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| Whitewing United States. May 09 2012 02:13. Posts 5726 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:07 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
If you're really going to throw nobel prizes around, both Hayek and Friedman won that award and they would agree with the anti-minimum wage position. But that's a logical fallacy known as appeal to authority. Whitewhig : do you agree with Krugman when he said that we need a space alien invasion to stimulate the economy?
The reality of these studies is they are conducted by establishment hacks. I do not believe in the Whig Theory of history, that everything is always a constant onwards and upwards improvement in thinking. The reality is that economists of today are simply apologists for the state. The naked reality is you make more money producing studies that show you need a mimimum wage then showing you don't. Economics is not a dead science with heaves of statistics and bizarre mathematical models with no real world impact. It is an understanding of the choices and decisions people makuhe approach economists take to economics. But the problem with this approach is that you not only lose out on the stuff of history, quite frequently what exists today is a decline from yesteryear.
I told you in that post that I personally did a replication of the data analysis myself and that the argument is a good one. Your entire argument about the study here is basically "It's a conspiracy theory! People are being paid by the government to support the government, so that's why we don't see evidence to the contrary!"
And Krugman was joking about the space aliens, and using it as a theoretical example of what could cause stimulus as a counter point to the argument about being employed for the sake of just being employed is always a bad thing. He was simply making the point that sometimes, work is unnecessary, but that doesn't make it useless.
I myself have a BA in economics, I'm well aware of what economics is and isn't. |
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| Whitewing United States. May 09 2012 02:15. Posts 5726 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:11 Yurebis wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 02:02 Whitewing wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:58 Lockitupv2 wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:56 Whitewing wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:53 Lockitupv2 wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:49 Whitewing wrote:
On May 08 2012 14:28 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
One of the things that is universally popular, that I personally hate, is the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a price floor on wages. The reason why I hate the minimum wage so much is because this law hurts very badly the weakest people in society. The people who need help the most. And it hurts those people exactly to benefit other people who are decently well off.
If you look at the origin of the minimum wage in the united states and teenage unemploment you see that after the minimum wage was introduced teenage unemployment goes way up. The biggest % increase in the minimum wage was from .40 cents to .80 cents. This is even worse amongst negro teenagers.
Why does the minimum wage hurt teenagers specifically so much? Teenagers are the group which has collectively the lowest skill sets. No work experience, greasy pimply skin, etc. Poor work ethic. One of the best ways to develop a higher skill set is through working. But it's not just teenagers. Homeless people are another example of people with VERY low skill sets. If you haven't bathed in a week and are drunk half the time you literally cannot be worth $10 per hour. But maybe you could be worth .50 cents an hour, or two dollars an hour holding a sign or something like that. And maybe that experience would help you develop better work skills. Another group that is highly unemployable is convicted criminals. If you have a criminal record, people don't want to hire you. But if the convicted criminal was willing to work at 1/4 the price, maybe someone would.
People sometimes argue that you can't live on less than the minimum wage. That isn't really true (you can actually exist quite comfortably on a very low income, if you need to) but if living on less than $10 / hour is difficult, try living on nothing at all. You could say 'go on welfare' but some people are morally opposed to that and besides, where I am from (AFAIK) welfare pays less than 40 hours a week * 8 / hr. Anyway if someone wants to work for $7 / hr instead of going on welfare, surely we should encourage that.
One of the groups that advocate for the minimum wage is labour unions. They pretend to do so out of some sort of working class soldiarity, but the truth is there is a very strong economic motivation for labour unions to advocate for a minimum wage (and for prohibitions on young adults working). Let's presume a skilled worker can produce 4x as much as an unskilled worker, and the market wage for this skilled worker is $32 / hr. If the minimum wage is $10 the unskilled labourer is not econmically competitive with the skilled woker. On the other hand if the unskilled labourer can work for $7 then it is a better deal for the employer to hire the unskilled labourers (7 * 4 = 28, or a net savings of $4 per hour).
So you see, skilled labourers benefit from keeping unskilled labourers out of the work force. They parasitically profit from the misfortune of others through this policy. The minimum wage is a travesty, it is harmful to the weakest members of society and should be repealed immediately.
You should read the DID (Difference in Differences) study conducted by Card and Kreuger on this exact topic. Their conclusion is that you are in fact completely wrong, and while some economists disagree with them, a lot of other economists like Paul Krugman do agree with them, and the evidence does support their claim. I should know, I actually just went through a replication of their data analysis. Further, this argument against the minimum wage is more neoliberal economics that just supports the growing wealth gap in this nation, and is the entire reason we have people that poor in the first place.
People still listen to Krugman?
Considering the man won a nobel prize and he's generally correct about pretty much everything, they probably should.
The prize doesnt mean anything. And no, he isnt correct about everything......or just about anything. He thinks inflation is good for the working class.
Hint: it is. You should study some economics, there's a level of inflation that's good. Deflation is also a problem, like what Japan suffered from fairly recently. Too much inflation is a bad thing, but there's a level at which inflation exists that we aim for. Of course, neoliberals wouldn't agree with that, but Keynesian policies were a huge part of the reason why the U.S. did so ridiculously well after WW2 (combined with the unchallenged hegemony and regulation),.
Sorry but, didn't the Keynesians of the day predict great catastrophe due to the mass amount of labor returning home? That there wouldn't be enough jobs for everyone and stuff. Did the government provide jobs for all the millions of them as soon as they came back? Was that what it was?
You are aware of the G.I. bill right? |
| | ThorZaIN is an android sent from the future to destroy everyone and everything with his super advanced mechanics and strategies. ~Chill |
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| aksfjh United States. May 09 2012 02:16. Posts 3511 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:12 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
Inflation is bad. The new money doesn't enter the economy evenly. The people who spend it first (the political class) get to spend it at the old rates. Those who get it last must spend it at the newly inflated rates. It is a transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected. It is also a transfer of wealth from creditor's to debtors and this provides a disincentive to saving, and therefore investment. This is bad because savings is the cornerstone of economic growth. Inflation is particularly painful for people living on fixed incomes - pensioners, for example.
The Keynesian argument for inflation is that wages are sticky and that during a recession prices must fall but wages can't. While it's true that during a recession prices must fall, there is really no need for inflation to have this happen... it would occur naturally if not for government intervention favouring unions. You see here how advocates of intervention pile intervention on top of intervention... one intervention creates problems, so they intervene more to 'solve' those problems, creating bigger problems in the process.
This is why people need to stop arguing with you. Conspiracy theorists really have no place in a rational discussion. |
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| Nevermind86 Somalia. May 09 2012 02:17. Posts 410 | Profile # |
On May 08 2012 14:53 liberal wrote:
If you don't think that it would increase the welfare of the poorest people, please explain to me why poor immigrants from Mexico are willing to risk their life crossing a desert to work illegally for unregulated wages?
This is complete ignorance because the minimum wage in mexico is not enforced at all, at least in the rural areas and poor areas, maybe it is enforced only in the big cities and not even that. The reason why people cross the border its because the country is run by drug cartels, welfare is one of the lowest in the world, crime is rampant you can get stabbed anywhere and the proportional salary compared to the pennies they get in the US is enormous, they can send those pennies back to mexico and that is mexico's biggest industry, did you knew that?, Less books and more reality bro. |
| | Interviewer: Many people hate you and would like to see you dead. How does that make you feel? Trevor Goodchild: Those people should get to know me a little better. Then they'd know I don't indulge in feelings. |
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| TheGeneralTheoryOf May 09 2012 02:18. Posts 235 | Profile # |
Yes, an alien invasion will as a matter of fact stimulate the economy.
You just better hope you're not one of the unfortunate souls captured by Glaxon and sent to mine the vespean camps of Venus!
This is really just military keynesianism repackged with interstellar clothing. Actually what Krugman said was that if we thought the alien's were going to invade, but it turns out it was a hoax, this would stimulate demand, blah blah blah. To understand why he is wrong you must understand the broken window fallacy. Say a boy throws a baseball and it veers off course and smashes a window. Is this good or bad? Now the shop keep must buy a new window, the glass man has more money so he can do whatever, etc. etc. so on down the line. But what it forgets to take into account is opportunity cost. If the shop keep didn't have to replace the window he would move down to the next thing on his value scale (remember values are ordinal, not cardinal, listed lexicographically a. b. c. d., there's no such thing as a util!) and instead of fixing the window he would buy a new suit. the tailor can now take his wife out for a new dinner etc. etc.
Preparing for an alien invasion is a pretty much dead weight loss. Just like war is not good for the economy. War is very bad for the economy. Just think about it. Would sending three million cars to the bottom of the ocean be good for the economy? War is even worse. All of those bombs and tanks have no peace time use. And then all the dead soldiers cannot be producing. |
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| Whitewing United States. May 09 2012 02:18. Posts 5726 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:12 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
Inflation is bad. The new money doesn't enter the economy evenly. The people who spend it first (the political class) get to spend it at the old rates. Those who get it last must spend it at the newly inflated rates. It is a transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected. It is also a transfer of wealth from creditor's to debtors and this provides a disincentive to saving, and therefore investment. This is bad because savings is the cornerstone of economic growth. Inflation is particularly painful for people living on fixed incomes - pensioners, for example.
The Keynesian argument for inflation is that wages are sticky and that during a recession prices must fall but wages can't. While it's true that during a recession prices must fall, there is really no need for inflation to have this happen... it would occur naturally if not for government intervention favouring unions. You see here how advocates of intervention pile intervention on top of intervention... one intervention creates problems, so they intervene more to 'solve' those problems, creating bigger problems in the process.
No no no, you've gotten it completely wrong. The reason a low but non-zero level of inflation is good is that it encourages investment and spending rather than hoarding, and it helps buffer against deflation.
I'm quite serious: this neoliberal bullshit has got to stop. Ironic that in the first post of this thread you argue against a minimum wage on the grounds that it hurts the poor, but then you step in later as anti-union. You don't give a shit about blue collar workers, you're just looking to give more power to the capitalists and less power to the workers.
Actually, I'm done arguing, you're just a loony conspiracy theorist.Last edit: 2012-05-09 02:20:07 |
| | ThorZaIN is an android sent from the future to destroy everyone and everything with his super advanced mechanics and strategies. ~Chill |
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| TheGeneralTheoryOf May 09 2012 02:20. Posts 235 | Profile # |
"It's a conspiracy theory! People are being paid by the government to support the government, so that's why we don't see evidence to the contrary!"
So, when the government funds people who say that government policy is good, we shouldn't question their motives? What if exxon funded a study saying there was no such thing as global warming. Would you question their motives then? Modern intellectuals are apologists for the state. They have replaced the role of the church in previous times as providing the intellectual justification for the king's rule. They popularize the regime and share in it's plunder as a result. |
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| TheGeneralTheoryOf May 09 2012 02:21. Posts 235 | Profile # |
| Note - when people run out of arguments, the insults begin. Let's keep it civil folks. |
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| aksfjh United States. May 09 2012 02:22. Posts 3511 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:11 Yurebis wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 02:02 Whitewing wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:58 Lockitupv2 wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:56 Whitewing wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:53 Lockitupv2 wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:49 Whitewing wrote:
On May 08 2012 14:28 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
One of the things that is universally popular, that I personally hate, is the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a price floor on wages. The reason why I hate the minimum wage so much is because this law hurts very badly the weakest people in society. The people who need help the most. And it hurts those people exactly to benefit other people who are decently well off.
If you look at the origin of the minimum wage in the united states and teenage unemploment you see that after the minimum wage was introduced teenage unemployment goes way up. The biggest % increase in the minimum wage was from .40 cents to .80 cents. This is even worse amongst negro teenagers.
Why does the minimum wage hurt teenagers specifically so much? Teenagers are the group which has collectively the lowest skill sets. No work experience, greasy pimply skin, etc. Poor work ethic. One of the best ways to develop a higher skill set is through working. But it's not just teenagers. Homeless people are another example of people with VERY low skill sets. If you haven't bathed in a week and are drunk half the time you literally cannot be worth $10 per hour. But maybe you could be worth .50 cents an hour, or two dollars an hour holding a sign or something like that. And maybe that experience would help you develop better work skills. Another group that is highly unemployable is convicted criminals. If you have a criminal record, people don't want to hire you. But if the convicted criminal was willing to work at 1/4 the price, maybe someone would.
People sometimes argue that you can't live on less than the minimum wage. That isn't really true (you can actually exist quite comfortably on a very low income, if you need to) but if living on less than $10 / hour is difficult, try living on nothing at all. You could say 'go on welfare' but some people are morally opposed to that and besides, where I am from (AFAIK) welfare pays less than 40 hours a week * 8 / hr. Anyway if someone wants to work for $7 / hr instead of going on welfare, surely we should encourage that.
One of the groups that advocate for the minimum wage is labour unions. They pretend to do so out of some sort of working class soldiarity, but the truth is there is a very strong economic motivation for labour unions to advocate for a minimum wage (and for prohibitions on young adults working). Let's presume a skilled worker can produce 4x as much as an unskilled worker, and the market wage for this skilled worker is $32 / hr. If the minimum wage is $10 the unskilled labourer is not econmically competitive with the skilled woker. On the other hand if the unskilled labourer can work for $7 then it is a better deal for the employer to hire the unskilled labourers (7 * 4 = 28, or a net savings of $4 per hour).
So you see, skilled labourers benefit from keeping unskilled labourers out of the work force. They parasitically profit from the misfortune of others through this policy. The minimum wage is a travesty, it is harmful to the weakest members of society and should be repealed immediately.
You should read the DID (Difference in Differences) study conducted by Card and Kreuger on this exact topic. Their conclusion is that you are in fact completely wrong, and while some economists disagree with them, a lot of other economists like Paul Krugman do agree with them, and the evidence does support their claim. I should know, I actually just went through a replication of their data analysis. Further, this argument against the minimum wage is more neoliberal economics that just supports the growing wealth gap in this nation, and is the entire reason we have people that poor in the first place.
People still listen to Krugman?
Considering the man won a nobel prize and he's generally correct about pretty much everything, they probably should.
The prize doesnt mean anything. And no, he isnt correct about everything......or just about anything. He thinks inflation is good for the working class.
Hint: it is. You should study some economics, there's a level of inflation that's good. Deflation is also a problem, like what Japan suffered from fairly recently. Too much inflation is a bad thing, but there's a level at which inflation exists that we aim for. Of course, neoliberals wouldn't agree with that, but Keynesian policies were a huge part of the reason why the U.S. did so ridiculously well after WW2 (combined with the unchallenged hegemony and regulation),.
Sorry but, didn't the Keynesians of the day predict great catastrophe due to the mass amount of labor returning home? That there wouldn't be enough jobs for everyone and stuff. Did the government provide jobs for all the millions of them as soon as they came back? Was that what it was?
When the war ended, the ridiculous amount of rationing and government spending had forced practically everybody to have a very large amount of savings, which they gladly spent on homes, cars, washing machines, etc. This was in contrast to the depression, where nobody could accrue savings since the government wasn't really spending enough. |
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| paralleluniverse Australia. May 09 2012 02:22. Posts 2967 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:12 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
Inflation is bad. The new money doesn't enter the economy evenly. The people who spend it first (the political class) get to spend it at the old rates. Those who get it last must spend it at the newly inflated rates.
This sentence has no discernible meaning
It is a transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected. It is also a transfer of wealth from creditor's to debtors and this provides a disincentive to saving, and therefore investment.
You have it backwards. It's a transfer from creditors to debtors as you say, but creditors are generally rich, and debtors are generally poor, i.e. the opposite of your first sentence. Inflation is a disincentive for saving, but at low inflation it is hardly so.
Encouraging saving as a economic policy is would be a disaster, called the Paradox of Thrift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
This is bad because savings is the cornerstone of economic growth. Inflation is particularly painful for people living on fixed incomes - pensioners, for example.
No, production is the cornerstone of economic growth. Growth is in fact directly measured by production.
The Keynesian argument for inflation is that wages are sticky and that during a recession prices must fall but wages can't. While it's true that during a recession prices must fall, there is really no need for inflation to have this happen... it would occur naturally if not for government intervention favouring unions. You see here how advocates of intervention pile intervention on top of intervention... one intervention creates problems, so they intervene more to 'solve' those problems, creating bigger problems in the process.
No, the Keynesian argument isn't that prices should fall in a recession. In fact, central banks do everything they can to prevent prices from falling. There is no bigger failure of a central bank than when it fails to prevent deflation. When prices fall, you get a downward spiral of death, like in the Great Depression.
Central banks can easily and successfully increase or decrease inflation as they desire, they have done so in the past, so your intervention on top of intervention argument makes no sense at all. Without the intervention of a central bank, governments that recklessly spend will cause uncontrolled inflation, conversely, deflationary pressures will be worse in recessions, making recovery harder.Last edit: 2012-05-09 02:42:17 |
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| McFeser United States. May 09 2012 02:23. Posts 2451 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:08 YouMake wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 01:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:37 YouMake wrote:
I'm currently a college student, and i make minimum wage why i think it shouldn't be removed. It needs to be raised. I go to school full time, and i make minimum wage i work 30 hrs a week. Still not enough to pay for my car, phone and internet. I live in a dorm.
Then don't live in the dorm and live somewhere cheaper. What in the world makes you think that you should be able to pay for everything on minimum wage when you aren't even working 40 hours a week? Good, you shouldn't be able to pay for all those things, and I'd say we'd be moving in the wrong direction once you can. You're saying that the absolute most basic jobs in the entire economy should pay at a high enough rate to cover someone's car, expensive dorm (which often comes with a meal plan), internet (why do you have to pay for internet if you live in a dorm though :o), and phone? Especially when you aren't even working full time?! If you're working one of the most basic jobs, you need to cut costs. Live off campus. Don't have a car, take public transportation. Have the minimal cell phone bill. Use the school Internet. Tis what I did. Used to commute 45 minutes on the bus to work when I was 15 to save up money for a car, which I didn't buy until I was 17 since I didn't have the money. Instead of going to any school out there, I chose to go to UCI since I could commute and save money. I worked full time over the summer to save up money for the school year. Took out some loans, but quite manageable. But before it sounds like I had by any means a hard life, I am biased as my parents are well off and while they didn't pay for rent or that stuff they did cover my tuition 100% (and books too).... and insurance!
Okay Mr. High Horse lemme see you work 40 hours a week Plus take 21 credits. Sorry to inform you but where i go to school there is almost no public transportation. The meals are not free and i pay for my dorm with college loans. Why can't i move out. Because i lived in foster care and when you turn 18 they kick you out. sooo before you start preaching you need to learn. Please don't start preaching about money.. Okay so you pretty little mama's boy you don't know what hardship is so you really need to shut your mouth. I could easily turned out a different way where i grew up (Bogota, Colombia than i immigrated legally to Bushwick brooklyn). I'm going to make something of my life, while you are just spoon feed. everything.
Take less college courses then and count down on expenditures. There's nothing wrong with taking your time with college especially if you are in the first few years of it. This will give you time to decide what you want to do while alleviateing your financial situation.
As for "should minimum raise be increased to help poor college students?" - that is never the point of an increase. There are enough systems in place, enough scholarships, and enough loans readily available that you should have enough funding. When people talk about raising minimum wage it's to help people on the lower end of the spectrum get by. Specifically to help single parents who really cannot raise a family on a 8 bucks an hour.
Personally, I'd be in favor a raising minimum wage for those people and this is coming from someone who will own his business one day. And personally, I would really prefer if it stayed lower but I realize that some people need to be able to afford simple living costs. What I would want to see is a tiered system that says people under 18 make 6-7 an hour, people between 18-25 make 8.50, and people 25 and up make 11.60 or something signifigantly higher.
The one problem with that system is that it would incentivize firing older employees because they are more expensive. If that ends up being the case than scrap the system - in my experience however they are valued enough that people are willing to hire them. On the flipside, we could have an 11 hour wage for everyone but that would lead to too much inflation. It's the reason why everything is fucking expensive in Australia (their minimum wage if above 15 an hour). |
| | Promethelax still hasn't changed his quote |
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| aksfjh United States. May 09 2012 02:27. Posts 3511 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:22 paralleluniverse wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 02:12 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
Inflation is bad. The new money doesn't enter the economy evenly. The people who spend it first (the political class) get to spend it at the old rates. Those who get it last must spend it at the newly inflated rates.
This sentences have no discernible meaning
Show nested quote +It is a transfer of wealth from the politically unconnected to the politically connected. It is also a transfer of wealth from creditor's to debtors and this provides a disincentive to saving, and therefore investment.
You have it backwards. It's a transfer from creditors to debtors as you say, but creditors are generally rich, and debtors are generally pause, i.e. the opposite of your first sentence. Inflation is a disincentive for saving, but at low inflation it is hardly so. Encourging saving as a economic policy is would be a disater, called the Paradox of Thrift: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift
Show nested quote +This is bad because savings is the cornerstone of economic growth. Inflation is particularly painful for people living on fixed incomes - pensioners, for example.
No, production is the cornerstone of economic growth. Growth is in fact directly measured by production.
Show nested quote +The Keynesian argument for inflation is that wages are sticky and that during a recession prices must fall but wages can't. While it's true that during a recession prices must fall, there is really no need for inflation to have this happen... it would occur naturally if not for government intervention favouring unions. You see here how advocates of intervention pile intervention on top of intervention... one intervention creates problems, so they intervene more to 'solve' those problems, creating bigger problems in the process.
No, the Keynesian argument isn't that prices should fall in a recession. In fact, central banks do everything they can to prevent prices from falling. There is no bigger failure of a central bank than when it fails to prevent deflation. When prices fall, you get a downward spiral of death, like in the Great Depression. Central banks can easily and successfully increase or decrease inflation as they desire, they have done so in the past, so you intervention on top of intervention argument makes no sense at all. Without the intervention of a central bank, governments that recklessly spend will cause uncontrolled inflation, conversely, deflationary pressures will be worse in recessions, making recovery harder.
Well, they can control inflation up until 0% interest rates. At that point, it's up to the invisible hand or government. |
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| LarJarsE United States. May 09 2012 02:28. Posts 1323 | Profile Blog # |
"greasy pimply skin"
totally not relevant. I am also not fond of how OP cited zero statistical information |
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| paralleluniverse Australia. May 09 2012 02:28. Posts 2967 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:20 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
"It's a conspiracy theory! People are being paid by the government to support the government, so that's why we don't see evidence to the contrary!"
So, when the government funds people who say that government policy is good, we shouldn't question their motives? What if exxon funded a study saying there was no such thing as global warming. Would you question their motives then? Modern intellectuals are apologists for the state. They have replaced the role of the church in previous times as providing the intellectual justification for the king's rule. They popularize the regime and share in it's plunder as a result.
You have proof of this and that government pulls funding for research that is critical of it?
This is a pointless argument as the other poster has pointed out, you're a nut-job conspiracy theorist |
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| FabledIntegral United States. May 09 2012 02:31. Posts 8377 | Profile Blog # |
On May 09 2012 02:08 YouMake wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 01:53 FabledIntegral wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:37 YouMake wrote:
I'm currently a college student, and i make minimum wage why i think it shouldn't be removed. It needs to be raised. I go to school full time, and i make minimum wage i work 30 hrs a week. Still not enough to pay for my car, phone and internet. I live in a dorm.
Then don't live in the dorm and live somewhere cheaper. What in the world makes you think that you should be able to pay for everything on minimum wage when you aren't even working 40 hours a week? Good, you shouldn't be able to pay for all those things, and I'd say we'd be moving in the wrong direction once you can. You're saying that the absolute most basic jobs in the entire economy should pay at a high enough rate to cover someone's car, expensive dorm (which often comes with a meal plan), internet (why do you have to pay for internet if you live in a dorm though :o), and phone? Especially when you aren't even working full time?! If you're working one of the most basic jobs, you need to cut costs. Live off campus. Don't have a car, take public transportation. Have the minimal cell phone bill. Use the school Internet. Tis what I did. Used to commute 45 minutes on the bus to work when I was 15 to save up money for a car, which I didn't buy until I was 17 since I didn't have the money. Instead of going to any school out there, I chose to go to UCI since I could commute and save money. I worked full time over the summer to save up money for the school year. Took out some loans, but quite manageable. But before it sounds like I had by any means a hard life, I am biased as my parents are well off and while they didn't pay for rent or that stuff they did cover my tuition 100% (and books too).... and insurance!
Okay Mr. High Horse lemme see you work 40 hours a week Plus take 21 credits. Sorry to inform you but where i go to school there is almost no public transportation. The meals are not free and i pay for my dorm with college loans. Why can't i move out. Because i lived in foster care and when you turn 18 they kick you out. sooo before you start preaching you need to learn. Please don't start preaching about money.. Okay so you pretty little mama's boy you don't know what hardship is so you really need to shut your mouth. I could easily turned out a different way where i grew up (Bogota, Colombia than i immigrated legally to Bushwick brooklyn). I'm going to make something of my life, while you are just spoon feed. everything.
Did I say you should work 40 hours a week? No, I didn't.
Where you go there's no public transportation at all? Well I'd gather that's an atypical situation and possibly wages could be adjusted for where you are in particular. However, that's not the norm. You can't blame me for that one.
So you pay for your dorm with college loans, as you should. Good for you. That doesn't mean you can't move somewhere cheaper. I used to pay $250 a month to live in some "room" which was in actuality a small square sectioned off using book shelves, with my single bed taking up nearly 90% of the room (you actually had to crawl over it to get from one side to the other). You could do that too to save money since your income is on minimum wage. It's your choice, really.
Your foster care is entirely irrelevant to the conversation. The point discussed rather was "should you be able to attend school and pay for everything through just minimum wage." I said no, you clearly think otherwise. What I said was why we should have even the lowest jobs pay at a high enough wage that at 75% work time you can still cover all your living expenses. That's not the purpose of the minimum wage. The purpose is to cover all your absolute basic necessities, assuming you're working a 40 hour week, and living extremely frugally. You are not doing such - you're living in a dorm, not working a 40 week, and have time devoted to college.
If your parent's paying your tuition for you makes you a mama's boy, then there's a ridiculous amount of us. Good luck making something out of your life, I only can laugh at your perspective as is, but whether or not I was "spoon fed" everything that doesn't mean I didn't go out and get a job myself as well, while working 20 hours a week instead of your 30 during the school year and between 40 - 55 hours during the summer.
And my tone only comes from your insinuations that you can't talk about money unless you're in the situation you came from, which is hilarious.Last edit: 2012-05-09 02:34:47 |
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| Nevermind86 Somalia. May 09 2012 02:33. Posts 410 | Profile # |
On May 08 2012 15:02 sluggaslamoo wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 08 2012 14:54 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
Dude, even with the cheapest rent possible that would still leave me with no money for food.
Yah, which led me to getting evicted more than once. Protip : get a job!
Yeah and the OP is suggesting companies should be allowed to offer full-time jobs that pay less than $500 a month. You know what will happen, the people that were earning enough, will now be earning a lot less. The people who didn't have jobs, still won't have jobs. Why? Because all that will result in is executive pay-rises and greater shareholder payouts, which balances the account. If the jobless could afford to work for lower than that so they can get experience as the op says, then they would anyway, you can get an internship, work pro-bono, etc. And if the company isn't willing to let you work for free then guess what, they aren't gonna hire more people to work for them regardless of pay. Why do you think there is 0 correlation between wages and unemployment?
You cannot just say that without throwing in some numbers man, you are just assuming things. What Milton Friedman said in the 1960's CBS interview is that before the establishment of the minimum wage, in the middle of the great depression unemployment was exactly the same percentage between black and white people, but when it was enacted the unemployment skyrocketed in the black community because people (this was the 30's, could still happend today get real) prefered to hire white people over black people, so that is why its such a racist law. If the minimum wage was abolished things would probably go back to what it was before its establishment: People would rather hire blacks for a little less than whites, balancing the unemployment percentage, that can only benefit the black community, its not like they're gonna pay them 1/8 of what now is the minimum wage like they do in Mexico, but they could pay them 10% less but they would have a job, what example do you give to your kids if you're a black guy waiting in the welfare line? there is no dignity to that and that can psicologically destroy a family.
Read the Malcolm X autobiography, he says that in the great depression his family was completely demoralized by waiting in the welfare line because they were such proud persons and that destroyed them, then the fucking welfare state forced Malcolm's mother to give some of her kids to other families... he even says the welfare state is the worst thing that happened to him in his life, its an anecdote but Malcolm X was a smart mother fucker and he does have a point.Last edit: 2012-05-09 02:35:35 |
| | Interviewer: Many people hate you and would like to see you dead. How does that make you feel? Trevor Goodchild: Those people should get to know me a little better. Then they'd know I don't indulge in feelings. |
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| TheGeneralTheoryOf May 09 2012 02:37. Posts 235 | Profile # |
The biggest debtor in any society, is of course, the government. This is the real reason for inflationary policy. Many very rich people are hugely in debt. Big debts on big houses, nice cars. Monetary and fiscal policy encourages this. Debt for productive purposes is fine, but debt for consumption is foolish (imo) and public debt should simply be repudiated.
Savings is key because it enables the development of capital. You cannot invest without first saving the money to invest. The media pimped notion that consumption is key to economic health is bizarre and flatly wrong. Consumption is the byproduct of production (Say's law is instructive here, that the supply of a good constitutes the demand for other products) not the other way around. Savings is key to capital formation. One of the big problems with western societies is that confiscatory tax rates and run away inflation is leading to a state of capital consumption. This is one of many reasons why productivity has been stagnating in my country.
The reason why we call the Great Depression the Great Depression and not 'that short downturn of 1929' was exactly because of government policy which attempted to 'solve' the probem of depression. Hoover's New Deal left no stone unturned in an effort to 'fix' the depression. The result was the most prolonged and serious depression the world has ever known. I did not mispeak. It was Hoover's New Deal. FDR simply expanded upon Hoover's policies. Contrast this to the Panic of 1919, which lasted 6 months, the government did absolutely fuck all and the economy fixed itself. |
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| TheGeneralTheoryOf May 09 2012 02:39. Posts 235 | Profile # |
| It's also instructive to note that the Great Depression occurred shortly after the founding of the federal reserve. |
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| Yurebis United States. May 09 2012 02:40. Posts 1443 | Profile # |
On May 09 2012 02:15 Whitewing wrote:
Show nested quote +On May 09 2012 02:11 Yurebis wrote:
On May 09 2012 02:02 Whitewing wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:58 Lockitupv2 wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:56 Whitewing wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:53 Lockitupv2 wrote:
On May 09 2012 01:49 Whitewing wrote:
On May 08 2012 14:28 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
One of the things that is universally popular, that I personally hate, is the minimum wage. The minimum wage is a price floor on wages. The reason why I hate the minimum wage so much is because this law hurts very badly the weakest people in society. The people who need help the most. And it hurts those people exactly to benefit other people who are decently well off.
If you look at the origin of the minimum wage in the united states and teenage unemploment you see that after the minimum wage was introduced teenage unemployment goes way up. The biggest % increase in the minimum wage was from .40 cents to .80 cents. This is even worse amongst negro teenagers.
Why does the minimum wage hurt teenagers specifically so much? Teenagers are the group which has collectively the lowest skill sets. No work experience, greasy pimply skin, etc. Poor work ethic. One of the best ways to develop a higher skill set is through working. But it's not just teenagers. Homeless people are another example of people with VERY low skill sets. If you haven't bathed in a week and are drunk half the time you literally cannot be worth $10 per hour. But maybe you could be worth .50 cents an hour, or two dollars an hour holding a sign or something like that. And maybe that experience would help you develop better work skills. Another group that is highly unemployable is convicted criminals. If you have a criminal record, people don't want to hire you. But if the convicted criminal was willing to work at 1/4 the price, maybe someone would.
People sometimes argue that you can't live on less than the minimum wage. That isn't really true (you can actually exist quite comfortably on a very low income, if you need to) but if living on less than $10 / hour is difficult, try living on nothing at all. You could say 'go on welfare' but some people are morally opposed to that and besides, where I am from (AFAIK) welfare pays less than 40 hours a week * 8 / hr. Anyway if someone wants to work for $7 / hr instead of going on welfare, surely we should encourage that.
One of the groups that advocate for the minimum wage is labour unions. They pretend to do so out of some sort of working class soldiarity, but the truth is there is a very strong economic motivation for labour unions to advocate for a minimum wage (and for prohibitions on young adults working). Let's presume a skilled worker can produce 4x as much as an unskilled worker, and the market wage for this skilled worker is $32 / hr. If the minimum wage is $10 the unskilled labourer is not econmically competitive with the skilled woker. On the other hand if the unskilled labourer can work for $7 then it is a better deal for the employer to hire the unskilled labourers (7 * 4 = 28, or a net savings of $4 per hour).
So you see, skilled labourers benefit from keeping unskilled labourers out of the work force. They parasitically profit from the misfortune of others through this policy. The minimum wage is a travesty, it is harmful to the weakest members of society and should be repealed immediately.
You should read the DID (Difference in Differences) study conducted by Card and Kreuger on this exact topic. Their conclusion is that you are in fact completely wrong, and while some economists disagree with them, a lot of other economists like Paul Krugman do agree with them, and the evidence does support their claim. I should know, I actually just went through a replication of their data analysis. Further, this argument against the minimum wage is more neoliberal economics that just supports the growing wealth gap in this nation, and is the entire reason we have people that poor in the first place.
People still listen to Krugman?
Considering the man won a nobel prize and he's generally correct about pretty much everything, they probably should.
The prize doesnt mean anything. And no, he isnt correct about everything......or just about anything. He thinks inflation is good for the working class.
Hint: it is. You should study some economics, there's a level of inflation that's good. Deflation is also a problem, like what Japan suffered from fairly recently. Too much inflation is a bad thing, but there's a level at which inflation exists that we aim for. Of course, neoliberals wouldn't agree with that, but Keynesian policies were a huge part of the reason why the U.S. did so ridiculously well after WW2 (combined with the unchallenged hegemony and regulation),.
Sorry but, didn't the Keynesians of the day predict great catastrophe due to the mass amount of labor returning home? That there wouldn't be enough jobs for everyone and stuff. Did the government provide jobs for all the millions of them as soon as they came back? Was that what it was?
You are aware of the G.I. bill right?
I wasn't, so thank you for mentioning it. It had no employment programs though, so certainly you should give some credit to the free market and it's ability to cope with a sudden oversupply of labor?
I tend to think that, if the economy could have absorbed that many people back then, relatively, with as much (or as little - whatever you think) government "support" there was, the looming unemployment problem of today ca only be structural. It is why even with so many stimulus rounds, no economist in the world could do a thing about. Do you think my viewpoint is plausible? |
| | Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. | |
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| Yurebis United States. May 09 2012 02:44. Posts 1443 | Profile # | |
| | Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. | |
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