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Raising the Minimum Wage

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  1. #76
    Renton's Avatar
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    Yeah I'm sorry but I'm going to put more stock in basic math and logic than I put in a 9 month study of two states. If prices aren't allowed to do the job of distributing labor resources efficiently, a cost is paid by everyone for that sooner or later, all things being equal. Empirical data is tricky where this is concerned because all things are rarely equal. It could easily have been that the New Jersey economy was in a better situation than the Pennsylvania one. Penn could have had a different state government with different economic policy (aside from the minimum wage).

    If there is now someone who would have agreed to a lower wage who can no longer agree to that wage, the economy has lost some amount of value. Sometimes it works to that person's favor and he gets paid the minimum wage, sometimes it doesn't, but on the whole we all lose. It becomes ever-so-slightly more difficult and risky to start or expand a business, and ever-so-slightly more difficult for low-skill workers to find work.

    The Keynesian logic of low income consumers "spending the money back into the economy" is a complete joke. Money at the top gets utilized as well, often in much more productive ways. It gets invested and loaned out, resulting in lower natural interest rates*. It's much more likely to contribute to GDP growth and innovation, and much more likely to result in lower prices of goods and services in the economy.

    *This doesn't particularly matter as much with the way things are because of central banking, which controls the interest rate. But central banking is destroying the world economically and creates business cycles. Ask Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal how this is working out for them.
  2. #77
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    http://www.cepr.net/documents/public...ge-2013-02.pdf

    Conclusion

    Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage.
    Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research
    conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect
    on the employment prospects of low-wage workers.


    The most likely reason for this outcome is that the cost shock of the minimum wage is small relative
    to most firms' overall costs and only modest relative to the wages paid to low-wage workers. In the
    traditional discussion of the minimum wage, economists have focused on how these costs affect
    employment outcomes, but employers have many other channels of adjustment. Employers can
    reduce hours, non-wage benefits, or training. Employers can also shift the composition toward
    higher skilled workers, cut pay to more highly paid workers, take action to increase worker
    productivity (from reorganizing production to increasing training), increase prices to consumers, or
    simply accept a smaller profit margin. Workers may also respond to the higher wage by working
    harder on the job. But, probably the most important channel of adjustment is through reductions in
    labor turnover, which yield significant cost savings to employers.
    Don't forget - logic is great and all, but it has some weaknesses.
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  3. #78
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    That conclusion is entirely logical. Raising the minimum wage from 4.25 to 5.05 probably wasn't a big economic mover. Raising to the level the left wants it raised to (i.e. Australia levels) will almost certainly have a larger negative effect. I made the point earlier in this thread that the minimum wage as argued by Americans has been mostly wedge issue of little relevance, as it is usually arguing to increase it from a level that isn't even relevant to a level that is barely relevant. When we start talking about 12+ dollars an hour, then things will be serious enough to really consider the negative ramifications of the increase.
  4. #79
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    or
    simply accept a smaller profit margin.
    This is what the left really wants to talk about, though. Curtailing the stupendous profits that are earned on the backs of the working class. It's an excellent idea if you have never owned nor participated in the running of a business. Businesses lose money constantly. Businesses fail every day. If only they could have "simply accepted a smaller profit margin" maybe they would still be around. When I go out today, there is a risk I will be hit by a car when I'm walking the street. If that unlikely event comes, I'll simply accept a lower profit margin and my crushed bones should heal right up.

    Why can't people understand that the potential for profit in business is but one variable in a complex probability equation that only the most proficient risk-takers can safely navigate? Accepting a lower profit margin is not an option in a world where the margins become razor thin as a market matures, and in a world where not all bets result in payoffs.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-18-2015 at 08:39 AM.
  5. #80
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    I love how delusional people can be.
  6. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    Don't forget: experiment suggests raising minimum wage does not necessarily raise unemployment.

    http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf



    The study doesn't come close to evaluating the minimum wage due to a million uncontrolled for variables. As I've said before, about half the studies have shown increases in unemployment and about half have shown decreases, yet about all of them are worthless for the aforementioned reason of unassessed variables.

    Economics is rigorous logic with a smidgen of data. Popular sentiments have it backwards. They think any set of data points are key to whatever economic claim they want and the logic doesn't matter.. Sure, logic can get you in trouble, but so does driving a car, but the fact that driving a car can be hazardous doesn't mean the fastest way to get someplace is to jog.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-18-2015 at 01:28 PM.
  7. #82
    Rilla, what happens when the logic somebody employs is technically invalid? Do they still get to say that logic itself isn't perfect and instead cherry pick some data? How about instead the person evaluates their own logic and upon seeing that it's invalid, they change it?

    For example, here's a syllogism:

    - Living standards increase only by increases in productivity
    - Wage floors lower productivity
    - Therefore, wage floors lower living standards

    There is no question that the first two are true. The first is absolutely true because the only technically possible way for resources people use to live to increase is for those resources to increase. That is called productivity. The second is absolutely true because at every level of cost there are always resources that can produce that otherwise couldn't. This principle is integral to poker. The difference between winners and losers is marginal value. At every level or in any instance of a poker game, every move affects marginal value. A minimum wage is no different than making it illegal for poker players to defend their blinds with the weakest hands they think they can get positive value with.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-18-2015 at 01:29 PM.
  8. #83
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    Improving you logic can improve your conclusions. Just like improving your assumptions can improve your conclusions.

    Given any set of assumptions, you can apply logic to figure out if they can build a consistent logical arbor (one free of contradction).

    The weakness of your thinking isn't in the logic, it's in the stuff around the logic. And I believe you can see it in the fact that your logic (w.r.t minimum wage increases) dictates nature to behave one way, but nature doesn't seem to behave that way. This either says that your logic isn't describing nature, or nature's covering something up. And you've no way to know which is the case.

    What do you mean by "Living standards increase only by increases in productivity" and "Wage floors lower productivity" are absolutely true? Productivity isn't like mass or energy or any other hard concepts that are built on rock solid observation, it's much fuzzier. A gram of water and a gram of air are each the same mass, but is 10 dollar increase in productivity in one industry the same productivity increase as a 10 dollar increase in another? So how can you make statements about such fuzzy concepts and conclude that they're absolutely true? The only sense that they could be absolutely true is if you're not talking about reality but instead talking about a model where productivity is firmly and completely defined.

    When Economists go about doing the math with their assumptions, they have to fully flesh out these concepts in order to model them. But to render aspects of human preference and exchange into a model is to reduce them. You've got to scrape some reality away in order to be able to run it through the logical gauntlet. The scraping is not nearly as bad when you're dealing with stuff like mass or temperature, but with people, you're tossing away a lot. This is why you shouldn't be so dismissive of a lack of observation to fall back on.

    So these are some of the weaknesses of logic. It's like cryptography. They can make algorithms which are essentially unbreakable, which is why the NSA doesn't bother with attacking the math, but instead attacks the devices. The weakness of cryptography is with all the stuff around it as it is with logic.

    PS: There's also the beauty of Godel's incompleteness theorem. Some eggheads who fell in love with Euclid decided that they were going to formalize all of math into a set of complete and consistent assumptions. Godel was able to show that no matter the system, he could encode into the system the statement "This statement is true and can not be demonstrated." Meaning there are logical truths in any axiomatic system (which Economic models are) that can not be demonstrated as true. Just another fun thing to keep in mind when you want to rely on math and logic to get you where you're looking to go. Read more here in Godel's Proof by Ernest Nagel.

    PPS Do you remember that old viral math problem 48÷2(9+3) = ?

    There were huge arguments over how that problem was solved that came down to competing order of operations. Order of operations itself is merely a convention, a way for us to communicate algebra with a high fidelity, but a slight difference in our concepts of them yielded vastly different results. Same math operations, same proper logic, different conclusions. You have to be aware of this kind of thing with every step you take in processing through modeled human behavior. You may have something akin to an order-of-operation out of kilter with reality that would lead you to a solution never reflected in nature.
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  9. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    This is what the left really wants to talk about, though. Curtailing the stupendous profits that are earned on the backs of the working class. It's an excellent idea if you have never owned nor participated in the running of a business. Businesses lose money constantly. Businesses fail every day. If only they could have "simply accepted a smaller profit margin" maybe they would still be around. When I go out today, there is a risk I will be hit by a car when I'm walking the street. If that unlikely event comes, I'll simply accept a lower profit margin and my crushed bones should heal right up.

    Why can't people understand that the potential for profit in business is but one variable in a complex probability equation that only the most proficient risk-takers can safely navigate? Accepting a lower profit margin is not an option in a world where the margins become razor thin as a market matures, and in a world where not all bets result in payoffs.
    I think they'd also bank on employee retention and employee productivity also being boons for the companies that raise their wages. Like Costco (quick google-fu shows Costco avg wage is 21/hr vrs Walmarts 9.
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  10. #85
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    What do you mean by "Living standards increase only by increases in productivity" and "Wage floors lower productivity" are absolutely true? Productivity isn't like mass or energy or any other hard concepts that are built on rock solid observation, it's much fuzzier. A gram of water and a gram of air are each the same mass, but is 10 dollar increase in productivity in one industry the same productivity increase as a 10 dollar increase in another? So how can you make statements about such fuzzy concepts and conclude that they're absolutely true? The only sense that they could be absolutely true is if you're not talking about reality but instead talking about a model where productivity is firmly and completely defined.
    They're not fuzzy concepts. There is no possible way for a resource to increase except that the resource increases. This is a different way of saying productivity increase. Living standards (at least in the frame used to evaluate wage floors) are a direct metric of resource levels. This all comes before any attempt to model behavior. It's basic acknowledgement of what the words mean.

    The weakness of your thinking isn't in the logic, it's in the stuff around the logic. And I believe you can see it in the fact that your logic (w.r.t minimum wage increases) dictates nature to behave one way, but nature doesn't seem to behave that way. This either says that your logic isn't describing nature, or nature's covering something up. And you've no way to know which is the case.
    If you're talking about the data, it is irrelevant because the studies are not applicable due to gross insufficiency.

    So these are some of the weaknesses of logic. It's like cryptography. They can make algorithms which are essentially unbreakable, which is why the NSA doesn't bother with attacking the math, but instead attacks the devices. The weakness of cryptography is with all the stuff around it as it is with logic.
    This being true doesn't mean it's acceptable to use bad logic and bad data. I'm not saying you're always doing that, but I do see a trend of contrarianism.



    All in all, it seems like we may not be on the same page with the definitions. The syllogism I presented uses nothing fuzzy or contrary to reality. I couldn't use the type of syllogism if instead of minimum wage I said welfare or if instead of living standards I said happiness, because those are complex and not fully defined. But living standards are fully defined as level of resources and changes in resources are fully defined as productivity. The minimum wage thing is easy to assess within the frame of living standards since it's simple arithmetic and only simple arithmetic. That doesn't mean wage floors are worse for a society, but it does mean that wage floors are worse for the intended goal of a direct increase in living standards.
  11. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    I think they'd also bank on employee retention and employee productivity also being boons for the companies that raise their wages. Like Costco (quick google-fu shows Costco avg wage is 21/hr vrs Walmarts 9.
    Make the minimum wage $20 and Walmart stops existing or adopts a business model far more similar to Costco. In sectors without minimum wages, including in the US, there exist lower tiers than Walmart.

    When a mother cooks dinner for her kids, she works for <$1/hr. There is no fundamental difference between her food production and consumption choices and those of a worker at Costco. Except, if we applied minimum wage to everything, it would be illegal for her to cook food for her kids.

    If minimum wage is correct, it also would be correct to eliminate all volunteer work, all internships, and even every possible thing somebody does at any point in their day. Helping your grandma move her furniture? Not for anything below $10/hr you're not. Letting your neighbor borrow sugar? Not for anything below $10/hr you're not. Watching your kids play in a pool? Not for anything below $10/hr you're not. Did somebody just ask you for directions? Bitch better hand you a w-2 so you can track that state mandated wage for your services.

    Most of our productive efforts receive far less than the minimum wage. I'm not sure what's so special about the subsets of productive efforts that legally require minimum wage.
  12. #87
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    The only thing I'm truly contrarian about is the dogmatic belief that Economic reasoning dictates Economic reality.

    If I had to make choices for the country as a whole and I wasn't beholden to politics, I would use a rich mix of examples and Economic thinkers.

    Outside of that, I don't know what to say. You basically didn't understand my post at all.
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  13. #88
    I don't intend to misunderstand your point. When debating, it's all too easy to make your own point repetitively even when it may not be warranted.
  14. #89
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    Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
    I think they'd also bank on employee retention and employee productivity also being boons for the companies that raise their wages. Like Costco (quick google-fu shows Costco avg wage is 21/hr vrs Walmarts 9.
    I fully support the evolution of business models and if Costco's becomes dominant, I can't imagine Walmart wouldn't follow suit. I'm sick at the moment and a little too tired to check on your numbers but 9 average for Walmart seems too low. Also, afaik Costcos tend to be in more densely-populated areas so i think if you controlled for proximity to Costco, the Walmart salary would be a lot more competitive.

    The key of this is that force is hurtful and wrong and generally makes things worse for the people the policies try to help. Costco didn't need to be forced to explore a more egalitarian pay structure, and if they're prospering, all the better. Maybe, just maybe, a few million of the U.S. work force are not cut out to work at costco at their current level of education and skill. Those people need jobs, IMO.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-18-2015 at 07:56 PM.
  15. #90
    Companies have different niches, even big companies. If Walmart were to replicate Costco's business model, a different company would take Walmart's place. They serve different clientele.

    For example, Apple's Iphone business model is dominant, but Google's Android can't replicate the model successfully because it would then just be the lesser Iphone. So it is trying to cut into every aspect of the market that Apple doesn't while also undercutting Apple by offering a different package that can snag consumers. Microsoft is having a hard time succeeding in the space, but I believe it will eventually be successful, and it will be on a different model than either Apple or Google.
  16. #91
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  17. #92
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    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    Coming soon to a New York McDonalds near you
  18. #93
    I'll be highly interested in seeing how rural/suburban non-franchise small business restaurants could operate. I mean, this sort of thing is the absolute worst for startups or family owned businesses. My favorite BBQ joint would definitely close shop if it had such a boost in mandated wages. There would likely be no more expansion of small Asian or Mexican restaurants. They already use family a good deal so the wage hike wouldn't hit them as hard, but for sure the risks would increase so much that entrepreneurship in the space would die.
  19. #94
    I'm sort of a believer in the free market and all. I'm not against raising the minimum wage but I think $15 is pretty damn high, I guess I'm closer to JKDS on this, I think something in the range of $8-$10 is reasonable.

    But the idea that servers at McDonald's, a job that requires no skills and no actual service, should be a job that you can actually support yourself and a family on doesn't make sense to me. There should be jobs in our society that are strictly meant to be part-time work for bored retirees, kids who want more than a paper route pays (do these even exist anymore?) and extra $ for people who need a few bucks.
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  20. #95
    Why is it wrong to cut the $10-$15/hr marginal laborer from the workforce but not wrong to cut the <$8/hr marginal laborer from the workforce?

    I mean, I appreciate when people say they don't like high minimum wages, but the principle that applies to why high minimums are bad applies to every possible level regardless of how low. So when we say it's wrong to go up to $15 but okay to go to $8, what we're really saying is that it's wrong for somebody with skills enough to justify employment at $8-$15/hr to be forced into unemployment but okay for somebody with skills to only justify <$8/hr to be forced into unemployment.

    I think to be logically consistent and not inadvertently deleterious to the poorest and least skilled, we could only support a minimum wage if the only welfare support somebody received is in skill training sufficient enough to put them at or above the minimum wage in productivity.
  21. #96
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    Welfare is a pretty big part of this discussion that gets skipped over a lot. A lot of people in a lot of situations right now have no incentive to work a minimum wage job at $8/hour because they would lose enough of their welfare that they would be taking a net loss by working.
    Last edited by spoonitnow; 07-23-2015 at 04:58 PM.
  22. #97
    When welfare is needs-based, people need to stay needy to receive what they need.
  23. #98
    great response to krugman on his post about the card/krueger penn/jersey min wage study

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29985
  24. #99
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    It seems like a terrible response to me. He criticizings Krugman for (rightfully?) attacking a minimum wage study, but doesnt provide any evidence from other studies.

    She makes some bare asssertions herself, then quits. Ok, but Krugman's point is that you dont have actual evidence beyond the theoretical; and she didnt prove otherwise.

    -----

    My best guess, is that there isnt any actual proof. Seattle is supposedly attempting to study the effects, so maybe we'll have some actual data to rely on later. Right now though, it seems like we're in the dark.

    Honestly, my biggest concern is that businesses who pay more than minimum wage will raise their prices for sport. Like, attorney's fees doubling or something because more money is in circulation, even though their actual costs didnt increase. I dont know if that effect would totally negate the wage change though, so thats speculative too.
  25. #100
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    It seems like a terrible response to me. He criticizings Krugman for (rightfully?) attacking a minimum wage study, but doesnt provide any evidence from other studies.

    She makes some bare asssertions herself, then quits. Ok, but Krugman's point is that you dont have actual evidence beyond the theoretical; and she didnt prove otherwise.
    It's more nuanced than that. Lots of economists are upset with Krugman because he regularly discards economic theory in support of a political agenda. His position on the minimum wage is that because the evidence is inconclusive, raising minimum wage is therefore *cough* good *cough*. As the author points out, the correct position for Krugman would be to say that the data is inconclusive, the theory is sound, and thus his economic opinion is to stick to the theory. But instead, Krugman is a political pundit first and ends up misleading so many laypeople into thinking economists' understanding of minimum wage is different than it is. He ignores the power of the theory. The theory isn't weak whatsoever and there is no theoretical basis for how it could be wrong. It's basic supply and demand and marginalism.

    He's the most famous living economist, so he should be extra diligent to keep things on the up and up. He is an incredibly smart person and that intelligence is a big part of why he's so good at keeping his disingenuity subtle.


    TLDR: Krugman was very subtly playing "not-economics" in his statement. She pointed it out.
  26. #101
    My favorite post from the comments section:

    Anybody who thinks a study is needed to answer the question of whether a minimum wage costs jobs, is an idiot. I get the political hacksterism behind the debate, but really the only response needed to PK is “Liar!”
    It isn't that laypeople would be idiots, but any economists who claims as much are indeed being idiots or liars. The reason is that the most foundational theory of economics is supply and demand. At its core is the statement that if the cost of a good increases, the demand decreases. This has been demonstrated to be true in every testable instance. It is as known to be true as having a bucket with ten apples and adding five apples to it makes the bucket have fifteen apples. Rilla once mentioned some research and theory about how higher costs can induce increase in demand, which is true, but those are different than the supply curve theory. Example: even though engagement diamonds only have value because of their high price, the supply curve still applies to any increase or decrease in the price. A change in perception of a good based on price can change the demand for good regardless of how the supply curve operates on it. So, you can have a good that increases in demand if the price goes up in the way that engagement diamonds are a thing because of the desire for only expensive diamonds, but this is due to a fundamental change in the perception of the product, not because of a negation of the supply curve.

    So yeah, economists know beyond any doubt that increasing the cost of labor decreases the demand for labor, and thus results in increased unemployment. They wouldn't even bother wasting tons of money and time trying to demonstrate this in studies if it wasn't for some of them having a political axe to grind. A more indepth look at the dynamic can produce all sorts of caveats, like how if prices are increased 1/1 then employment doesn't increase, or that if the value of labor undergoes a fundamental perception shift due to its increase in cost (extremely, utterly, vastly rare). But the bottom line is the supply curve is correct and every economist on the planet knows the most direct effect of minimum wage is more unemployment than otherwise.
  27. #102
    Honestly, my explanation about diamonds and a fundamental shift in perception of a product is just intuition speaking. The supply curve still fully applies. While engagement diamonds are a thing because of the high cost, the demand for diamonds is incredibly low by a metric that is accurately explained by the supply curve.
  28. #103
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    Why does labor follow that rule?

    Isnt it true that some goods are uneffected by price changes? Because they are necessities? If thats the case, labor could follow that rule instead. Labor is a necessity to business, and gets replaced very quickly when it isnt.

    There wasnt a minimum wage during the industrial revolution, yet tons lost jobs as they were replaced by machines. Thats gonna happen again as soon as labor isnt necessary. But the fact is, you cant sell burgers unless you have someone flipping the patties.
  29. #104
    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    Why does labor follow that rule?
    Because everything with a cost follows that rule, regardless of what it is.* The supply curve is the foundation behind the theory of economics itself, which attempts to evaluate all resources that have a supply or demand, and it does so through prices and costs.

    Isnt it true that some goods are uneffected by price changes? Because they are necessities?
    Excellent question! The answer is no, things being "necessities"** do not mean they are unaffected by price changes. Even the world's greatest necessity, water, is bounded by supply and demand. The demand for drinking water is generally constant (albeit not inelastic), and if the supply increases its cost will decrease while if the supply decreases its cost will increase. The lay tend to think demand for something like water is inelastic, which is why people tend to hate the idea of price gouging in disasters. But even water is not truly inelastic. There is a good deal of waste in all sorts of situations. Even in disasters where water is scarce, the demand is not inelastic since every individual applies a different value to water at any given point in time. A simple example of this is seen in differences in what you yourself would pay for water based on different scenarios. If you already have a few jugs, you will pay nothing. If you are dying of thirst, you will pay a lot. There are an uncountable different situations in which the price you put on a bottle of water changes, and this value you and every other person place on water has a macro effect of giving it price. So, in a disaster, if you already have a couple gallons and somebody else has none, they are willing to pay much more for water than you are because they value the purchase of it more. Yet if the water was "free", you would probably get more of it, which would end up being at the expense of those who need it more than you. Prices are the tool that allocates resources to the people who need them most. Laypeople tend to think that regulations are this, but they're not. Regulations are the opposite because they make it harder for those with need to address the need.

    The layperson says "but the person with no water may not be able to pay and the solution to this problem is to make water free", and the real-world final result of making something "free" is shortage. All resources are finite and so the "free" water still has a real cost. On the macro scale, extracting prices from a resource and making it "free" increases the amount of waste and results in depleted levels of water. A good example of this waste is in California's drought. Because water is not a market good, a gigantic portion of California farms grow almonds. Well, almonds soak up gigantic amounts of water per calorie relative to other crops. If water was priced on a market, there would be no shortage in the first place because farmers would not have been so heavily subsidized to grow so many almonds in the first place.

    In a water market, there would instead be a drive towards new abundance since any company or individual that did that would gain more from doing so than they would gain from not doing so. So next time somebody talks about California's drought, just tell them that our "free" water policies subsidize our almond-eating at the expense of every Californian. What a complex disaster this is, all with just one simple, unforced-error: price regulation.

    There wasnt a minimum wage during the industrial revolution, yet tons lost jobs as they were replaced by machines. Thats gonna happen again as soon as labor isnt necessary. But the fact is, you cant sell burgers unless you have someone flipping the patties.
    You also can't sell burgers if the flipper costs more than the revenues generated from selling burgers. Other than that, I'm not sure what you're getting at here.


    * One of the main political gripes that economics-minded people have is that most voters ignore costs. They support regulations and welfare virtually entirely because of this. For example, Medicare policies increase costs of healthcare disproportionately, but voters tend to not account for that because they believe that when somebody else is taxed to pay for it, the costs "aren't real" or something. They believe that the value of a good or service can't be measured. But that simply isn't true. Economics is about measuring the value of anything. The bottom line is that every dollar in tax and every dollar spent incurs a cost. The same is true of every regulation. Voters tend to say "we need more healthcare for the elderly because healthcare is good", yet what's really happening is that because Medicare is fundamentally inefficient compared to the market, healthcare costs more than it otherwise should, and the elderly end up receiving less and lower quality care than if the voters wielded cost discipline. Renton tends to call people ignoring the inherent cost of anything and everything the something-for-nothing idea.

    ** I put "necessities" in quotes because the vast majority of what we consider necessary is not necessary. Yes, food is necessary, but there are an uncountable number of variables about food that are not. Eating too much is not necessary, eating unhealthily is not necessary, eating just one of many sufficient diets is not necessary. Prices affect all of this.
    Last edited by wufwugy; 07-24-2015 at 07:50 PM.
  30. #105
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    Isnt it true that some goods are uneffected by price changes?
    I don't believe this is the case, and I'm trying hard to come up with one example of something that's unaffected by price changes.
  31. #106
  32. #107
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    I think the problem is looking at this like "x number of jobs vs y number of jobs." A job can take many different forms, and can be anywhere along the spectrum from part-time to full-time to overtime. Math says that an increase in the minimum wage reduces employment, but that reduction may just be that people don't get as many hours and are ultimately paid a little less, in spite of the increase. The reduction in employment could also be reported as a reduction in higher paying jobs that is made up for by an increase in minimum wage jobs, so the net amount of income paid out is decreased, and hence the "employment."

    Quote Originally Posted by JKDS View Post
    Why does labor follow that rule?

    Isnt it true that some goods are uneffected by price changes? Because they are necessities? If thats the case, labor could follow that rule instead. Labor is a necessity to business, and gets replaced very quickly when it isnt.

    There wasnt a minimum wage during the industrial revolution, yet tons lost jobs as they were replaced by machines. Thats gonna happen again as soon as labor isnt necessary. But the fact is, you cant sell burgers unless you have someone flipping the patties.
    Labor is not a necessity. A business can only exist if it is capable of making a profit that, accounting for the ever-present risk of loss, is competitive with other uses of the business owner's time and capital. In other words, yes, he can "simply accept a lower profit margin" down to a certain critical point where he would be better off liquidating his business and buying government bonds with it. So below that critical profit threshold, he doesn't need labor at all.

    But businesses have inertia so generally they're going to try to survive under the new conditions. They will generally begin by firing their dead weight, i.e. people who were productive at the old wage but are no longer productive at the high minimum wage (woe to those people btw, who may have no hope finding any job ever). They will have a bit of latitude to increase prices, assuming their competitors have to deal with the same obstacle, so they will do that if they can (woe to those companies that must compete on a regional or global scale with cheaper labor competitors, btw). As basic economics teaches us, an increase in the price of the business's goods or services results in a reduction of the demand for those goods or services, so he will trading at a suboptimal price for creating the amount of demand for his product to support his original business. This may result in downsizing the business, including letting people go and liberating some capital.

    In regard to your point about the industrial revolution, I couldn't detect a lamenting tone from your post about those people losing jobs to machines. This is generally an incredibly good thing for society when jobs become obsolete. I'm pretty skeptical of labor being rendered completely unnecessary within the next thousand years or so. There are always more things for humans to do, and the obsolescence generally frees human labor to produce things further up Maslow's pyramid. Maybe in 2200 the most common job in the economy will be video game programmer, who knows.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-25-2015 at 07:20 AM.
  33. #108
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    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    I think the problem is looking at this like "x number of jobs vs y number of jobs." A job can take many different forms, and can be anywhere along the spectrum from part-time to full-time to overtime. Math says that an increase in the minimum wage reduces employment, but that reduction may just be that people don't get as many hours and are ultimately paid a little less, in spite of the increase. The reduction in employment could also be reported as a reduction in higher paying jobs that is made up for by an increase in minimum wage jobs, so the net amount of income paid out is decreased, and hence the "employment."



    Labor is not a necessity. A business can only exist if it is capable of making a profit that, accounting for the ever-present risk of loss, is competitive with other uses of the business owner's time and capital. In other words, yes, he can "simply accept a lower profit margin" down to a certain critical point where he would be better off liquidating his business and buying government bonds with it. So below that critical profit threshold, he doesn't need labor at all.

    But businesses have inertia so generally they're going to try to survive under the new conditions. They will generally begin by firing their dead weight, i.e. people who were productive at the old wage but are no longer productive at the high minimum wage (woe to those people btw, who may have no hope finding any job ever). They will have a bit of latitude to increase prices, assuming their competitors have to deal with the same obstacle, so they will do that if they can (woe to those companies that must compete on a regional or global scale with cheaper labor competitors, btw). As basic economics teaches us, an increase in the price of the business's goods or services results in a reduction of the demand for those goods or services, so he will trading at a suboptimal price for creating the amount of demand for his product to support his original business. This may result in downsizing the business, including letting people go and liberating some capital.

    In regard to your point about the industrial revolution, I couldn't detect a lamenting tone from your post about those people losing jobs to machines. This is generally an incredibly good thing for society when jobs become obsolete. I'm pretty skeptical of labor being rendered completely unnecessary within the next thousand years or so. There are always more things for humans to do, and the obsolescence generally frees human labor to produce things further up Maslow's pyramid. Maybe in 2200 the most common job in the economy will be video game programmer, who knows.
    "Yeah but like, aren't there plenty of like, examples and stuff of times that like, supply and demand doesn't work like this? I mean people act like, irrationally a lot of the time."
  34. #109
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    The problem with arguing against a minimum wage increase is that the same logic used against the *increase* can be used against the minimum wage as a whole.

    Starting around age 8, children began working the coal mines. In 1885 a law required boys to be at least twelve to work in the coal breakers and at least fourteen to work inside the mines.

    Using the exact same anti-min-wage logic, many would see that 1885 law as wrong-headed, because the children and the mine owner came to an agreement over the value of their labor, and the government should not intrude into the free market in such ways.

    Banning children from coal mines created a lot of unemployment and hard times for a lot of families too. Families counted on that money. Some people probably even died from that decision. Shitty. Nonetheless, 100 years later, I think it was the right move and a net benefit to the country.

    Certainly not a 1 to 1 analogy, as there were other people -- adults -- willing to work in the coal mines... but for more money.

    Effectively barring child labor is setting a minimum wage as it forces employers to pay more to adults.

    So, anti min wagers -- why not child labor? If your answer is anything like "because the damage done to children isnt worth the long term societal cost." then I would say we are actually in total agreement. I say the long term societal costs of allowing the top 1% of income earners to capture literally 99% of all growth over *30 years* is a very bad thing for the outlook of the country over the next 150 years.
    Last edited by euphoricism; 07-28-2015 at 07:02 AM.
  35. #110
    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post
    The problem with arguing against a minimum wage increase is that the same logic used against the *increase* can be used against the minimum wage as a whole.

    Starting around age 8, children began working the coal mines. In 1885 a law required boys to be at least twelve to work in the coal breakers and at least fourteen to work inside the mines.

    Using the exact same anti-min-wage logic, many would see that 1885 law as wrong-headed, because the children and the mine owner came to an agreement over the value of their labor, and the government should not intrude into the free market in such ways.

    Banning children from coal mines created a lot of unemployment and hard times for a lot of families too. Families counted on that money. Some people probably even died from that decision. Shitty. Nonetheless, 100 years later, I think it was the right move and a net benefit to the country.

    Certainly not a 1 to 1 analogy, as there were other people -- adults -- willing to work in the coal mines... but for more money.

    Effectively barring child labor is setting a minimum wage as it forces employers to pay more to adults.

    So, anti min wagers -- why not child labor? If your answer is anything like "because the damage done to children isnt worth the long term societal cost." then I would say we are actually in total agreement. I say the long term societal costs of allowing the top 1% of income earners to capture literally 99% of all growth over *30 years* is a very bad thing for the outlook of the country over the next 150 years.
    The damage done to children when it is illegal for them to choose to use their productivity to increase their living standards is higher. It is not because of labor laws that things are much better today. It is despite them.

    The arithmetic, the theory, and the data all contradict the pro-labor-law view. East Asia is a bastion of skyrocketing living standards because of labor choice. In our modern western cocoon, we liken it to slave labor, but the reality is that people of all ages are flocking to these factories because their lives become better by doing so. Labor laws and government regulation force people to be poor and tell them they're better off for it.

    The income inequality statistics you cite are not factual. Compensation and living standards have kept pace with productivity. Your scenario wouldn't really even be technically possible in a market. The primary beneficiary of an individual's productivity is himself. This correlation only begins to break down with enough regulations that strip the laborer from negotiating.
  36. #111
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    Euph, you're exactly right and any minimum wage is wrong based on the same logic. Child labor laws are also wrong. If the laws were lifted in the U.S. tomorrow, almost no children would work, and the few who would work would be children in such dire poverty that they had to work in order to survive.
  37. #112
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    [Quote]The income inequality statistics you cite are not factual. Compensation and living standards have kept pace with productivity.[quote]

    Entitled to your own opinions, but not facts.

    And since Ive had this dicussion more than once, this is your best case exampld of how total compensation has kept pace.

    http://www.heritage.org/~/media/imag...chart1600.ashx

    First note this is from Heritage, the closest thing to mainstream hardcore right wing hate group I can think of ... written by Ron Raegans Economic Advisor (aka, the guy who was at the helm when we started the problem)... for the same Heritage whose "research" showed blacks, mexicans, and other minorities are genetically predisposed to low IQs, that climate change "scientists" are all wrong, and that evolution is a lie. I dont mean to poison the well, but these are by all accounts the fringiest of fringe anti science climate change denying, teapartier republican wackos. So, color me sceptical. No one elses research supports it. No ones. Martin Feldstein and Heritage, thats it.

    Further note they wont show the data for pre 1970 (is it because that would show how perfectly it tracked...?)

    So even if it were true that this graph shows productivity tracking with total compensation (and it clearly fucking doesnt... its clearly *divorcing*.) where does that total compensation come from?

    Via benefits. What benefits? Healthcare benefits. Its entirely healthcare costs. Yes your employer is paying them, but they arent making you wealthier or better off in any way -- the insurance premiums are large chunks of your paycheck *going directly to the freaking rich!*

    I find the source suspicious and the argume t specious. Average Americans are being fleeced by the rich left right up and down.

    http://www.epi.org/publication/ib330...-compensation/

    http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/01/art3full.pdf

    Unless you were talking about income gains going to the top 1% -- in which case I apologize for misunderstanding, but you'd still be wrong
  38. #113
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    It's legal for someone to cook for me at $0/hour, it's illegal for them to cook for me at $5/hour, and it's legal again up at $10/hour.

    That's one reason why we shouldn't have a minimum wage, because that makes no fucking sense.
  39. #114
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    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    Euph, you're exactly right and any minimum wage is wrong based on the same logic. Child labor laws are also wrong.
    For what its worth, I dont think youre necessarily wrong. I just think youre talking about Libertopia, rather than the current climate of US of A... which is so far from Libertopia as to be unrecognizeable.

    A minimum wage is a tool, but its not a surgical knife, its a sledgehammer.

    I dont think any country necessarily requires a minimum wage in order to function, in fact I may even agree most shouldnt, and if I were starting a country, it would not start with a minimum wage.

    Tldr but shit is fucked yo.
  40. #115
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    Just by the by, the economic data I've seen from heritage seems pretty solid. Particularly the economic freedom index where they rank all of the countries.

    I don't know what issues are specific to the U.S. that turn the minimum wage into a good. Much of what the government does is to make everyone poorer, which works on a relative level no matter how poor they are. If someone would work for less than minimum wage in an environment where the gov eats 1/3 of their property, then they would still be better off than if they earned nothing and had no job.
  41. #116
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    Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
    It's legal for someone to cook for me at $0/hour, it's illegal for them to cook for me at $5/hour, and it's legal again up at $10/hour.

    That's one reason why we shouldn't have a minimum wage, because that makes no fucking sense.
    Lots of things in life dont "make sense" but have long well deserved histories behind them. Hell, go read the package on your girlfriends hair dryer.
  42. #117
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    Quote Originally Posted by Renton View Post
    Just by the by, the economic data I've seen from heritage seems pretty solid.
    Fair question... is it because you agree with it? Theyre well known for their fudging and cherrypicking. The disturbing part is economicists tend to lean heavily conservative ... and no one else is going out to join them on that limb.

    I think its a losing argument either way, given the fact that "benefits" are not benefitting the worker as much as theyre simply being handed over to the healthcare giants for $1200/pill aspirin

    Edit: of course thats not your employers fault, but its yet another systemic fault.
    Last edited by euphoricism; 07-28-2015 at 08:41 PM.
  43. #118
    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post

    Entitled to your own opinions, but not facts.

    And since Ive had this dicussion more than once, this is your best case exampld of how total compensation has kept pace.

    http://www.heritage.org/~/media/imag...chart1600.ashx

    First note this is from Heritage, the closest thing to mainstream hardcore right wing hate group I can think of ... written by Ron Raegans Economic Advisor (aka, the guy who was at the helm when we started the problem)... for the same Heritage whose "research" showed blacks, mexicans, and other minorities are genetically predisposed to low IQs, that climate change "scientists" are all wrong, and that evolution is a lie. I dont mean to poison the well, but these are by all accounts the fringiest of fringe anti science climate change denying, teapartier republican wackos. So, color me sceptical. No one elses research supports it. No ones. Martin Feldstein and Heritage, thats it.

    Further note they wont show the data for pre 1970 (is it because that would show how perfectly it tracked...?)

    So even if it were true that this graph shows productivity tracking with total compensation (and it clearly fucking doesnt... its clearly *divorcing*.) where does that total compensation come from?

    Via benefits. What benefits? Healthcare benefits. Its entirely healthcare costs. Yes your employer is paying them, but they arent making you wealthier or better off in any way -- the insurance premiums are large chunks of your paycheck *going directly to the freaking rich!*

    I find the source suspicious and the argume t specious. Average Americans are being fleeced by the rich left right up and down.

    http://www.epi.org/publication/ib330...-compensation/

    http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/01/art3full.pdf

    Unless you were talking about income gains going to the top 1% -- in which case I apologize for misunderstanding, but you'd still be wrong
    I didn't say compensation. I said compensation and living standards. I did this because any case anybody wants to make can be made by datamining, and so if I were to say "compensation only", there will always be a data set that "shows" that to be wrong. What I should have said is that compensation and living standards have dramatically outpaced productivity growth. People are ridiculously better off with each new decade yet nobody wants to admit it. Regardless, the graph you present doesn't show a decoupling trend. It shows a brief couple years of a very slight increase in the gap relative to the previous 20 years, and then a couple years of a slightly increasing gap during a recession. This tells us nothing. Not next to nothing, but nothing. Not to mention that the gap increases are more easily explained by how after recessions, productivity tends to rise faster than total compensation.
  44. #119
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    The thing is I VERY rarely see actual economic arguments from the left. It's kind of a clue to me that they're getting it wrong. You occasionally get a disciple of Keynes who actually knows about supply and demand and stuff and just believes in all of the money printing macro. But mostly you get people arguing for this policy or that based on feels, then resorting to demonizing anyone who dares to disagree.

    For example, today Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks harangued Rand Paul for wanting to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, saying he wasn't a real libertarian because he didn't believe women should have freedom etc. In reality, Paul just doesn't want the government paying for it. Freedom doesn't even enter into it. But in lefty land, a belief that the government shouldn't pay for something is equal to you hating that protected class, wanting to keep downtrodden people down, you being a racist/sexist/homophobe or whatever.

    As to your bit about heritage, I think it's pretty inaccurate and not especially relevant to state that most economists lean conservative. Economics is not a political science. People like Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman would be called conservative people but economically they're just free-market. Conservatives are only concerned with economic freedom when it suits them to be. They're perfectly against freedom when it comes to international trade, immigration, agriculture, energy, and foreign policy.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-28-2015 at 09:50 PM.
  45. #120
    You should start here. Watch the other four short videos.



    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post
    Theyre well known for their fudging and cherrypicking. The disturbing part is economicists tend to lean heavily conservative ... and no one else is going out to join them on that limb.
    I don't mean to be an ass, but this sort of thing needs to get said.

    Economists are experts. They hold the only credible opinions on economics on the entire planet. It is no different than how physicists are experts in physics and are the only people who have technically credible opinions on physics. If somebody disagrees with physicists, they are required to demonstrate to peers the technical reasons why.

    When somebody says "economists are such n such but nobody else is therefore the economists are wrong", that person has instead admitted that he is wrong. When discussing evolution and creationism, we listen to biologists. It's high time that when discussing economics, we listen to economists. Granted it is a little more difficult to get a straight answer since some economists reject their textbooks and espouse extremely politically charged positions, but that's really just a small hurdle.
  46. #121
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    I have no idea what your point is. It completely repudiates your initial point, that my statistics regarding increasing inequality and the widening gap between productivity and compensation is incorrect...

    The very people you say we should listen to are very clear that the wage/productivity gap is not only very real, but widening, and a problem.

    You dont mean to be an ass, but heads you win and tails I lose?
  47. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post
    The very people you say we should listen to are very clear that the wage/productivity gap is not only very real, but widening, and a problem.
    They're not though. Only a small handful are, and they're usually not practicing economists so much as political pundits.

    The economist I linked in the video does not think the gap is necessarily widening or that it is a problem, and he certainly doesn't think it's a lack of regulation that causes what gap we have. The channel has many other PhD economists who say the same. The economist I read the most is Scott Sumner, one of the leading econ voices in the world, who says explicitly that income inequality is not an issue and tells us nothing. When I earlier said that if you triple all incomes overnight and it eliminates poverty yet increases inequality, I didn't make that up. I first heard it as a simple way to express the fallacy of focusing on inequality to the lay by Sumner.
  48. #123
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    Rand Paul for wanting to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, saying he wasn't a real libertarian because he didn't believe women should have freedom etc. In reality, Paul just doesn't want the government paying for it. Freedom doesn't even enter into it.
    Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

    Paul is a hardcore anti abortionist. Hell, in 2013 he wrote and sponsored a FEDERAL bill defining life as beginning at conception -- effectively banning not only abortion nationwide, but the birth control pill too. Not a state bill, a federal bill.

    Paul has repeatedly espoused his support of a consitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception.

    Edit: it was called the Life At Conception Act.
    Last edited by euphoricism; 07-28-2015 at 10:51 PM.
  49. #124
    I should add that the media notoriously gets economists wrong. Most just don't know better, but some are plainly partisan. Even foundations like Heritage (but I don't know Heritage specifically) will improperly use data to try to make a political point. For example, the graph you posted, a lot of conservative organizations will frame economics in such a way that they say "See, look how the inequality increases during Obama years. Proof that Obama's policies are bad economics." Whereas unaffiliated academic economists, like Bryan Caplan, would never say that data set demonstrates such, despite the fact that he thinks Obama's economic policies are awful.
  50. #125
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    This discussion is entirely in the weeds now lol
  51. #126
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    a lot of conservative organizations will frame [that graph] in such a way that they say "See, look how the inequality increases during Obama years.

    Thats because
    A) Republicans -- literally a Raegan cabinet member -- made the graph and selected the data represented in it.
    B) The Raegan advisor who made the graph dont want you to see pre Raegan Era. Thats why their graph starts at 1973 and everyone elses starts before that. More data = bad!
    C) Repubs blame everything on Democrats.
  52. #127
    Democrats also blame everything on Republicans. Both sides do so in a different ways.

    In economics, more data doesn't necessarily mean good. I mean, it does because data always says something, but it is much harder to pin down what it exactly says than in experimental sciences. If a data set is said to contradict a consensus economic theory, chances are the data is being misused. This is because each data set has an uncountable number of variables that aren't controlled for. Even if Obama's policies are the worst in the history of the universe, no data set could prove it. When economists use data, it's typically for very narrow and specific things, and it's almost always for points of argumentation to try to present real world examples of economic theory.

    I can't speak that much more in depth about this issue. Economists do use data constantly, but it's a much different animal than the experimental sciences. Sadly, the media does not know this.
  53. #128
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    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post
    Lots of things in life dont "make sense" but have long well deserved histories behind them. Hell, go read the package on your girlfriends hair dryer.
    Excellent counter-argument. This makes me want to take you super seriously.
  54. #129
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    No skin off my back, holmes. Fwiw, your comments are essentially spam and deserve to be treated as such.
  55. #130
  56. #131
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    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post
    Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

    Paul is a hardcore anti abortionist. Hell, in 2013 he wrote and sponsored a FEDERAL bill defining life as beginning at conception -- effectively banning not only abortion nationwide, but the birth control pill too. Not a state bill, a federal bill.

    Paul has repeatedly espoused his support of a consitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception.

    Edit: it was called the Life At Conception Act.
    The thing is though, an anti-abortion position and libertarianism are compatible. The libertarians are split on abortion. You can say the guy is wrong in his opinion of what constitutes a human life, but you can't say he doesn't believe in liberty. My point is that Cenk's criticism of Rand was invalid, not that Rand's position was right or wrong. According to Cenk, Rand Paul is an evil misogynist who doesn't even hold to core libertarian principles.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-29-2015 at 03:10 AM.
  57. #132
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    Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism View Post
    No skin off my back, holmes. Fwiw, your comments are essentially spam and deserve to be treated as such.
    It sure is spam to present a concise, logical argument as to why it should not be illegal to have a contract for employment with compensation between two mutually-consenting parties at arbitrary compensation rates when it can be done for free legally.
  58. #133
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    Rentpwn I dont disagree, Walter Block has some neat ideas regading a libertarian compromise on abortion. I saw him give a speech when I went to Papa Ron Pauls convention in Tampa last go-round.

    Essentially the mother has the right evict from her body, but not kill, a fetus. The only issue there is that a woman who gets pregnant is required to support the fetus until its old enough to survive outside the womb... which is essentially the entire term. Where he loses me is that seems like it is essentially banning abortion de facto.


    For example, today Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks harangued Rand Paul for wanting to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, saying he wasn't a real libertarian because he didn't believe women should have freedom etc. In reality, Paul just doesn't want the government paying for it.
    Paul certainly doesnt want the government to pay for it, but he doesnt believe you should be permitted to pay for it either.

    Liberty does enter into it. He does not believe women should have the liberty to choose for herself whether to abort a fetus.

    The Libertarian Parties position is that reasonable people can disagree on the subject, and therefore the best person to make that choice is the mother and she should have the freedom to choose. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson espouses this view.
  59. #134
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    If you operate from the position that life begins at conception / two months / four months / whatever, then its a matter of the unborn child's liberty at that point. This is why libertarianism is compatible with pro-life.

    I'm personally pro-choice, but I've become a bit more sympathetic to pro-lifers in recent years. One big point that I saw in a youtube video a few days ago that I never really thought about: It is deeply immoral for the state to pay for abortions when almost half of the country believes abortion equals murder. It is a major infringement of liberty when you're forced by the state (via taxation) to violate your own conscience. When the state forces you to pay to wage it's wars or execute people, the offense is similar. You could extend the argument to anything the government does against your will, but killing people belongs in a special category of offense, IMO.
    Last edited by Renton; 07-29-2015 at 05:10 PM.
  60. #135
    Since it was discussed here, a new post on the bad data that is the pay/productivity gap.

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=30585

    Getting down to brass tacks, finding a true, long-lasting pay/productivity gap would be akin to finding a mammal with feathers. It's not going to happen, and if it did, it would be grounds to question some of the most well understood theories there are.
  61. #136
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    "Krugman, Rognlie and I all believe that wage inequality is the real issue. Let’s stop with all this pay/productivity nonsense and focus on the real issue."

    That seems to contradict what you've been saying.

    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  62. #137
    Maybe these will be helpful to you http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=30566

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/op...yt-region&_r=0

    I've been talking about pay/productivity. I don't really understand wage inequality. Sumner has said many times that income inequality is meaningless. It's not to be confused with wage inequality, which is something along the lines of different types of employees making different proportions of compensation than they used to.

    But honestly I would need more explanation to get a grasp on what they mean when they say wage inequality.
  63. #138
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    14,219
    Location
    North Carolina
    lol wage inequality

    Aka wahhhh I want to get paid more because somebody else does wahhhh

    Gimme gimme gimme

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