, but it was enough.
>
> Jim in Boulder
So much math and so little solutions. Hasn't it occurred that things aren't
working?
bernard
jim blair
Jim Blair:
But I think that when people look at data and draw a conclusion that they
just KNOW is absurd, they look again to see where they went wrong. But if
they reach an unorthodox conclusion that they think MIGHT be right, they
want to get it published so if it does prove correct, they will get the
credit.
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
> So you are saying that it might be true that the minimum wage
> increased and there was no reduction in the demand for employment? This
> seems to be somewhat of a departure from one of your earlier post where
> you equated this will being an attempt to refute the law of supply and
> demand.
Hi,
I mean that THEY think it possible. But WOULD refute "supply and demand"
both as applied to labor and (if as I recall) they claim that the stores
raised prices and sold more food.
> Anyways, a result of no effect isn't absurd at all, at least not
> from the standpoint of empirical analysis.
I agree that a study can fail to find an effect. That does not mean it is
not there.
I hope to post an article on science & economics some time, and discuss
the role of theory and data in both.
jim blair
Robert Vienneau wrote:(quoting a thesis)
[Footnote 15:] Recently economists have tended to construct
'short-period' demand curves for labour, which assume given
equipment, rather than the type of substitution described
in the text - based on a change in production methods and in
the type of machinery used - which takes a longer time to
carry out. This way of dealing with the demand for labour,
however, meets the following problems, described by Hicks:
'one of the cooperating factors - capital - is, at any
particular moment, largely incorporated in goods of a certain
degree of durability [...] the change in conduct which
follows from the change in relative profitability cannot
immediately be realised. [...] In the short period therefore
it is reasonable to expect that the demand for labour will
be very inelastic, since the possibility of adjusting the
organization of industry to a changed level of wages is
relatively small [...] Since the whole conception of marginal
productivity depends upon the variability of industrial methods,
little advantage seems to be gained from the attempt which is
sometimes made to define a 'short period marginal product' the
additional product due to a small increase in the quantity of
labour, when not only the quantity, but also the form, of the
cooperating capital is supposed unchanged. It is very doubtful
if this conception can be given any precise meaning which is
capable of useful application' (Hicks, 1932, pp. 19-21).
...
-- Antonella Stirati, _The Theory of Wages in Classical
Economics_, Edward Elgar, 1994.
This book is translated from Italian and based on a successful PhD
thesis supervised by P. Garegnani.
Hi,
All of this has little to no relevance to the minimum wage. Minimum
wage workers are NOT typically those with a great deal of specialized
capital invested in their job. Even the author closes with the
disclaimer that this probably does not have useful application.
RV:
Last month I create a numerical example to illustrate this thesis. I
repeat it below with one minor change in wording:
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Here is another concrete example in which the imposition of a
minimum wage higher than the going market wage leads to more workers
being hired.....
jeb:
Again we see the example of the company that takes 3 years to make
a $10 dollar widget. When the Empire State Building was constructed
in a little over a year.
When I pointed this out last time, the reply was that the Empire State
Building was just ASSEMBLED in that time; the parts it was made from
were around for much longer.
While not exactly related to the widget company, that reply tells me
that RV has no idea how things work in the real world; a problem
I have found to be common in mathematicians. Major one-of-a-kind items
like the Empire State Building are not assembled from parts that were
sitting around in warehouses. Most of the pieces are designed and made
specifically for the project. This created special problems of timing
in the case of the Empire State Building, since it is located in mid-
town Manhattan: there was no place to store the pieces. Everything had
to be delivered just as it was needed.
I will agree that the iron and stone that went into the building HAVE
been around for millions of years. Even BILLIONS of years, for the iron.
But I digress.
Then the firm-wide wage is raised from $7000 to $7500, by a process
that indicates that RV's understanding of politics and of economics
equals his understanding of engineering. To quote:
" Suppose the workers throughout the economy use the democratic process
to impose a minimum wage of $7,500 per year. Firms cannot expect to make
the same rate of profit with higher labor costs. Banks share these
expectations and cannot expect interest rates to remain unchanged.
Suppose the interest rate falls to 17.2079% as a result of these
expectations. This firm still makes the same revenues since neither the
price of widgets nor the quantity sold are assumed to change. But the
costs are now:..."
Hold on a minute: WHY do the banks "share these expectations"? What
reason is there to believe that raising the wages in a firm, or that
raising the minimum wage in the country will LOWER interest rates? Is
this based on any empirical data or logical reason?
I was looking at a graph of "Real" Interest rates in the US. (Nominal
Prime Rate minus average inflation rate based in the CPI). There were 7
increases in the federal minimum wage between 1974 and 1981, but the Real
interest rate continued to INCREASE that entire time. The minimum wage
was raised in October 1996, and the Federal Reserve RAISED the discount
rate by 1/4 % five months later, in March '97.
The minimum wage just increased in September, and Alan Greenspan is
talking of the possibility of RAISING interest rates again.
So why would the banks expect that after an almost 8% increase in the
minimum wage, there will be an over 7.5% DROP in interest rates?
But this unexplained fall in interest rates is critical to his example.
Does the Widget Company example show that raising the minimum wage can
result in companies hiring more workers? To me, it shows that if people
can be ASSUMED to do totally irrational things, the result can be just
about anything you want it to be.
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>Jim Blair:
>But I think that when people look at data and draw a conclusion that they
>just KNOW is absurd, they look again to see where they went wrong. But if
>they reach an unorthodox conclusion that they think MIGHT be right, they
>want to get it published so if it does prove correct, they will get the
>credit.
>ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
>> So you are saying that it might be true that the minimum wage
>> increased and there was no reduction in the demand for employment? This
>> seems to be somewhat of a departure from one of your earlier post where
>> you equated this will being an attempt to refute the law of supply and
>> demand.
>Hi,
>I mean that THEY think it possible. But WOULD refute "supply and demand"
>both as applied to labor and (if as I recall) they claim that the stores
>raised prices and sold more food.
I don't recall them saying anything about how much food they sold
before and after the minimum wage increase and do recall them saying that
there was no price increase in what they sold.
>> Anyways, a result of no effect isn't absurd at all, at least not
>> from the standpoint of empirical analysis.
>I agree that a study can fail to find an effect. That does not mean it is
>not there.
And the same thing applies to the C&K results. They NEVER said
that there is no loss of jobs after an increase in the minimum wage. They
state flat out that it could happen, they just don't think that it
necessarily always happens.
Jim in Boulder
Robert Vienneau
Jim Blair writes:
>Robert Vienneau wrote:(quoting a thesis)
>
> [Footnote 15:] [deleted]
>...
> [ A Jim Blair expression of incomprehension deleted ]
Somehow Mr. Blair managed to delete my comment that the following
example illustrates the argument summarized in Footnote 16.
>RV:
>
>Last month I create a numerical example to illustrate this thesis. I
>repeat it below with one minor change in wording:
>
>1.0 INTRODUCTION
>
> Here is another concrete example in which the imposition of a
>minimum wage higher than the going market wage leads to more workers
>being hired.....
[ Jim Blair's demonstration that he does not understand vertical ]
[ integration deleted. ]
[ Irrelevant criticism of my understanding of politics, based on ]
[ an egregious misreading, deleted. ]
>To quote:
>
> " Suppose the workers throughout the economy use the democratic process
>to impose a minimum wage of $7,500 per year. Firms cannot expect to make
>the same rate of profit with higher labor costs. Banks share these
>expectations and cannot expect interest rates to remain unchanged.
>Suppose the interest rate falls to 17.2079% as a result of these
>expectations. This firm still makes the same revenues since neither the
>price of widgets nor the quantity sold are assumed to change. But the
>costs are now:..."
>
>Hold on a minute: WHY do the banks "share these expectations"? What
>reason is there to believe that raising the wages in a firm, or that
>raising the minimum wage in the country will LOWER interest rates? Is
>this based on any empirical data or logical reason?
Logic. What would rational expectations be under the postulated
conditions (which are a country-wide increase in the minimum wage)?
>I was looking at a graph of "Real" Interest rates in the US. (Nominal
>Prime Rate minus average inflation rate based in the CPI). There were 7
>increases in the federal minimum wage between 1974 and 1981, but the Real
>interest rate continued to INCREASE that entire time. The minimum wage
>was raised in October 1996, and the Federal Reserve RAISED the discount
>rate by 1/4 % five months later, in March '97.
>
>The minimum wage just increased in September, and Alan Greenspan is
>talking of the possibility of RAISING interest rates again.
This is the usual Jim Blair statistical nonsense. Why does he look at
*real* interest rates and *nominal* minimum wages? My assumptions have
the firm choosing from the same set of techniques before and after the
wage change. Does Mr. Blair thinks that firms faced the same technical
choices in 1974, 1981, and 1996? My example was about an analysis
comparing positions of long run equilibrium. Does Mr. Blair think
the economy is always in long run equilibrium? (I know - Mr. Blair
doesn't know what "long run equilibrium" - or other standard economic
terminology - means.)
> [ deleted ]
>Does the Widget Company example show that raising the minimum wage can
>result in companies hiring more workers? To me, it shows that if people
>can be ASSUMED to do totally irrational things, the result can be just
>about anything you want it to be.
Mr. Blair's response certainly illustrates that some cannot follow a
rational argument. The *assumptions* are that firms prefer more profit
to less, that competitive pressures tend to wipe out pure economic
profits, and (ignoring a transient state) rational expectations. So I
assume that people behave rationally, as mainstream economists
understand rationality. The *conclusion* is that firms may hire more
people when wages are higher.
(If this conclusion is a surprise to students of mainstream economics,
that just illustrates that mainstream economics is widely misunderstood
and badly taught.)
Derek Nalecki
In article <343980...@facstaff.wisc.edu>, jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> says:
Sorry it took so long, my idiot ISP deleted all the articles from their server on Tuesday, and
did not restore the service until yesterday.
>Earlier comment: (about my reference to my "Use of Statistics"
>web page file).
>
>>> This is only relevant to this issue if you are really ready to
>>> accuse two Princeton professors with statistical dishonesty.
>>
>>Not dishonest, just that Penn is not a control for NJ, ESPECIALLY during
>>the summer. --jeb
>
>Hi,
>And to emphasize the point: I am NOT suggesting that they (Card or
>Krueger)
>are dishonest, or that they are TRYING to reach a false conclusion. But
>I think that when people look at data and draw a conclusion that they
>just
>KNOW is absurd, they look again to see where they went wrong. But if they
>reach an unorthodox conclusion that they think MIGHT be right, they want
>to get it published so if it does prove correct, they will get the
>credit.
>
>
>
>>But with so many things going on at once, I question the
>>meaning of such empirical data. Similar. I think, to the CO2/Global
>>warming debate. Theory says it should happen. Critics say, show the
>>warming.---jeb
>
>
>Derek:
>Again icorrect or perhaps "merely";-) simplistic and narrow. There is
>no theory which meets the rigors of scientific validation that agrees
>with the so-called "global warming".
>Reliable critics of G-W question not only lack of empirical evidence but
>the validity of the claim itself (see Ronald Bailey's "Eco-Scam").
>
>I agree that the empirical evidence is not convincing (yet!). But I think
>the "theory" is clear. It is well established that CO2 adsorbs the IR
>energy radiated by the earth. It is clearly established that human
>activity is increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
>Adsorbing more energy makes things "warmer". Only the exact way that
>extra energy will be distributed, and what the impact on climate will
>be, is not certain from theory. See my file on "CO2 and Global Warming"
>(environment section)
Jim, you usually make a lot of sense, but I have to completely disagree
with this one. I think both you and everyone who takes 'global warming'
seriously is missing a sense of proportion. (Apart from those people who
lie about it deliberately for their own ideological/luddite reasons).
Sure CO2 absorbs heat, rather than refelcts it but currently on Earth
it is an insignificant amount.
Ronald Bailey in his excellent exposure of the environ-mental movement
"Eco Scam - the false prophets of ecological apocalypse" says:
"... recent measurements of the ration of carbon isotopes in ocean water
by a team of American, Canadian and Australian scientists indicate that
'there has been no significant net CO2 released from the biospehere
during the last 20 years'. They conclude that global deforestation and
forest regrowth must be nearly in balance." - page 144; and again
"...With regard to global warming, the environmental apocalyptics again
happily ignore the 'first law of ecology' which says that 'everything is
connected to everything else'" - page 146 - or as I have argued elsewhere
all the models that "predict" global warming consist of *static* picture
of the biosphere. A snap-shot at a certain point in time if you will, and
do not include in the calculations the fact that the biosphere is
dynamic: airmasses constantly move, heat exchange between open water and
land and air takes place continuously.
But quite apart from all this consoder the following:
One of the "examples" of a runaway greenhouse effect, which is supposedly
what Earth will become if we do not "do something" is Venus.
But there is a problem, more precisely three problems with comparing
Venus to Earth.
1. Venus of course lies only ~2/3 AU from the Sun receving a lot more
heat, since the amont of heat diminishes in a geometric progression with
distance.
2. the athmospere on Venus is thick with clouds ranging from 45 to 60
kilometers above the surface; those clouds trap heat as well as the CO2
3. and most importantly the upper level of venusian athmosphere
*superrotates* - the athmosphere above the clouds moves 60 times faster
than the planet rotates. This crates an athmosperic layer which reflects
heat downward, because it is impenetrable to air from below (much like
the Antarctic polar vortex, which is responsible for the peridocal
thinning of ozone over Antarctica).
None of the above exist on Earth, nor indeed will exist as a result of
release of the CO2 into the athmosphere, even allowing that CO2 is
being released in substantial amounts, a claim which as i pointed out
before fails to meet the rigor of scientific iqnquiry.
Thus a global warming, or indeed a runaway greenhouse effect is extremely
unlikely on Earth, _in any circumstance_.
Like I said: a sense of proportion is lacking.
>
>Recall what I think is a similar situation: CFC's (Freons). The theory
>predicted that they would destroy the upper ozone layer, and the treaty
>to limit/ban them was passed years before there was conclusive evidence
>that they were indeed actually harming the ozone. Good thing we did NOT
>wait for the evidewnce!
There is absolutely no evidence that the CFCs ever destroyed any of the
ozone layer on a permanent basis. Indeed most evidence suggest the
situation was a self-correcting one, and one reason for the correction
was _the presence_ of chlorine atoms in the stratospere.
The chlorine atoms combined with O3 (ozone) to form chlorooxides and O2
(oxygen) under one athmosperic condition, the broke into free chlorine
in O, which in turn combined with O2 to form O3 (ozone) again under the
subsequent athmospheric condition. More than that the chlorine was "freeing"
single oxygen atoms, used in ozone creation, by combining with oxygen that
was not part of ozone, into chlorooxides and then making those single
atoms "available" for combining with O2 to form ozone under just the right
conditions.
The whole thing was ciclical, thus the "hole" in ozone kept appearing,
dissapearing and apperaing again. The treaty banning CFCs was a political
and ideological con, perpetrated by the luddite rejects on the rest of us.
jim blair
jim blair:
But with so many things going on at once, I question the
meaning of such empirical data. Similar. I think, to the CO2/Global
warming debate. Theory says it should happen. Critics say, show the
warming.---jeb
>Derek Nalecki:
>Again icorrect or perhaps "merely";-) simplistic and narrow. There is
>no theory which meets the rigors of scientific validation that agrees
>with the so-called "global warming".
>Reliable critics of G-W question not only lack of empirical evidence but
>the validity of the claim itself (see Ronald Bailey's "Eco-Scam").
>
I agree that the empirical evidence is not convincing (yet!). But I
thinkthe "theory" is clear. It is well established that CO2 adsorbs the
IR energy radiated by the earth. It is clearly established that human
activity is increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Adsorbing more energy makes things "warmer". Only the exact way that
extra energy will be distributed, and what the impact on climate will
be, is not certain from theory. See my file on "CO2 and Global Warming"
(environment section)--jeb
Jim, you usually make a lot of sense, but I have to completely disagree
with this one. I think both you and everyone who takes 'global warming'
seriously is missing a sense of proportion. (Apart from those people who
lie about it deliberately for their own ideological/luddite reasons).
Sure CO2 absorbs heat, rather than refelcts it but currently on Earth
it is an insignificant amount.
Ronald Bailey in his excellent exposure of the environ-mental movement
"Eco Scam - the false prophets of ecological apocalypse" says:
"... recent measurements of the ration of carbon isotopes in ocean water
by a team of American, Canadian and Australian scientists indicate that
'there has been no significant net CO2 released from the biospehere
during the last 20 years'. They conclude that global deforestation and
forest regrowth must be nearly in balance." - page 144; and again
"...With regard to global warming, the environmental apocalyptics again
happily ignore the 'first law of ecology' which says that 'everything is
connected to everything else'" - page 146 - or as I have argued
elsewhere
all the models that "predict" global warming consist of *static* picture
of the biosphere. A snap-shot at a certain point in time if you will,
and
do not include in the calculations the fact that the biosphere is
dynamic: airmasses constantly move, heat exchange between open water and
land and air takes place continuously.
Hi,
You seem to be claiming that the CO2 level is NOT increasing. But the
increase is clearly measurable and well documented. The data from the
Mauna Loa observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii was published as long
ago as 1970. See the Sept 70 issue of Scientific American for such a
plot.
Since Hawaii is far from any major source of CO2 production (when the
volcano is inactive!), the levels represent the northern hemisphere
value. The method is so sensitive and accurate that the expected annual
variation is clearly seen: the level drops every spring (as plants bud
and grow leaves) and increases every fall (when the leaves decay). But
against this background there is a steady increase each year: a sawtooth
line moving up at an increasing slope.
This increase is clearly due to humans burning coal and petroleum, since
the relative amount of C-14 is decreasing (meaning that the added carbon
atoms have been out of circulation for many times the almost 6000 year
half-life of C-14). Also the annual increase is somewhat smaller than
the estimated amount that humans release each year. SOME but not ALL of
the human generated CO2 remains in the atmosphere, and so the level
constantly increases.
And CO2 traps heat radiated by the earth. About a hundred years ago,
chemist Savante Arrhenius had proposed that the ice age/warm age cycles
were caused by variations in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.---jeb
But quite apart from all this consider the following:
One of the "examples" of a runaway greenhouse effect, which is
supposedly
what Earth will become if we do not "do something" is Venus.
But there is a problem, more precisely three problems with comparing
Venus to Earth.
1. Venus of course lies only ~2/3 AU from the Sun receving a lot more
heat, since the amont of heat diminishes in a geometric progression with
distance.
2. the athmospere on Venus is thick with clouds ranging from 45 to 60
kilometers above the surface; those clouds trap heat as well as the CO2
3. and most importantly the upper level of venusian athmosphere
*superrotates* - the athmosphere above the clouds moves 60 times faster
than the planet rotates. This crates an athmosperic layer which reflects
heat downward, because it is impenetrable to air from below (much like
the Antarctic polar vortex, which is responsible for the peridocal
thinning of ozone over Antarctica).
None of the above exist on Earth, nor indeed will exist as a result of
release of the CO2 into the athmosphere, even allowing that CO2 is
being released in substantial amounts, a claim which as I pointed out
before fails to meet the rigor of scientific iqnquiry.
Thus a global warming, or indeed a runaway greenhouse effect is
extremely
unlikely on Earth, _in any circumstance_.
Like I said: a sense of proportion is lacking.--DN
I doubt that increasing the CO2 level would make the earth as hot as
Venus. But the surface of Venus is hot enough to melt lead. The Earth
could be considerably cooler than that and still be too hot for us
humans.--jeb
>
>Recall what I think is a similar situation: CFC's (Freons). The theory
>predicted that they would destroy the upper ozone layer, and the treaty
>to limit/ban them was passed years before there was conclusive evidence
>that they were indeed actually harming the ozone. Good thing we did NOT
>wait for the evidence!--jeb
There is absolutely no evidence that the CFCs ever destroyed any of the
ozone layer on a permanent basis. Indeed most evidence suggest the
situation was a self-correcting one, and one reason for the correction
was _the presence_ of chlorine atoms in the stratosphere.
The chlorine atoms combined with O3 (ozone) to form chlorooxides and O2
(oxygen) under one athmosperic condition, the broke into free chlorine
in O, which in turn combined with O2 to form O3 (ozone) again under the
subsequent athmospheric condition. More than that the chlorine was
"freeing"
single oxygen atoms, used in ozone creation, by combining with oxygen
that
was not part of ozone, into chlorooxides and then making those single
atoms "available" for combining with O2 to form ozone under just the
right
conditions.
The whole thing was ciclical, thus the "hole" in ozone kept appearing,
dissapearing and apperaing again. The treaty banning CFCs was a
political
and ideological con, perpetrated by the luddite rejects on the rest of
us.
----derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
On the ozone/CFC's. you may as well present the case for a flat earth.
Actually, I could make a better case that the earth is the center of the
universe than that the CFC's do not destroy the ozone layer.
Recall that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1995 was given to F.
Sherwood Rowland of U. Cal Irvine, Mario Molina of MIT, and Paul Crutzen
of the Max Planck Institute for their theoretical model of just HOW
nitrogen oxides and CFC's destroy the ozone layer. You might look at
http://www.almaz.com/nobel.html
for some details on this.
Also recall that DuPont held the patents on "Freons", the commercial
CFC's. They had a big financial interest in the use of the CFC's, and
initially resisted the idea that they could be harmful in any way. But
when the company management heard from their own chemists that the
Molina-Crutzen theory was true, the company quickly invested in
developing alternatives to the Freons.
THEORY and EVIDENCE
I made the connection between the "CO2/global climate change" situation,
and the "Minimum wage increase/employment restriction" situation,
because I see them as similar. For both, the theory that connects them
is clear, but any attempt to "prove" a connection empirically will give
results that are open to question, because both the national economy and
the world climate are complex systems subject to many influences. At any
particular time, the impact of (more CO2/higher minimum wage) can be
masked by many other uncontrolled factors. And those with either a
vested interest in, or a predisposition to believe, a lack of "proof"
for a connection can always find a way question the connection.
On the ozone/CFC connection, I recall reading about a year ago that the
"smoking gun" connection had finally been directly established, long
after the treaty had been signed. Observation of CFC's being broken up
by UV in the upper ozone layer, and releasing the Cl that triggers the
ozone decomposition.
THE POLITICS
But I am also puzzled by the politics of this. Opponents of the
"CO2/Global climate change" connection use the lack of a solid empirical
proof as the basis for supporting the continued massive, multi billion
dollar federal subsidy to the auto/truck/oil industries, while claiming
to support a free market. And support for the connection from those who
oppose nuclear power. when the acceptance of the harm from CO2 would
require a massive and rapid switch to nuclear electric power.
jim blair
Robert Vienneau wrote:
>To quote:
>
> " Suppose the workers throughout the economy use the democratic process
>to impose a minimum wage of $7,500 per year. Firms cannot expect to make
>the same rate of profit with higher labor costs. Banks share these
>expectations and cannot expect interest rates to remain unchanged.
>Suppose the interest rate falls to 17.2079% as a result of these
>expectations. This firm still makes the same revenues since neither the
>price of widgets nor the quantity sold are assumed to change. But the
>costs are now:..."
Hold on a minute: WHY do the banks "share these expectations"? What
reason is there to believe that raising the wages in a firm, or that
raising the minimum wage in the country will LOWER interest rates? Is
this based on any empirical data or logical reason?
>Logic. What would rational expectations be under the postulated
>conditions (which are a country-wide increase in the minimum wage)?
Hi,
Every increase in the US federal minimum wage is "a country-wide
increase". Do you agree that whatever you think is "logical", the
proposition that increases in the minimum wage are followed by,(or
are associated with) reductions in interest rates, is subject to
empirical testing?
So I was looking at interest rate data.
I was looking at a graph of "Real" Interest rates in the US. (Nominal
Prime Rate minus average inflation rate based in the CPI). There were 7
increases in the federal minimum wage between 1974 and 1981, but the Real
interest rate continued to INCREASE that entire time. The minimum wage
was raised in October 1996, and the Federal Reserve RAISED the discount
rate by 1/4 % five months later, in March '97.
The minimum wage just increased in September, and Alan Greenspan is
talking of the possibility of RAISING interest rates again.
>This is the usual Jim Blair statistical nonsense. Why does he look at
>*real* interest rates and *nominal* minimum wages? My assumptions have
>the firm choosing from the same set of techniques before and after the
>wage change. Does Mr. Blair thinks that firms faced the same technical
>choices in 1974, 1981, and 1996?
You are correct that I should not compare real with nominal. Just that
only by doing that could I even come close to making any match with your
claim.
The increases in the minimum wage occur in distinct steps, and employers
are very much aware of them. Real interest rates drift up or down, and
the change may be unnoticed.
So, I tried to give your claim a break based on the psychology of the
more visible effect. But yes, lets compare nominal to nominal. The effect
of the CPI would cancel out anyway.
A table of the increases in the federal minimum wage is on my web page
economics section, under MINIMUM WAGE, table.
There are many different interest rates: Prime, Federal rediscount, etc.
But they all rise or fall pretty much together. So I will provide a link
to the US Corporate Bond Yields (since it is for the Widget Company).
Look at
http://www.gobalfindata.com/tbcyld.htm
What I see in this data is that the minimum wage INCREASED in both 1967 &
68.
But interest rates INCREASED in both years, and increased every year from
67 until 1970.
I also see that the minimum wage increased in 1978,79,80 & 81. And each
of those years also had and increase in the interests for business.
Interest rates fell from 1983 until 87, but the minimum wage was
not raised during any of those years.
Perhaps you have some other data? Or read this data as supporting your
claim?
>My example was about an analysis comparing positions of long run
>equilibrium.
>Does Mr. Blair think
>the economy is always in long run equilibrium? (I know - Mr. Blair
>doesn't know what "long run equilibrium" - or other standard economic
>terminology - means.)
I don't think the economy is ever "in equilibrium". It is a constantly
changing dynamic system. Economists have often been mislead by thinking
in terms of an equilibrium. I hope to soon add to my web page an essay on
this; a draft version was posted a few weeks ago by by Steve Conover.
As I see it, both the economy and the atmosphere/ocean system are not
in equilibrium, but can be described by a "steady state" models. This
point is also made in the CO2 and Global Warming file in the Environment
section of my web page.
Derek Nalecki
I am. 1970 makes for pretty old data. I question the reliability of it
versus data gathered 20 years later with much more sophistocated instrumentation.
See P.D. Quay, et al. "Oceanic Uptake of Fossil Fuel CO2: Carbon-13
Evidence", Science (Apr 3, 1992), p74.
>Since Hawaii is far from any major source of CO2 production (when the
>volcano is inactive!), the levels represent the northern hemisphere
>value. The method is so sensitive and accurate that the expected annual
>variation is clearly seen: the level drops every spring (as plants bud
>and grow leaves) and increases every fall (when the leaves decay). But
>against this background there is a steady increase each year: a sawtooth
>line moving up at an increasing slope.
>
>This increase is clearly due to humans burning coal and petroleum, since
>the relative amount of C-14 is decreasing (meaning that the added carbon
>atoms have been out of circulation for many times the almost 6000 year
>half-life of C-14). Also the annual increase is somewhat smaller than
>the estimated amount that humans release each year. SOME but not ALL of
>the human generated CO2 remains in the atmosphere, and so the level
>constantly increases.
>
>And CO2 traps heat radiated by the earth. About a hundred years ago,
>chemist Savante Arrhenius had proposed that the ice age/warm age cycles
>were caused by variations in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.---jeb
Again that theory has not only not been proven, but never advanced beyond
that 100 year-old proposal. Like I said before, let's keep things in
perspective. Running for cover every time some nutcase with an axe to
grind against our society shouts 'boo', is ridiculous.
If come of the CO2 remains in the athmosphere I guess it must be 'hiding'
;-) because modern methods of detection cannot account for it.
The maximum eventual temperature is not the question. I thought better
of you than to try and avoid the issue this lamely.
The question is whether the process that increases the global temperature
at all can be repeated on Earth, whatever the eventual temperature
produced.
I have shown you that the process will not happen on Earth at all, because
most of the ingredients are impossible on Earth - at least for a few
millenia - thus invalidating the whole idea of the so-called 'Global
Warming'; and all you can say is 'yeah, so it won't _that_ hot'???
Again, I find this less than convincing; with the inclusion of the flat
earth cheap-shots, I find it impossible to believe at all. After all
if you had actual evidence, you would not need to resort to such garbage.
And keeping in mind that several *creadible* scientist
Here are some facts about Messrs Molina et all and their alleged "proof":
"Molina *concluded* [emphasis, dn] that CFCs must eventually percolate
into the stratosphere, where energetic ultraviolet light would strike
them and break them the molecular bonds that held them together"
- Ronald BAiley "Eco Scam", p 124
Moline had no proof, he did not attempted to find out what was going on,
he simply "concluded" something that agreed with his pre-conceived
notion. I don't know about you and your fellow eco-kooks, but that is
*not* what I call scientific rigour.
And continuing "They [Molina and Rowland, dn] predicted increasing levels
of CFCs in the athmosphere could lead to a 7 to 13 percent decline in
stratospheric ozone in the next one hundred years" - ibid.
Again no proof, no data, just baseless "conclusions".
Now the clinching proof for the good guys ;-) You claim there has been
an actual reduction in ozone levels, which is the 'smoking gun' "proving
Molina et al half-backed claims, right?
Well, " In March 1992, meteorologist [that's *real* scientist, not an
environmentalist, dn] Dirk De Muer and his collegues at the Belgian
Meteorological Insitute published a study showing the instruments used to
measure ozone have probably mistaken reductions in athmosperic sulfur
dioxide for declines in global ozone. The reduced sulfur dioxide, they
wrote, 'has induced a fictious Dobson total ozone trend of -1.69% per
decade. The reseachers found that, once the sulfur dioxide trends are
taken into account, there appears to be a small *upward* [emphasis, RB]
trend in global ozone" - ibid, p132.
You see the way level of ozone are currently measured is with the ground
based Dobson spectrometer, which measure the amount of ultraviolet
reaching the ground. But in that case **any atmospheric condition* which
affect the UV will be reported by the Dobson spectrometer. And sulfur
dioxide does absorb UV, so do many other compounds.
According to your environ-mental friends, the levels of ozone have decreased
between 1.7% and 3% between 1969 and 1986. But what's this the levels
of UV absorbing sulfur dioxide have decreased 1.69% a decade during the
same 17 years, which makes for a total of 2.87% decrease. Imagine _that_
So if the actual level of ozone have risen in the past 50 years, the theory
I presented originally holds; chlorine re-constitutes as much ozone as it
destroys.
Let me know how is your earth-as-center-of-the-universe piece going,
sunshine.
derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
"Never initiate force against another. _That_ should be the underlying
Robert Vienneau
Jim Blair wrote:
>Robert Vienneau wrote:
>
>>To quote:
>>
>> " Suppose the workers throughout the economy use the democratic process
>>to impose a minimum wage of $7,500 per year. Firms cannot expect to make
>>the same rate of profit with higher labor costs. Banks share these
>>expectations and cannot expect interest rates to remain unchanged.
>>Suppose the interest rate falls to 17.2079% as a result of these
>>expectations. This firm still makes the same revenues since neither the
>>price of widgets nor the quantity sold are assumed to change. But the
>>costs are now:..."
[...]
>>Logic. What would rational expectations be under the postulated
>>conditions (which are a country-wide increase in the minimum wage)?
Notice that Jim does not answer the question.
>Every increase in the US federal minimum wage is "a country-wide
>increase". Do you agree that whatever you think is "logical", the
>proposition that increases in the minimum wage are followed by,(or
>are associated with) reductions in interest rates, is subject to
>empirical testing?
You clearly don't understand my argument. It shows that the assumptions
of mainstream economics do not imply that an increase in minimum
wages, all else being equal, will result in the labor demanded
to produce a given final output necessarily decreasing. This is a
proposition of logic not refutable by empirical data.
Perhaps mainstream economics is mistaken. Maybe you believe that firms
prefer less profit to more, that nobody will take advantage of a
chance to make pure economic profits, or that comparative statics of
long run equilibria does not provide useful insight into the economy.
If so, you should tell us so. If you believe that mainstream economics
is misleading and want to defend the proposition that a raise in the
minimum wage decreases employment, you ought to give us some argument
before using data as a test.
Or perhaps you want to defend some sort of special case in mainstream
economics in which the proposition is true. Once again, you ought
to outline some theory before testing.
I continually wait for somebody to present any argument at all for
why a raise in the minimum wage tends to decrease employment.
In any case, the question remains why this trade-off in income
distribution is the right proposition to test. Do you think if
wages increase and output stays the same, profit does not decrease?
Or perhaps you have some arbitrary and unjustified notions about
how the value of the capital stock changes with the rate of profit?
(The value of the capital stock does change, but a correct comparative
statics argument for positions of long run equilibrium yields my
conclusion on the rate of profit.)
>So I was looking at interest rate data.
See, here you go jumping to conclusions. I could have called the
rate of interest "the rate of profits" in my example. But I was
using terminology common in a 100-year tradition of mainstream
economics.
[Irrelevant data deleted ]
>>This is the usual Jim Blair statistical nonsense. Why does he look at
>>*real* interest rates and *nominal* minimum wages? My assumptions have
>>the firm choosing from the same set of techniques before and after the
>>wage change. Does Mr. Blair thinks that firms faced the same technical
>>choices in 1974, 1981, and 1996?
Notice that this question goes unanswered.
>You are correct that I should not compare real with nominal. Just that
>only by doing that could I even come close to making any match with your
>claim.
Perhaps you understand neither the claim nor the logic of the argument
in which it is embedded.
>The increases in the minimum wage occur in distinct steps, and employers
>are very much aware of them. Real interest rates drift up or down, and
>the change may be unnoticed.
>
>So, I tried to give your claim a break based on the psychology of the
>more visible effect.
What are you talking about? The logic of mainstream theory is that real
changes are what's important in the long-run.
>But yes, lets compare nominal to nominal.
Why do you think that's what I'm suggesting?
>The effect of the CPI would cancel out anyway.
Why not compare real to real? My story had the price of output (widgets)
constant. And when one looks at trends in real minimum wages, one finds
it is piecewise decreasing over the time period from which Mr. Blair
draws his data. And how does Mr. Blair correct for rising productivity?
[ Irrelevant data deleted until Mr. Blair answers some of these ]
[ many questions. ]
>Perhaps you have some other data? Or read this data as supporting your
>claim?
I read your post as showing that you don't understand what's being
discussed, as not having a theory to justify your beliefs about the
minimum wage (that's true of mainstream economists in general), and
as showing that you don't know how to direct data at the questions
under consideration (also a very challenging question).
>>My example was about an analysis comparing positions of long run
>>equilibrium.
>>Does Mr. Blair think
>>the economy is always in long run equilibrium? (I know - Mr. Blair
>>doesn't know what "long run equilibrium" - or other standard economic
>>terminology - means.)
>
>I don't think the economy is ever "in equilibrium". It is a constantly
>changing dynamic system. Economists have often been mislead by thinking
>in terms of an equilibrium. I hope to soon add to my web page an essay on
>this; a draft version was posted a few weeks ago by by Steve Conover.
So why then should you empirically test any of my story directly?
>As I see it, both the economy and the atmosphere/ocean system are not
>in equilibrium, but can be described by a "steady state" models. This
>point is also made in the CO2 and Global Warming file in the Environment
>section of my web page.
And what is a steady state model?
jim blair
Hi,
My comments are attached after Michaels:
I am not an expert in atmospheric science, so I sent your
reply to someone who is:
name: TOBIS MICHAEL
email: TO...@SSEC.WISC.EDU
address: 1225 W DAYTON ST MADISON, WI 53706
building: ATMOSPHERIC OCEANIC & SPACE SCIENCES BLD 1031
phone: 608-263-2556
title: HONORARY ASSOC/FELLOW
division: GRADUATE SCHOOL
department: SPACE SCIENCE & ENGINEERING CENTER
------------------------------------------------------------
Here is his reply:
I'll look at it in more detail, but it doesn't take me long
to see that your correspondent is spouting nonsense, and
presumably so is the book he refers to, though often such
books do a fine job of saying one thing and seeming to
say another.
In particular, the balance of forest growth and deforestation
shows that biospheric carbon is in balance. The isotope measure
measured specifically removes the fossil carbon! So that can't
possibly be used as evidence.
Measuring CO2 is not a delicate operation, and detecting a 30 %
increase is hardly cutting edge science. I belive that it was
done to sufficient accuracy to resolve this question in the 19th
century.
Alas, it shows once again that people with something at stake will
not stop short of distorting the truth. Presumably your correspondent
is of honest intention, and maybe Bailey is too, but someone somewhere
has indulged in a dishonest fabrication.
It's really sad that "controversy" arises on issues that are actually
not in any sensible doubt whatsoever. In fact it is the third figure
in the standard undergraduate meteorology textbook (Wallace & Hobbs,
_Atmospheric Science, An Introductory Survey_, my copy is 1977) and the
curve is about as smooth and well-resolved as a curve can get. It also
appears in a recent Scientific American (about 3 years back?).
Is this conversation on your web page? I'd like to address it in more
detail but I'm pretty busy for the next few weeks. Until then feel free
to reproduce this message in whole or in part on the web or in usenet.
regards
mt
My Original Post and My Comments (added after I sent it to Mike Tobis)
>jim blair:
But with so many things going on at once, I question the
meaning of such empirical data. Similar. I think, to the CO2/Global
warming debate. Theory says it should happen. Critics say, show the
warming.---jeb
>
>>Derek Nalecki:
>>Again icorrect or perhaps "merely";-) simplistic and narrow. There is
>>no theory which meets the rigors of scientific validation that agrees
>>with the so-called "global warming".
>>Reliable critics of G-W question not only lack of empirical evidence but
>>the validity of the claim itself (see Ronald Bailey's "Eco-Scam").
>>
>
>I agree that the empirical evidence is not convincing (yet!). But I
think the "theory" is clear. It is well established that CO2 adsorbs the
>dynamic: air masses constantly move, heat exchange between open water and
>land and air takes place continuously.
>
Hi,
I agree with your first phrase, but after the first comma things go
down hill ;-)
You seem to be claiming that the CO2 level is NOT increasing. But the
increase is clearly measurable and well documented. The data from the
Mauna Loa observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii was published as long
ago as 1970. See the Sept 70 issue of Scientific American for such a
plot.
Derek Nalecki:
I am. 1970 makes for pretty old data. I question the reliability of it
versus data gathered 20 years later with much more sophistocated
instrumentation.
See P.D. Quay, et al. "Oceanic Uptake of Fossil Fuel CO2: Carbon-13
Evidence", Science (Apr 3, 1992), p74.
jeb:
I will try to check your article, but what do isotopes (C-13) have to do
with this? The concentration of CO2 in the air can be measured directly.
No need to involve the oceans or the isotopes. And if the idea is to
compare past with present, taking measurements for many years at the
same location and using the same method would be an advantage. No
question of a change in the technique. See below
>Since Hawaii is far from any major source of CO2 production (when the
>volcano is inactive!), the levels represent the northern hemisphere
>value. The method is so sensitive and accurate that the expected annual
>variation is clearly seen: the level drops every spring (as plants bud
>and grow leaves) and increases every fall (when the leaves decay). But
>against this background there is a steady increase each year: a sawtooth
>line moving up at an increasing slope.
And I saw an update of this data: the first was the 10 year 1858-68
interval. The Sept 83 issue of Scientific American (p173) shows the
Hawaii data from 1958-78. Exactly the same upward sawtooth, extended.
The CO2 concentration in 1958 was 316 ppm. In 1978 it was 336 ppm. (mean
annual value, between the summer low and winter high).
>
>This increase is clearly due to humans burning coal and petroleum, since
>the relative amount of C-14 is decreasing (meaning that the added carbon
>atoms have been out of circulation for many times the almost 6000 year
>half-life of C-14). Also the annual increase is somewhat smaller than
>the estimated amount that humans release each year. SOME but not ALL of
>the human generated CO2 remains in the atmosphere, and so the level
>constantly increases.
>
>And CO2 traps heat radiated by the earth. About a hundred years ago,
>chemist Savante Arrhenius had proposed that the ice age/warm age cycles
>were caused by variations in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.---jeb
Again that theory has not only not been proven, but never advanced beyond
that 100 year-old proposal. Like I said before, let's keep things in
perspective. Running for cover every time some nutcase with an axe to
grind against our society shouts 'boo', is ridiculous.
If some of the CO2 remains in the athmosphere I guess it must be 'hiding'
;-) because modern methods of detection cannot account for it.
What do you think the atmospheric CO2 concentration is for 1996?
Want to bet that is NOT higher than the 1978 level of 336 ppm? :-)
As for "never advanced beyond the 100 year old proposal", did you
watch the NOVA program last week about "Unlocking the Ice Age"?
The current theory that the rise of the Himalayan mountains caused
the latest ice age period is based on the fall in CO2 by the weathering
of the new mountains. It was even hinted that by putting so much CO2
INTO the atmosphere, we may be holding off ANOTHER ice age.
Derek:
I am not clear about what you are saying: do you say that CO2 is NOT
increasing but IF it did, it would "warm" the earth? Or that it is not
increasing, but that even if it did, it would not "warm" the earth. Or
that if it DOES "warm" the earth, it would not make it hot enough to be
a serious problem?
FREON
>>Recall what I think is a similar situation: CFC's (Freons). The theory
>>predicted that they would destroy the upper ozone layer, and the treaty
>>to limit/ban them was passed years before there was conclusive evidence
>>that they were indeed actually harming the ozone. Good thing we did NOT
>>wait for the evidence!--jeb
>
>There is absolutely no evidence that the CFC's ever destroyed any of the
>ozone layer on a permanent basis. Indeed most evidence suggest the
>situation was a self-correcting one, and one reason for the correction
>was _the presence_ of chlorine atoms in the stratosphere.
>The chlorine atoms combined with O3 (ozone) to form chlorooxides and O2
>(oxygen) under one athmosperic condition, the broke into free chlorine
>in O, which in turn combined with O2 to form O3 (ozone) again under the
>subsequent athmospheric condition. More than that the chlorine was
>"freeing"
>single oxygen atoms, used in ozone creation, by combining with oxygen
>that
>was not part of ozone, into chlorooxides and then making those single
>atoms "available" for combining with O2 to form ozone under just the
>right
>conditions.
>The whole thing was ciclical, thus the "hole" in ozone kept appearing,
>dissapearing and apperaing again. The treaty banning CFCs was a
>political
>and ideological con, perpetrated by the luddite rejects on the rest of
>us.
>----derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
>jeb:
On the ozone/CFC's. you may as well present the case for a flat earth.
Actually, I could make a better case that the earth is the center of the
universe than that the CFC's do not destroy the ozone layer.
Recall that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1995 was given to F.
Sherwood Rowland of U. Cal Irvine, Mario Molina of MIT, and Paul Crutzen
of the Max Planck Institute for their theoretical model of just HOW
nitrogen oxides and CFC's destroy the ozone layer. You might look at
http://www.almaz.com/nobel.html
for some details on this.
Also recall that DuPont held the patents on "Freons", the commercial
CFC's. They had a big financial interest in the use of the CFC's, and
initially resisted the idea that they could be harmful in any way. But
when the company management heard from their own chemists that the
Molina-Crutzen theory was true, the company quickly invested in
developing alternatives to the Freons.
Derek:
Again, I find this less than convincing; with the inclusion of the flat
earth cheap-shots, I find it impossible to believe at all. After all
if you had actual evidence, you would not need to resort to such garbage.
And keeping in mind that several *creadible* scientist
Here are some facts about Messrs Molina et all and their alleged "proof":
"Molina *concluded* [emphasis, dn] that CFCs must eventually percolate
into the stratosphere, where energetic ultraviolet light would strike
them and break them the molecular bonds that held them together"
- Ronald BAiley "Eco Scam", p 124
Yes, a perfectly reasonable assumption. The gases of the troposphere
are well mixed; the heavy ones do not tend to "sink to the bottom".
If they DID, people in low places like Death Valley and the Jordan
River valley would smother in Argon (MW= 39.9) and CO2 (MW= 44), both
heavier than "average air" (about 29). CO2 generated in a well or mine
shaft will layer there, but once mixed into the atmosphere, will not
layer out, but blend in uniformly to the troposphere.
The Freons are heavier (Freon 31 MW=68.5, some are over 200), but the
same blending would be expected. And since they are VERY inert
they would be expected to carry their Cl atoms up to the top of
the troposphere, where the UV would break the Freon molecule apart.
Other forms of chlorine are reactive; they do not make it to the
top of the troposphere before they react to form polar, water
soluble compounds like HCl, that wash out in rain, and end up back
on the surface or in the ocean.
Derek:
Moline had no proof, he did not attempted to find out what was going on,
he simply "concluded" something that agreed with his pre-conceived
notion. I don't know about you and your fellow eco-kooks, but that is
*not* what I call scientific rigour.
jeb:
His was the theory; he made a prediction. It took others
(experimentalist) to gather the data (or lack of) to prove it
(or not). They did confirm his prediction, but years later.
Recall that Einstein just predicted the change in angle between two
stars when the sun passed between them. He left it to others to
actually go to Easter Island and measure this. Einstein also had
no "proof", only a theory. The proof came later, and by others.
Derek:
And continuing "They [Molina and Rowland, dn] predicted increasing levels
of CFC's in the athmosphere could lead to a 7 to 13 percent decline in
stratospheric ozone in the next one hundred years" - ibid.
Again no proof, no data, just baseless "conclusions".
Now the clinching proof for the good guys ;-) You claim there has been
an actual reduction in ozone levels, which is the 'smoking gun' "proving
Molina et al half-backed claims, right?
jeb:
Actually, my "smoking gun" was not a drop in ozone, but the detection
of Freons and Cl in the ozone layer. But I will have to check my sources
on this; I may remember it wrong.
Derek:
Well, " In March 1992, meteorologist [that's *real* scientist, not an
environmentalist, dn] Dirk De Muer and his collegues at the Belgian
Meteorological Insitute published a study showing the instruments used to
measure ozone have probably mistaken reductions in athmosperic sulfur
dioxide for declines in global ozone. The reduced sulfur dioxide, they
wrote, 'has induced a fictious Dobson total ozone trend of -1.69% per
decade. The reseachers found that, once the sulfur dioxide trends are
taken into account, there appears to be a small *upward* [emphasis, RB]
trend in global ozone" - ibid, p132.
You see the way level of ozone are currently measured is with the ground
based Dobson spectrometer, which measure the amount of ultraviolet
reaching the ground. But in that case **any atmospheric condition* which
affect the UV will be reported by the Dobson spectrometer. And sulfur
dioxide does absorb UV, so do many other compounds.
According to your environ-mental friends, the levels of ozone have
decreased
between 1.7% and 3% between 1969 and 1986. But what's this the levels
of UV absorbing sulfur dioxide have decreased 1.69% a decade during the
same 17 years, which makes for a total of 2.87% decrease. Imagine _that_
So if the actual level of ozone have risen in the past 50 years, the
theory I presented originally holds; chlorine re-constitutes as much
ozone as it destroys.
jeb:
I know there are some technical problems with measuring the ozone layer,
but this is separate from detecting Cl and Freon IN the ozone layer.
So , are you saying Freons will NOT carry
chlorine up to the ozone layer, or that it does not matter? That the
Nobel
Prize work was really all wrong? It should have gone to that other guy?
Derek:
Let me know how is your earth-as-center-of-the-universe piece going,
sunshine.
jeb:
Actually that was my little joke. Properly understood, General Relativity
says that there is NO preferred frame of reference. It is as valid to use
the earth-as-center as to use the sun or the center of our galaxy. (It is
just that the equations of motion of the planets in our solar system are
a bit simpler if the sun is chosen). But that the earth has as much claim
as anywhere else to be "the center of the universe"..
Some think my humor is strange. Can't imagine why.
Michael Tobis
First, a couple of technical/editorial comments:
Jim, it's difficult to read these postings, as it's often unclear
which are your correspondents' words and which are yours. It would
be a big help if you followed the usenet conventions on this.
Proper text editors can insert a character at the beginning of
every line. If yours can't we'd all appreciate some alternative.
Also it would be a big help if you separated the post by topic.
The confusion of ozone depletion and global warming in the mind
of the casually interested observer is unfortunate, and discussing
them in the same article only contributes to the muddle.
That said, and with the caveat that I don't agree with all your
remedies, it's clear to me that you have the facts basically in order.
I need to clarify something in my mail that you quoted. It could
be construed as saying that a CO2 increase was detected in the
19th century. This is not true and I did not mean to say this.
What I meant to say is that 19th century technology would be sufficient
to detect the current abrupt increase in CO2.
It's stunning that people are still debating this question. There are
plenty of open questions and difficult discriminations in dealing
with global change. How are we to make progress if people continue to
squawk about issues that are already settled in the science?
The uncertainties in the science are utterly trivial compared to the
incompetence of the public as "served" by journalists, teachers,
and political leaders, in distinguishing between science and noise.
This question should be no more an issue than a flat earth. But then
again, neither should "creation science". I do a lot of wondering
how democracy can cope with increasing complexity and declining
trust in authority when the public is about as likely to believe in
poltergeists as in the greenhouse effect.
mt
Derek Nalecki
In article <62851e$2...@spool.cs.wisc.edu>, nale...@cadvision.com (Derek Nalecki) says:
>First, a couple of technical/editorial comments:
>
>Jim, it's difficult to read these postings, as it's often unclear
>which are your correspondents' words and which are yours. It would
>be a big help if you followed the usenet conventions on this.
>Proper text editors can insert a character at the beginning of
>every line. If yours can't we'd all appreciate some alternative.
>
>Also it would be a big help if you separated the post by topic.
>The confusion of ozone depletion and global warming in the mind
>of the casually interested observer is unfortunate, and discussing
>them in the same article only contributes to the muddle.
Yes Jim, your posts are not quite up to the standard his 'oner here is used
to.
>That said, and with the caveat that I don't agree with all your
>remedies, it's clear to me that you have the facts basically in order.
>I need to clarify something in my mail that you quoted. It could
>be construed as saying that a CO2 increase was detected in the
>19th century. This is not true and I did not mean to say this.
>What I meant to say is that 19th century technology would be sufficient
>to detect the current abrupt increase in CO2.
However, neither this 19th century technology, nor the very modern
methods I cited in my article, used in early 1990s have. Thus you
seem to be providing additional arguments for myself.
[Please don't, I do well enough on myown, and it is _you_ who needs all
the help he can get]
>It's stunning that people are still debating this question. There are
>plenty of open questions and difficult discriminations in dealing
>with global change. How are we to make progress if people continue to
>squawk about issues that are already settled in the science?
Sensible people are debating the qeustion, because may have originally
been conned into accepting your argument. Only upon careful examination
of all those kind of arguments, it becoame obvious that all those claims
are utterly baseless, wholly unsupported by facts and indeed unbelievable.
As you have proven to everyone here, by kvetching your prejudice instead
of presenting facts.
>The uncertainties in the science are utterly trivial compared to the
>incompetence of the public as "served" by journalists, teachers,
>and political leaders, in distinguishing between science and noise.
Indeed, and unfortunaly, most journalist have been presenting environmentalist
noise in lieu of science.
Or as a senior CNN editor admitted forgetting himself - 'on a question
of environmentalism we [the journalists] have move from reporting to
advocacy'.
>This question should be no more an issue than a flat earth. But then
>again, neither should "creation science". I do a lot of wondering
>how democracy can cope with increasing complexity and declining
>trust in authority when the public is about as likely to believe in
>poltergeists as in the greenhouse effect.
The public has no problem accepting authority, if it is based on reality,
rather that insane posturing of people with an axe to grind.
As you, Sir, would surely found out if you ever presented an argument
based on facts, reason and logic.
Posting baseless nonsense, and expecting people to accept it, because
you sign yourself with meaningless degrees and titles you received from
your fellow pristlings of the enviro-mental religion will not do it.
Jim, if you wanted to destroy your argument _this_ completely, a simple
addmitance that you were wrong would've done it. Wihthout the embarassment
of having this creature "support you" ;-)
derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
"Never initiate force against another. _That_ should be the underlying
Derek Nalecki
In article <34469E...@facstaff.wisc.edu>, jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> says:
>Hi,
>My comments are attached after Michaels:
>
>I am not an expert in atmospheric science, so I sent your
>reply to someone who is:
>
>name: TOBIS MICHAEL
> email: TO...@SSEC.WISC.EDU
> address: 1225 W DAYTON ST MADISON, WI 53706
> building: ATMOSPHERIC OCEANIC & SPACE SCIENCES BLD 1031
> phone: 608-263-2556
> title: HONORARY ASSOC/FELLOW
> division: GRADUATE SCHOOL
> department: SPACE SCIENCE & ENGINEERING CENTER
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Here is his reply:
>
>I'll look at it in more detail, but it doesn't take me long
>to see that your correspondent is spouting nonsense, and
>presumably so is the book he refers to, though often such
>books do a fine job of saying one thing and seeming to
>say another.
Thank you. That just about defines this debate from your side of the
argument, does it not?
Anytime some jerk starts his argument by accusing the other side of
'spouting nonsense', regardless of references and source cited, the
discussion becomes wholly political and has nothing to do with the facts
of the case.
I take this as an indication that the facts as I presented them, after
Mr. Bailey and his book are not being disputed, but rather that the
politics of environ-mental-ism are the subject. Thus..
[snip]
>Alas, it shows once again that people with something at stake will
>not stop short of distorting the truth. Presumably your correspondent
>is of honest intention, and maybe Bailey is too, but someone somewhere
>has indulged in a dishonest fabrication.
Alas, given the tone of Mr. Tobis' remarks I will not be so generous, or
perhaps a better term would be so hypocritical. Indeed 'those with something
at stake' will stop short of nothing to distort the truth. The environ-mental
movement, of which I presume Mr. Tobis is a member in good standing, does
this distortion of the truth rather masterfully.
Furthermore
"Measuring CO2 is not a delicate operation, and detecting a 30 %
increase is hardly cutting edge science. I belive that it was
done to sufficient accuracy to resolve this question in the 19th
century." is not a rebutal of my remarks through presentation of facts
which contradict me, but a typically unsupported, unreferenced enviro-bull.
>It's really sad that "controversy" arises on issues that are actually
>not in any sensible doubt whatsoever.
That is preposterous. It is precisely because facts which contradict this
insane claim of CFCs and "hole" in the ozone layer, which cannot be
wished away or (that would be a first) refuted with facts, reason and
logic by the environ-mental movement - the people with axe to grind
against our civilization - that doubts, and indeed outright disbeliev -
as it does in my case - exists. And is perfectly justified.
>Hi,
Well perhaps I was mistaken. That does not happen very often, but I will
admit I only read o few of your posts, so perhaps that was a statistically
invalid example. I could've just stambled on some posts where you made a
modicum of sense, that being an exception ;-)
Mea culpa, I shoul've written, 'Jim you made a sense in a hadfull of
posts, but...'.
Is _that_ better ? ;-)
>You seem to be claiming that the CO2 level is NOT increasing. But the
>increase is clearly measurable and well documented. The data from the
>Mauna Loa observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii was published as long
>ago as 1970. See the Sept 70 issue of Scientific American for such a
>plot.
>Derek Nalecki:
>I am. 1970 makes for pretty old data. I question the reliability of it
>versus data gathered 20 years later with much more sophistocated
>instrumentation.
>See P.D. Quay, et al. "Oceanic Uptake of Fossil Fuel CO2: Carbon-13
>Evidence", Science (Apr 3, 1992), p74.
>jeb:
>I will try to check your article, but what do isotopes (C-13) have to do
>with this? The concentration of CO2 in the air can be measured directly.
>No need to involve the oceans or the isotopes. And if the idea is to
>compare past with present, taking measurements for many years at the
>same location and using the same method would be an advantage. No
>question of a change in the technique. See below
I am not entirely sure, not being an atmospheric scientist myself. However
it is pretty clear the measurment of those isotopes is used as a refutation
of unsupported claims of there being a general increase in atmosperic CO2,
by credible scientists.
[big snip, since (sorry) all it contains is jeb's 'is too' to my 'is not';
not very flattering ;-)]
>Derek:
>Let me know how is your earth-as-center-of-the-universe piece going,
>sunshine.
>
>jeb:
>Actually that was my little joke. Properly understood, General Relativity
>says that there is NO preferred frame of reference. It is as valid to use
>the earth-as-center as to use the sun or the center of our galaxy. (It is
>just that the equations of motion of the planets in our solar system are
>a bit simpler if the sun is chosen). But that the earth has as much claim
>as anywhere else to be "the center of the universe"..
>
>Some think my humor is strange. Can't imagine why.
"..strange"? why-ever would anyone think that. Anyway you did a better job
on earth-as-a-center-of-the-universe that you ever did in the CFC/ozone
debate.
However I will question ;-) that definition as well.
That interperetation of GR clashes with the idea of a Big Bang. I will
grant you that Big Bang is a theory not completely established. However
so is GR, or at least there are holes ;-) in it, bigger than the alleged
one in the ozone layer.
According to BB the universe is expanding from the single point in time-
space continuum where the BB occured. And our galaxy is one of the older
ones, thus closer to the "edge" of the expansion, that its center.
I am not proposing that as a definitive rebutal of you idea - this idea,
this time ;-) simply stating _your interpretation_ of GR is just that.
derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
"Never initiate force against another. _That_ should be the underlying
Steven Hales
Joshua Halpern wrote:
> The point is of importance in seeing how far increases in the
> Greenhouse effect could provoke climatic response to changed
> CO2 concentrations. In this context, it is interesting to note
> that, since the upper layers of the atmosphere leak relatively
> more radiation to space than they trap, additional CO2 leads
> to atmospheric cooling rather than warming for atmospheric
> layers above about 20 km.
This is the midpoint of the lower stratosphere not the troposphere. As
Spencer and Christy point out not only has there been a cooling of the
lower stratosphere but also a cooling of the middle troposphere. But
that Stratospheric cooling is in line with ozone depletion measurements
there made by the TOMS satellite over the same time periods. Hence
presenting evidence of stratospheric cooling as evidence for global
warming when ignoring ozone depletion is disingenuous.
>
> <Note: there has been much discussion in this group about
> satellite measurements of a temperature decrease in the middle
> atmosphere. Greenhouse denialists have claimed this as a proof
> that there is no anthropogenically induced warming. Here is
> a clear statement made a decade ago, well before the satellite
> data was reported (maybe before the satellite was launched)
> establishing the physical basis for this decrease. Moreover,
> from sections I will not quote, it is also clear that the same
> increase in trace gas concentrations will lead to warming.
> In essence this shows that Michael Tobis, Paul Farrer and
> Bob Grumbine (and some others) have been committing truth,
> and the greenhouse denialists have been blowing hot air.>
This is totally wrong. The height of 20 km is within the Stratosphere
not the Troposphere. Tropospheric cooling contradicts model
predictions. The so-called denialists seem to be on the other side
completely ignoring the Satellite record for Tropospheric cooling.
Scott Nudds
: >You seem to be claiming that the CO2 level is NOT increasing. But the
: >increase is clearly measurable and well documented. The data from the
: >Mauna Loa observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii was published as long
: >ago as 1970. See the Sept 70 issue of Scientific American for such a
: >plot.
(Derek Nalecki) wrote:
: I am. 1970 makes for pretty old data. I question the reliability of it
: versus data gathered 20 years later with much more sophistocated
: instrumentation.
The seasonal fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentration have been
made since 1958, and the measurements continue to this day. The plot of
the data is probably one of the best known curves in science, showing a
yearly cyclic variation superimposed on an exponential curve.
The fact that you would question the validity data that is so clearly
unquestionable, shows that you are ignorant of the very fundamentals of
atmospheric change.
(Derek Nalecki) wrote:
: Here are some facts about Messrs Molina et all and their alleged "proof":
: "Molina *concluded* [emphasis, dn] that CFCs must eventually percolate
: into the stratosphere, where energetic ultraviolet light would strike
: them and break them the molecular bonds that held them together"
: - Ronald BAiley "Eco Scam", p 124
That's right Malecki. You keep on believing your pulp fiction, while
the scientists involved win nobel prizes.
Ozone depletion due to CFC's was proven long, long ago.
Your side - the promoters of ignorance - lost. Get over it. You have
obviously been scammed by the author of "Eco Scam".
--
<---->
jim blair
jim blair wrote:
Oops, I gave the wrong URL for bond interest rate data. Should be:
http://www.globalfindata.com/tbcyld.htm
Paul D. Farrar
On 15 Oct 97 03:38:51 GMT, nale...@cadvision.com (Derek Nalecki)
wrote:
>In article <3443B6...@facstaff.wisc.edu>, jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> says:
[deletions]
>>Hi,
>>You seem to be claiming that the CO2 level is NOT increasing. But the
>>increase is clearly measurable and well documented. The data from the
>>Mauna Loa observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii was published as long
>>ago as 1970. See the Sept 70 issue of Scientific American for such a
>>plot.
>>
>
>I am. 1970 makes for pretty old data. I question the reliability of it
>versus data gathered 20 years later with much more sophistocated instrumentation.
>See P.D. Quay, et al. "Oceanic Uptake of Fossil Fuel CO2: Carbon-13
>Evidence", Science (Apr 3, 1992), p74.
[deletions]
>derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
[deletions]
This is quite comical. derek, why don't you get out your copy of Quay
et al. and (1) reproduce for us the first two sentence of the body
text, (2) give the reference found in the second sentence, (3) tell us
how this squares with your claims.
Paul Farrar
Joshua Halpern
In sci.environment jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
: Joshua Halpern wrote:
: > Compare this to the misleading and false claims
: > : But quite apart from all this consider the following:
: > : One of the "examples" of a runaway greenhouse effect, which is
: I guess that Michael Tobis was right when he complained that my post
: confused who said what. The above is not FROM me but was what I was
: objecting to.
Nah, it's just that we are all prisoners of convention, and it is
hard to keep track of who said what in a ten way conversation. Sorry
for the misatribuation.
josh halpern
jim blair
Steven Hales wrote:
>
> Joshua Halpern wrote:.
Hi,
Sounds to me like this has been reduced to quibbling over terms.
The bottom line here is that if more heat is trapped in the atmosphere
near the surface, the upper part of the atmosphere would be EXPECTED to
cool. Measurments confirm this cooling. The implication is then that the
lower atmosphere is warmer, and this is the important part for our
weather/climate, and for heat transfer to the oceans.
Is this summary accurate?
jim blair
Michael Tobis wrote:
>First, a couple of technical/editorial comments:
>Jim, it's difficult to read these postings, as it's often unclear
>which are your correspondents' words and which are yours. It would
>be a big help if you followed the usenet conventions on this.
>Proper text editors can insert a character at the beginning of
>every line. If yours can't we'd all appreciate some alternative.
I did not realize that my post was confusing, but you are right.
Derik's comments that I quoted were read by others as being FROM
me. So in this reply, MY comments will have no > by them.
You will be "less than" :-)
>Also it would be a big help if you separated the post by topic.
>The confusion of ozone depletion and global warming in the mind
>of the casually interested observer is unfortunate, and discussing
>them in the same article only contributes to the muddle.
Actually I was combining THREE subjects, not just two. CO2/global
climate change, CFC's/ozone depletion AND the minimum wage/employment
loss. This is because I thought (incorrectly it would seem) that those
with a general knowledge of the world would know that in each of these
cases, the prevailing theories are clear, but that the empirical data
is still being debated.
The point was not to "debate" ANY of the three issues, but to call
attention to what I see as a parallelism between them. To be
explicit: I thought that all educated people know that economic
theory predicts that an increase in the mandated minimum wage will
have the effect of reducing employment for the unskilled; that
the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is expected
to change the climate, and that Freons are predicted to reduce the
thickness of the ozone layer.
And that in EACH of these cases, there is a problem with actually
MEASURING the predicted effect. So much so, that if only the
empirical data is considered (in the absence of theory), the
effects could not be considered proven.
Michael Tobis
jim blair (jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu) wrote:
: Hi,
: Sounds to me like this has been reduced to quibbling over terms.
: The bottom line here is that if more heat is trapped in the atmosphere
: near the surface, the upper part of the atmosphere would be EXPECTED to
: cool.
This is true but the argument isn't that simple. It does work out that
way though.
: Measurements confirm this cooling.
Yes, and this is in addition to any cooling attributable to ozone
depletion. The stratospheric cooling is a clearer signal than the
surface warming.
: The implication is then that the
: lower atmosphere is warmer,
If the stratosphere is cooler and the sun hasn't changed, something
else has to have changed. The surface getting warmer is one possibility.
It's also possible that albedo has changed or the extra energy is
going into the deep ocean. But warming at lower altitudes is the
simplest possibility.
: and this is the important part for our
: weather/climate, and for heat transfer to the oceans.
Sure.
: Is this summary accurate?
The problem is that Spencer and Christy see a small cooling
at lower altitudes where models predict warming. So there must be a
problem with the observations, with the models, or both. This
appears at present to be an open question. Its importance
to the big picture is exagerrated in some quarters though.
So while your points are correct, I don't think they summarize the
situation at issue, no. The observed stratospheric cooling corroborates
theory as does the observed surface warming. Sandwiched in between
is a region where models are in good agreement with direct though
sparse measurements ("radiosondes" a.k.a. weather balloons) and in
poor agreement with global measures from the MSU satellite.
The claim that this MSU data "disproves global warming" is nonsense, but
many people believe that because several sources have written about
this controversy in a skewed way so as to leave that impression.
There ought to be a law, don't you think?
mt
Steven Hales
Michael Tobis wrote:
>
> jim blair (jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu) wrote:
>
> : Hi,
> : Sounds to me like this has been reduced to quibbling over terms.
> : The bottom line here is that if more heat is trapped in the atmosphere
> : near the surface, the upper part of the atmosphere would be EXPECTED to
> : cool.
>
> So while your points are correct, I don't think they summarize the
> situation at issue, no. The observed stratospheric cooling corroborates
> theory as does the observed surface warming.
Show me where the TOMS record explains so little of the stratospheric
cooling as to make stratospheric cooling statistically significant in
support of model predictions. You can't have it both ways ozone
depletion and support of model predictions for cooling as a result of
surface warming.
[snip]
Regards,
Steve
jim blair
Robert Vienneau wrote:
>To be blunt, I find almost all of your posts absurd, confused, and
>misleading. Your habit of giving every one of your posts a new thread
>title seems designed to minimize the ability of readers to follow
>discussion.
Hi,
I often change the title in my reply when the subject changes. Maybe
it is a difference in our newsreaders, but for me, the title change
makes it much easier to tell the different mutations of a thread
apart.
Any comment from others?
>(restatement of the Widget Company that, when an increase in the
>minimum wage effects all their workers, responds by hiring more)
The INITIAL interest rate (before the higher minimum wage) was:
>Banks will also be charging 24.7906% as the rate of interest.
Then we have ...
> The rise in wages will affect the relative profitability of
>different industries differently. Industries that were relatively
>more labor-intensive will now be less profitable than others. Similarly,
>industries that were relatively more capital-intensive, at the previous
>equilibrium prices, will be relatively more profitable. These
>differences in the rate of profit among industries will create
>forces leading to disinvestment in some industries and greater investment
>in others. Notice that these forces need not coincide with those caused
>by changes in demand.
Well, close. But not exactly correct. Indusrties that use relatively
more LOW PAY = UNSKILLED labor may now be less profitable. Unless they
can find a way to reduce their use of such labor.
And note that it is MORE investment in the MORE profitable, and less
investment in the LESS profitable (unskilled labor intensive)
industries.
But MOST workers, and MOST industries will feel little or no impact
from the change. The most recent minimum wage increase (in Sept 97)
is estimated to have applied to less than 10 million workers. That is
out of the entire country.
> Notice that if the going rate of profits remains unchanged, the
>manufacturer of widgets is making a loss, whichever technique he uses.
>At least, the widget manufacter would make a better return by
>withdrawing his funds and lending them out. So, one
>might respond, this firm will shut down.
Exactly. Or move to Mexico.
>But there's nothing
>special about widgets.
If you say so. But THIS Widget company has 100% of its workers
effected by the minimum wage increase. This is not at all
typical. This company will have its payroll increased by over
7%, far more than the average company.
>Assuming all industries employ labor
>affected by this raise in wages directly or indirectly, *all*
>firms are making a loss if they record interest charges at the
>previous normal rate of profits. (Recall that, by assumption,
>they were previously just covering costs while making no pure
>economic profits.)
But ALL firms are not affected directly, and just what does
"indirectly" mean in this context? How does this apply to a large
high tech aircraft manufacturer like Boeing? Lots of workers, but
all making much more than minimum wage?
Or Microsoft, when the average worker gets over $100,000 per year?
How will they be affected?
> Clearly the normal rate of profits will be lower in whatever
>new long run equilibrium position is established.
In the economy, equilibrium is NEVER "established"; things are
ALWAYS changing. At least since the industrial revolution.
Name the date when "equilibrium is established".
>Consequently,
>banks will charge a lower rate of interest, as well.
>What can this rate of interest be such that the widget-making
>firm covers its cost and does not make any pure economic profits?
>Consider an interest rate of 17.2079%. The firm still makes the same
>revenues since neither the price of widgets nor the quantity sold are
>assumed to change. But the costs are now: ......
Why will banks charge Widget 17.2079% when Boeing and Microsoft will
pay the going rate of 24.7906%?
And if ANYONE out there thinks that there is any correlation between
minimum wage increases and interest rates, in invite you to look at the
dates of the minimum wage increases (on my web page, MINIMUM WAGE, table)
and the history of US Corporate Bond Yields at:
http://www.globalfindata.com/tbcyld.htm
Do you see any connection?
Is ANYONE out there even reading this?
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>Robert Vienneau wrote:
>>To be blunt, I find almost all of your posts absurd, confused, and
>>misleading. Your habit of giving every one of your posts a new thread
>>title seems designed to minimize the ability of readers to follow
>>discussion.
>Hi,
>I often change the title in my reply when the subject changes. Maybe
>it is a difference in our newsreaders, but for me, the title change
>makes it much easier to tell the different mutations of a thread
>apart.
>Any comment from others?
I like it. What I dislike is when the topic of a thread drifts so
bad that it no longer has any relevance to its title, or worse, half of
the posts in it do relate and others don't, and I have to sift to finds
the ones that are.
And I kind of like your posts, though I obviously don't agree with
you all the time.
Jim in Boulder
Derek Nalecki
In article <344D23...@facstaff.wisc.edu>, jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> says:
>>invalid example. I could've just stambled on some posts where you made a
>>modicum of sense, that being an exception ;-)
>>Mea culpa, I shoul've written, 'Jim you made a sense in a hadfull of
>>posts, but...'.
>>Is _that_ better ? ;-)
>
>of my writing, and my views on a wide range of topics, just look at my
>web page. Then tell me what you think.
I will. It's not _all_ eco-lala-land, is it?!? ;-)
>
>And looking again at your quote from above (from that Bailey book?): I
>see how it can be taken as evidence FOR human contribution to global
>climate change. If deforestation and forest regrowth are nearly in
>balance, as they say (and I think that is likely true), then the
>MEASURED increase in the CO2 concentration must be from another source.
>I don't know what they mean by "net CO2 released from the biospehere",
>but they could mean "excluding humans burning coal and oil".
Incorrect. The measurments said there *was no* increase in CO2. Net CO2
realease' likely means the difference between a realease and removal.
You _are_ aware CO2 is being constantly removed from the atmosphere I
trust?
So that while yiu can get a localized, in time and area increase, elsewhere/
elsewhen there will be a corresponding decrease, thus the overall level
- net level ;-) - of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is not increasing.
That's how I understood the quote.
>
>In that case the quote would make perfect sense, they would need isotope
>measurments, and it would lend support to the claim that humans are
>responsible for the measured CO2 increase.
>
Nope. That is not what the quote said. Nice try though.
>
>>Derek:
>>Let me know how is your earth-as-center-of-the-universe piece going,
>>sunshine.
>
>jeb:
>Actually that was my little joke. Properly understood, General Relativity
>says that there is NO preferred frame of reference. It is as valid to use
>the earth-as-center as to use the sun or the center of our galaxy. (It is
>just that the equations of motion of the planets in our solar system are
>a bit simpler if the sun is chosen). But that the earth has as much claim
>as anywhere else to be "the center of the universe"..
>
>Some think my humor is strange. Can't imagine why.
>
>>"..strange"? why-ever would anyone think that. Anyway you did a better job
>>on earth-as-a-center-of-the-universe that you ever did in the CFC/ozone
>>debate.
>>However I will question ;-) that definition as well.
>>That interperetation of GR clashes with the idea of a Big Bang. I will
>>grant you that Big Bang is a theory not completely established. However
>>so is GR, or at least there are holes ;-) in it, bigger than the alleged
>>one in the ozone layer.
>>According to BB the universe is expanding from the single point in time-
>>space continuum where the BB occured. And our galaxy is one of the older
>>ones, thus closer to the "edge" of the expansion, that its center.
>
>>I am not proposing that as a definitive rebutal of you idea - this idea,
>>this time ;-) simply stating _your interpretation_ of GR is just that.
>>derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
>
>
>General Relativity and the evolutionary universe (Big Bang) are not only
>not incompatable, the General Theory implies an expanding universe.
>Einstein did not like this idea, and altered his theory by putting in a
>factor to remove the expansion: he later agreed that this was a mistake.
>(he even called it his BIGGEST mistake).
I was not aware Einstein dod correct his view on "anti-gravity". I thought
it was Friedmann who did it.
>
>The only two theories of cosmology (Big Bang and Steady State) both are
>based on General Relativity, and both picture an expanding universe.
>
>Big Bang is the current favorite, and Steady State will have to explain
>the 7.35 cm radio energy, (corresponding to 3 degrees K, heat) detected
>as a general background "noise", before anyone will revive it. But this
>is not out of the question: Steady State may rise again!
>
>While both Steady State and Big Bang picture an expanding universe, in
>both the universe is not expanding FROM any point. Or perhaps this is
>better said as not expanding from ANY particular point; it is expanding
>from EVERY point (in both theories).
>
>You seem to be expressing the common misconception that the Big Bang
>model is like a bomb that has recently exploded in the middle of a large
>room.
>The problem with this analogy is that the fragments (galaxies) are
>expanding in space that was already there.
Like every environ-mental-ist who's lossing an argument about his
religion, you're being a snot. But that's to be expected. People passionate
about religion or quasi-religion cannot be expected to behave rationally.
The above is _not_ what I said. According to the Big Bang Theory there was
no "empty" space into which the matter of the the galaxies begun to
expand. I know it is difficult to understand, and requires a pretty
flexible mind, but the theory states that at the moment of the Big Bang
all of the space/time continuum consisted of the infestimally small area
of incredibly dense matter.
What was "outside" of that? Again according to the theory there was no
"outside". Just like right now there is no "outside" "into which" the
universe is expanding.
So that's why I said your idea of 'every point of the universe is its
centre' clashes with the BB theory.
>
>In the Big Bang model, it is not matter expanding INTO space, it is space
>(with matter in it) that is expanding. More like dots (galaxies, or
>better, galaxy clusters) on the surface of an expanding balloon (with no
>tied off place to inflate it, just a sphere). Any place on the balloon
>surface can been seen as the place that every thing else is moving away
>from. Any place is a good as any place else, so to speak.
You've got the BB correct here. But the analogy to the ballon, as far as
an idea that every point is a centre of the sphere, is incorrect when
applied to the expanding universe.
According to GR every point of which is not equidistant from the expanding
edge of the universe.
It is only when you add quantum mechanics and uncertainty principle that
you may claim space and time are finite but without edges or boundaries.
>
>My homework assignment is to look up P.D. Quay, et al. "Oceanic Uptake of
>Fossil Fuel CO2: Carbon-13 Evidence", Science (Apr 3, 1992), p74. and see
>what that is all about.
>
>Your homework is to look up the atmosphere CO2 concentration in ppm
>for several years from 1950 to 1996.
>
>Agreed?
I will certainly try. Could you suggest a source.
Credible one please. No, environmentalist are *not* credible, nor any
luddites with an axe to grind against our civilization.
Real scientists only.
derek n, RdNck, Pen-Arm of the Righteous, esq.
"Never initiate force against another. _That_ should be the underlying
jim blair
Derek Nalecki wrote:
>See P.D. Quay, et al. "Oceanic Uptake of Fossil Fuel CO2: Carbon-13
>Evidence", Science (Apr 3, 1992), p74.
Hi,
Is this some kind of a joke you are pulling? I looked up that article
last night. I was eager, based on your comments, to find something
published in a recognized, reviewed journal, that promoted the "flat
CO2 level atmosphere": fully the equivalent of finding support for the
"flat earth".
The very first paragraph claims that the CO2 increase in the earth's
atomsphere is well known, and corresponds to 57% of the CO2 that humans
are estimated to put into the air. They are trying to find out where
the OTHER 43% of the CO2 went.
How much of it went into the oceans? This is much harder to measure
since unlike the atmosphere, the oceans do not quickly mix to
uniformity. The deep water takes hundreds of years to exchange with
the surface, and different ocean currents hang together for years.
(Aside: the rapid mixing of the gases in the atmosphere is also
a factor in the Freon situation, but I have been told that it is
confusing to the readers to mix issues in a single post :-(
Anyway, I did not follow the details of their study, but clearly it
is quite different from what you (based on Eco-Scam?) indicated.
As for your homework assignment, I would expect most Geology texts,
or any thing with meteorology in the title. Try the standard
undergraduate meteorology textbook (Wallace & Hobbs,
_Atmospheric Science, An Introductory Survey_., or anything that
sounds close to that.
I will try to get a copy of that Bailey book, but I think you are
clearly way off base here. The indicator of how honest you are will
be the time that it takes you to recongize this fact.
And on the "Big Bang": perhaps it is easier to see in reverse: consider
the universe to be contracting (ie reverse time). Where will all the
parts meet? Right HERE. And that would be true no matter where HERE is.
jim blair
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
Robert Vienneau
> And I kind of like your posts, though I obviously don't agree with
>you all the time.
Hi,
Thanks.
On the specific topic of the continuning debate between me and
Robert Vienneau on the Widget Company that has 100% of their workers
affected by a 7% increase in the federal minimum wage; so they respond by
hiring more workers. Does his example make any sense to you?
To me, he is so obviously out of touch with reality that..... well, you
read my replies. I mean in many of the debates on this newsgroup, there
is some merit to each side. If someone is way off, they usually learn
and back off. Some even admit their error and learn from it.
But not here.
What do you think?
Robert Vienneau
jim blair writes:
>Robert Vienneau wrote:
>
>>To be blunt, I find almost all of your posts absurd, confused, and
>>misleading. Your habit of giving every one of your posts a new thread
>>title seems designed to minimize the ability of readers to follow
>>discussion.
>
>Hi,
>I often change the title in my reply when the subject changes.
No. You change the title almost always. Perhaps you do this to
disguise your continuing unwillingness or inability to answer
questions.
>Maybe
>it is a difference in our newsreaders, but for me, the title change
>makes it much easier to tell the different mutations of a thread
>apart.
It also makes it almost impossible to follow a discussion with
DejaNews.
[deleted]
>>(restatement of the Widget Company that, when an increase in the
>>minimum wage effects all their workers, responds by hiring more)
>
>The INITIAL interest rate (before the higher minimum wage) was:
>
>>Banks will also be charging 24.7906% as the rate of interest.
>
>Then we have ...
>
>
>> The rise in wages will affect the relative profitability of
>>different industries differently. Industries that were relatively
>>more labor-intensive will now be less profitable than others. Similarly,
>>industries that were relatively more capital-intensive, at the previous
>>equilibrium prices, will be relatively more profitable. These
>>differences in the rate of profit among industries will create
>>forces leading to disinvestment in some industries and greater investment
>>in others. Notice that these forces need not coincide with those caused
>>by changes in demand.
>
>Well, close. But not exactly correct. Indusrties that use relatively
>more LOW PAY = UNSKILLED labor may now be less profitable. Unless they
>can find a way to reduce their use of such labor.
And yet my story shows they may be made more profitable by increasing
their use of such labor. Some of us accept arithmetic.
>And note that it is MORE investment in the MORE profitable, and less
>investment in the LESS profitable (unskilled labor intensive)
>industries.
Whatever. These forces could be accomodated by price changes without
changes in final output. Besides my story is not about the impact
on an increase of the minimum wage on the quantity produced of widgets,
but on the effects of a general rise in wages on the choice of
technique.
>But MOST workers, and MOST industries will feel little or no impact
>from the change. The most recent minimum wage increase (in Sept 97)
>is estimated to have applied to less than 10 million workers. That is
>out of the entire country.
Little impact is not the same as no impact. Furthermore, an increase
in the minimum wage puts upward pressure on the wages of many workers
who are not formally covered by the law.
>> Notice that if the going rate of profits remains unchanged, the
>>manufacturer of widgets is making a loss, whichever technique he uses.
>>At least, the widget manufacter would make a better return by
>>withdrawing his funds and lending them out. So, one
>>might respond, this firm will shut down.
>
>Exactly. Or move to Mexico.
Irrelevant and misleading, because -
>>But there's nothing
>>special about widgets.
>
>If you say so. But THIS Widget company has 100% of its workers
>effected by the minimum wage increase. This is not at all
>typical. This company will have its payroll increased by over
>7%, far more than the average company.
Irrelevant.
As usual, you don't understand the logic of maximizing. If a firm
uses a mix of labor categories and is in long run equilibrium before
the change (i.e. covering costs but not making pure economic profits),
then an increase in the wages of *any* category will cause that
firm to be making a loss if that firm continues to use the same
interest rate in costing up its (unchanged) inputs. The exception is
if the wages of some of the labor categories simultaneously fall. Is
it your contention that an increase in the minimum wage will create a
tendency for the wages of better paid workers to fall?
>>Assuming all industries employ labor
>>affected by this raise in wages directly or indirectly, *all*
>>firms are making a loss if they record interest charges at the
>>previous normal rate of profits. (Recall that, by assumption,
>>they were previously just covering costs while making no pure
>>economic profits.)
>
>But ALL firms are not affected directly, and just what does
>"indirectly" mean in this context? How does this apply to a large
>high tech aircraft manufacturer like Boeing? Lots of workers, but
>all making much more than minimum wage?
All? You mean Boeing doesn't have any poorly paid workers to sweep
their factory floors? Who works in the copying department to ensure
the engineers get their reports reproduced? And there will not be
upward pressure on these person's wages with an increase in the
minimum wage?
>Or Microsoft, when the average worker gets over $100,000 per year?
>How will they be affected?
Typical Jim Blair. An irrelevant statistic that is almost certainly
wrong. If right, it's misleading. I highly doubt that the median
wage at Microsoft is $100K.
The theory Mr. Blair is searching for is known as the hypothesis
of "dual labor markets." There is a primary and secondary sector
in the labor market. The primary sector contains better-paying,
secure, and preferred jobs. The secondary sector has low-paying,
unstable, dead-end "Mcjobs". A raise in the minimum wage has can
have consequences throughtout the secondary sector. The employees
in a single firm or industry may be divided between sectors.
It's almost certainly the case that every firm either employs workers
in the secondary sector or buys goods that are partially made by
workers in the secondary sector or that are made with goods
that are partially...
Why, just the other day Microsoft decided that Bill needed to do
some P.R. in Arizona. Did Bill stay in a hotel and charge his
travel expenses to Microsoft? How much does the maid who made
his bed earn?
>> Clearly the normal rate of profits will be lower in whatever
>>new long run equilibrium position is established.
>
>In the economy, equilibrium is NEVER "established"; things are
>ALWAYS changing. At least since the industrial revolution.
>Name the date when "equilibrium is established".
Irrelevant and the usual demonstration of Jim Blair's misreading.
I'm not the one wanting to apply my story directly to data. But that's
another question Mr. Blair continually avoids. Insofar as he has anything
to say, he tends to draw on equilibrium reasoning. In fact, I asked
Jim Blair:
[>> Well, you have the problem that we do not live in a competitive ]
[>> economy, as competition is defined consistently with neoclassical ]
[>> theory. You still haven't addressed changes in productivity. ]
[>> And you have yet to address how a comparative statics argument ]
[>> about long run equilibrium can be applied to data directly. ]
I am clearly in sympathy with some who question the use of the logic
of comparative statics to draw conclusions directly about reality.
However, those who do draw conclusions from comparative statics, don't
need equilibria to be established ever. The claim is that there's a
tendency to equilibrium at some point. Then some of the data is exogeneously
changed. There is now a tendency towards a new equilibrium,
according to some of those who think comparative statics is useful. Perhaps
equilibria can even serve as some sort of a baseline without any such
tendency.
>>Consequently,
>>banks will charge a lower rate of interest, as well.
>>What can this rate of interest be such that the widget-making
>>firm covers its cost and does not make any pure economic profits?
>>Consider an interest rate of 17.2079%. The firm still makes the same
>>revenues since neither the price of widgets nor the quantity sold are
>>assumed to change. But the costs are now: ......
>
>Why will banks charge Widget 17.2079% when Boeing and Microsoft will
>pay the going rate of 24.7906%?
They will not. See above.
>And if ANYONE out there thinks that there is any correlation between
>minimum wage increases and interest rates,
As usual, you don't understand what's being claimed. From the post
to which Jim Blair is supposedly responding:
[>> >>Logic. What would rational expectations be under the postulated ]
[>> >>conditions (which are a country-wide increase in the minimum wage)? ]
[>> ]
[>> Jim has yet to answer the question. ]
Again:
[>> Once again, I ask do you believe that ]
[>> firms prefer a lower rate of profit and that nobody will take ]
[>> advantage of a chance to make pure economic profits? Or do you ]
[>> believe that comparative statics of long run equilibria does not ]
[>> provide useful insight into the economy? If you reject mainstream ]
[>> economics, what is your theory? ]
>in invite you to look at the
>dates of the minimum wage increases (on my web page, MINIMUM WAGE, table)
>and the history of US Corporate Bond Yields at:
>
>http://www.globalfindata.com/tbcyld.htm
>
>Do you see any connection?
What connection should I expect to see? After all, the economy is
never in long run equilibrium.
If you want me to do a rough and ready empirical analysis, besides the
above data, give me data since 1945 on the CPI, productivity, the
median wage, and the minimum wage. The analysis will be rough and
ready because I am not going to worry about autocorrelations or lagged
cross-correlations. I pick the above time period because I expect
a break in certain time series around 1970 and WW II. I could check
for the break in 1970, though I might not bother.
ELMORE DANIEL JAMES
jim blair <jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> writes:
>ELMORE DANIEL JAMES wrote:
>Robert Vienneau
>
>> And I kind of like your posts, though I obviously don't agree with
>>you all the time.
>Hi,
>Thanks.
> On the specific topic of the continuning debate between me and
>Robert Vienneau on the Widget Company that has 100% of their workers
>affected by a 7% increase in the federal minimum wage; so they respond by
>hiring more workers. Does his example make any sense to you?
No, but I must admit that I haven't really been following this
thread as much as I did in the past. This Tuesday I will defend my thesis,
so I have been kind of busy. Robert Vienneau writes some interesting
posts, but they tend to be long enough that at this point in my life I
just can't take time to give them the attention that I would need to in
order to make anything more than an off the cuff answer. He mentions
economic ideas that I am not familiar with, so he seems to have a
non-trivial knowledge of economics, so to really cross swords with him
would require time that I don't have an econ references which are packed
away.
That's the long-winded way of saying, I don't know.
>To me, he is so obviously out of touch with reality that..... well, you
>read my replies. I mean in many of the debates on this newsgroup, there
>is some merit to each side. If someone is way off, they usually learn
>and back off. Some even admit their error and learn from it.
>But not here.
>What do you think?
I think that you cannot, in general, raise the price of something
and not have the demand for it fall. However, I think that there are
exceptions in specific situations. If the minimum wage isn't allowed to
fall too far in its lows and isn't boosted too high when it is raised, it
may be that, along a narrow corridor, employers don't react to increases
of the legal wage floor.
Hmmm, yet another long-winded "I don't know." Winston Churchill
was right, economists SHOULD all have one arm chopped off so they would
stop saying, "But on the other hand..." :)
Jim in Boulder
R. Eric Swanson
In article <344eb...@news.cadvision.com>, nale...@cadvision.com says...
Why not go back 900 years??
See attached graph from the Law Dome ice core data.Search results for
http://www.antcrc.utas.edu.au/~tas/glbib/glaciobib.html.
Eric Swanson For e-mail, remove "XS" from end of address
--------------------------------------------------------------
begin 755 lawd_d18.gif
<encoded_portion_removed>
end
Michael Tobis
Steven Hales (sha...@pipeline.com) wrote:
: Michael Tobis wrote:
: > So while your points are correct, I don't think they summarize the
: > situation at issue, no. The observed stratospheric cooling corroborates
: > theory as does the observed surface warming.
: Show me where the TOMS record explains so little of the stratospheric
: cooling as to make stratospheric cooling statistically significant in
: support of model predictions.
Karoly et al., 1994, _Climate Dynamics_, vol 10, pp 97 - 105.
: You can't have it both ways ozone
: depletion and support of model predictions for cooling as a result of
: surface warming.
Why not? Ozone depletion dominates the temperature changes in the
Antarctic stratosphere, but global ozone depletion is rather marginal.
Where is the inconsistency that you perceive?
mt
jim blair
R. Eric Swanson wrote:
Why not go back 900 years??
See attached graph from the Law Dome ice core data.Search results for
http://www.antcrc.utas.edu.au/~tas/glbib/glaciobib.html.
Hi,
I saw your picture, but can't figure out what it is, or what it means.
Any explanation?
Joshua Halpern
>>A while ago I wrote:
>> The point is of importance in seeing how far increases in the
>> Greenhouse effect could provoke climatic response to changed
>> CO2 concentrations. In this context, it is interesting to note
>> that, since the upper layers of the atmosphere leak relatively
>> more radiation to space than they trap, additional CO2 leads
>> to atmospheric cooling rather than warming for atmospheric
>> layers above about 20 km.
>To which Steve Hales replied:
>This is the midpoint of the lower stratosphere not the troposphere. As
>Spencer and Christy point out not only has there been a cooling of the
>lower stratosphere but also a cooling of the middle troposphere. But
>that Stratospheric cooling is in line with ozone depletion measurements
>there made by the TOMS satellite over the same time periods. Hence
>presenting evidence of stratospheric cooling as evidence for global
>warming when ignoring ozone depletion is disingenuous.
and added:
>This is totally wrong. The height of 20 km is within the Stratosphere
>not the Troposphere. Tropospheric cooling contradicts model
>predictions. The so-called denialists seem to be on the other side
>completely ignoring the Satellite record for Tropospheric cooling.
I had eyeballed 18km as the dividing line between the stratosphere and
the troposphere from a graph in Wayne, but, just to be sure I went out
and looked, so here is what I found:
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/thesaurus/T/word16261.html:"Its height (the
troposphere) varies from 15 to 20 km in the tropics to about 10 km
in polar regions"
http://www.oma.be/BIRA-IASB/Project_educatif/Atmosphere-neutral/0-1.html
puts the height of the troposphere at 15 km.
http://www.star.ait.ac.th/star/rsnotes/CP5/CP5-2.htm puts the height of
the troposphere as 17 km in the tropics.
The most interesting site that I found on the satellite measurements was
http://www.ucar.edu/quarterly/spring97/discrepancy.html which links to
both the Spencer and Christy pages at Marshall and the group at NOAA which
has disputed their interpretation. (There is a new paper by S&C in
Nature published at the end of September which i have not seen.
There does appear to be considerable variation in where various people
place the tropopause, and it does move around with season and temperature
and weather and a lot of other things.
Josh Halpern
Steven E. Landsburg
In article <rvien-21109...@ua2.dreamscape.com>, rv...@see.sig.com
(Robert Vienneau) gives an interesting example to which it seems to me
that nobody has made an interesting response. Let me try to fill the gap.
In Vienneau's example, a firm has a choice between two production processes.
Either process can produce a widget in 3 years, using the following numbers
of workers:
> Technique 1: 400 Workers 300 Workers 432 Workers
> Technique 2: 300 Workers 530 Workers 300 Workers
>
Vienneau then shows that at an interest rate of about 24.79%, the second
technique minimizes the cost of producing a widget, while at an interest
rate of 17.2%, the first technique minimizes the cost of producing a widget.
Vienneau concludes that in a steady state, firms that produce a widget a year
with Technique 1 will employ 1132 workers, while firms that produce a widget
a year with Technique 2 will employ 1130 workers. Thus a fall in the
interest rate can cause employment to rise.
(Vienneau supplements this with a story about how a rise in the minimum
wage can lead to a fall in the interest rate, thereby cobbling together
a story about how a rise in the minimum wage can lead to a rise in
employment.)
But what's missing here is a story of the transition period between steady
states. Supppose that as soon as the interest rate rises to 17.2%, the
firm switches to Technique 2. Then it employs the following numbers of
workers:
In year 1: 300 on stage 2 of Technique 1
432 on stage 3 of Technique 1
300 on stage 1 of Technique 2
____
1032
In year 2: 432 on stage 3 of Technique 1
300 on stage 1 of Technique 2
530 on stage 2 of Technique 2
____
1262
In all subsequent years: 300 on stage 1 of Technique 2
530 on stage 2 of Technique 2
300 on stage 3 of Technique 2
____
1130
Compared to just sticking with Technique 1, this lowers costs by 100 in the
first year, raises costs by 130 in the second year, and lowers costs by 2 in
each year thereafter (I am taking a worker's wage to be the unit of "cost").
At the interest rate of 17.2%, this is a present *loss* of a bit over 7.
Thus firms will stick with Technique 1.
I conclude the following:
a) Vienneau's example as stated doesn't work. (Can it be made to
work with different numbers?)
b) If the goal is to argue that a higher interest rate can lead to
higher employment, surely there are simpler stories to tell. All
you have to assume is that nominal wages are sticky and the demand
for money depends negatively on the interest rate.
c) Examples like this, even when they are wrong, deserve to be taken
seriously. They can't be refuted by references to the median wage
at Microsoft and the other sorts of irrelevancies I saw when I
paged through this thread.
Steven E. Landsburg
Steven E. Landsburg
A followup and correction to my earlier post in this thread:
I posted in haste and got Techniques 1 and 2 all bollixed up. Vienneau
was talking about a fall in the interest rate causing the firm to switch
from Technique 2 to Technique 1, and somehow in the middle of the
discussion I started talking about a *rise* in the interest rate causing
the firm to swith from Technique 1 to Technique 2. So let me fix this:
The firm initially employs Technique 2, using 1130 workers per year in
the steady state. Now the interest rate falls and the firm has the
opportunity to switch to Technique 1. Completing the projects already
started, the firm employs:
In the first year, 530 workers on stage 2 of Technique 2, 300 on stage
3 of technique 2, and 400 on stage 1 of technique 1. Total: 1230.
In the second year, 300+400+300=1000.
In the third year and thereafter: 400+300+432=1132.
At the new interest rate, this is a net present *savings* of about 2 1/2
workers. So the firm *does* switch to technique 1 and employs more
workers in the steady state.
In other words, and contrary to my earlier posting, Vienneau's example
*is* correct---though employment dips substantially in the second year
before the new higher-employment steady state is reached.
Steven Landsburg
jim blair
Steven E. Landsburg wrote:
...
(Vienneau supplements this with a story about how a rise in the minimum
wage can lead to a fall in the interest rate, thereby cobbling together
a story about how a rise in the minimum wage can lead to a rise in
Hi,
My objection to the Widget example is summarized in this letter to
Mark Patrick Witte. Perhaps my Microsoft reference was confusing; I
just wanted to illustrate that while his Widget Co. has ALL of its
employees effected by the minimum wage, most workers are not, and
many companies have few workers who are.
Mark Patrick Witte <mwi...@merle.acns.nwu.edu>:
>..... Vienneau actually has a point, that such
>an outcome is theoretically possible. Is it interesting? Actually in
>this case it might be. ...
Do you mean that IF the minimum wage is raised AND interest rates drop at
the same time, the Widget Company might add workers? I would agree with
that.
Or do you mean that the minimum wage increase will CAUSE the interest
rate drop, that is critical to his analysis? This is what I thought he
was claiming, and it has no basis except for his "static equilibrium"
theory. It is based on his totally unrealistic assumptions, and is not
supported by empirical interest rate data. And I bet it is not supported
by profit margin data either (since he claims that is term "interest"
means profit as well as INTEREST).
Since they are both "return on investment", I can accept that: rather
like "stocks and bonds". But this is harder to compare to empirical data,
since while interest rates on bonds are rather uniform and my reference
table lists the rate for each year, the return on stocks is very company
specific. In the same year that company A has a huge profit, company B
can go broke: the "average" profit that year for the country does not
mean much when dealing with a specific company.
At least that is what I see in all this, and it means he has no case.
Explain to me if I am wrong.
Steven E. Landsburg
In article <34561B...@facstaff.wisc.edu> jim blair
<jeb...@facstaff.wisc.edu> quotes me to the following effect:
>...
>(Vienneau supplements this with a story about how a rise in the minimum
>wage can lead to a fall in the interest rate, thereby cobbling together
>a story about how a rise in the minimum wage can lead to a rise in
>employment.)....
>
(As noted in my subsequently posted correction, the word "rise" above
should be "fall"; Blair's subsequent discussion corrects my error without
calling attention to it.)
Blair then goes on:
>
>
>Do you mean that IF the minimum wage is raised AND interest rates drop at
>the same time, the Widget Company might add workers? I would agree with
>that.
>
>Or do you mean that the minimum wage increase will CAUSE the interest
>rate drop, that is critical to his analysis? This is what I thought he
>was claiming, and it has no basis except for his "static equilibrium"
>theory. It is based on his totally unrealistic assumptions, and is not
>supported by empirical interest rate data. And I bet it is not supported
>by profit margin data either (since he claims that is term "interest"
>means profit as well as INTEREST).
>
There are two separate issues here: One is the correctness of the Vienneau
model and the other is its empirical relevance. I think it is always a
recipe for confusion to try to attack both issues at once. My post
addressed only the former. I believe his model is right and I believe
there are good reasons (in his model) for a rise in the minimum wage to
cause a fall in the interest rate.
(Of course I should qualify this by saying I haven't thought *very* hard
about his model---as evidenced by the fact that my original post was badly
garbled and had to be corrected.)
Of course the model---like all models---makes a number of blatantly
false assumptions. I don't think that in itself is cause for criticism.
For example, the model assumes that the representative firm hires only
minimum wage workers. But that doesn't bother me; it's clear that you
could use the *idea* behind this model to generate the same result in a
far more general context.
In other words, I think it's a complete red herring to criticize this model
for being "unrealistic". The fact is that it points to a phenomenon
that could clearly occur in far *less* unrealistic models, if one took the
time to build them.
As to the second issue---the issue of empirical relevance---I am extremely
skeptical that this model could have any empirical relevance, and I am
very close to certain that in the real world, minimum wage increases do have
negative effects on employment (although those negative effects appear
to be surprisingly small). Nevertheless, I think I learned something by
thinking about this model.
Let me take the opportunity to insert a plug for my discussion of the
minimum wage issue on pp. 69-74 of my book "Fair Play". The points
raised there are, I think, substantially separate from the points that
Vienneau and Blair have been debating.
Steven E. Landsburg
Robert Vienneau
Steven,
I'm glad to have an acknowledgement of the logical correctness of
my example. And there's much in your comments I can agree with.
However, I have some comments.
I created this specific numerical example, but examples of this sort
have been around for three decades now. I am continually puzzled why
economists I meet on the net have not been exposed to them or the
analytical techniques I apply. As far as I can see, it is not
generally acknowledged in the english-language literature outside of
Cambridge, U.K., that these stories even have implications for the
theory of employment or the theory of the firm. For some reason,
most textbooks used by mainstream economists at all levels do not
discuss the issues raised by my example and related discussions.
>As to the second issue---the issue of empirical relevance---I am extremely
>skeptical that this model could have any empirical relevance, and I am
>very close to certain that in the real world, minimum wage increases do have
>negative effects on employment (although those negative effects appear
>to be surprisingly small). Nevertheless, I think I learned something by
>thinking about this model.
Why are you close to certain of that? My model illustrates one possibility
that can arise in general frameworks for analyzing the choice of technique.
Economists cannot even state conditions on technology that rule this
possibility out. If you cannot even tell me how the world must be so
your beliefs on how things work out are supported, why should I
accept them?
It would seem to be that those arguing the special case - that this
sort of possibility does not arise - have the burden of providing some
argument and, possibly, some empirical evidence. As far as I know,
mainstream economists have not presented any such argument or
evidence. On the other hand, some have presented some limited empirical
evidence for the existence of "perverse" behavior related to my
example.
Although I consider it an open issue, some have also argued that
these perversities have implications for short-run or non-equilibrium
dynamics.
Clearly, the theoretical situation is unsatisfactory. But what I
find even more unsatisfactory is the lack of scholarship among
many economists, especially in the propogation of certain theories
to the next generation.
>Let me take the opportunity to insert a plug for my discussion of the
>minimum wage issue on pp. 69-74 of my book "Fair Play". The points
>raised there are, I think, substantially separate from the points that
>Vienneau and Blair have been debating.
Was this written after the "Armchair Economist?" I don't think I have ever
seen it in bookstores, although I suppose I could order it through
Amazon. Do you know if the Borders across from Marketplace Mall in
Henrietta regularly stocks your popular books?