The Economics Department

[Lumpenproletariat]

What is wrong with this website that it doesn't include an Economics section? I am putting this here in a feeble attempt to correct this.

What is the prejudice against this topic? The National Debt, Trade and Globalism, Supply-and-Demand, Labor laws and Labor disputes, Taxes, etc. Our quality of life, welfare, living standard is largely dependent on how these are addressed, but the average American is apparently a crybaby who cannot stand to hear of it and cannot bear to critically judge the decisions being made (and preached but not debated) in high places, by speech-makers who mostly just pander to certain factions who aggressively solicit them, to the detriment of everyone else.

When I went to college the Economics classes were held mostly in the Social Science Bldg., so putting this here seems reasonable, for lack of a proper place being provided for it.

The extreme contempt for Economics, and mindlessness today among the idiots and crybabies and restless natives of America (and other countries also?) shows through in the following:

Perhaps this discussion would fit better under miscellaneous.

This is HATE, almost as bad as hate against a class or race, only in this case it's hate against a topic people can't bear to think about. At most, people only want to give it just enough time to focus on the particular class or race they hate, and slam that hated object -- immigrants, employers, Jews, greedy capitalist pigs, foreigners, landlords, sweatshop owners, scab laborers, etc. -- and then run away before the targeted scapegoat has a chance to even see what hit them.

I don't know if this is only a U.S.A. mental disease, or if it's worldwide. I've seen some programs on BBC (not many, but at least an occasional one), and possibly DW, where there's an intelligent debate/discussion on economics. Perhaps the hate-disease is bad in those countries too, but slightly less widespread than in the U.S.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Shortage of Truck-drivers and other workers

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58287003


There's a worldwide truck-driver shortage, and it's hurting us all, causing higher prices and empty shelves and delays in getting the stuff we need (want).

Since virtually everyone is a nationalist, even the globalists and internationalists who want at least their own nation to perform well, how can anyone fail to see the need to relax the immigration laws and work-visa laws in order to encourage more truck drivers?

This is textbook Economics 1A -- supply and demand and thus profit motive and increased supply and satisfaction of all consumers (the entire population). Who would not benefit from relieving this shortage? Why not do whatever it takes?

And yet idiots in power (e.g., in the UK) insist that the "employers must invest in the UK workforce."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58287003

Who are the assholes who make these decisions? Are they not assholes? How can anyone be so stupid and brain-dead about basic economics, and supply-and-demand? (No wonder Brexit is on life-support, with idiots like this in charge!)

In the United States thousands of migrants pile up at the border and are warehoused and heaped into "cages" or whatever, and just kept there for weeks and weeks, months and months. And then many are just sent back to where they came from.

Of course not all can be admitted, but those capable of driving can be. And also many others of working age to fill the thousands, even million of vacant jobs just sitting there empty because employers can't pay American citizens high enough. Most of those "children" are really old enough to work, and also to train.

Even if it requires a few weeks of training, or months, this could be done, with private companies taking most of the steps necessary. Maybe some of the training could even be done in Mexico. There's no excuse for not getting thousands of those migrants into the training sessions and getting this need met. Plus there are many who already qualify and should be passed through immediately to where they are needed.

And of course All those crossing should be vaccinated as needed, which ought not be difficult. It's only a tiny few nutcases who are paranoid about being vaccinated.



Why can't we take in the immigrant workers we need?

There's only one explanation why we're not getting these immigrant workers into the economy where we need them.

Crybaby American labor / wage-earners hate the newcomers who would compete and might depress wage levels.

Why is Biden dragging his feet and not allowing more immigrant workers in? Or, why is he doing it very secretly in some cases, to meet some of the need, but also turning most of them back? He is pandering to his base of wage-earner crybabies, as did Trump before him, who think the workers hate the newcomers threatening to "steal" their jobs or drive down their wage level.

What other explanation can there be for the vast amount of unfilled jobs -- not only truck-drivers, but others, low- and high-paying, skilled and unskilled -- jobs which could easily be filled, including trainees registered and prepared for placement, if only the crybabies would stop their whining for once and recognize what's good for the whole nation, instead of always throwing a tantrum to demand their instant-gratification for the moment.


impact of immigration on wage levels

There have been studies done which claim immigrant workers have no negative impact on wage levels in the domestic economy. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-these-2-nobel-winners-are-challenging-popular-economics

Of course there may be no such wage-level impact in some cases, where there are serious worker shortages.

But there are 2 things wrong with these studies:

They are at least partly wrong -- as any serious economist knows -- because in some particular cases a new influx of job-seekers does have downward impact on wage levels (because of supply-and-demand), even if this is not universal or widespread throughout the economy. But further,

Why must we always obsess on wage level?

More importantly, a lower wage level is not necessarily bad for the economy, in this or that market. The prices of anything, including labor, need to go up or down depending on the conditions in that market. To make a religion out of high wages per se is asinine and idiotic. The wage level, like any other price, must be allowed to fluctuate according to the market supply-and-demand. To insist that this is necessarily bad for the economy is just

Crybaby Economics.

And the above 2 Nobel Prize economists, and others like them, are just pandering to crybabies, possibly even lying to them for the purpose of political correctness, pretending that anything causing lower wages has to be harmful for the economy. Why does this constant pandering to wage-earner crybabies have to continue? Why is this pandering made virtually a requirement in order to get published and gain applause or recognition or gold stars?

Will this country finally grow up and stop being a nation of crybabies?

If you want higher wages, take advantage of the current labor shortage in some areas, or in some job types, and make yourself valuable for a change, finding a place where your value would be higher, instead of just throwing a tantrum and bashing employers and making a fuss and demanding crybaby solutions like minimum wage increases for the uncompetitive.

And stop forcing scholars, like these hapless Nobel Prize winners, to keep pandering to the wage-earner class like a sacred cow, worshiping this like some kind of sacred hallowed ground needing to be preserved at all cost, like the rainforest, or like Lenin's pickled body, or like Ramses II's mummy, to be preserved forever. "The Worker" is not a sacred object to be preserved, but is expendable like everything else.

The only Forever is the Consumer, or serving the Consumer -- the whole population -- and the wage-earners and all other producers are only a means to that end.

 

[skepticalbip]

What is wrong with this website that it doesn't include an Economics section? I am putting this here in a feeble attempt to correct this.

Any discussion of economics on the web generally degenerates into politics. This would make the topic more appropriate to the political discussion forum.... as your above posts demonstrate.

 

[Swammerdami]

Social Sciences seems a good forum to discuss Economics. Although much economics involves a lot of math, it is NOT a hard science like physics or chemistry. It is an ever-changing study of human society. (But skepticalbip is right: OP's questions are more about Politics than Economics. On the other hand, many discussions in Politics mutate into discussions of Economics.)

The U.K. shortage of lorry drivers is due in large measure to Brexit. I read that there are long delays at the border, and that restrictions mean some lorries return to the continent empty. (I read about one Polish lorry driver who had lived in Britain for several years, applied to return, had application accepted, but was arrested at the airport when he flew into Britain. Deportation was ordered. His lawyer convinced the government it had erred, but the deportation order, once issued, could not be rescinded.)

In the relatively near future, perhaps, self-driving trucks will "solve" the truck-driver shortage.

On the question of possible decline in wages for low-skilled jobs, I do not think employers should be responsible for providing a "living wage." Instead there should be a safety-net giving all Americans, employed or not, access to healthcare, childcare, and basic necessities.

 

[southernhybrid]

What is wrong with this website that it doesn't include an Economics section? I am putting this here in a feeble attempt to correct this.

What is the prejudice against this topic? The National Debt, Trade and Globalism, Supply-and-Demand, Labor laws and Labor disputes, Taxes, etc. Our quality of life, welfare, living standard is largely dependent on how these are addressed, but the average American is apparently a crybaby who cannot stand to hear of it and cannot bear to critically judge the decisions being made (and preached but not debated) in high places, by speech-makers who mostly just pander to certain factions who aggressively solicit them, to the detriment of everyone else.

When I went to college the Economics classes were held mostly in the Social Science Bldg., so putting this here seems reasonable, for lack of a proper place being provided for it.

The extreme contempt for Economics, and mindlessness today among the idiots and crybabies and restless natives of America (and other countries also?) shows through in the following:

Perhaps this discussion would fit better under miscellaneous.

This is HATE, almost as bad as hate against a class or race, only in this case it's hate against a topic people can't bear to think about. At most, people only want to give it just enough time to focus on the particular class or race they hate, and slam that hated object -- immigrants, employers, Jews, greedy capitalist pigs, foreigners, landlords, sweatshop owners, scab laborers, etc. -- and then run away before the targeted scapegoat has a chance to even see what hit them.

I don't know if this is only a U.S.A. mental disease, or if it's worldwide. I've seen some programs on BBC (not many, but at least an occasional one), and possibly DW, where there's an intelligent debate/discussion on economics. Perhaps the hate-disease is bad in those countries too, but slightly less widespread than in the U.S.

No. Hate had nothing to do with that comment. It was just a suggestion. I thought it might get more attention in misc. So lighten up! I love discussing economics and it's true that I didn't agree with some of what you said in that other thread, but it wasn't personal and had nothing to do with hate. Maybe when I have time, I'll join you in this discussion.

 

[Bomb#20]

"Economics" is a new name for an old subject. Until the 20th century, the field was generally called "political economy".

 

[steve_bank]

There has always been a demand for long haul truck drivers. Trucking companies have free training programs to get licensed.

Here in Seattle and nationally there is a labor shortage. People are opting to stay on extended benefits rather than go back to work. From the reporting that is affecting transportation and drivers.

Here in Seattle businesses that are reopening can not find applicants for work.

The flip side of supply and demand is human inertia, without a motivation to work many will not.

Welding has always had an unfilled demand and can pay 6 figure incomes with experience and certifications .

Shortages of goods is the result of multiple factors, mainly lack of supply mostly back in China. There is also a lack of the standard shipping containers for ships, also made mostly in China.

Containers go from ships directly to mounting on trucks and rail cars.

From our roof deck we can watch the cargo ships in the bay in Seattle.

 

[untermensche]

There is no such thing as "economics".

There is the economics of the present day US with it's totality of laws and features. With it's top down structures of power and control and domination. With it's corrupted government.

And there would be the economics of a more free economy controlled by workers, not masters, if one existed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is no such thing as "economics".

There is the economics of the present day US with it's totality of laws and features. With it's top down structures of power and control and domination. With it's corrupted government.

And there would be the economics of a more free economy controlled by workers, not masters, if one existed.

Just because you don't like the economic system doesn't mean there's no economics.

 

[bilby]

The USA is not only NOT 'the world'; But it's also not typical of 'the world', nor of the developed world, in both of which categories it's an extreme outlier.

There's also no world shortage of truck drivers. There's a shortage of truck drivers and of many other workers in the UK, as a direct and highly predictable result of Brexit, which has taken a sledgehammer to the delicate balance of the UK economy by driving out of the country a large fraction of the workforce, mostly from specific sectors wherein UK citizens were (and remain) disinclined to participate.

In short, UK consumers cannot afford to pay enough to cover sharply higher wages for truck drivers, and British workers aren't prepared to drive trucks without a sharp increase in wages.

This isn't really an economic issue, it's political and cultural. Human beings are not interchangeable parts in an economic machine who will do whatever is necessary to earn money. A lot of Americans are, but that's a cultural idiosyncrasy, not a law of nature.

Attempting to define economic rules or laws, based on the unstated (and probably unconscious) assumption that people generally behave like, and react like, Americans, is doomed to failure. Which is why large numbers of Americans, and almost everyone who is not an American, see US political economics as a pathetic joke, particularly in its crazy 'libertarian' form.

Almost every assumption underlying the opinions of the OP is both false, and (I strongly suspect) unconscious. Not only do you not know that you are wrong, you cannot imagine any other framework for thinking about economics even existing, other than as a strawman and bogeyman that could be used to scare children, but never implemented or seriously considered by a grownup.

It's no more possible to discuss economics (or politics) with a true beliving American Libertarian than it is to discuss them with a true believing North Korean communist.

Imposing twenty-first century American economic norms anywhere else in the world would swiftly lead to a bloody revolution against the wealthy; And the rest of the world has spent the last forty or fifty years watching America, and wondering why it hasn't happened.

TL;DR: Americanism, as an economic system, is weird, stupid, and (in the rest of the world) very obviously wrong. We don't need a specific forum to discuss it, and shouldn't consider adding one on the advice of someone who is only vaguely aware that this isn't a purely US discussion board.

 

[steve_bank]

Controlled by workers? Russian and Chinese communism tried that, both failed.

Russia morphed into an authoritarian kleptocracy and China is communist in name only. China morphed into a quasi free market economy. They identify as socialist these days.

In any economic system the same issues exist, how oo allocate labor, compensation, and what and how much gets produced. On the scale of the USA exactly how would the 'people' control the economy?

Orwell's Animal Farm comes to mind.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Labor Theory of Value

Does the Labor Theory of Value make sense today? Did it ever?

What determines the value of anything that is bought and sold in the marketplace?

According to the Labor Theory of Value, it's the amount of labor involved in producing the commodity. Here's one version of the LTV:

A commodity has a value, because it is a crystallisation of social labour. The greatness of its value, or its relative value, depends upon the greater or less amount of that social substance contained in it; that is to say, on the relative mass of labour necessary for its production. The relative values of commodities are, therefore, determined by the respective quantities or amounts of labour, worked up, realised, fixed in them. The correlative quantities of commodities which can be produced in the same time of labour are equal. Or the value of one commodity is to the value of another commodity as the quantity of labour fixed in the one is to the quantity of labour fixed in the other.

Karl Marx, Value, Price, and Profit, Chapter VI

Or there are other versions of the LTV which say essentially the same thing. E.g., supposedly Adam Smith and David Ricardo made similar statements describing what "value" is, and they made the quantity of labor the basic measure of the value.

But does this make sense? What about the value of a used item? What about an item like land, or a rock, or something not "produced" by human labor?

A used item might be more valuable if it is an antique, which might have nothing to do with the labor involved in producing it 200 years ago.

Shouldn't a real theory of "value" be one which takes into account ALL items bought and sold in the market, including antiques and objects owned but not produced by human labor?


Here's a different (and much older) theory of value which makes supply-and-demand the basic measure of value:

The Price of Wares is the present Value; And ariseth by Computing the occasions or use for them, with the Quantity to serve that Occasion; for the Value of things depending on the use of them, the Over-pluss of Those Wares, which are more than can be used, become worth nothing; So that Plenty, in respect of the occasion, makes things cheap; and Scarcity, dear. . . .

But the Market is the best Judge of Value; for by the Concourse of Buyers and Sellers, the Quantity of Wares, and the Occasion for them are Best known: Things are just worth so much, as they can be sold for, according to the Old Rule, Valet Quantum Vendi potest.

Nicholas Barbon, A Discourse of Trade, 1690

I.e, "It's worth as much as it can be sold for."

Whatever someone's willing to pay. And what the seller is willing to accept. And supply/demand is what determines this.

Why isn't this the best definition of "value" -- (aside from the archaic language)? How does the Labor Theory of Value do any improvement to the above? Why isn't this better than Smith or Ricardo or Marx?

Barbon's definition of "value" explains why an antique might be more valuable than a recently-produced item which might work better and required costly labor to produce. It explains how the value of ANYTHING in the market is determined, whereas the Marx definition excludes anything that is not produced in a factory and is not new.

Isn't the correct definition the one which defines "value" in ALL cases of something being bought or sold?

Since the LTV, as Marx presents it, cannot account for "value" in ALL cases, doesn't it have to be rejected in favor of something like the Barbon, which covers ALL examples of anything bought/sold?

http://labortheoryofvalue.blogspot.com/

 

[skepticalbip]

Does the Labor Theory of Value make sense today? Did it ever?

What determines the value of anything that is bought and sold in the marketplace?

The value is determined by if anyone wants wants it and what they are willing to pay.

Someone could spend weeks making making something but if no one wants it then it has no value.

 

[Politesse]

What is wrong with this website that it doesn't include an Economics section? I am putting this here in a feeble attempt to correct this.

While I doubt there would be enough traffic to support a full subforum, I'm sure people would be interested if you used our not-very-busy Social Sciences forum to start discussions of economics, as you have done here.

 

[Politesse]

I'm not sure if I agree that there is a general disinterest in economics, either; if anything, the recent resergence of socialist thinking in American popular culture has inspired a lot of fresh interest in the subject among my students. It is also often the area of the social sciences arguably the most familiar to them, as along with (sometimes) political science it is the only of the social sciences to still be meaningfully included in their secondary education. Anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the others are usually terra nova for them when they begin college, whereas the basic terminology of economics and poly sci they at least remember hearing of before.

 

[Politesse]

What is wrong with this website that it doesn't include an Economics section? I am putting this here in a feeble attempt to correct this.

Any discussion of economics on the web generally degenerates into politics. This would make the topic more appropriate to the political discussion forum.... as your above posts demonstrate.

Then again, so do most discussions of the social sciences generally. At least on this forum. I've never heard of economics resting under the aegis of any other broad discipline group than the social sciences in academic contexts, aside from institutions where it constitutes its own autonomous college. Then again, the same is true of political science.

 

[Politesse]

The only Forever is the Consumer, or serving the Consumer -- the whole population -- and the wage-earners and all other producers are only a means to that end.

As a "serious economist", I'm surprised you would say something so ridiculous as describing consumers as a constant. American consumption has in fact been on quite a wild ride for the last few decades, with wild swings in response to the issues of the day. Workers are the consumers, in a mostly lower- and middle-class nation, and you cannot be the sole means to your own end. If people aren't being compensated reasonably for their labor, they aren't going to have the confidence necessary to reinvest their wages in many of the products those trucks of yours are supposed to be hauling. Nor are migrant workers usually at liberty to spend large amounts of surplus income on consumer goods, and much of what they do earn ends up in other national economies by remittance (I'm not personally offended by this as some are, but it is a reality). While we will always need things like cheap food, clothing, and housing materials, those kinds of products do not drive the economy or generate needed tax revenue in the way that luxury goods do. As we see throughout the developing world, a generally poverty-stricken population is a certainly a market, but it is not a particularly lucrative market, unless inexpensive labor is the product you're after. Personally, I would not like to see my country become little more than the labor pool for more forward-thinking nations on the other side of the Pacific Rim.

I do agree that we should be fostering international labor connections, but I don't think low wages and long hours are the draw for immigrant laborers that you seem to think they are. If we destroy the ability of the average American worker to earn a serviceable income, we will simply cease to be a destination country for those seeking a better life abroad.

 

[skepticalbip]

What is wrong with this website that it doesn't include an Economics section? I am putting this here in a feeble attempt to correct this.

Any discussion of economics on the web generally degenerates into politics. This would make the topic more appropriate to the political discussion forum.... as your above posts demonstrate.

Then again, so do most discussions of the social sciences generally. At least on this forum. I've never heard of economics resting under the aegis of any other broad discipline group than the social sciences in academic contexts, aside from institutions where it constitutes its own autonomous college. Then again, the same is true of political science.

Economics is an objective study. There are quite a few different possible economic systems and they all function differently. A purely socialist system functions differently than a purely capitalist system that functions differently than a mercantilist system that functions differently than a feudalist system, etc. etc. Generally, real world systems are a mixture of more than one. A study of the functioning of any specific or real world merge of economic systems is economics.

OTOH, generally web discussions are about subjective opinions of what "ought to be". This amounts to little more than political opinion (not economics) and, like ass holes, everyone has one.

 

[Bomb#20]

Or there are other versions of the LTV which say essentially the same thing. E.g., supposedly Adam Smith and David Ricardo made similar statements describing what "value" is, and they made the quantity of labor the basic measure of the value.

The people who suppose Adam Smith to have said essentially the same thing read him carelessly. Here's the clearest explanation of the distinction I've seen:

Smith is saying that the value of something to you is the labor it saves you, and the cost of something to you is its opportunity cost: what you have to give up to get it. But the "labor theory of value" says that the cost of something to me should be determined by the labor it costs you, who are trying to sell it to me. That's not the same thing.​

(Source: someone with the handle "pdonis")

 

[steve_bank]

Should someone who goes through all the work and training to be a brain surgeon be compensated the same as a cab driver?

That is what it comes down to, what is 'fair'?

One of the positives of the existing system is you can work as little as possible or as hard as you want to making money.