Why is FAIR TRADE better than FREE TRADE?

[DBT]

You keep posting ideological answers rather than addressing the facts.

I am addressing the issue, I am pointing to the growing gulf between the wealthiest in society and the rest of the population and providing evidence to support what I say.

You on the other hand have done nothing but object.

Objection is not an argument.

Objection is not evidence.

Consequentially, you have no rebuttal.

 

[ZiprHead]

Minimum wage is supposed to be what's needed for survival.

Consider that the fact that the president who championed and enacted the minimum wage said this:

No business that depends on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to exist in this country. By living wages, I mean more than the bare subsistence level. I mean the wages of a decent living.

You're statement above appears to be misguided.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Guardian once again exhibits how little it cares for journalism. Good god, what a load of economic creationist propaganda. "The unstated implication is that the lowest-paid staff are lucky to have any job at all, and only have what they have thanks to the benevolence of the 1%, with their superior leadership skills."?!? Oh for the love of god! That's not what people who aren't upset over CEO salaries are implying; Mr. Dorling is projecting onto his political opponents the beliefs he personally would need to have in order not to be upset over CEO salaries. The unstated implication of his words is that he has a conception of economics so primitive that he takes it for granted that the people who disagree with him about policy agree with his primitive conception of how economics works. He's so incompetent he can't assess his own skills. He is Dunning-Kruger in action.

The Guardian is merely commenting on established statistics from multiple agencies. I have provided material from several sources.

The Guardian doesn't let the truth get in the way of it's ideology. Anything from them that supports a leftist position is completely untrustworthy.

It's official: the rich are getting richer.

''Well-off Australians are pulling away from the rest of the nation, with inequality of wealth rising in recent years, new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

The data is detailed in the ABS's latest Household Income and Wealth Australia 2017-18 report, released today.

The figures show income growth has been virtually non-existent for many — average household incomes have stagnated, with virtually no growth since 2013, although income inequality has also remained relatively stable.

However, the report shows that wealth is highly concentrated in Australia.

The average net worth of the top 20 per cent of households is more than 93 times that of the lowest 20 per cent — some $3.2 million compared to just $35,200.''

First, increasing wealth disparity is an expected result of increasing technology.

Second, there's a big problem with this data--much of the difference is people just starting out vs people near retirement. Unless you compare apples to apples (people at the same stage in life) showing a disparity proves nothing.

 

[DBT]

The Guardian doesn't let the truth get in the way of it's ideology. Anything from them that supports a leftist position is completely untrustworthy.

It's official: the rich are getting richer.

''Well-off Australians are pulling away from the rest of the nation, with inequality of wealth rising in recent years, new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

The data is detailed in the ABS's latest Household Income and Wealth Australia 2017-18 report, released today.

The figures show income growth has been virtually non-existent for many — average household incomes have stagnated, with virtually no growth since 2013, although income inequality has also remained relatively stable.

However, the report shows that wealth is highly concentrated in Australia.

The average net worth of the top 20 per cent of households is more than 93 times that of the lowest 20 per cent — some $3.2 million compared to just $35,200.''

First, increasing wealth disparity is an expected result of increasing technology.

Second, there's a big problem with this data--much of the difference is people just starting out vs people near retirement. Unless you compare apples to apples (people at the same stage in life) showing a disparity proves nothing.

As pointed out, the issue of wealth disparity is nothing new. Nor is the exploitation of workers. This has been happening for a long time.

Mechanization is an added factor. An increasingly growing factor that is not sustainable socially or economically if it leaves a significant percentage of the workforce unemployed or left with inadequate incomes.

The rich can't just keep getting richer while a growing percentage of the population find it ever harder to make ends meet.

It is not sustainable.

What kind of a social and economic system are we creating?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Guardian doesn't let the truth get in the way of it's ideology. Anything from them that supports a leftist position is completely untrustworthy.

It's official: the rich are getting richer.

''Well-off Australians are pulling away from the rest of the nation, with inequality of wealth rising in recent years, new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

The data is detailed in the ABS's latest Household Income and Wealth Australia 2017-18 report, released today.

The figures show income growth has been virtually non-existent for many — average household incomes have stagnated, with virtually no growth since 2013, although income inequality has also remained relatively stable.

However, the report shows that wealth is highly concentrated in Australia.

The average net worth of the top 20 per cent of households is more than 93 times that of the lowest 20 per cent — some $3.2 million compared to just $35,200.''

First, increasing wealth disparity is an expected result of increasing technology.

Second, there's a big problem with this data--much of the difference is people just starting out vs people near retirement. Unless you compare apples to apples (people at the same stage in life) showing a disparity proves nothing.

As pointed out, the issue of wealth disparity is nothing new. Nor is the exploitation of workers. This has been happening for a long time.

Mechanization is an added factor. An increasingly growing factor that is not sustainable socially or economically if it leaves a significant percentage of the workforce unemployed or left with inadequate incomes.

I don't think it's mechanization so much as computerization.

The rich can't just keep getting richer while a growing percentage of the population find it ever harder to make ends meet.

It is not sustainable.

What kind of a social and economic system are we creating?

How much of this is simply due to college students vs approaching retirement, though?

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

When wages decline or stagnate, it's because worker VALUE declined or stagnated.

I have provided stats that show workers are not getting market value for their labour.

No, what those stats show is that the market value of the workers has decreased, or that their share of the value produced has decreased, because they have become less needed and more replaceable. That which is less needed and more easily replaced has less value. Get used to it.

That wages have been stagnating for decades, . . .

Not all wages. Some workers have increased in value, and their wages have increased. You're just obsessing on the ones whose value has decreased. Your stats show that this might be a large % of the workers, but not all of them. You need to figure out that some perform better than others, so they are not all to be lumped together as you impulsively keep doing.

. . . that workers are falling behind.

Some yes, because their value is falling behind (i.e., the less competitive ones, not all).

Therefore 'the market' has not worked.

Yes it has. You just don't like the bad news that it's reporting, that some workers need to improve in order to become more valuable. If they don't improve, they fall behind.

The market has not maintained wages at their market value.

No, their market value has declined, reflected in the fact that they have become more replaceable, less needed, greater in supply but less in demand, and so their wages have stagnated to reflect the reality of their lower market value.

Meanwhile employers, CEO's, management, etc, have enjoyed increases in leaps and bounds, quite likely exceeding their market value.

So, increase taxes on them. But it's not true that all employers have enjoyed any such increase.

A clear case of double standards.

Possibly some higher-ups are reaping more than their market value, in which case their taxes need to be increased. But not the wages increased to workers whose value has stagnated.

Seemingly limitless pay for the top end of town, but heaven forbid a modest pay rise for the average worker.

Of course not, if their value is not rising. The pay has to be based on merit, not on crybaby demands for equality.

I have provided stats that show workers are not getting market value for their labour. That wages have been stagnating for decades, that workers are falling behind.

Therefore 'the market' has not worked.

The market has not maintained wages at their market value.

Meanwhile employers, CEO's, management, etc, have enjoyed increases in leaps and bounds, quite likely exceeding their market value.

A clear case of double standards. Seemingly limitless pay for the top end of town, but heaven forbid a modest pay rise for the average worker.

I have yet to see an analysis that realizes there are three pieces to the pie, not two. Any analysis that assumes two is hopelessly flawed.

Analysis has been provided.

That analysis shows that worker value has declined, explaining why their wages stagnated.

Worker wages have been stagnating for decades . . .

because of their stagnating value.

. . . while CEO and executive salaries have increased in leaps and bounds, seemingly unlimited money at the top . . .

So tax away some of it to be redistributed to ALL society, not to uncompetitive workers whose value is decreasing.

. . . but not a dollar to spare for workers.

They're getting their market value. The surplus going to the top should be taxed, not paid to uncompetitive workers which you want to make into parasites off the company.

That's basically the situation, and you know it. It is unjustifiable.

The only part that's not justified is possibly windfall profits to the top, which should be corrected by redistributing it down throughout the society, to everyone, by taxing it higher, to pay for infrastructure, and also to reduce public debt. But not targeted to common workers who did nothing extra to generate the extra wealth being created. Rather, let the workers benefit along with all citizens who should be enjoying the increased prosperity due to the improved production.

Forcing up the labor cost to satisfy the crybaby demands of the uncompetitive workers -> less produced and higher prices to consumers. Whereas letting companies benefit from lower-cost labor -> more produced and lower prices -> higher living standard for all society.

Making society -- everyone better off has to be the bottom line, not scapegoating employers and carrying on the class war against the dirty capitalist pigs.

 

[fromderinside]

Making society -- everyone better off has to be the bottom line, not scapegoating employers and carrying on the class war against the dirty capitalist pigs.

The worker is always on the short end of the stick. For instance one worker cannot make his labor more valuable unless the market runs labor short of supply. That takes a deficit in available workers and or an increase in product demand. All a business, the thing that makes money, needs is an increase in efficiency which it can produce by modernizing, or otherwise changing process.

Owners are dirty capitalist pigs because they believe increasing profit is more important than is the work of their employees.

 

[DBT]

No, what those stats show is that the market value of the workers has decreased, or that their share of the value produced has decreased, because they have become less needed and more replaceable. That which is less needed and more easily replaced has less value. Get used to it.




Not all wages. Some workers have increased in value, and their wages have increased. You're just obsessing on the ones whose value has decreased. Your stats show that this might be a large % of the workers, but not all of them. You need to figure out that some perform better than others, so they are not all to be lumped together as you impulsively keep doing.

. . . that workers are falling behind.

Some yes, because their value is falling behind (i.e., the less competitive ones, not all).

Therefore 'the market' has not worked.

Yes it has. You just don't like the bad news that it's reporting, that some workers need to improve in order to become more valuable. If they don't improve, they fall behind.

The market has not maintained wages at their market value.

No, their market value has declined, reflected in the fact that they have become more replaceable, less needed, greater in supply but less in demand, and so their wages have stagnated to reflect the reality of their lower market value.

Meanwhile employers, CEO's, management, etc, have enjoyed increases in leaps and bounds, quite likely exceeding their market value.

So, increase taxes on them. But it's not true that all employers have enjoyed any such increase.

A clear case of double standards.

Possibly some higher-ups are reaping more than their market value, in which case their taxes need to be increased. But not the wages increased to workers whose value has stagnated.

Seemingly limitless pay for the top end of town, but heaven forbid a modest pay rise for the average worker.

Of course not, if their value is not rising. The pay has to be based on merit, not on crybaby demands for equality.

I have provided stats that show workers are not getting market value for their labour. That wages have been stagnating for decades, that workers are falling behind.

Therefore 'the market' has not worked.

The market has not maintained wages at their market value.

Meanwhile employers, CEO's, management, etc, have enjoyed increases in leaps and bounds, quite likely exceeding their market value.

A clear case of double standards. Seemingly limitless pay for the top end of town, but heaven forbid a modest pay rise for the average worker.

I have yet to see an analysis that realizes there are three pieces to the pie, not two. Any analysis that assumes two is hopelessly flawed.

Analysis has been provided.

That analysis shows that worker value has declined, explaining why their wages stagnated.

Worker wages have been stagnating for decades . . .

because of their stagnating value.

. . . while CEO and executive salaries have increased in leaps and bounds, seemingly unlimited money at the top . . .

So tax away some of it to be redistributed to ALL society, not to uncompetitive workers whose value is decreasing.

. . . but not a dollar to spare for workers.

They're getting their market value. The surplus going to the top should be taxed, not paid to uncompetitive workers which you want to make into parasites off the company.

That's basically the situation, and you know it. It is unjustifiable.

The only part that's not justified is possibly windfall profits to the top, which should be corrected by redistributing it down throughout the society, to everyone, by taxing it higher, to pay for infrastructure, and also to reduce public debt. But not targeted to common workers who did nothing extra to generate the extra wealth being created. Rather, let the workers benefit along with all citizens who should be enjoying the increased prosperity due to the improved production.

Forcing up the labor cost to satisfy the crybaby demands of the uncompetitive workers -> less produced and higher prices to consumers. Whereas letting companies benefit from lower-cost labor -> more produced and lower prices -> higher living standard for all society.

Making society -- everyone better off has to be the bottom line, not scapegoating employers and carrying on the class war against the dirty capitalist pigs.

You've been shown that workers are losing the market share of the wealth they help to produce. Including the how and why of it. This has been explained too many times.

Which you ignore, only to repeat you objections in emotive terms in walls of text.

And around it goes.

 

[laughing dog]

First, increasing wealth disparity is an expected result of increasing technology.

There is no necessary economic nor logical reason for that expectation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You've been shown that workers are losing the market share of the wealth they help to produce. Including the how and why of it. This has been explained too many times.

Which you ignore, only to repeat you objections in emotive terms in walls of text.

And around it goes.

You have shown that hourly wages of production workers have gone down. That's not all workers by any means, you're not counting all the new jobs that have been created making those tools.

First, increasing wealth disparity is an expected result of increasing technology.

There is no necessary economic nor logical reason for that expectation.

Technology is a multiplier. When everything expands the points get farther apart.

 

[laughing dog]

Technology is a multiplier. When everything expands the points get farther apart.

There is no necessary economic or logical reason to expect that the “ multiplier” is the same for all factors of production or persons.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Technology is a multiplier. When everything expands the points get farther apart.

There is no necessary economic or logical reason to expect that the “ multiplier” is the same for all factors of production or persons.

There is no reason for this to make one iota of difference. Address the point!

 

[DBT]

You have shown that hourly wages of production workers have gone down. That's not all workers by any means, you're not counting all the new jobs that have been created making those tools.

The figures and explanations describe which sector of the economy has been in decline for decades, and not because of production decline;


Quote:
''Wages growth for Australian workers is among the worst in the industrialised world. For more than a third of workers on individual contracts, wages aren’t growing at all. This is odd, given Australia is in a “record” 28th year of economic growth with apparently low unemployment and a supposedly strong economy.''

''Government economists have floated a range of reasons, from blaming workers not changing jobs enough to caps on public-service salaries. But the most obvious factor is the loss of worker power due to the decline in unionisation over the past three decades.''

Low wage growth is a problem in most industrialised countries, but since 2013 Australia’s nominal wage growth has been less than half the OECD average, according to Jim Stanford at the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work.

Last year Stanford co-edited a book on the wages crisis in Australia, to which I contributed. In the book’s third chapter, Stephen Kinsella and John Howe declare “the erosion of workers’ rights is the most consequential, and actionable, factor behind the stagnation of wages in Australia”.

Percentage of workforce covered by collective agreements. OECD Database on Union Coverage

 

[laughing dog]

Technology is a multiplier. When everything expands the points get farther apart.

There is no necessary economic or logical reason to expect that the “ multiplier” is the same for all factors of production or persons.

There is no reason for this to make one iota of difference.

Technological progress need not necessarily make “points” expand farther apart as anyone remotely familiar with economic theory or, history would know.

Address the point!

I did. Learn some economics.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You have shown that hourly wages of production workers have gone down. That's not all workers by any means, you're not counting all the new jobs that have been created making those tools.

The figures and explanations describe which sector of the economy has been in decline for decades, and not because of production decline;

Which still doesn't address the fact that the money is mostly going to workers in other jobs that weren't there before.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is no reason for this to make one iota of difference.

Technological progress need not necessarily make “points” expand farther apart as anyone remotely familiar with economic theory or, history would know.

Address the point!

I did. Learn some economics.

You have a line. Stretch it to twice as long--obviously the points on it are now twice as far apart.

 

[DBT]

You have shown that hourly wages of production workers have gone down. That's not all workers by any means, you're not counting all the new jobs that have been created making those tools.

The figures and explanations describe which sector of the economy has been in decline for decades, and not because of production decline;

Which still doesn't address the fact that the money is mostly going to workers in other jobs that weren't there before.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Someone overpaid? OK, but why don't you offer a real solution?

Overpaying factory workers, steel workers, etc., is no solution to anything.

A basic summary:

CEO compensation packages have so many moving parts that pay out over time. And different corporate actions, such as stock buybacks, or the use of different accounting methods, can change the very targets that CEOs are supposed to hit under their pay incentive plans.

Ferracone notes that attractive CEO candidates will be doing pay comparisons of their own before accepting a position. "It's a competitive market. CEOs will work for the company that pays them fairly for the job they're doing. They're no different than anyone else in that regard."

And when boards increase CEO pay at some companies, that can drive other companies to pay more because their peer group norms go up.

Sky-high compensation packages often drive critics to ask: Are CEOs really worth all the money they're paid?

"Don't confuse pay with what people are worth. No human being is worth $20 million, but many executives cost $20 million," said Swinford.

Assuming some of these executives are "over"paid, are they the only ones? What about some celebrities, entertainers, pro athletes? Aren't some of these comparable?

Here are some examples of "over"paid athletes: Cristiano Ronaldo $56 million a year, Kobe Bryant $250 million a year, Lebron James (NBA) $30.96 million, Tom Brady (NFL) 27 million, Clayton Kershaw (MLB) $34.57 million -- per year.
https://www.spectatornews.com/sports/2017/03/are-professional-athletes-overpaid/

Aren't these just as bad, or even worse than most of these overpaid CEOs? Yet how is this going to be fixed by increasing wages to factory workers?

The solution is some kind of HIGHER taxation on the superrich. ALL of them, not just CEOs. And maybe there's a way to bring down some of the CEO compensation levels, but to overpay the common factory workers is no solution to anything. To single out a particular high-profile sector of the economy and overpay them doesn't do anything to fix the general problem for all of society. Rather, we need something which REDISTRIBUTES wealth from all those "over"-paid ones to ALL the rest of society.

There are probably many ways to do it. A higher income tax rate on the top levels is one. But there are others. Tax their mansions. Tax their private jets. Tax stock transactions.

But it makes no sense to prop up wages to common factory workers, already making over $50,000 per year -- probably higher than most of them are worth (according to the market) -- and then to pay for it increase the prices 330 million consumers must pay -- how does this fix anything? It just reduces the standard of living to ALL the poor and middle-income classes who must then pay higher prices in order to provide higher incomes to these select high-profile workers. Why? Why do steel workers and other select categories of workers deserve this subsidy which 330 million consumers must pay?

And increasing minimum wage and other propping-up of lower-level wages just prices thousands or millions of workers out of the market who cannot get an employer to pay them so much. It just eliminates some jobs, so that less production gets done = less supply = higher prices = lower living standard generally.

Why do you keep ignoring possible real solutions and just keep demanding higher wages for traditional factory workers, who are becoming less competitive? And by doing this you just keep drawing in more job applicants for these attractive high-profile (but less valuable) jobs, instead of letting the market (supply-and-demand) direct them to other kinds of work where there is greater demand. What do you have against letting society's needs be met (by the market), and instead are hell-bent on driving job-seekers into places where they're not needed?

There is NO SHORTAGE of factory workers! Why can't you figure that out?

Can't you understand the need for some solution which ends up producing GOOD results instead of the BAD results we get from your obsession-on-wages false solution? What do you have against GOOD results? Why is it that you want only BAD results?

 

[laughing dog]

Technological progress need not necessarily make “points” expand farther apart as anyone remotely familiar with economic theory or, history would know.
I did. Learn some economics.

You have a line. Stretch it to twice as long--obviously the points on it are now twice as far apart.

Please point to which words in "technological progress need not necessarily make “points” expand farther apart" you do not understand, because your response simply repeats your bogus assumption that technology or technological progess must uniformly "stretch" a "line".

 

[laughing dog]

There is NO SHORTAGE of factory workers!

In my region, there is a shortage of factory workers, and skilled workers in the trades. Manufacturers here have been complaining about this for a number of years. Yt their complaints continue. Hmmmm.

To be fair, the fast food chain restaurants have raised wages - they pay way above the minimum wage. But they still have trouble getting enough labor. Hmmm.