Europe submits voluntarily

[Jokodo]

You are giving people a chance to earn money they otherwise couldn't. They then send a lot of the money back home, or spend it when they move home, which helps the economy of the foreign country. It's a perfectly fair arrangement.

I've edited my last post to be more explicit.

I'm not talking in individual, micro-economic terms.

Ok I just edited my post also. I don't see that one nation is exploiting another by giving temporary work to foreigners, when the person may otherwise just be unemployed anyway. It may be better for *both* countries that they work and send money home. Yes the foreign nation will have costs in looking after that citizen and educating their kids, but they have those costs anyway. When you educate someone, there isn't typically a contract saying "you have to work at least 30 years in this country to pay us back". And this ignores that country X may be very happy to be having lots of dollars sent home into its economy.

It may be so that it's the best bad deal the foreign country can get under current circumstances. There are indeed countries whose economies are to a significant degree based on remittances. But it's still a bad deal, especially on the long run as it is detrimental to developing a local economy. And none of this negates the fact that the target country gets something for free.

 

[whichphilosophy]

This is the deal for those who work in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. I worked in China and the ME. Once the contract finished, my visa was cancelled.

Does that make it reasonable and equitable?

Yes.

 

[Jokodo]

This is the deal for those who work in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. I worked in China and the ME. Once the contract finished, my visa was cancelled.

Does that make it reasonable and equitable?

Yes.

Saudi Arabia beheads people.

Does that make beheading a reasonable and equitable punishments.

By whichphilosophy's logic, apparently it does.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The bit you're quoting explains why that is not a permanent problem. Once the birthrate levels out - and it does not matter where it levels out - the ratio between pensioners and workers will eventually normalise.

Why do you assume it will level out?

If nothing else, the birthrate cannot drop below zero. That would then constitute a worst case scenario.

Ignoring that limit, do you assume the birthrate will not level out?

Ok, terminology problem. Yes, there will be a point that the birthrate does not drop below. That doesn't mean the population will level out, though--and it's the population that matters.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Jokodo's solution to that conundrum appears to be to credit the human worker with all the production and credit the various mechanisms with none of it. The retiree gets his goods and services by trading his stashed gold to the company, which gives the gold to the shareholders in dividends, in return for the mindless mechanisms the shareholders paid to set up, mechanisms that partly created the goods and services for the retiree. This trade -- a lifetime of earned gold in exchange for mindless-mechanism-setting-up -- Jokodo labels "the worker's wage is suppressed". But "suppressed" relative to what? Well, suppressed relative to what the wage would have been if the shareholders had paid to set up that mindless mechanism to create goods and services and then gifted the entirety of the resulting goods and services to the workers who help their machines make goods and services, less the hours of labor it took to build the machinery.

On an individual level this works--you save during your working years to have money to spend during your retirement.

However, on a level of society this doesn't work. Simple thought experiment: You have a society of 99% retirees. What happens?

 

[Hermit]

If nothing else, the birthrate cannot drop below zero. That would then constitute a worst case scenario.

Ignoring that limit, do you assume the birthrate will not level out?

Ok, terminology problem. Yes, there will be a point that the birthrate does not drop below. That doesn't mean the population will level out, though--and it's the population that matters.

Who claimed the population will level out? I wrote "...the ratio between pensioners and workers will eventually normalise", which (ignoring the bunfight with whichphilosophy) is what we are currently discussing, is it not?

 

[whichphilosophy]

Yes.

Saudi Arabia beheads people.

Does that make beheading a reasonable and equitable punishments.

By whichphilosophy's logic, apparently it does.

The good pay rates and end of service payments more than covers the cost of pension plans back home. The beheading scenario is unreleted.

 

[Jokodo]

Yes.

Saudi Arabia beheads people.

Does that make beheading a reasonable and equitable punishments.

By whichphilosophy's logic, apparently it does.

The good pay rates and end of service payments more than covers the cost of pension plans back home. The beheading scenario is unreleted.

It is not.

Your sole argument was "other countries do it too".

Since other countries do beheadings, you can:

a) agree that your argument applies to beheadings.
b) agree that your argument wasn't really an argument.

 

[Bomb#20]

Let us agree to consider your ill-considered put-down withdrawn.

I do not know what you mean by that.

Why don't you know? Did you read the whole post that was in, or just the bit you quoted?

What I meant by that was, you said "I was giving you the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you wanted to have a meaningful discussion about the real world. My bad for not recognising that you aren't at all interested in that." You ought not to have said that. It was a dickish thing for you to say, and you're better than that. I was having a meaningful discussion about the real world -- I was trying to educate you as to why the Labor Theory of Value is wrong -- wrong in this world, wrong in all worlds. If you didn't see where I was going with my questioning, and if you weren't up for being questioned about subtle aspects of your reasoning and giving straight answers to them before you saw why the questions were relevant, that's okay, you could have asked me where I was going with it. But instead you decided to blow me off with a cheap put-down. By "Let us agree to consider your ill-considered put-down withdrawn.", I meant I was forgiving you for that because you had not yet read post #6596 -- the post I was typing while you were insulting me -- and inviting you to start fresh. If you've read the whole of post #6596, you now know that the fraction of the real world economy that's produced without human help isn't pertinent to the argument so the fact that it's a small fraction isn't a reason to think I'm not interested in discussing the real world. Newton was refuted by an error of a 35,000th of a degree in its calculation of Mercury's orbit; the Labor Theory of Value can certainly be refuted by a banana.

I will agree that the wording logical necessity was a bit too strong when in fact it's only a logical consequence of the way things are in this world of ours, when a world in which it does not hold is conceivable.

But it's not a logical consequence of the way things are in this world of ours. Nearly everything you consume in this world of ours isn't made primarily by people. It's made primarily by machines. A wild banana plant is just a machine; and the fact that your theory does not handle a thing made by a wild banana plant in a reasonable way is a red flag that it probably does not handle anything made by a machine in a reasonable way.

 

[Bomb#20]

Jokodo's solution to that conundrum appears to be to credit the human worker with all the production and credit the various mechanisms with none of it. The retiree gets his goods and services by trading his stashed gold to the company, which gives the gold to the shareholders in dividends, in return for the mindless mechanisms the shareholders paid to set up, mechanisms that partly created the goods and services for the retiree. This trade -- a lifetime of earned gold in exchange for mindless-mechanism-setting-up -- Jokodo labels "the worker's wage is suppressed". But "suppressed" relative to what? Well, suppressed relative to what the wage would have been if the shareholders had paid to set up that mindless mechanism to create goods and services and then gifted the entirety of the resulting goods and services to the workers who help their machines make goods and services, less the hours of labor it took to build the machinery.

On an individual level this works--you save during your working years to have money to spend during your retirement.

However, on a level of society this doesn't work. Simple thought experiment: You have a society of 99% retirees. What happens?

Everything ordinary is made by robots. You earn enough in 1% of your life to buy a lifetime's worth of robot products. Everybody lives happily ever after. What's the problem?

 

[angelo]

Your graph shows the "shit hole" countries birth rate much higher than Western nations!

You wrote the birth rate in the " shithole " countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations is out of control, Angelo. I provided a graph showing that it is far from out of control - that it is in fact dropping at a significantly faster rate than the birthrates of the non-"shit hole" countries.

Full marks for backpedalling, but why did you bother? Is it impossible to admit to having been wrong?

I'm wrong? For F sake, take a look at it!!!!

 

[angelo]

For those with blinkered views about the incompatibility of islam with Western culture and democracy. Here in Australia we recently had a plebiscite on same sex marriage. The country as a whole voted over 60% in favour. But the Western suburbs of Sydney like Blaxland and Watson where muzzies are the majority voted strongly against by margins of 70% against. This is the future of many cities in the West once muzzies are the majority. Not to mention FGM, child brides, honor killings, death for apostasy and any criticism of the terrorist Mo!

 

[Jokodo]

Why don't you know? Did you read the whole post that was in, or just the bit you quoted?

I did not know what "putdown" you want considered withdrawn.

You may be under the misimpression that I agreed with SimpleDon when he wrote that "[t]he number of workers has to at least stay the same for the burden on the current work force to be tolerable". I did not.

You may be under the impression that I'm unaware of automation or its consequences. I'm not. I have myself at other points made the argument that, because of productivity increases, a shrinking ratio of the working doesn't need to be a problem and a significant reduction of working hours is entirely within reach in the very near future despite a growing share of people not part of the work force.

This isn't happening automatically, though. In fact, what has happened in reality in Western countries over the last 50 years or more is almost the opposite: As the jobs that always needed to be done have become much less labor intensive, new jobs were added and the total amount of work done by humans has actually increased (workforce participation is up, mostly due to higher integration of women into the workforce, while, were I live at least, the hours per week haven't been reduced in 40 years; the result being that the hours worked per person in the population at large, including both workers and non-workers, are actually up, not down).

While I may have phrased my criticism in terms of the labor theory of value, the gist of it is actually more general: Automation is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for a reduction of the work burden on a societal level. If the other conditions aren't met, replacing one Ponzi scheme (intergenerational transfers) with another Ponzi scheme (funds) isn't going to do lead to different results. The fund managers have no obligation to invest exclusively or primarily in machinery that's increase productivity of primary production - and in an economy where the best profits are being made in the financial sector, indeed no reason to do so. Paying your rates into a superannuation fund instead of into an intergenerational transfer system does not intrinsically increase future productivity. It would have to for your argument to work if your argument is that the products future retirees will consume are as much the result of their investments now as they are result of the economic activity then, by then's active workforce.

This point stands independently of what's your theory of value.

So let's agree to not further discuss the Labor Theory of Value and join deriding angelo for his misconception that paying into a superannuation fund alone will make any connection between future economic activity and future retiree living standards go away.

 

[Hermit]

Your graph shows the "shit hole" countries birth rate much higher than Western nations!

You wrote the birth rate in the " shithole " countries that can't even afford to feed their present populations is out of control, Angelo. I provided a graph showing that it is far from out of control - that it is in fact dropping at a significantly faster rate than the birthrates of the non-"shit hole" countries.

Full marks for backpedalling, but why did you bother? Is it impossible to admit to having been wrong?

I'm wrong? For F sake, take a look at it!!!!

OK, let's have another look.



The birthrates of all "shithole" countries have dropped to half the rates they were at 55 years ago. Where is the "out of control" bit?

 

[SimpleDon]

It is a Ponzi scheme then called life.

Who will support the elderly then if not the current workers?

The number of workers has to at least stay the same for the burden on the current work force to be tolerable.

Ever heard of superannuation?

Yes, of course I have. But even a corporate, self-financed private pension scheme depends on the health of the corporation when the pension payments are made. The company only puts aside a small part of the money that they will pay out eventually. Even if they are underwritten by an insurance company the money isn't put into the bank or a trust fund, it was used to buy real estate to generate profits to pay the pension benefits. The benefits depend on the health and the revenues of the guarantor no matter if it is the federal government, a large corporation or an insurance company providing pensions for small businesses. The only real difference is that the federal government is the ultimate guarantor for all of the pensions, even those from the insurance companies and the large corporations.

 

[Derec]

The article does not say there are 10,000 migrants stuck on the border between Serbia and Croatia.

You are right. I miswrote. Do note, however, that Oxfam says that almost 8000 of those, i.e. vast majority, are in Serbia. Not all of them are trying to enter via Croatia, some are trying to enter via Hungary, but Hungary has a better border fence.

It says there are about that number of asylum seekers in all of the Balkan countries.

The bigger point remains though, as all those 10k asylum seekers economic migrants seek to illegally enter EU.

About this 26 year old from Algeria, the article says he has next to no chance of being granted asylum even if he makes it to Sweden, presumably because he is an economic opportunist rather than a bona fide asylum seeker.

Just like (almost) all the rest.
I find that statement less important that you obviously do. For one, if/once he reaches the promised land of Sweden, why would he admit he is 26 and from Algeria? He will probably "lose" his papers and claim to be 16 and from Syria. Such country of origin and age fraud is rampant among the migrants.

And even if his asylum request is eventually denied, that would take years. No matter how fraudulent a claim, any so-called asylum seeker cannot be deported and must be taken care by the taxpayers at significant cost for years. And then, when the asylum request is denied, that is not the same as being deported. Many denied asylum applicants continue to live in their "mark" countries for years. The terrorist (also from North Africa) who drove a truck through Berlin Christmas market was a denied asylum seeker, but the Merkel government never deported him because he threw away his papers.
So if this guy makes it to Sweden he is looking at many years of care-free living at taxpayer expense.

Derec, if you comment at all, try to comment on what is actually written rather than distorting things through your ideological filter.

I posted the link to the article for you to find details there. Nothing distorting about that. My main point is that the Spiegel article propagandized in favor of these illegal economic migrants by referring to them as "refugees" numerous times throughout the article when they are nothing of the sort.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Jokodo's solution to that conundrum appears to be to credit the human worker with all the production and credit the various mechanisms with none of it. The retiree gets his goods and services by trading his stashed gold to the company, which gives the gold to the shareholders in dividends, in return for the mindless mechanisms the shareholders paid to set up, mechanisms that partly created the goods and services for the retiree. This trade -- a lifetime of earned gold in exchange for mindless-mechanism-setting-up -- Jokodo labels "the worker's wage is suppressed". But "suppressed" relative to what? Well, suppressed relative to what the wage would have been if the shareholders had paid to set up that mindless mechanism to create goods and services and then gifted the entirety of the resulting goods and services to the workers who help their machines make goods and services, less the hours of labor it took to build the machinery.

On an individual level this works--you save during your working years to have money to spend during your retirement.

However, on a level of society this doesn't work. Simple thought experiment: You have a society of 99% retirees. What happens?

Everything ordinary is made by robots. You earn enough in 1% of your life to buy a lifetime's worth of robot products. Everybody lives happily ever after. What's the problem?

Except that's not possible at present.

 

[SimpleDon]

LOL - do you think that the money you put into Super is securly stored somewhere to be paid out to you in the future?

It's not.

The amount you can claim on retirement is completely dependent on the state of the economy when you retire. That is, it's dependent on the people who are working at that time - just as the money available in Super to retirees today depends on the economy as it is now (and not as it was back when today's retirees were contributing to it).

Even if the money *were* securely stored away somewhere, when it is re-introduced into circulation and floods the market for consumer goods, it would cause inflation of the prices of consumer goods, with the effect of suppressing real wages - to the exact same extent as if the workers were paying into an intergenerational transfer system.

I am having a hard time parsing this out. I am not sure that I understand what you are trying to say.

I am not sure how you arrived at inflation suppressing wages. Inflation is an economy wide increase in prices and it erodes the value of the wages and puts pressure on employers to raise wages. If you can get to inflation suppressing wages from this I really don't see it.

I think that you are confusing cause and effect.

For every retiree who consumes goods and services, someone has to produce those goods and services and be recompensed with less than the value of the goods and services produced after all deductions. Else, there wouldn't be any goods and services left after the workers have consumed their shares. Whether they get the money on hand but pay hefty rates to social security, or whether they don't see the money in the first place because their bosses have to pay hefty dividends to the fund that owns the company is, in effect, hardly relevant.

Once again, I had to read this over many times to try to find out where you go off of the rails with this. Intentional or not, this demonstrates an anti-capitalistic understanding of the economy. A capitalistic economy expands as necessary to accommodate spending, if there are adequate resources and time to react. It doesn't matter if it is a retiree who spends the money or a productive worker. They count the same to direct the economy what and how much to produce. The consumption of the retirees doesn't limit the price or availability of goods for anyone.

It's a logical necessity that, if people consume who do not produce, those who produce will have to produce more than they're consuming.

Of course.

This fact is independent of whether the system that allocates the non-producers their share of the production is called and investment bank and the rates dividends, or whether it's called social security and intergenerational transfer.

I read this as:

This fact is independent of what the system that allocates the non-producers their share of the production is called, and investment bank and the rates dividends, or whether it's called social security and intergenerational transfer.

I couldn't make any sense out of the struck out phrase.

It is independent even of whether you live under capitalism, communism, feudalism, or some other economic system yet to be conceived. The effect on the working population can only be alleviated by either a) high productivity, or b) a high share of workers among the total population.

If you are talking about the burden being greater on the workers as the number of retirees increases relative to the number of the workers, you are right, but it is not because the production that they consume drives the prices down or wages go down due to inflation but because the retirees are supported with taxes that have to be higher with fewer workers since the taxes are payroll taxes based on wages times the number of workers.

 

[bilby]

I'm wrong? For F sake, take a look at it!!!!

OK, let's have another look.

View attachment 14034

The birthrates of all "shithole" countries have dropped to half the rates they were at 55 years ago. Where is the "out of control" bit?

First you need to find a country that can't afford to feed its current population.

Thirty years ago, you might have pointed at Ethiopia; but Ethiopia's population has almost trebled since the 'Live Aid' famine of the mid-eighties, while famine has disappeared from that country.

In fact, famine has disappeared from the entire world - right now, there simply are not ANY countries that are unable to feed their current population.

Like most of angelo's claims in this thread, this one is based on an assumption that is completely wrong, and which a few minutes on Google would have shown him to be wrong. But clearly he either doesn't care about, or simply rejects the existence of, facts.

Which makes argument with him futile (other than for pure entertainment purposes).

 

[Jokodo]

I am having a hard time parsing this out. I am not sure that I understand what you are trying to say.

I am not sure how you arrived at inflation suppressing wages. Inflation is an economy wide increase in prices and it erodes the value of the wages and puts pressure on employers to raise wages. If you can get to inflation suppressing wages from this I really don't see it.

Constant nominal wages + inflation = lower real wages.

I think that you are confusing cause and effect.

For every retiree who consumes goods and services, someone has to produce those goods and services and be recompensed with less than the value of the goods and services produced after all deductions. Else, there wouldn't be any goods and services left after the workers have consumed their shares. Whether they get the money on hand but pay hefty rates to social security, or whether they don't see the money in the first place because their bosses have to pay hefty dividends to the fund that owns the company is, in effect, hardly relevant.

Once again, I had to read this over many times to try to find out where you go off of the rails with this. Intentional or not, this demonstrates an anti-capitalistic understanding of the economy. A capitalistic economy expands as necessary to accommodate spending, if there are adequate resources and time to react.

You are contradicting yourself here. We're talking about a scenario where the rate of people in employment falls steadily and significantly, remember? If labour is not a scarce resource with a potential to limit the expansion of the economy, then what's your problem in the first place? If it is, then the economy will not be able to expand "as necessary to accommodate spending" and thus the goods available will shrink no matter how the retirees get their budget.

Oh, and there's nothing anti-capitalistic about this (though I may or may not be an anti-capitalist at other times). I'm pretty sure I could quote you some Adam Smith saying more or less the same thing if I had the time to look him up.

It doesn't matter if it is a retiree who spends the money or a productive worker. They count the same to direct the economy what and how much to produce. The consumption of the retirees doesn't limit the price or availability of goods for anyone.

It does if labour is a scarce resource, which is an unspoken assumption of yours when you claim that a healthy rate of workers/total population is necessary or desirable per se.

It's a logical necessity that, if people consume who do not produce, those who produce will have to produce more than they're consuming.

Of course.

This fact is independent of whether the system that allocates the non-producers their share of the production is called and investment bank and the rates dividends, or whether it's called social security and intergenerational transfer.

I read this as:

This fact is independent of what the system that allocates the non-producers their share of the production is called, and investment bank and the rates dividends, or whether it's called social security and intergenerational transfer.

I couldn't make any sense out of the struck out phrase.

What I'm saying is it doesn't matter how retirees get their budget, as long as you rule out significant leaps in productivity (which implicitly you do), their spending will tighten the market such that whatever a worker takes home after all deductions will buy him less than it would in a world with no retirees.

It *really* doesn't matter at all. Assuming the same level of productivity, the same ratio of retirees, the same living standard of retirees, and the same rate of re-investment, the average worker's take home pay will be the same in real terms no matter how the retiree gets his budget, even if its by digging out a cache of cash.

Now, that is assuming one not necessarily realistic assumption: no significant increases in productivity - but that's an assumption without which your entire argument falls apart, so I'm doing you a favour here.

It is independent even of whether you live under capitalism, communism, feudalism, or some other economic system yet to be conceived. The effect on the working population can only be alleviated by either a) high productivity, or b) a high share of workers among the total population.

If you are talking about the burden being greater on the workers as the number of retirees increases relative to the number of the workers, you are right, but it is not because the production that they consume drives the prices down or wages go down due to inflation but because the retirees are supported with taxes that have to be higher with fewer workers since the taxes are payroll taxes based on wages times the number of workers.

Incorrect. Payroll taxes are one way to distribute access to goods and services, one way to make it so that those we no longer expect to contribute to society's production can still benefit from it. But given a certain mode of production, degree of automation etc., any other system of distribution has the same effect of decreasing the amount of goods and services available to the workers. All that counts is the ratio of consumables produced to consumers, or as long as production requires human labor (at a given level of productivity), the ratio of workers to consumers.