lol
Sure, that's why shoe's made for pennies by Vietnamese children sell for hundreds of dollars.
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Businesses say they can't find qualified workers. Are they right?
- Thread starter ksen
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lol
Sure, that's why shoe's made for pennies by Vietnamese children sell for hundreds of dollars.
No, they aren't. This is not how commodities are priced.
SimpleDon
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A couple of thoughts before I read any of the other posts,
- This idea is almost always revived just before Congress considers increasing the H1B1 visas.
- Employers increasingly consider the long term unemployed to not be qualified.
- This is used as a backhanded way of trashing our largely successful secular, public tax supported schools in favor of religious and for profit private schools that the rich don't have to pay taxes for and which won't support the teacher's unions. None of which have anything to do with the quality of education.
- This is one of the excuses that is used to prevent our pursuit of full employment which would reduce our current commitment to increasing income inequality by increasing the income of the already wealthy.
funinspace
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I didn’t notice your comments earlier….
As for full disclosure: We are somewhere in the top 10-20, and our son is attending a private university (now just a year away from getting thru…Yippy).
I think my nephews are more misguided ignorant fools than having valid points. For one thing roughly half of Americans receiving assistance are actually working. Most illegal immigrants get very little assistance from the government, but they do perform jobs that most Americans never want to do. But these nephews are dyed GOP red all the way thru, and luv Ted Cruz and Allen West. These 4 nephews all had money given to their parents (from their grandparent) when they were young, so they would be able to easily pay for a public college. Both parents got BS degrees, but encouraging their kids’ education seemed to get second fiddle to “I want it all, I want it now”. So far they are 0 out of 3 for attending a university, with one in the wings. And interestingly there doesn’t appear to be any money. But they did/do have horses, dad had a monster truck as a commuter car, hunting trips with nice guns and bows, and lots of other toys. Feeding 4 horses can get pretty expensive in the high desert, when 100% of the food has to be bought. Each boy got a (used) truck at 15-16. Oh, they live in the middle of nowhere, so they have to drive those trucks a lot to do anything. One 22 year old is marginally working, only attended 1 semester of college, and is still mooching off of dad living at home. At least the older (26) one is living on his own even if he still is just bouncing from one mediocre job to the next. Dad was recently telling his mommy that he was concerned about his 18 year old driving his truck around with bald tires, working on milking her for a little more dough. Duh, if big truck tires are too expensive, dump the friggin truck, and get a cheap commuter car. Tires and gas cost a lot more for a full sized truck, especially with non-stock tires. But no, no cowboy-redneck would be seen in an economy car….besides the assault rifle wouldn’t look good in the rear window (I kid you not). It is hard to get ahead with no education, living in the middle of nowhere, and looking like redneck hicks. They play dress up cowboy, thinking its real, while dad drives into the city to do real work.
I can only speak for Canada but there is indeed a problem when people on social assistance can receive more money than a person earning minimum wage. Several businesses have also been in the news for abusing the programs that allow the hire of foreign workers and also pay part of the cost of teaching them English and job skills so your nephews may have some valid points.
Still, when WalMart lets you go for attendance issues because you can't make your shift repeatedly due to staying up all night gaming, we can't fling all of the dung at government or corporations. (One of my nephews...)
As for full disclosure: We are somewhere in the top 10-20, and our son is attending a private university (now just a year away from getting thru…Yippy).
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[nitpick]Jobs most Americans never want to do at the ridiculously low wages employers can get away with by hiring illegals you mean.[/nitpick]
funinspace
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You have a modest point, but do you want to work as a picker in Imperial Valley for $15/hr? Right now it looks like they get $8-9/hr.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/imperial-valley-california-last-frontier_n_1396825.html
Or if they all pay them $15/hr in Imperial Valley, how much more fruit/vegetables will come up from south of the border, due to them being paid $3/hr down in Mexico and California produce going up 25% in price? I'm not sure if this is really part of where we want to be "fixing" the US economy...
Exactly. That's why we are hearing about it again.
credoconsolans
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I didn’t notice your comments earlier….
I think my nephews are more misguided ignorant fools than having valid points. For one thing roughly half of Americans receiving assistance are actually working. Most illegal immigrants get very little assistance from the government, but they do perform jobs that most Americans never want to do. But these nephews are dyed GOP red all the way thru, and luv Ted Cruz and Allen West. These 4 nephews all had money given to their parents (from their grandparent) when they were young, so they would be able to easily pay for a public college. Both parents got BS degrees, but encouraging their kids’ education seemed to get second fiddle to “I want it all, I want it now”. So far they are 0 out of 3 for attending a university, with one in the wings. And interestingly there doesn’t appear to be any money. But they did/do have horses, dad had a monster truck as a commuter car, hunting trips with nice guns and bows, and lots of other toys. Feeding 4 horses can get pretty expensive in the high desert, when 100% of the food has to be bought. Each boy got a (used) truck at 15-16. Oh, they live in the middle of nowhere, so they have to drive those trucks a lot to do anything. One 22 year old is marginally working, only attended 1 semester of college, and is still mooching off of dad living at home. At least the older (26) one is living on his own even if he still is just bouncing from one mediocre job to the next. Dad was recently telling his mommy that he was concerned about his 18 year old driving his truck around with bald tires, working on milking her for a little more dough. Duh, if big truck tires are too expensive, dump the friggin truck, and get a cheap commuter car. Tires and gas cost a lot more for a full sized truck, especially with non-stock tires. But no, no cowboy-redneck would be seen in an economy car….besides the assault rifle wouldn’t look good in the rear window (I kid you not). It is hard to get ahead with no education, living in the middle of nowhere, and looking like redneck hicks. They play dress up cowboy, thinking its real, while dad drives into the city to do real work.
I can only speak for Canada but there is indeed a problem when people on social assistance can receive more money than a person earning minimum wage. Several businesses have also been in the news for abusing the programs that allow the hire of foreign workers and also pay part of the cost of teaching them English and job skills so your nephews may have some valid points.
Still, when WalMart lets you go for attendance issues because you can't make your shift repeatedly due to staying up all night gaming, we can't fling all of the dung at government or corporations. (One of my nephews...
As for full disclosure: We are somewhere in the top 10-20, and our son is attending a private university (now just a year away from getting thru…Yippy).
Sounds like Sarah Palin's family who is touted as "traditional American and downhome" by the right wingers. While on the other hand, the godless, adulterous cheating liberal couple the Clintons, had a daughter who finished college, got a job, and a career, got married and THEN got pregnant.
Jayjay
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So if a person gets their money by, say, mugging people or burglarizing houses of richer people, that's not a social problem but their individual matter?
The fallacy in your thinking is ignoring the societal cost of having a suppressed underclass living alongside a rich aristrocracy. You'll need more police to keep the poor people in check, and at some point it'll reduce the total productivity and what's available for consumption.
Lumpenproletariat
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They are distinct separate classes in the same sense that right-handers and consumers are distinct separate classes.
They have always been distinct and separate in this sense, in ANY era, not just in the "feudal" era. And so it will always suck donkey balls no matter what, in any era in any kind of society or economic system imaginable.
Ford
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I have not waded through the dozen pages of responses yet, but I find myself agreeing with your thoughts.
I'd add a few, too...
To put it mildly, this is an employer's dream market. Jobs are scarce, competition for those jobs is fierce, and businesses of just about any kind can pick and choose from hundreds of applicants.
Yet employers of all kinds - well, at least the ones who survived the recession - have learned that they can do more with less. Are they really bereft of qualified applicants, or are they unwilling to pay those applicants what they're worth?
Training and turnover are expensive as well, and in a highly competitive job market, a business owner might not want to risk hiring an "overqualified" employee, training them to do a new job, then losing them when a job in their old field opens up.
Lumpenproletariat
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#100
lpetrich
When the actual price in the market differs from the "value," it is because of a distortion caused by violation of the above rule, i.e., competition is required and the prices are determined "only by supply-and-demand, based on the free choices of buyers and sellers without interference from 3rd parties."
Give an example where the price and "value" are different and it is not due to an infraction of the above rule.
It is not legitimate for these or anyone, public or private, to distort prices by limiting competition.
No one should have any right to restrain competition. All producers, including wage-earners, should have to compete and not fix prices, including the price for labor.
Lots of workers and producers produce something they cannot afford to consume themselves. That is no problem at all. An example is tourist hotel workers who clean the rooms which they themselves could not afford. There is no problem that many workers and businesspersons could not afford to buy the same product they produce themselves.
The point of production is to serve consumers. But there is no point of consumption. It's just there. Consumers want something so they buy it. There's no social need filled by it, only the individual need of individual consumers.
There is no social need to get people to consume. But there is a need to get them to produce. Consumption takes care of itself. There is no lack of consumption needing to be corrected, except that an individual consumer wants something and so goes about trying to find something to satisfy that want. But this is an individual issue only, not a social issue. I.e., an individual need or want, not a social need or want.
There is no problem if someone with money does not spend it, or if someone chooses not to consume. But there is a problem if someone chooses not to produce. Society needs to create incentives to get people to produce. But there is no need for incentives to get people to consume.
It is pro-consumer to say that we need producers to satisfy the needs/wants of consumers. Promoting production is pro-consumer.
There is no need to get people to consume who otherwise would not. But there is a need to get people to produce who otherwise would not produce. We bribe people to produce by rewarding them, so they will produce even if they would prefer not to.
The reason we pay the workers is to get them to produce. It's not their consumption that we need, but their work or their production. The money paid to them and their spending of it serves only as a reward to them for the work they do, i.e., as an enticement to them to get them to do the work, and that work or production is all that has any value. Their spending the money or their consumption per se has no value. But as an enticement to get them to work it has value, because their work has value.
When that same work can be done better without the worker, such as by a robot or computer, then we don't need that worker any more, and there is no further need to pay that worker, because their consumption per se has no value, but as a reward to get them to work it had value when they were needed in order to get the work done.
lpetrich
When the actual price in the market differs from the "value," it is because of a distortion caused by violation of the above rule, i.e., competition is required and the prices are determined "only by supply-and-demand, based on the free choices of buyers and sellers without interference from 3rd parties."
Give an example where the price and "value" are different and it is not due to an infraction of the above rule.
It is not legitimate for these or anyone, public or private, to distort prices by limiting competition.
No one should have any right to restrain competition. All producers, including wage-earners, should have to compete and not fix prices, including the price for labor.
Lots of workers and producers produce something they cannot afford to consume themselves. That is no problem at all. An example is tourist hotel workers who clean the rooms which they themselves could not afford. There is no problem that many workers and businesspersons could not afford to buy the same product they produce themselves.
The point of production is to serve consumers. But there is no point of consumption. It's just there. Consumers want something so they buy it. There's no social need filled by it, only the individual need of individual consumers.
There is no social need to get people to consume. But there is a need to get them to produce. Consumption takes care of itself. There is no lack of consumption needing to be corrected, except that an individual consumer wants something and so goes about trying to find something to satisfy that want. But this is an individual issue only, not a social issue. I.e., an individual need or want, not a social need or want.
There is no problem if someone with money does not spend it, or if someone chooses not to consume. But there is a problem if someone chooses not to produce. Society needs to create incentives to get people to produce. But there is no need for incentives to get people to consume.
It is pro-consumer to say that we need producers to satisfy the needs/wants of consumers. Promoting production is pro-consumer.
There is no need to get people to consume who otherwise would not. But there is a need to get people to produce who otherwise would not produce. We bribe people to produce by rewarding them, so they will produce even if they would prefer not to.
The reason we pay the workers is to get them to produce. It's not their consumption that we need, but their work or their production. The money paid to them and their spending of it serves only as a reward to them for the work they do, i.e., as an enticement to them to get them to do the work, and that work or production is all that has any value. Their spending the money or their consumption per se has no value. But as an enticement to get them to work it has value, because their work has value.
When that same work can be done better without the worker, such as by a robot or computer, then we don't need that worker any more, and there is no further need to pay that worker, because their consumption per se has no value, but as a reward to get them to work it had value when they were needed in order to get the work done.