Ontario raising minimum wage to $15

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

...Lower price raises demand.

Higher demand raises the price....

Lower price -> increase demand -> higher price

 

[Crazy Eddie]

...Lower price raises demand.

Higher demand raises the price....

Lower price -> increase demand -> higher price

And the fact that none of these things happen predictably or instantly is why the market fluctuates the way that it does.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Huh? So are you saying that for all good if the price goes from $2 down to $1 then the quantity sold remains the same?

No, see the bolded italicized statement.

Still trying to understand our differences. Let's take an easy example

Blueberries. I don't buy blueberries when they are in those small containers for $5. However when the container price doubles and the price drops I do buy them. So the amount of blueberries purchased went up 200 (assuming 200 in the container) when it was cheaper. So when 100 blueberries are $5, let's say 100 people buy them. When it's 200 for $4 and 200 people buy them you have an extra demand of 30,000 blueberries

 

[laughing dog]

No, see the bolded italicized statement.

Still trying to understand our differences. Let's take an easy example

Blueberries. I don't buy blueberries when they are in those small containers for $5. However when the container price doubles and the price drops I do buy them. So the amount of blueberries purchased went up 200 (assuming 200 in the container) when it was cheaper. So when 100 blueberries are $5, let's say 100 people buy them. When it's 200 for $4 and 200 people buy them you have an extra demand of 30,000 blueberries

You have additional sales of 30,000. In economics, demand refers to the relationship between price and the amount people want to purchase (in economics jargon, the quantity demanded). A reduction in the price of blueberries does not change the relationship between price and quantity demanded - a lower price induces people to purchase more blueberries. An increase in demand (in economics) means that the relationship between price and quantity demanded changes - with no change in price, people buy more blueberries. Using your example, an increase in demand would mean that a price of $4, 40,000 more blueberries would be purchased even though the price had not changed.

Here is a youtube video that explains this [YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7FCZ4i-JgI[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Ok Eddie,

We appear to be talking in circles and it is starting to feel like talking in to the wind. You think I don't know what I am talking about, and I think the same of you. So lets get a few things straight so the reader can see and decide for themselves.

We agree that employers should be held responsible for harm that they do to individuals and to the community. Correct?

We agree that there is an unfair pressure in favour of employers and against employees in negotiating wages because employees need to meet their cost of living. Correct?

We both want everyone fed, clothed, sheltered and able to meet their cost of living, including the unemployed (you have been ambiguous on this point). Correct?

If this is accounted for by the employee having other means to support himself and not requiring the job get by, then I say we have a fair and open market for labour and that the true value of the labour is whatever the seller and buyer of it agree upon. You disagree? Why?

I propose that UBI, as a universal tax credit offset as a person's income climbs will provide those who don't have jobs and those whose jobs don't pay enough to meet the cost of living with enough money to do so. You consider the unemployed a separate issue and propose handling their needs with an additional program. Correct?

I propose that with UBI and the cost of living met for all even without being employed, employers will need to pay more to attract employees. I have further proposed that some current minimum wage jobs that are dirty or unpleasant but essential could demand considerably higher wages from employers. Do you disagree? Why?

You have claimed that to have UBI we will need to tax the rich at 99%. You have not explained why you believe this, and I see no reason to believe it. Those who are earning enough to exceed their cost of living would not be receiving a net positive from UBI as against their taxes. It would function as a simpler version of Employment Insurance / Welfare without so many slipping through the cracks.

I have also advocated for Universal Single Payer Health Care. You haven't said much about this other than you think it would be expensive and you want employers to pay for the healthcare of their employees even for issues in no way related to work (which I strongly disagree with). Do you believe that Universal Single Payer Health Care would cost more or less than what you have now?

You have stated that the fair price for labour is necessarily greater than cost of living for the employee. Correct? Why? I disagree and find this to be an extraneous factor to sale of the labour.

I believe that you are advocating to shift the cost of helping our fellow citizens meet their cost of living entirely onto the employer. Correct? This to me is you and the rich who don't hire employees avoiding your own responsibility to chip in.

I have stated that many jobs are unnecessary and will be eliminated as mandated wage rates climb. This would include gas pump attendants, store salespeople (when fewer of them or just a cashier gets the job done), event ushers, and many other jobs. You have stated that these jobs either don't exist (what you said) or are few in number (what I think you meant).

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Second, if you are willing to put forth a guaranteed basic income for the unemployed that truly covers their cost of living, why do you still need the minimum wage?

Because the EMPLOYED wouldn't need basic income at that point, they'd just be earning a salary for their work, and the work itself provides opportunities for later advancement, notably work experience, references, and industry knowledge. That helps them earn more later on, and is a valuable resource they cannot get except by working.

If they are working without a minimum wage, and at the actual value of the labour but not enough to cover the cost of living, and they receive supplemental income from UBI, they are still working and getting all those same benefits you speak of. Are they not? They also have the opportunity to stop that job, and get a better education, and return later to the workforce at a higher level.

They are desperate because they don't have enough money to meet cost of living. That ends with UBI.

Already covered this: even the existence of the welfare state doesn't prevent this from happening. UBI effectively becomes a backdoor subsidy for companies that encourages them to pay their workers as little as they possibly can knowing that the government will tax everyone else to take up the slack. You are arguing against reality here.

How do you know this? Didn't you just tell me a few posts back that UBI hasn't been tried anywhere?

I disagree with you, and believe that pressure on employers to attract employees will actually push wages UP, and likely considerably up. Without the pressure of people needing the job, the leverage of the employer is gone, or at least drastically reduced.

You will have to pay me enough to make it worth my while, and enough to offset whatever I'm paying in for UBI from that pay too. And you will be competing with other employers to do so.

Not when you have mandated a minimum wage higher than the worth of labour. Would-be employers will simply be unwilling or unable to keep that job in existence.

NOT keeping that job in existence is called "go out of business."

No, it really isn't. The business can get along without those extra sales ladies on the floor, without the walmart greeter, without the gas pump attendant, with fewer cashiers, with automated tellers instead of the live ones with the personal touch, etc. The business can eliminate those minimum wage jobs quite easily.

Burger flippers and janitors are jobs that are irreplaceable

Burger flippers are easily replaced with technology. Janitors less so. Jobs like janitors, and especially ones in especially dirty places, would have their pay shoot up if they had UBI and didn't need the job and minimum wage would be irrelevant. Same goes for other unpleasant jobs people would rather not do.

Your labour is worth whatever you can sell it for on a fair and open market.

And since we do not have a fair and open labor market, the minimum wage remains necessary.

UBI and other regulations I would pass give us a fair and open market. Minimum wage hikes without UBI and without universal health care (tying it to employment and demanding employers pay for it) don't.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If this is accounted for by the employee having other means to support himself and not requiring the job get by, then I say we have a fair and open market for labour and that the true value of the labour is whatever the seller and buyer of it agree upon. You disagree? Why?

Because the employer and the employee are NOT on an equal footing to negotiate wages. It is much more common for an employer to have to choose between multiple applicants than it is for an applicant to have to choose between multiple jobs. Workers who do not have a lot of choices are in no position to negotiate; they take what is offered, or they take nothing.

This is reflective of the current situation. Minimum wage levels are low enough that many workers at or near that level ALREADY have to supplement their income with welfare programs just to make ends meet. In other words, you're prediction that the labor market would be more fare with a basic income in place already has a real world test in the form of the working poor and welfare programs; even WITH minimum wage in place, it isn't enough to offset the social problems that come from perpetuating a permanent economic underclass. So what you are suggesting is a formula that has at least a 30 year track record of completely failing to do what you think it will do. Stripping the minimum wage from that formula would make it even LESS effective, and expanding the welfare program to apply universally even to people who don't need it would simply make that program more expensive, harder to sustain, and MUCH harder (if not impossible) to justify politically and economically.

I propose that with UBI and the cost of living met for all even without being employed, employers will need to pay more to attract employees. I have further proposed that some current minimum wage jobs that are dirty or unpleasant but essential could demand considerably higher wages from employers. Do you disagree? Why?

Because history shows that it is only very exceptionally qualified employees -- and then only under somewhat unusual circumstances -- who are ever in a position to "demand" a higher wage from an employer. This is especially true in the case of an employee who has not even been hired yet.

Furthermore, it is true and has ALWAYS been true that for any employee who will accept a high wage, another employee can be found who will accept a lower rate. In some sectors, the only thing keeping that rate from trending towards "zero" is the minimum wage; that provides the basic floor below which employees cannot be pressured to work by an employer who is holding all the economic cards. IOW, once you are offering to work for minimum wage, nobody can under-cut you by offering to work for less.

You have claimed that to have UBI we will need to tax the rich at 99%

No I didn't. I said that even IF you taxed the rich at 99% you wouldn't have enough tax revenue to make it sustainable for any length of time.

Because the highest fifth quintile of Americans -- about 24 million households -- has a combined income of about $2 trillion. If you wanted to to take 99% of their income and give it to the other four quintiles, you are distributing $1.8 trillion across about 72 million households. That's $25,000 per household.

This would be great news for those in the bottom quintile, whose mean income is about $12,000 (it would double their annual income instantly without them having to do anything). It would be far less meaningful for the people in the middle, who already make twice that just from working and the extra income is basically beer money. And the people at the very top are fucked, having been taxed down to subsistence level so that everyone else int he country can be super extra comfortable.

On the other hand, Basic income doesn't need to be universal. If you just leave it at the bottom quintile -- those who under current conditions are earning less than a living wage -- then you could take just 50% of the income from those at the very top and redistribute it to those at the very bottom, which would give them a household Basic income of about $32,000. THAT would make a lot more sense, but there's still no reason for just the rich to shoulder that burden since those in the middle and second-highest bracket can also afford to chip in more.

Last of all, there's the fact that an income distribution to the bottom quintile to the tune of $30,000 per household would only cost a country like the United States about $150 billion per year. This is something that would be sustainable if we had our spending priorities straight; we could cut military spending by about 30% and transfer those revenues to the new program. OTOH, distributing that same income to all five quintiles would cost us an additional $750 billion, almost all of which would have to come off the backs of households that don't actually need that money and don't benefit from a universal basic income in the first place.

Those who are earning enough to exceed their cost of living would not be receiving a net positive from UBI as against their taxes. It would function as a simpler version of Employment Insurance / Welfare without so many slipping through the cracks.

You have not suggested anything that suggests UBI would have fewer people "slipping through the cracks" than a properly structured welfare system, so that's a nonstarter.

More importantly, if the POINT of universal basic income is as protection for those who aren't earning a living wage and aren't making enough to live on, then it should be structured specifically for those people it is meant to help. This means it defaults to a means-tested program anyway, based on income or lack thereof. That's the same program we ALREADY HAVE in the form of TANF/SNAP.

I'm all in favor of a reform for the welfare system with cost-of-living adjustments, efficiency improvements, greater caseload support and subsidies for job training and skill qualification. Strictly speaking, I would actually prefer an expansion of public housing subsidies for low-income or zero-income families so that they wouldn't have to worry about the cost of housing at all. Universal basic housing seems, to me, far easier to implement since it's also far easier for people to opt out of.

I have also advocated for Universal Single Payer Health Care. You haven't said much about this other than you think it would be expensive

It WOULD be expensive, but I consider access to healthcare to be a basic human right and so I don't really care about the expense of that program beyond the usual need to keep it from being more expensive than it NEEDS to be.

Of course, it would DEFINITELY cost less than the horrible for-profit farce of a system we have in place right now. The key difference is who would pay for it and how the money would be managed.

You have stated that the fair price for labour is necessarily greater than cost of living for the employee. Correct?

No, I have stated that the basic benchmark for what we consider "fair" is essentially a living wage, the exact amount of which varies from place to place and is related to the cost of living overall. The minimum wage in most places is still far less than a living wage would be, but it's closer to it than "zero" and therefore "zero" is not a valid figure for a minimum wage.

I believe that you are advocating to shift the cost of helping our fellow citizens meet their cost of living entirely onto the employer. Correct?

No, I'm not advocating a "shift" at all, because for the majority of citizens it is ALREADY entirely on the employer. Unless you make most or all of your money from capital gains and playing the stock market, you're dependent on the labor market for your income and, ultimately, your survival and your future. This means a stable labor market is an ESSENTIAL public resource that we collectively cannot live without.

You, on the other hand, are advocating the addition of a third form of income independent of labor or capitol gains and the codification of this income source as a basic part of our society. I do admire your optimism, as that is not by itself a bad idea. But it's also not a PRACTICAL idea, and it's unlikely to work at all in the absence of a minimum wage.

It's like if you were pushing "space colonization" as a solution to a housing shortage. It's a wonderful idea and all, it's just really infeasible and unlikely to work.

This to me is you and the rich who don't hire employees avoiding your own responsibility to chip in.

Why are "the rich who don't hire employees" responsible for anything at all? They're not the ones driving wages down. I feel that responsibility should be associated with choices, not circumstances: you are only responsible for the consequences of what you CHOOSE to do, not for who you happen to be or where you live.

I have stated that many jobs are unnecessary and will be eliminated as mandated wage rates climb. This would include gas pump attendants, store salespeople (when fewer of them or just a cashier gets the job done), event ushers, and many other jobs.

Those specific roles have ALREADY been eliminated from most places and continue to be eliminated in the few places they still exist. Significantly, the decline in those jobs has very little to do with wages and everything to do with the fact that companies are expecting fewer employees to do more work for the same amount of money.

OTOH, the attendants who used to pump your gas and check your tire pressure are now doing the work of a cashier, a clerk, a security guard, a janitor, a maintenance guy and an inventory specialist.

You have stated that these jobs either don't exist (what you said) or are few in number (what I think you meant).

I've said "jobs that can be easily eliminated" don't really exist. "Jobs that can be consolidated and/or delegated to a smaller number of employees" do.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How do you know this?

Because you are predicting that the existence of a supplemental basic income would make the labor market free and fair and would give workers more freedom to pick and choose what jobs they take and what income they take. Looking at the sample of workers who currently depend on supplemental income from welfare programs for their survival, this is clearly not the case.

You are claiming that giving more money to poor workers will give them more choices in the labor market. How, then, do you explain the fact that giving supplemental income to poor workers HASN'T given them more choices after 30 years of trying it?

I disagree with you, and believe that pressure on employers to attract employees will actually push wages UP

Employers of welfare recipients are NOT under any particular pressure to attract new employees. Can you explain this?

Without the pressure of people needing the job, the leverage of the employer is gone, or at least drastically reduced.

Minimum wage employees earning welfare do not have any greater leverage in the labor market than they did 30 years ago, and wages have not kept up with inflation in that time. Can you explain this?

UBI and other regulations I would pass give us a fair and open market.

Welfare programs for poor workers did not result in a fair and open labor market for the bottom quintile; relative to inflation, they learn less than a fifth of what they did 30 years ago. Can you explain this?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which is a different problem with a different solution. Not everyone is actually employable, and not everyone benefits from long term employment. Any solution that doesn't address those two realities is dead on arrival, and I don't think universal basic really does.

Why not? UBI provides a basic living to everyone, whether they work or not. Whether they can work or not. Thus it's a total replacement for SSI, SSDI, social security, food stamps, section 8 and the like. The only other systems that should exist would be unemployment (because working people very well might have commitments beyond what the UBI could provide for and you don't want them having to unwind those quickly) and healthcare. A vast array of programs are reduced to three--that's a lot of bureaucracy swept out of the picture. (Note, however, that healthcare would have to be expanded to cover various things it currently does not.)

The problem is to provide everyone with a poverty-line UBI is something over 3 trillion dollars/year and our GNP is only 18 trillion dollars/year. Putting 1/6th of GNP into it simply isn't economically feasible. As time goes on that percentage will drop, though, in time it will be the right thing to do.

- - - Updated - - -

You're misunderstanding.

Lower price raises demand.

Higher demand raises the price.

Nothing incompatible there.

Honestly, why bother with these people? They don't actually want to understand.

I think in this case he simply didn't realize he was seeing the same thing, just in a mirror.

- - - Updated - - -

You're misunderstanding.

Lower price raises demand.

Only for two identical products in the same market. I offer you a quarter pound cheeseburger for $5 and a turd sandwich for $2.99 and I can gaurnatee you the demand for the turd sandwich is not going to be higher than the cheeseburger.

I originally thought you simply made a mistake and didn't realize it was just two sides of the same thing but this reply makes no sense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That's the other thing too: "demand" is not something that can be independently quantified. Here, LP and dismal seem to be using "demand" as a proxy for "sales volume" but that just isn't the case. A high volume of sales will REFLECT a certain amount of demand, but you can't actually calculate some nice neat number like "the amount of demand in the turd sandwich market."

Of course we are talking about the same product, not competing products!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We agree that employers should be held responsible for harm that they do to individuals and to the community. Correct?

I think this needs some clarification.

The problem is we are defining harm to cover negative things that exist in the world where the company is acting but don't exist when it isn't acting.

The left, however, is defining it as negative things that exist in the world with the company and the employee but don't exist when neither of them exist.

Thus we compare a low pay job to no job and do not call it a harm.

They compare a low pay job to nothing at all and call it a harm.

While this is completely unsound you can't get very far disproving something if you don't know what you're disproving.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Still trying to understand our differences. Let's take an easy example

Blueberries. I don't buy blueberries when they are in those small containers for $5. However when the container price doubles and the price drops I do buy them. So the amount of blueberries purchased went up 200 (assuming 200 in the container) when it was cheaper. So when 100 blueberries are $5, let's say 100 people buy them. When it's 200 for $4 and 200 people buy them you have an extra demand of 30,000 blueberries

You have additional sales of 30,000. In economics, demand refers to the relationship between price and the amount people want to purchase (in economics jargon, the quantity demanded). A reduction in the price of blueberries does not change the relationship between price and quantity demanded - a lower price induces people to purchase more blueberries. An increase in demand (in economics) means that the relationship between price and quantity demanded changes - with no change in price, people buy more blueberries. Using your example, an increase in demand would mean that a price of $4, 40,000 more blueberries would be purchased even though the price had not changed.

Here is a youtube video that explains this [YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7FCZ4i-JgI[/YOUTUBE]

I think it's a semantic game that people understand, because it's interesting to say it's a demand curve but then you have to say what is the quantity demanded at price P and not just demand at P. So in the case of blueberries you have the quantity demanded at $5 and the quantity demanded at $3. So in terms of human labor, there is a quantity of labor demanded at price P and and at price Q. The normal graph for quantity Q is less if Q is more than P

 

[DBT]

Obviously poverty is a huge concern for the both the poor and for society at large when people grow alienated to a society and economic structure that they feel has failed to provide adequate opportunities for them to improve their lives.

 

[laughing dog]

You have additional sales of 30,000. In economics, demand refers to the relationship between price and the amount people want to purchase (in economics jargon, the quantity demanded). A reduction in the price of blueberries does not change the relationship between price and quantity demanded - a lower price induces people to purchase more blueberries. An increase in demand (in economics) means that the relationship between price and quantity demanded changes - with no change in price, people buy more blueberries. Using your example, an increase in demand would mean that a price of $4, 40,000 more blueberries would be purchased even though the price had not changed.

Here is a youtube video that explains this [YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7FCZ4i-JgI[/YOUTUBE]

I think it's a semantic game that people understand, because it's interesting to say it's a demand curve but then you have to say what is the quantity demanded at price P and not just demand at P.

If you think precise communication of ideas is a semantic game, then yes.

 

[laughing dog]

We agree that employers should be held responsible for harm that they do to individuals and to the community. Correct?

I think this needs some clarification.

The problem is we are defining harm to cover negative things that exist in the world where the company is acting but don't exist when it isn't acting.

The left, however, is defining it as negative things that exist in the world with the company and the employee but don't exist when neither of them exist.

Thus we compare a low pay job to no job and do not call it a harm.

They compare a low pay job to nothing at all and call it a harm.

While this is completely unsound you can't get very far disproving something if you don't know what you're disproving.

Thank you for succinctly describing the value of straw man based reply. Proponents of minimum wage argue that the benefits of the minimum wage outweigh it costs.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Why not? UBI provides a basic living to everyone, whether they work or not. Whether they can work or not. Thus it's a total replacement for SSI, SSDI, social security, food stamps, section 8 and the like. The only other systems that should exist would be unemployment (because working people very well might have commitments beyond what the UBI could provide for and you don't want them having to unwind those quickly) and healthcare. A vast array of programs are reduced to three--that's a lot of bureaucracy swept out of the picture. (Note, however, that healthcare would have to be expanded to cover various things it currently does not.)

The problem is to provide everyone with a poverty-line UBI is something over 3 trillion dollars/year and our GNP is only 18 trillion dollars/year. Putting 1/6th of GNP into it simply isn't economically feasible. As time goes on that percentage will drop, though, in time it will be the right thing to do.

I'm not disputing any of that, really. I just think that making it UNIVERSAL makes it that much harder to implement, and isn't actually necessary.

Having a means-tested opt-in program makes more sense to me because not everyone is going to need it and even the people who are technically eligible for it wouldn't necessarily apply. And as I mentioned earlier, I feel that having the bulk of the program be focused on shelter costs -- e.g. "Universal Basic Housing" -- makes more sense to me too. I'm not quite to the point that I consider "shelter" to be a basic human right, but it's so fundamental in the hierarchy of human needs AND we have so much available space in this country that we should collectively be ashamed of ourselves for allowing anyone to go homeless.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

We agree that employers should be held responsible for harm that they do to individuals and to the community. Correct?

I think this needs some clarification.

The problem is we are defining harm to cover negative things that exist in the world where the company is acting but don't exist when it isn't acting.

The left, however, is defining it as negative things that exist in the world with the company and the employee but don't exist when neither of them exist.

Thus we compare a low pay job to no job and do not call it a harm.

I don't know who "the left" is in this discussion, but I've been pretty clear on the fact that we're comparing "low paying jobs" to "VERY low paying jobs" with the former being the jobs that exist with the minimum wage and the latter being the jobs WITHOUT a minimum wage. We are also comparing "low paying jobs" to "not-as-low" paying jobs in the context of a minimum wage increase.

Your counter-argument can be summarized as "If you raise the minimum wage, then everyone who currently earns a minimum wage will be fired." There are all kinds of logical flaws in that argument, which collectively are the whole center of this discussion.

 

[dismal]

I think this needs some clarification.

The problem is we are defining harm to cover negative things that exist in the world where the company is acting but don't exist when it isn't acting.

The left, however, is defining it as negative things that exist in the world with the company and the employee but don't exist when neither of them exist.

Thus we compare a low pay job to no job and do not call it a harm.

I don't know who "the left" is in this discussion, but I've been pretty clear on the fact that we're comparing "low paying jobs" to "VERY low paying jobs" with the former being the jobs that exist with the minimum wage and the latter being the jobs WITHOUT a minimum wage. We are also comparing "low paying jobs" to "not-as-low" paying jobs in the context of a minimum wage increase.

Your counter-argument can be summarized as "If you raise the minimum wage, then everyone who currently earns a minimum wage will be fired." There are all kinds of logical flaws in that argument, which collectively are the whole center of this discussion.

Economics says when the price of something goes up, the quantity demanded of it goes down. It does not say it goes to zero.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I'm not disputing any of that, really. I just think that making it UNIVERSAL makes it that much harder to implement, and isn't actually necessary.

Having a means-tested opt-in program makes more sense to me because not everyone is going to need it and even the people who are technically eligible for it wouldn't necessarily apply. And as I mentioned earlier, I feel that having the bulk of the program be focused on shelter costs -- e.g. "Universal Basic Housing" -- makes more sense to me too. I'm not quite to the point that I consider "shelter" to be a basic human right, but it's so fundamental in the hierarchy of human needs AND we have so much available space in this country that we should collectively be ashamed of ourselves for allowing anyone to go homeless.

Job guarantee is a better idea.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I think this needs some clarification.

The problem is we are defining harm to cover negative things that exist in the world where the company is acting but don't exist when it isn't acting.

The left, however, is defining it as negative things that exist in the world with the company and the employee but don't exist when neither of them exist.

Thus we compare a low pay job to no job and do not call it a harm.

They compare a low pay job to nothing at all and call it a harm.

While this is completely unsound you can't get very far disproving something if you don't know what you're disproving.

Thank you for succinctly describing the value of straw man based reply. Proponents of minimum wage argue that the benefits of the minimum wage outweigh it costs.

Not when people understand what is meant, and he said it's often confused. Calling it a demand curve is actually is misnomer then and should be called a quantity demand curve instead.