Great article about why the minimum wage increase demand by liberals is silly.
Comment on his arguments, do not go off on tangents and emotional responses...
(click on the title of the post)
Monday, November 13, 2006
The Minimum Wage Raise
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27 comments:
"Comment on his arguments, do not go off on tangents and emotional responses..."
it's not silly.
KEvron
in fact, CLINT is silly. it's a silly name. it looks like a dirty word, and it sounds like a dirty word. and that's silly.
KEvron
Comment on his arguments, do not go off on tangents and emotional responses..."
In other words...stay within the framing that "I" like. Ony Robotic "unemotional" responses will be accepted. You confuse us with another perspective or "tangent".
Nearly 80 percent of the country is in favor of a raise in the minimum wage. It passed in every state it was on the ballot this election. Nearly half a dozen. The collective wisdom is that this is a good idea at this point. We the people overwhelmingly say so. When everything that is done for the rich is a good idea and every thing that is done for everyone else is a bad thing I start thinking you guys aren't on my side. I could write a long empassioned post on reasons this is needed but you would not be convinced because you aren't on my side. Nor the average Americans to my thinking.
Just in case you are interested here is why I think Clint..at least on this issue is the Milwaukee idiot.
Here
Jim--
Lou Dobbs is a braindead journalist that doesn't know what he is talking about. Every economist knows the effects of government pricing. When set below the market price, it is called a price ceiling as demand outstrips supply, as we saw during the California energy crisis. But when the government sets a price floor above market price, supply outstrips demand. This is means more unemployment in the labor market.
To deny that minimum wages set above the equilibrium market price create unemployment is to deny economics has any scientific content whatsoever.
ron--
This is a matter of economic analysis, not who feels the best about the "working class," ahem, "middle class," or any Newspeak word you guys use for the proletariat. Marginalism has rendered the theories of Marx obsolete over 130 years ago, since it applies the methods of calculus to economic problems.
kevronius--
Clint's arguments are solid. If the government can set the price anywhere it wants without cost, why not set the minimum wage at $20 an hour? If your answer is that a minimum wage at that amount will put 'x' amount of people out of work, then there is no reason in principle why a lower minimum wage that is above equilibrium price should not do the same.
Icing on the cake before I go to work:
“No self-respecting economist would claim that increases in the minimum wage increase employment. Such a claim, if seriously advanced, becomes equivalent to a denial that there is even minimum scientific content in economics... Fortunately, only a handful of economists are willing to throw over the teaching of two centuries.” -- James Buchanan, Nobel Prize winner in Economics
Of course, collectivist-liberals, who think they are smarter than everyone else, will continue to take the words of featherbrains in the mass-communications bureaucracy, like Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Lou Dobbs and so forth on faith. Over all, they "care" about the common good, and that Bowden guy must be a tool for the rich, I mean the special interests, whatever word you guys use for the bourgeoisie these days. ;)
There are no disingenuous arguments to be supplied by Socialist Democrats like Jim. Socialism is rejected every time by the voters, except in Vermont, where is it proclaimed, not hidden by misdirection.
I cant say I really have a great opinion on this one. There is great positive and negative for both sides. Ultimately, only the lowest levels of workers gain anything from this. The rest of us, at best, stay the same.
correct rhyno...who benefits from this???
my friend the other day said his daughter got a raise because they raised the minimum wage...so it benefits people with NO skill at all and 14 year old girls.
That is the good it does...gives 14 year old girls more money to get CD's...
people who need to feed a family better have a job that pays way more than minimum wage...
everyone else gets screwed because there will be inflation yet no inflation in most people's pay
My favorite is Pelosi saying the working class hasn't been given a raise in 10 years. Of course she's referring to a raise in the minimum wage, but if you haven't gotten a raise in 10 years, it's been at least 7 years when you should have changed jobs.
Good point Clint. Here’s another fact for Ron and Kev.
Most libweenies arguing for a minimum wage increase try to persuade the knee-jerkers by pointing out a person can’t support a family on the current min wage.
I’ve got news for you, if you’re trying to support a family on minimum wage, you need to take a long look in the mirror. A raise in the minimum wage is not going to address the real problem.
Calling people in favor of a raise in the minimum wage(80% or more of the population) socialists and marxists and calling those who are opposed to the war and the way it is being fought(around 60%)terrorist sympathizers or saying they hate America is a big reason you are now in the minority. People are tired of the hyperbole. They want results and solutions not hyperbole or sincere radicalism.
ron--
Part of the problem of why people resist economic explanations has to do with Darwin. Anthropologist Alan Fiske sorted all interpersonal transactions into four categories: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, and market pricing.
We are only hardwired from evolution to intuitively recognize the first three.
Communal sharing is like letting everyone have a piece of the turkey at Thanksgiving. Authority ranking is letting someone above in the hierarchy make a decision. And equality matching is operating on a system of fairness and balance, like letting everyone take turns at a four-way stop.
Economics is nothing like this, but people think it is, and that's why they run into fallacious thinking.
Because the Marxist paradigm uses common sense, instead of specialized thinking, it is extremely error prone. Marx construed capitalism not as a system of market pricing, but as a system of authoritarian ranking, where one class exploits another, like John Edwards' "Two Americas." The Marxist alternative was communal sharing, where supposedly we are all in it together.
Even though Ricardo showed analytically the efficacy of free trade with his theory of comparative advantage, people refuse to believe that free trade benefits both parties, since under the communal sharing model, if some one is gaining, someone must be losing Marx's labor theory of value was proved false by Bohm-Bawerk, but people still support minimum wages because they think they are helping those who need it most, even though the policy creates unemployment. Even leftwing economists like Lester Thurow don't support corporate taxes, because they hurt consumers-- but consumers will support harm to themlselves because they see businesses as equal citizens not paying their fair share.
It is not by reason that socialists win the arguments. And I'm using the term socialism descriptively; any sense of shame is incurred on your part, not mine. Most left parties in the world proudly call themselves socialist, from Labour in the UK to the Social Democrats in Germany to the Socialist Party in France to the Democratic Party of Japan. Only in the United States do people try to hide it behind "pragmatism" and "common sense" due to our history of individualism, along with the Cold War.
Fine work, Jason.
I have no shame in being called a liberal. You should know that by now. My point which you tried to turn into your sophmore thesis is that your attempt to paint people as extremists when they aren't is turning people against you. Many people see these things as MORAL issues. You may not like it. You may be able to write a thesis on why it isn't but that doesn't change the fact that that is what it is to most.
By the way I disagree with your thesis. Capitalism needs checks and balances just like anything else. A minimum wage is a part of that. Unfettered capitalism, as we found in Teddy Roosevelts day of the robber baron turns into the aristocrats and the peons. We have history to prove it. Roosevelt(a progressive Republican) fixed it..you want to go back there again.
Ron, it’s a shame that I even have to point this out, but here goes.
You made this statement when responding to Jason (emphasis mine): “Many people SEE these things as moral issues. You may not like it. You may be able to write a thesis on why it isn't but that doesn't change the fact that THAT IS WHAT IT IS TO MOST.”
That statement supports the closing argument in Jason’s thesis. “It is not by reason that socialists win the arguments.”
That’s just the way I feel damn it, it’s not fair, a lot of people feel that way also, we shouldn’t listen to your words, you just want to be a greedy robber baron, and and and did I point out it’s not fair.
John Dewey strikes again!
Blamin..I knew what I was writing. As a matter of fact I wrote it that way in response to jasons thesis. Support the robber barons if you must the rest of us will over rule you.
Who are the robber barons? Those who took the risks and made the effort to start and grow a business that provides the jobs that you think should pay more? Are they robber barons because they offer a job at a given wage that you don't think is sufficient, even though people take the job? Shouldn't they, by their efforts as employees, prove they are deserving of higher pay? If the employee is without the skills to aquire a higher paying job, aren't they deserving of a low starting wage until they prove themselves? If an employer is a robber baron because he wants to run his business as he sees fit, why wouldn't you be a buttinski for having the audacity of telling him how to run his business?
ron--
Both parties are guilty of sticking their hands in the market for political gain. While they use moral arguments to justify government intervention into the economy with regard to pricing, in the end, the policy ultimately hurts the consumer. I'm questioning the *truth* of what you are saying, not your Good Will, which I leave uncontested.
AGain, perception is not reality, and passion, along with moral indignation, are not substitutes for analysis.
When the government gets involved and starts pricing stuff, it inevitably creates market distortions.
Here is what I am talking about graphed out if you want to visualize it. Price ceilings create shortages (e.g. 1970s gas crisis), and price floors create surpluses (e.g. agricultural subsidies). Minimum wages are an example of a price floor, which, if set above the equilibrium market wage, will cause unemployment accordingly.
"John Dewey strikes again!"
Yup! The pragmatist value-free defense of power turns out, in the end, to be power itself. Historically, these kinds of relativists, scornful of any objective criteria, have had no problem starving, and even killing, millions in service of The Plan. After all, The Party loves you! They care! Those who disagree just want to make the bourgeoisie, ahem, "Robber Barons" stronger!
You know what? I quite loudly expressed my opinions of a minimum wage hike months ago, so am not going to repeat them just because there's been an election. You guys can look up what I've already said (and would say again).
The minimum wage when I started working was 1.60 an hr. Never was a raise in the minimum wage since an economy killer or a producer of large scale unemployment. I never saw it. ..Marshall if you don't understand the robber barons go reread your turn of the century history.
ron--
Here's an example. The first federally mandated minimum wage in 1933 led to 500,000 blacks losing their jobs.
Of course, you guys will blame the bourgeoisie for your destructive policies.
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