What do you want to do with the little people?

[ZiprHead]

Your ideological adherence to illogical economic theories does not make you an expert on what I do, don't or can't know. We already had this argument back in the Adding rights thread. I asked you a question there. You declined to answer it, but the question didn't go away. For your convenience, here it is again:

Do you think each worker making $10/hour is generating at least $15/hour in extra revenue?

I do not know what you do. I know the CBO has estimated job losses should a fifteen dollar an hour minimum be set. But this is an estimate. And yes I will admit I have an ideological adherence to people making a living wage. That no one should live off of starvation wages and social services. Should the CBO estimates pan out, then we will deal with it if it needs dealing with. Is McDonald's going to cut it's workforce if they have to pay their employees $15 an hour? As if they have an overabundance of employees now. As if employees are so under-worked now they can double up on tasks. As if McDonald's is going to say, that's it, no more Egg McMuffins. We just can't afford to make them any longer. No. They are going to let it eat into profits (absorb cost) and/or raise prices. They will absorb costs as much as possible. They always do. Just like Whirlpool is absorbing the high cost of rolled steel today. Just like auto manufacturers should have to absorb the cost of their chip shortage or at least have maintained an inventory. So much for lean manufacturing. But they won't. They whined and we will provide a social service to them by picking up the cost without demanding any change to prevent this from happening again.

I do not understand the point of your previously ignored question other than to steer the conversation. If a business cannot survive while paying it's employees a living wage then it does not deserve to. Perhaps the goods or service they provided were not necessary or desirable enough for the consumer to pay an increased price. But I think having to absorb the cost is what is at the root of the argument against a living wage. Just a guess.

My wifes workplace did bang up business during the period of the stimulus. It almost seems like having customers with money to spend is good for business.

 

[Emily Lake]

Fair warning: I'm skipping all the posts until after I've provided my own thoughts. Topics like this always end up with people withdrawing into their partisan bastions, and I just don't have the stamina to wade through that first. One one end of spectrum it's inhumane, at the other end of the spectrum it's unsustainable.

So. I'm sure I'm missing details in here, and I'm sure there are things I haven't thought about. Feel free to add your own thoughts and criticisms. Some of my views are probably gong to be unpopular... but it is what it is.

Problems as I see them:
- Too much competition for unskilled labor, driving prices for unskilled labor down. This is due to two main prongs - on one hand, we've got a lot of unskilled jobs being outsourced to developing nations and countries with little to no employee protections.
- Cost of university education too high, with too much incentive via student loans, and too much degree inflation for jobs that really don't need them

Basic approach:
- Reduce immigration across the board. I'm not against immigration, but let's make sure we can take care of our own citizens before adding more people.
- increase tariffs and import taxes for goods manufactured in other countries, and incentivize companies to move manufacturing and processing back to the US. We currently import a massive amount of basic supplies, textiles, iron, etc. And a huge amount of manufacturing is no longer done in the US. Let's change that. Increasing manufacturing jobs in the US would supply more jobs for unskilled or low skilled labor.
- Revise US student loan policies to include limitations on what Universities can charge. Incentivize a shift from university degrees to skilled trades. Incentivize companies to take on apprenticeship positions in areas like IT or sales, where much of the value comes from on the job learning rather than classroom theory.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Cite?

No, thank you. You can do your own research. I'm not responsible for what you choose to see and choose not to see.

You expect us to simply accept what you say?

 

[ZiprHead]

Cite?

No, thank you. You can do your own research. I'm not responsible for what you choose to see and choose not to see.

You expect us to simply accept what you say?

Yes.

 

[bleubird]

https://www.statesman.com/story/new...ge-affects-myth-taco-bell-burrito/4245883001/
I have seen many cites like this.

 

[ZiprHead]

From Bleubird's link:

Plenty of cities work as benchmarks, including New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco. In San Francisco, for example, the minimum wage is $16.07 per hour. But the burrito prices there are not much different from cities with lower minimum wages. Sometimes they’re the same.

"Some of Taco Bell’s most expensive burritos show no price difference whatsoever between places with very high and very low minimum wages," said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, who called Rachel’s claim "easily disproven."

Burtless compared prices for two different types of burritos at San Francisco’s 710 Third St. Taco Bell to prices for the same burritos at a Taco Bell in Alexandria, Va., where the state’s minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour, equal to the federal minimum.

In Alexandria, a Bean Burrito goes for $1.29, while a Burrito Supreme costs $4.19. At the San Francisco location, a Bean Burrito sells for $1.99, and a Burrito Supreme costs $4.19.

The most expensive burrito on the menu, the Crunchwrap Supreme, costs $4.19 in Alexandria and $4.49 in San Francisco, a difference of about 7%.

"We find absolutely no evidence that a higher minimum wage will boost Taco Bell burrito prices by anything that comes remotely close to 807%, the price increase implicitly predicted by Jordan Rachel," Burtless said.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

You expect us to simply accept what you say?

Yes.

Wish you were credible enough for that.

 

[ZiprHead]

You expect us to simply accept what you say?

Yes.

Wish you were credible enough for that.

That's strange since you are consistently being accused of dishonesty here. You know people see through your schtick, don't you?

 

[Rhea]

I put your problems together with your solutions to those problems:

- Too much competition for unskilled labor, driving prices for unskilled labor down. This is due to two main prongs - on one hand, we've got a lot of unskilled jobs being outsourced to developing nations and countries with little to no employee protections.

Basic approach:
- Reduce immigration across the board. I'm not against immigration, but let's make sure we can take care of our own citizens before adding more people.
- increase tariffs and import taxes for goods manufactured in other countries, and incentivize companies to move manufacturing and processing back to the US. We currently import a massive amount of basic supplies, textiles, iron, etc. And a huge amount of manufacturing is no longer done in the US. Let's change that. Increasing manufacturing jobs in the US would supply more jobs for unskilled or low skilled labor.

Does this ensure that the wage is high enough to live on? Or only that there is work to be done while going under?

- Cost of university education too high, with too much incentive via student loans, and too much degree inflation for jobs that really don't need them

Basic approach:
- Revise US student loan policies to include limitations on what Universities can charge. Incentivize a shift from university degrees to skilled trades. Incentivize companies to take on apprenticeship positions in areas like IT or sales, where much of the value comes from on the job learning rather than classroom theory.

One of the groups that I am interessted in how we handle is those not suited or capable of a college education or a skilled trade.
So making it workable for intelligent people to learn a trade is a good thing, but it won’t be the solution appropriate for the ones most likely to lose ground and go under.

I do think we would help a LOT of people by making trades accessible and affordable to acquire. And we’d go a long way in giving them the respect they deserve. In fact I would prefer gov’t subsidies go there before they go after college costs, really. But in my experience, skilled tradespeople are both smart and hardworking. So these jobs would be unsuitable for many people. Just out of reach for them.


So I’m wondering about the minimum wage people and the less skilled laborers. What are ways we can make sure they thrive.


I do think there is a set of math that says, when we automate to a certain extent, we find that humans don’t need to work 40 hours a week to produce what is needed for this life. So can’t we say, the work week is 20 hours, and a factory has multiple shifts of 20-hour people, and 20 hours of work pays a living wage. Is there some law of physics that says we have to make people work 40 hours - when we could feed and clothe ourselves with the production of 20 hours? What if the work day was reduced to 6 hours? What if factories ran 4 shifts instead of 3? Or if you worked 2 twelves a week?

CCC-style work is great. But again, do we need it to be 60 hour work weeks in remote camps?


To answer someone’s question earlier - are those people going to produce $15 worth of goods in that hour?
When I look at the math of the net profits and stockholder dividends of many large companies, the answer is yes - they did produce that much. And instead of being paid to the people who made it, it is going to an increased wealth gap.

We can calculate the increased wealth gap gained in the last 10 years and ask, “who produced that wealth?” Did Jeff Bezos REALLY personally do $10B of work? Or did someone else do all that work, and he is taking the value they produced, and keeping it from them.

 

[Swammerdami]

Are you questioning our GAWD theeeee freeeeee maaaaarrrrrrrrrkeeeeeeetttttttt?

This reminded me of an excellent opinion piece titled "The Market as God" from 22 years ago. Have I posted it at TFT before? Maybe; but I don't care — it's worth a re-read.

 

[Emily Lake]

Does this ensure that the wage is high enough to live on? Or only that there is work to be done while going under?


...

One of the groups that I am interessted in how we handle is those not suited or capable of a college education or a skilled trade.
So making it workable for intelligent people to learn a trade is a good thing, but it won’t be the solution appropriate for the ones most likely to lose ground and go under.

I do think we would help a LOT of people by making trades accessible and affordable to acquire. And we’d go a long way in giving them the respect they deserve. In fact I would prefer gov’t subsidies go there before they go after college costs, really. But in my experience, skilled tradespeople are both smart and hardworking. So these jobs would be unsuitable for many people. Just out of reach for them.


So I’m wondering about the minimum wage people and the less skilled laborers. What are ways we can make sure they thrive.

This is one of those topics where I think differential equations needs to come into play. I'll outline the dynamic as I see it, but it's not something I have nailed down perfectly.

On the whole, what manufacturing jobs we have in the US pay above minimum wage already. If we increase the number of those jobs available, we'll get a lot of people who are currently min wage moving up into those manufacturing jobs for higher wages. Especially since a lot of those kinds of jobs don't have to be located in dense urban areas - they can be located in suburban or near-rural areas. Some of them could even be done in rural locations. This would address a lot of the problems tied up with cost of living in urban areas too, by distributing the low-skilled workforce geographically.

This would tie in with the skilled labor non-degreed approach. There are a lot of people in unskilled jobs who are perfectly capable of gaining a real skill - welding, plumber, etc. But there's not a lot of financial aid available for the beginning education for those fields, and there's a social stigma attached to them that I think is idiotic. In particular, there are a lot of people who got university degrees in fields that don't have much in the way of job prospects... but end up working at unskilled jobs because they can't get a job.

The objective would to move some current university degree-seekers out of the university into skilled labor training, and also to move some of the current people with no post-secondary education at all into skilled labor as well. Simultaneously, move manufacturing and such back to the US, more geographically distributed. This relieves the bottle-neck for current unskilled labor, creating a larger demand for the existing supply.

I do think there is a set of math that says, when we automate to a certain extent, we find that humans don’t need to work 40 hours a week to produce what is needed for this life. So can’t we say, the work week is 20 hours, and a factory has multiple shifts of 20-hour people, and 20 hours of work pays a living wage. Is there some law of physics that says we have to make people work 40 hours - when we could feed and clothe ourselves with the production of 20 hours? What if the work day was reduced to 6 hours? What if factories ran 4 shifts instead of 3? Or if you worked 2 twelves a week?

CCC-style work is great. But again, do we need it to be 60 hour work weeks in remote camps?

No idea. I think that will end up working itself out over time, but I really don't have any ideas about it.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Wish you were credible enough for that.

That's strange since you are consistently being accused of dishonesty here. You know people see through your schtick, don't you?

Occasionally I say "you've got to answer a question now and again, so I'll wait for you to answer one of mine before I answer the next 20 of yours" and then the whole forum jumps down my throat for being evasive and dishonest. I don't know how you get away with your schtick. Probably because you make the rules.

 

[laughing dog]

Wish you were credible enough for that.

That's strange since you are consistently being accused of dishonesty here. You know people see through your schtick, don't you?

Occasionally I say "you've got to answer a question now and again, so I'll wait for you to answer one of mine before I answer the next 20 of yours" and then the whole forum jumps down my throat for being evasive and dishonest.

That is a fanciful description of your MO which is evade answering a question by posing one. Then refusing to answer the initial question until someone answers yours.

 

[ZiprHead]

Wish you were credible enough for that.

That's strange since you are consistently being accused of dishonesty here. You know people see through your schtick, don't you?

Occasionally I say "you've got to answer a question now and again, so I'll wait for you to answer one of mine before I answer the next 20 of yours" and then the whole forum jumps down my throat for being evasive and dishonest. I don't know how you get away with your schtick. Probably because you make the rules.

I never asked you a question in this thread. As a matter of fact, I don't remember asking a question of you ever because I know there's a 90% chance it will be a dodge.

 

[Canard DuJour]

This topic is about what a society should do with work-marginalized workers/citizens

(...)

I think about all these people who are against progressive taxation or universal income or raised minimum wages, and I wonder
(a) what is it you think will happen to all of these people? You think they'll suddenly become suitable for college? or
(b) are you actually okay if they all just die?
(c) what are justifiable reasons to allow someone to live (or be raised in) abject poverty?
(d) if we don't think that, what should we DO to plan for them to continue living without abject poverty?
(e) other? What else? What do you think should happen to them?

In Victorian times, even many middle class households had live-in servants who received a small allowance. There was also a staggering amount and variety of prostitution.

So there are laissez-faire models.

 

[RVonse]

This topic is about what a society should do with work-marginalized workers/citizens


There are a lot of discussions about how mega wealth is okay because they "did something" that made them deserve to reap benefits on the labors of people who are not paid enough to live decently.
There are also discussions of how automation is a great thing in pursuit of lower cost products and higher margins for investors.
There are also discussions about how we need to stop using fossil fuels and go to nuclear, which needs far less labor.
There are also discussions about how today's economy needs higher education or training to remain viable in a living wage.
There are discussions about replacing fossil fuels with renewables that move the jobs to geographically new (and potentially crowded and expensive) areas.
There are discussions about how a "market wage" is justifiable as the intersection between what a powerful employer will offer and a powerless worker will accept.

There are many more discussions of various stripes that have one thing in common:
They advocate for the reduction in jobs (or pay level) for those who are not trained to work on the Right Thing (tm)

Here's my question for discussion and producing a viable answer:

What do you DO with the people unable to train or move?

Maybe they can't move because they are a caregiver for a disabled or elderly person who needs to remain.
Maybe they can't go to college and become a programmer because they are in the lower half of intellectual capability - they just plain aren't smart enough.
Maybe they can't go to college because they are a caregiver.
Maybe ADHD makes them unable to perform a trade, and working at a big box store is what they can do - and they'd be happy there if only it paid enough to live on.
Maybe they got sick from coal mining and would not be hired by a windmill firm due to the impending obligations?

So what you we propose that we DO with all of these people?

Do we want them to just die from starvation after their job are automated?
Do we want to empty out the rural states and force all of the people there to move to squalid tenements near a factory in a high cost dense population?
Do we want people who aren't smart enough to become engineers and doctors to just die of preventable diseases because they can't afford health care or a safe house?


I think about all these people who are against progressive taxation or universal income or raised minimum wages, and I wonder
(a) what is it you think will happen to all of these people? You think they'll suddenly become suitable for college? or
(b) are you actually okay if they all just die?
(c) what are justifiable reasons to allow someone to live (or be raised in) abject poverty?
(d) if we don't think that, what should we DO to plan for them to continue living without abject poverty?
(e) other? What else? What do you think should happen to them?

The correct response is free market capitalism coupled with free market labor. Had the unions not been destroyed during and after the Reagan administration, productivity gains would have been shared by labor and management equally. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best "If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and resources of the country then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor." As soon as labor becomes a strong enough force to demand their correct pay, then all the other problems you mention go away.

But allowing labor to organize again is much easier said then done. For one thing, the party that is suppose to be for labor (the Democrats) are no longer for labor. They continue to fight for globalization which is the direct opposition to any good union. Collective bargaining can not possibly exist if all management needs to do is move to China...and the Democrats and Biden are in love with China and the CCP. Paradoxically, it was only Trump and the Republicans who have favored labor over the past 4 years, and the poorest in the country saw that direct benefit.

So leveling of the playing field of the labor/management struggle is the best most efficient step to the fix of wealth inequality. If our politicians could only accomplish this alone, that would take us another 300 years or so until the robots are able to fix the other robots. But sadly that will not even happen because there are many low information Democrat voters who will continue to vote against their best interests. They will continue to drink the CNN koolaid that people like Trump are horrible racist, sexist, fascists and will instead vote for their communist state they want with everyone being poor.

 

[laughing dog]

This topic is about what a society should do with work-marginalized workers/citizens


There are a lot of discussions about how mega wealth is okay because they "did something" that made them deserve to reap benefits on the labors of people who are not paid enough to live decently.
There are also discussions of how automation is a great thing in pursuit of lower cost products and higher margins for investors.
There are also discussions about how we need to stop using fossil fuels and go to nuclear, which needs far less labor.
There are also discussions about how today's economy needs higher education or training to remain viable in a living wage.
There are discussions about replacing fossil fuels with renewables that move the jobs to geographically new (and potentially crowded and expensive) areas.
There are discussions about how a "market wage" is justifiable as the intersection between what a powerful employer will offer and a powerless worker will accept.

There are many more discussions of various stripes that have one thing in common:
They advocate for the reduction in jobs (or pay level) for those who are not trained to work on the Right Thing (tm)

Here's my question for discussion and producing a viable answer:

What do you DO with the people unable to train or move?

Maybe they can't move because they are a caregiver for a disabled or elderly person who needs to remain.
Maybe they can't go to college and become a programmer because they are in the lower half of intellectual capability - they just plain aren't smart enough.
Maybe they can't go to college because they are a caregiver.
Maybe ADHD makes them unable to perform a trade, and working at a big box store is what they can do - and they'd be happy there if only it paid enough to live on.
Maybe they got sick from coal mining and would not be hired by a windmill firm due to the impending obligations?

So what you we propose that we DO with all of these people?

Do we want them to just die from starvation after their job are automated?
Do we want to empty out the rural states and force all of the people there to move to squalid tenements near a factory in a high cost dense population?
Do we want people who aren't smart enough to become engineers and doctors to just die of preventable diseases because they can't afford health care or a safe house?


I think about all these people who are against progressive taxation or universal income or raised minimum wages, and I wonder
(a) what is it you think will happen to all of these people? You think they'll suddenly become suitable for college? or
(b) are you actually okay if they all just die?
(c) what are justifiable reasons to allow someone to live (or be raised in) abject poverty?
(d) if we don't think that, what should we DO to plan for them to continue living without abject poverty?
(e) other? What else? What do you think should happen to them?

The correct response is free market capitalism coupled with free market labor. Had the unions not been destroyed during and after the Reagan administration, productivity gains would have been shared by labor and management equally. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best "If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and resources of the country then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor." As soon as labor becomes a strong enough force to demand their correct pay, then all the other problems you mention go away.

But allowing labor to organize again is much easier said then done. For one thing, the party that is suppose to be for labor (the Democrats) are no longer for labor. They continue to fight for globalization which is the direct opposition to any good union. Collective bargaining can not possibly exist if all management needs to do is move to China...and the Democrats and Biden are in love with China and the CCP. Paradoxically, it was only Trump and the Republicans who have favored labor over the past 4 years, and the poorest in the country saw that direct benefit.

Labor unions are not "free market labor".
Globalization is consistent with free market capitalism and free market labor. In theory, globalization should tend to equalize returns to capital and to labor which means that regions with high wages will tend to see them lowered with trade while regions with low wages will tend to see them raised with trade. The same for the returns to capital.

So, your response is an example of very muddled thinking since labor unions are not free market labor.

 

[RVonse]

This topic is about what a society should do with work-marginalized workers/citizens


There are a lot of discussions about how mega wealth is okay because they "did something" that made them deserve to reap benefits on the labors of people who are not paid enough to live decently.
There are also discussions of how automation is a great thing in pursuit of lower cost products and higher margins for investors.
There are also discussions about how we need to stop using fossil fuels and go to nuclear, which needs far less labor.
There are also discussions about how today's economy needs higher education or training to remain viable in a living wage.
There are discussions about replacing fossil fuels with renewables that move the jobs to geographically new (and potentially crowded and expensive) areas.
There are discussions about how a "market wage" is justifiable as the intersection between what a powerful employer will offer and a powerless worker will accept.

There are many more discussions of various stripes that have one thing in common:
They advocate for the reduction in jobs (or pay level) for those who are not trained to work on the Right Thing (tm)

Here's my question for discussion and producing a viable answer:

What do you DO with the people unable to train or move?

Maybe they can't move because they are a caregiver for a disabled or elderly person who needs to remain.
Maybe they can't go to college and become a programmer because they are in the lower half of intellectual capability - they just plain aren't smart enough.
Maybe they can't go to college because they are a caregiver.
Maybe ADHD makes them unable to perform a trade, and working at a big box store is what they can do - and they'd be happy there if only it paid enough to live on.
Maybe they got sick from coal mining and would not be hired by a windmill firm due to the impending obligations?

So what you we propose that we DO with all of these people?

Do we want them to just die from starvation after their job are automated?
Do we want to empty out the rural states and force all of the people there to move to squalid tenements near a factory in a high cost dense population?
Do we want people who aren't smart enough to become engineers and doctors to just die of preventable diseases because they can't afford health care or a safe house?


I think about all these people who are against progressive taxation or universal income or raised minimum wages, and I wonder
(a) what is it you think will happen to all of these people? You think they'll suddenly become suitable for college? or
(b) are you actually okay if they all just die?
(c) what are justifiable reasons to allow someone to live (or be raised in) abject poverty?
(d) if we don't think that, what should we DO to plan for them to continue living without abject poverty?
(e) other? What else? What do you think should happen to them?

The correct response is free market capitalism coupled with free market labor. Had the unions not been destroyed during and after the Reagan administration, productivity gains would have been shared by labor and management equally. Frank Lloyd Wright said it best "If capitalism is fair then unionism must be. If men and women have a right to capitalize their ideas and resources of the country then that implies the right of men and women to capitalize their labor." As soon as labor becomes a strong enough force to demand their correct pay, then all the other problems you mention go away.

But allowing labor to organize again is much easier said then done. For one thing, the party that is suppose to be for labor (the Democrats) are no longer for labor. They continue to fight for globalization which is the direct opposition to any good union. Collective bargaining can not possibly exist if all management needs to do is move to China...and the Democrats and Biden are in love with China and the CCP. Paradoxically, it was only Trump and the Republicans who have favored labor over the past 4 years, and the poorest in the country saw that direct benefit.

Labor unions are not "free market labor".
Globalization is consistent with free market capitalism and free market labor. In theory, globalization should tend to equalize returns to capital and to labor which means that regions with high wages will tend to see them lowered with trade while regions with low wages will tend to see them raised with trade. The same for the returns to capital.

So, your response is an example of very muddled thinking since labor unions are not free market labor.

The only way that labor can (or could) complete globally is if it would be ok for the UAW to organize in China. If it were legal and ok for the UAW to organize Chinese workers, then management would have to pay workers for what they could collectively bargain for. Since our government can not tell China how they must treat their workers, the only tool left is to apply a tariff for the difference that unions would have made otherwise. And that is exactly what Trump did.

As far as your response that my thinking is muddled look again to the quote by Frank Lloyd Wright. He is exactly correct. Both labor and capital must be free to bargain in good faith.

 

[laughing dog]

Labor unions are not "free market labor".
Globalization is consistent with free market capitalism and free market labor. In theory, globalization should tend to equalize returns to capital and to labor which means that regions with high wages will tend to see them lowered with trade while regions with low wages will tend to see them raised with trade. The same for the returns to capital.

So, your response is an example of very muddled thinking since labor unions are not free market labor.

The only way that labor can (or could) complete globally is if it would be ok for the UAW to organize in China. If it were legal and ok for the UAW to organize Chinese workers, then management would have to pay workers for what they could collectively bargain for. Since our government can not tell China how they must treat their workers, the only tool left is to apply a tariff for the difference that unions would have made otherwise. And that is exactly what Trump did.

That was not the only tool available. But tariffs are also not consistent with free market capitalism. To think otherwise is muddled thinking.

As far as your response that my thinking is muddled look again to the quote by Frank Lloyd Wright. He is exactly correct.

Mr Wright may be correct, but that has nothing to do with the fact that it is muddled thinking to claim to be for free market capitalism and free market labor and labor unions.

I understand you are concerned about fairness. Fairness and free market capitalism are not really compatible. Free markets are not about fairness. It is muddled thinking to believe so. Societies can harness free markets to achieve goals but harnessed markets are not free markets.

 

[Toni]

Are you only accepting answers from people who agree with all points in the straw man you constructed in the top half of the post? Because this may be a short thread if so.

Not exactly, a lot of conservatives are just totally fine with poor people dying.

To be fair, they'd prefer that poor people remain in sufficient supply to ensure that the poor have to do the dirty work, the back breaking work, the soul crushing work that no one else wants to do.