WSJ on Obama and da middle class

[JustRalph]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323610704578626142861572144.html?m od=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

"The Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial on Thursday that responded harshly to President Barack Obama's new series of economic speeches. "The President called his speech 'A Better Bargain for the Middle Class,' but no President has done worse by the middle class in modern times," the editorial noted. "

Hurting more people every day.........

[Robert Goren]

An interesting editorial piece by a paper who was fought against anything that would raise the wage of the average America. The WSJ is playing to it customers, rich republican stock traders. It has no interest in raising the median wage of Americans, only selling papers to its base.
That said, the fallout from the systemic failure of the banking system in 2008 has lasted longer than it should have. Obama has failed to get the large banks into investing in America and out of the short term high risk high reward financial instruments that brought them down in 2008. A lot of things are beginning to turn the corner, but this is still a major problem and sooner or later come back to bite America either under Obama or the next president unless things change.

[Dave Schwartz]

...under Obama or the next president unless things change.

... Who will also be a Democrat.

I just do not see the Republicans winning another Presidential election - until they become democrats.

(And before all you Republicans jump on me, remember that I am a registered R.)

I remember , long before the last election when I told my R-friends that Romney had no chance. They would get so angry at me. It is simply reality.

[Tom]

The problem is, no one is going to get elected unless they cater to the great unwashed masses of anchors.

Not many have the American spirit anymore - everyone wants it handed to them, off the plates of those who earned it. I say instead of trying to win elections, we pack up and find another country. Won't be long before the libs starve and die off, then we can come back. Without hosts, libs cannot survive.

[HUSKER55]

Not if the party unites and gets a plan. Sarah can work a crowd but does not get votes. Bachman didn't. Romney didn't.

The national party needs to get into high gear and get organized and find someone who can get votes.

Right off the top of my head I can't think of anyone.

[hcap]

Well don't sell her short yet.

Sarah has been rehired by Fox. That's gotta mean something to the rank and file :)

But if she runs against Hillary bend over insert your head between your legs and kiss your butt bye bye :cool:

[Clocker]

An interesting editorial piece by a paper who was fought against anything that would raise the wage of the average America. The WSJ is playing to it customers, rich republican stock traders. It has no interest in raising the median wage of Americans, only selling papers to its base.

The more money consumers have, the more stuff big business can sell them. Increased wages, as long as they are the result of increased production and not of redistribution of income, are in the best interest of rich greedy capitalist pigs. And the content of the article should be judged on its merits, not on the messenger.

The Journal is correct in stating that the president's policies have resulted in greater income inequality. It is not correct in attributing it solely to attempts to redistribute income. The problem is what Adam Smith called "the stationary state". A stationary state results when laws, regulation, and bureaucracy stifles or kills economic growth, business formation, and job creation.

History shows that a stationary state results in slow to no economic growth, low wages for the majority, and an ever growing unequal distribution of income. The result is an ever shrinking middle class. The rich get richer not by increasing productivity, but by gaming the system, by exploiting the bureaucracy and the legal system. Small business formation is extremely difficult in a stationary state because of regulation and taxes, further hurting the growth of the middle class and job creation.

Income inequality has increased as a result of Obama's efforts to redistribute income. But it has increased even more as a result of the huge growth in the size and scope of government, including thousands and thousands of pages of new regulations from agencies such as the EPA. The situation will only get worse as ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, etc., are implemented.

Contrary to all the good intentions, big government is a major cause of income inequality. Big government benefits those that can exploit it, those that are employed by it, and those that it supports. It hurts those that have to pay for it. A stationary state is a stagnant, no-growth economy. The rule of law becomes the rule of lawyers, and lawyers are trained to find reasons and ways to stop things from happening. And too many of those lawyers are legislators. Welcome to the new normal. Welcome to the stationary state.

[Robert Goren]

The biggest problem that small businesses face is not from the government but from a large business crushing them with below cost pricing. There is even a name for it, The Walmart Effect. Walmart is not the only large company that practices it though. You should talk to some small retail business owners from the 1980s and why they went under. I doubt you find very many that will say government regulation did them in. At one time in Lincoln, we had 7 mom and pop one store pizza places. We have one now. The chains have put them out of business. We are done to two liquor stores. The local mom and pop diner is down to three. Non chain men's clothing stores don't exist at all here. I could go on and on. The only thing is growing is the "real" Mexican food places.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...There is even a name for it, The Walmart Effect....

This is why I've always been skeptical of the marketing axioms surrounding the concept of "brand loyalty" - other than cigarettes and booze for some reason.

People cry their everloving eyes out about how WalMart has killed off the little guys and that Sal's Pizza & Stromboli has been ruined by crap like Papa John's that claims to be pizza. You hear it endlessly.

Yet, these WalMart parking lots may as well be the Vatican on Easter Sunday. Papa John has a whole lot of customers that would rather have two shitty pizzas for $14.99 than one good one. The French Slam may not be all that great, but at $4.99, people fill the dump instead of Aunt LuLu's Fine Dinin'.

In other words, it's the people that are the phenomenon, not some evil corporate face that these same people shake their finger at pretending to remember the good ole' days.

[Stillriledup]

This is why I've always been skeptical of the marketing axioms surrounding the concept of "brand loyalty" - other than cigarettes and booze for some reason.

People cry their everloving eyes out about how WalMart has killed off the little guys and that Sal's Pizza & Stromboli has been ruined by crap like Papa John's that claims to be pizza. You hear it endlessly.

Yet, these WalMart parking lots may as well be the Vatican on Easter Sunday. Papa John has a whole lot of customers that would rather have two shitty pizzas for $14.99 than one good one. The French Slam may not be all that great, but at $4.99, people fill the dump instead of Aunt LuLu's Fine Dinin'.

In other words, it's the people that are the phenomenon, not some evil corporate face that these same people shake their finger at pretending to remember the good ole' days.

One thing that surprised me a whole lot is the difference in how one person can think bad food is really good...its just what they're used to, this is why McDonalds does so well, there are millions of people who don't know there is much better food out there.

Price trumps all for most people...if they can get a "happy meal" for 1.99 that's "them" with no questions asked.

[johnhannibalsmith]

...

Price trumps all for most people...if they can get a "happy meal" for 1.99 that's "them" with no questions asked.

There you go.

We're fat, lazy, greedy, self-centered consumers that will sell out our neighbors and community in a heartbeat if it means more for us faster and cheaper. WalMart and McDonald's didn't invent the niche, our arguably poor characteristics as a society did, and these companies merely capitalized on it and obliged our thoughtless, impulsive, ego-driven wants.

[Clocker]

The biggest problem that small businesses face is not from the government but from a large business crushing them with below cost pricing. There is even a name for it, The Walmart Effect.

All of your examples are about mass-market retail, which is highly susceptible to economies of scale. And to the principle that no one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American public. Mom and pop retail of undifferentiated consumer products has been killed by big box stores and consumer behavior.

The small business start-ups that drive our economic growth and job creation are in the areas of service, information, specialized product development, etc. Those are the businesses being stifled by regulation, laws, and bureaucracy. It can take months for a new business to jump through all the governmental hoops of permits, licenses, tax laws, employment compliance, and so on.

And then bigger and better government makes it harder to stay in business by protecting us with laws like ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank.

P.S. In the ultimate irony, a new ObamaCare call center in California, designed to help people comply with the law, is hiring mostly part time workers and not providing health insurance.

[JustRalph]

The biggest problem that small businesses face is not from the government but from a large business crushing them with below cost pricing. There is even a name for it, The Walmart Effect. Walmart is not the only large company that practices it though. You should talk to some small retail business owners from the 1980s and why they went under. I doubt you find very many that will say government regulation did them in. At one time in Lincoln, we had 7 mom and pop one store pizza places. We have one now. The chains have put them out of business. We are done to two liquor stores. The local mom and pop diner is down to three. Non chain men's clothing stores don't exist at all here. I could go on and on. The only thing is growing is the "real" Mexican food places.

You have no idea do you? Pizza places and diners are not the small businesses being crushed by government regulation , they are, but they dont matter as much as plumbers, HVAC, construction, contractors etc. these are the guys who write big ticket invoices in your local community. Unions and government regulation kill these kind of companies. Inventory taxes etc drive the costs way up on these kind of companies.

Then when you haved thinned down the pool of available contractors etc, they pass on these costs to consumers who have no other choices available to them. It drives pricing in every business in town, therefore raising the cost of living.

The Walmarts of the world are not killing local businesses as much as government regs are. Forget about your pizza joint, the next time you have to hire a plumber, or HVAC guy, you are paying through the nose for government regs.

[Robert Goren]

You have no idea do you? Pizza places and diners are not the small businesses being crushed by government regulation , they are, but they dont matter as much as plumbers, HVAC, construction, contractors etc. these are the guys who write big ticket invoices in your local community. Unions and government regulation kill these kind of companies. Inventory taxes etc drive the costs way up on these kind of companies.

Then when you haved thinned down the pool of available contractors etc, they pass on these costs to consumers who have no other choices available to them. It drives pricing in every business in town, therefore raising the cost of living.

The Walmarts of the world are not killing local businesses as much as government regs are. Forget about your pizza joint, the next time you have to hire a plumber, or HVAC guy, you are paying through the nose for government regs.Good luck even finding a plumber. They used to learn by apprenticing to a union plumber, the busting of the unions also busted the training program for the trades like plumbing. Now where do they learn?

[Clocker]

The Walmarts of the world are not killing local businesses as much as government regs are.

Talking about this on another forum, one guy said he just laid off his employees and closed his car painting business because of EPA regulations that were impossible to comply with.

And Walmart is not immune from Big Brother. Walmart is building 3 new stores in Washington, DC, and planning 3 more. The City Council just passed a special minimum wage law that by definition would only apply to Walmart. Current minimum wage is about $8/hr. Minimum wage for retailers over a certain annual revenue and with stores over a certain square footage is now $12.50.

When the law passed, Walmart announced that it had killed plans for the 3 stores that were still in the planning stage, and is considering abandoning the 3 that they have already started building. Which it said it would do if the bill passed. All of these stores would be in inner city locations that have very high unemployment rates and high food prices.

[TJDave]

Good luck even finding a plumber. They used to learn by apprenticing to a union plumber, the busting of the unions also busted the training program for the trades like plumbing. Now where do they learn?

Dude, they're plumbers not rocket scientists. How did the first plumber became a plumber?

[Tom]

You can't unite the republican party - far too many a***** in it.
The leadership is a disgrace - they as much the enemy as the dems are.
Boehner, McCain......losers. 100% losers. You do not make deal with democrats, you do not listen to those two idiots.

The party HAS to expel this deadwood. There is place for dinosaurs like McCain and wimps like Boehner, nor whores like Christi and Rubio.

[mostpost]

[QUOTE=clocker]The more money consumers have, the more stuff big business can sell them. Increased wages, as long as they are the result of increased production and not of redistribution of income, are in the best interest of the rich greedy capitalist pigs./QUOTE].
Increased production should result in increase wages. Unfortunately that has not been the case over the last 40 years.
Go to this link.
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib330-productivity-vs-compensation/
and look at figure A.
It compares gains in productivity between 1948 and 2010.
The top line is productivity. The bottom line is hourly wages.
The most obvious conclusion is that productivity has increased 254% while wages have increase only 113%. That is an increase in productivity that is double the increase in wages. But look more closely. The growth in productivity and the growth in wages marched in tandem from 1948 until 1972. After that, productivity increased ten time more rapidly than the increase in wages-144% to 13%.

You say that every wage increase has to be accompanied by an increase in productivity. I say productivity has increased greatly while wages have not. For the past forty years the benefits of increased productivity have accrued mainly to the "rich greedy capitalist pigs"-to use your phrase. It's time the workers get back in the deal

[incoming]

"Increased production should result in increase wages. Unfortunately that has not been the case over the last 40 years."


I guess taxes stayed about the same.

[fast4522]

The problem is. . . . . .

Moneys earned outside the US have to pay a stiff tax by the multinational company to get in the game here. The multinational's position is do not hold your breath, as it should be. The share holders do not give a rats ass about your community or city be it Detroit or any other place in trouble. I see posts about the last 40 years productivity and wages like it has any reference as to what a board of directors will do or not, what a joke. You think jobs will come just because they are needed, your smoking some good shit. The truth is the democrats have had a strangle hold in the country for the last 40 years and everything is shit because of it.

[Clocker]

The most obvious conclusion is that productivity has increased 254% while wages have increase only 113%. That is an increase in productivity that is double the increase in wages. But look more closely. The growth in productivity and the growth in wages marched in tandem from 1948 until 1972. After that, productivity increased ten time more rapidly than the increase in wages-144% to 13%.

Productivity is a function of labor and capital. It would seem obvious from that data, and from what we know of the world, that the huge increases in productivity, particularly after 1972, are attributable to huge technological advances in capital over that period. There is no evidence in that article that labor was not rewarded for its contribution to the increased productivity.


You say that every wage increase has to be accompanied by an increase in productivity.

I did not say that. I was responding to a claim that wage increases are not in the interest of big business. I said that wage increases based on redistribution are not in the interests of big business or of small business or of consumers.

The article you cite states correctly that capital's share of the rewards of increased productivity is growing compared to labor's share. But it makes no attempt to identify the share of the contribution to that increase in productivity provided by capital as opposed to labor. In short, the study makes much of capital's share of income, but makes no reference to capital's contribution to productivity.

At the risk of leaping to uncharitable conclusions, I would note that the failure of the study to consider the relative contribution of labor and capital to the increase in productivity might reflect a bias of the organization doing the study. The study was done by the Economic Policy Institute, a "non-profit think tank" located in Washington, D.C., funded by AFSCME, the UAW, the United Mine Workers, SEIU, the CWA, and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

[Dave Schwartz]

You say that every wage increase has to be accompanied by an increase in productivity. I say productivity has increased greatly while wages have not.

I cannot believe it.

I actually agree with something the mail carrier said.


IMHO, he is absolutely right. It is a disgrace that neither the "working man's" income nor minimum wage has followed the productivity increases.

Here is the thing... Obama's presidency has not improved things!

Obama is not on the side of mainstream Americans! Nobody is! Not Dems or Reps.

[Clocker]

IMHO, he is absolutely right. It is a disgrace that neither the "working man's" income nor minimum wage has followed the productivity increases.



Minimum wage laws kill jobs. As I posted earlier, the Washington, D.C., city council just passed a special minimum wage law for big stores like Walmart, and Walmart immediately cancelled plans to build 3 new stores in the city. D.C. has a general minimum wage of about $8/hr., but the new law requires Walmart to pay $12.50. The irony is that the average hourly worker at Walmart makes more than $12.50. But the law would require Walmart to pay that to all employees, including new hires and part timers. So Walmart cancelled 3 stores (900 jobs), and is considering abandoning 3 other stores already under construction after they study the economics of continue vs. abandon. Another 900 jobs.

[newtothegame]

This is why I've always been skeptical of the marketing axioms surrounding the concept of "brand loyalty" - other than cigarettes and booze for some reason.

People cry their everloving eyes out about how WalMart has killed off the little guys and that Sal's Pizza & Stromboli has been ruined by crap like Papa John's that claims to be pizza. You hear it endlessly.

Yet, these WalMart parking lots may as well be the Vatican on Easter Sunday. Papa John has a whole lot of customers that would rather have two shitty pizzas for $14.99 than one good one. The French Slam may not be all that great, but at $4.99, people fill the dump instead of Aunt LuLu's Fine Dinin'.

In other words, it's the people that are the phenomenon, not some evil corporate face that these same people shake their finger at pretending to remember the good ole' days.
John, I am glad you mentioned this as well. I have had numerous conversations with the pro union likes of mosty , who constantly knock the walmarts of the world, yet, shop their religiously. Yeah yeah, I know, NJ and Mosty will be along to tell us how they never will shop there. I wonder how many of their "brothers" could say the same???

Wal-Mart survives because people choose to shop there....bottom line!

[newtothegame]

Minimum wage laws kill jobs. As I posted earlier, the Washington, D.C., city council just passed a special minimum wage law for big stores like Walmart, and Walmart immediately cancelled plans to build 3 new stores in the city. D.C. has a general minimum wage of about $8/hr., but the new law requires Walmart to pay $12.50. The irony is that the average hourly worker at Walmart makes more than $12.50. But the law would require Walmart to pay that to all employees, including new hires and part timers. So Walmart cancelled 3 stores (900 jobs), and is considering abandoning 3 other stores already under construction after they study the economics of continue vs. abandon. Another 900 jobs.
The one thing the left here will not ever recognize is that govt regulations impose (what would be done naturally by the markets anyway) which turn businesses away or in some cases off.

Mosty wishes to talk about how wages have not kept up with productivity....
How much of that productivity was brought about due to tech advances versus direct labor?

As clocker (I believe mentioned), there is no proof that the productivity increase was due to any one single factor (such as direct labor).....

Meanwhile, clueless (our resident sleuth) wants to ask where plumbers would learn their craft now?? Gee, I guess there are no plumbers to be had anymore since by is account, they can no longer learn their trade...:faint:

JHS put it as clear as I have in the past....like it or not, AMERICANS have become lazy. It is that laziness which has driven the tech boom and caused much of the outsourcing which has taken place over the last thirty or so years.

Add in NAFTA, which was supposed to bring up the standards of living (such as wages) in foreign competitors, has only done the opposite in bringing down our wages.

Avg median wages in this country the last 4 years have decreased....OMG who is president???? How can this be......?????

You can fight the market all you want, but in the end, in our economy, the market will win out. Don't believe me? Lets look at another major government regulation....Obamacare.
This monstrosity was designed to get more people on the covered insurance rolls (or so they said). I say "so they said because this is bout money, nothing else in my opinion. But, lets look at the justification.....
Companies now, in turn, are dropping coverages. Well, gee, that doesn't sound like more people are being covered now does it?
Companies are now hiring more PT vs FT employees so they don't have to insure them...again, does this sound like more people with coverage?
Hours are being cut across many companies....you get the idea!!!
The government themselves now are hiring in call centers and paying PT with no healthcare ...lol think I am kidding??
http://www.rightwingnews.com/democrats/obama-created-healthcare-call-center-hires-for-part-time-pays-no-healthcare-benefits/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rightwingnews%2FhGmL+(Right+W ing+News)

Bottom line is there is only equilibrium in the markets....anything happens to divert away from this medium and the markets react to counter it.

[hcap]

[QUOTE=clocker]The more money consumers have, the more stuff big business can sell them. Increased wages, as long as they are the result of increased production and not of redistribution of income, are in the best interest of the rich greedy capitalist pigs./QUOTE].
Increased production should result in increase wages. Unfortunately that has not been the case over the last 40 years.
Go to this link.
http://www.epi.org/publication/ib330-productivity-vs-compensation/
and look at figure A.
It compares gains in productivity between 1948 and 2010.
The top line is productivity. The bottom line is hourly wages.
The most obvious conclusion is that productivity has increased 254% while wages have increase only 113%. That is an increase in productivity that is double the increase in wages. But look more closely. The growth in productivity and the growth in wages marched in tandem from 1948 until 1972. After that, productivity increased ten time more rapidly than the increase in wages-144% to 13%.

You say that every wage increase has to be accompanied by an increase in productivity. I say productivity has increased greatly while wages have not. For the past forty years the benefits of increased productivity have accrued mainly to the "rich greedy capitalist pigs"-to use your phrase. It's time the workers get back in the deal

If we read further in the article you posted and look at the next few graphs we find this statement about WHY the disparity exists. No, it's is not that tech advances was the cause but the following.

.....Explaining the gap

The analysis above has shown that from 1973 to 2011, the largest factor driving the gap between productivity and median compensation has been the growing inequality of wages and compensation, followed by the divergence of consumer and output prices and the shift of income from labor to capital. From 2000 to 2011, when the productivity-median compensation gap grew the fastest, the divergence of prices had only a modest impact, whereas the shift from labor to capital income was the single largest factor, accounting for roughly 45 percent of the gap.



Also consider this...Since 1978, CEO pay at American firms has risen 725 percent, more than 127 times faster than worker pay over the same time period, according to new data from the Economic Policy Institute:

And Income disparity over the last 30 years shows the shift in income and who has benefited.

http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/11-28-11pov-f2.jpg

[Dave Schwartz]

Minimum wage laws kill jobs. As I posted earlier, the Washington, D.C., city council just passed a special minimum wage law for big stores like Walmart, and Walmart immediately cancelled plans to build 3 new stores in the city. D.C. has a general minimum wage of about $8/hr., but the new law requires Walmart to pay $12.50.

So, instead we have an entire generation of people who would make more money on unemployment or welfare than working.

I suggest that a fair wage would have caused companies to adjust costs to compensate for higher wagers. Then end result being a greater difference between working vs not working.

In addition, the jobs we have now are more low-paying than ever.

The goal is not just more JOBS, it is more GOOD PAYING jobs.

That is why companies are coming back but median income is not.

[mostpost]

Productivity is a function of labor and capital. It would seem obvious from that data, and from what we know of the world, that the huge increases in productivity, particularly after 1972, are attributable to huge technological advances in capital over that period. There is no evidence in that article that labor was not rewarded for its contribution to the increased productivity.
I don't understand the phrase "Huge technological advances in capital" If you mean that we developed machines that work faster and smarter, then I disagree that that should be credited to capital by a margin of ten to one. In the first place, I doubt that any of those machines were developed by the suits who work on the fifth floor. Secondly, none of those new and improved machines would be worth a bucket of warm spit if there were not workers to run them.

I remember people saying at the dawn of the new technological age that it would be great because machines would do a lot of the work and people would have more leisure time to enjoy life. What happened is that greedy people were not satisfied with increased profits and sharing a portion of those new profits with their worker. Instead they sought keep the new profits for themselves and even to deprive the workers of some of their old share.

[mostpost]

[QUOTE=mostpost]

If we read further in the article you posted and look at the next few graphs we find this statement about WHY the disparity exists. No, it's is not that tech advances was the cause but the following.



Also consider this...Since 1978, CEO pay at American firms has risen 725 percent, more than 127 times faster than worker pay over the same time period, according to new data from the Economic Policy Institute:

And Income disparity over the last 30 years shows the shift in income and who has benefited.

http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/11-28-11pov-f2.jpg
Thanks for posting this. It says what I said in 28 above, but it says it much better than I did. I wish I knew how to post charts directly instead of having to refer to a link.

Of course the cons will tell us that the after tax income of the top 1% rose 110% faster than the after tax income of the middle 60% because the top 1% deserve it. That is a bunch of crap.

[mostpost]

Minimum wage laws kill jobs. As I posted earlier, the Washington, D.C., city council just passed a special minimum wage law for big stores like Walmart, and Walmart immediately cancelled plans to build 3 new stores in the city. D.C. has a general minimum wage of about $8/hr., but the new law requires Walmart to pay $12.50. The irony is that the average hourly worker at Walmart makes more than $12.50. But the law would require Walmart to pay that to all employees, including new hires and part timers. So Walmart cancelled 3 stores (900 jobs), and is considering abandoning 3 other stores already under construction after they study the economics of continue vs. abandon. Another 900 jobs.

This is not true. In another thread somewhere I posted a comparison of a raise in minimum wage with what happened to the unemployment rate. Since 1954 we have raised the minimum wage twenty times. Two of those times, unemployment stayed the same. Eight times it dropped. Ten times a hike in the minimum wage resulted in a raise in unemployment, but eight of those ten times we were already in a recession when the new minimum wage took effect.

Walmart is foolish to abandon those stores due to the new minimum wage. A worker who makes an extra $4.50 an hour has $180 more to spend at the end of a 40 hour week. That is money that will now not be spent at Walmart.

[hcap]

[QUOTE=hcap]
Thanks for posting this. It says what I said in 28 above, but it says it much better than I did. I wish I knew how to post charts directly instead of having to refer to a link.

Of course the cons will tell us that the after tax income of the top 1% rose 110% faster than the after tax income of the middle 60% because the top 1% deserve it. That is a bunch of crap.None of this will make any difference. That's why I have been less involved with the political here. Not of course counting the insults.

And you realize this very same argument has happened many times before. And as new conservatives join it is reborn over and over again.
Until there is definitive proof one way or another we are destined to go thru this "groundhog day" issue repeatedly.

.................................................. ...

To embed an image, a graph or chart, right click on the image, select "copy image location" copy it to your post reply, and enclose it in these HTML tags ....... the code for that graph is the following

xhttp://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/11-28-11pov-f2.jpg

I put the small "x" in front to "ruin" it so it would not be read as correct HTML tags. Remove only that leading "x" and you will see the image appear

[sammy the sage]

Interesting the fact THAT current Pres. has HELPED further the 1%'s cause and been FURTHER right than MOST previous Pres.'s... :faint:

As I have pointed out in the past... :bang:

Yet the cons & libs here BOTH shout at the TOP of their lungs JUST the opposite... :rolleyes:

[Clocker]

In another thread somewhere I posted a comparison of a raise in minimum wage with what happened to the unemployment rate. Since 1954 we have raised the minimum wage twenty times. Two of those times, unemployment stayed the same. Eight times it dropped. Ten times a hike in the minimum wage resulted in a raise in unemployment, but eight of those ten times we were already in a recession when the new minimum wage took effect.



There is rarely a direct and immediate impact on unemployment from changes in the minimum wage. The wage increases typically do not result in cutting jobs. They result in reductions in job creation as employers adjust to the increased costs by using less labor and more capital, by paying existing workers overtime instead of hiring more workers, or by out sourcing. And by not expanding, such as not building new stores. All of that takes time, but is inevitable.

Walmart is foolish to abandon those stores due to the new minimum wage.

Not if they can invest the money elsewhere and make a lot more return on their investment.

[Clocker]

I suggest that a fair wage would have caused companies to adjust costs to compensate for higher wagers. Then end result being a greater difference between working vs not working.

In addition, the jobs we have now are more low-paying than ever.

The goal is not just more JOBS, it is more GOOD PAYING jobs.

That is why companies are coming back but median income is not.

What is a fair wage? When Occupy Wall Street protesters were demonstrating in the streets, they were demanding a fair wage. They defined a fair wage as a minimum of $20 an hour. The word "fair" in meaningless in economics. The president has been endlessly calling for the millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes. His only explanation for "fair" is "more". Supposedly, he knows what is "fair", so he gets to say what it is.

It is a basic principle of economics, and of common sense, that you cannot pay a worker more than the value he contributes to the business. Whether that is "fair" or not is not relevant to the decision to hire the worker.

There are many reasons we do not have "more GOOD PAYING jobs". One is technology. The higher the cost of labor, the greater the incentive to replace it with other means of production. We do still have good paying jobs in this country, but fewer and fewer of them are blue collar jobs, which is what most of the concern is about. Another reason is government regulation. How many full time jobs were killed or converted to part time or just not created as a result of ObamaCare? How many jobs in the mining industry have been killed by the EPA?

As discussed earlier, history shows that as government and regulation grows, income inequality increases greatly. The good paying jobs in mining and manufacturing seem to be disappearing at about the same rate that good paying jobs at the IRS and the EPA are being created. It is government regulation that is wiping out the middle class, not the fat cats on Wall Street.

[Tom]

It is a basic principle of economics, and of common sense, that you cannot pay a worker more than the value he contributes to the business. Whether that is "fair" or not is not relevant to the decision to hire the worker.


Can I get an AMEN, BROTHER?

The flip side of a fair wage is a fair contribution.
Tell that the union boys.

[Clocker]

.What happened is that greedy people were not satisfied with increased profits and sharing a portion of those new profits with their worker. Instead they sought keep the new profits for themselves and even to deprive the workers of some of their old share.

You, and the union-sponsored report that you cited, assert without proof that labor is not getting a fair share of income to reflect labor's contribution to increased productivity. I am not saying that your claim is right or wrong. I am saying that you are asserting an opinion without facts to support it. You cannot objectively discuss labor's reward for increased productivity unless you start with a discussion of labor's contribution to that increase. The union study does not even attempt to address contribution.

Essentially, you are saying that the distribution of profits is not fair according to your concept of fairness. Fairness is not objective or measurable, it is purely subjective. There is no crying in baseball, and there is no fairness in business.

[Tom]

Question for mostie - the USPS is bleeding money.
Have the union contracts been adjusted to reflect the gross losses, or are they unchanged?

[Dave Schwartz]

What is a fair wage?

Clocker,

A "fair" wage in my opinion is one that offers an incentive to work over being unemployed or drawing welfare.

There is a bone in my head that keeps telling me if a husband and wife both work full-time jobs, they should not be at the same standard of living as someone on welfare.

The Occupy Wall Street guys are out-to-lunch.

However, IMHO, the lower strata has not been dealt with fairly in the job marketplace. Look at the difference between union wages and minimum wage. It is not a coincidence that union wages (even for relatively unskilled workers) is substantially higher. They have no advocates!



Interesting the fact THAT current Pres. has HELPED further the 1%'s cause and been FURTHER right than MOST previous Pres.'s...

Sammy, I totally agree.

Obama used the poorest of people to get elected but has actually done a great deal to hurt them.

[Clocker]

There is a bone in my head that keeps telling me if a husband and wife both work full-time jobs, they should not be at the same standard of living as someone on welfare.

The Occupy Wall Street guys are out-to-lunch.



I agree with both statements. My point is that attempts to legislate a "fair" wage don't work, and usually have unintended consequences. And the problem also points to the desperate need for welfare reform.

As "evil" as capitalism and the free market may be, they have produced the greatest standard of living for the greatest number of people in the history of man. The economy is not doing well, and too many people blame the greedy capitalists without really looking at the fundamentals, and without looking at the huge drag on the economy of the rapidly growing government bureaucracy.

[mostpost]

[QUOTE=mostpost]None of this will make any difference. That's why I have been less involved with the political here. Not of course counting the insults.

And you realize this very same argument has happened many times before. And as new conservatives join it is reborn over and over again.
Until there is definitive proof one way or another we are destined to go thru this "groundhog day" issue repeatedly.

.................................................. ...

To embed an image, a graph or chart, right click on the image, select "copy image location" copy it to your post reply, and enclose it in these HTML tags ....... the code for that graph is the following

xhttp://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/11-28-11pov-f2.jpg

I put the small "x" in front to "ruin" it so it would not be read as correct HTML tags. Remove only that leading "x" and you will see the image appear
Thank you for showing me how to do that. Those cons don't stand a chance now.

[hcap]

[QUOTE=hcap]
Thank you for showing me how to do that. Those cons don't stand a chance now.If you post any that are too pretty and colorful you will be accused of posting "only purty pictures" with no grounding in the so-called real issues, or whatever passes noadays as real insightful con criticism. On the other hand it is interesting to watch heads explode and I would go for it.

Screw 'em

:cool:

[mostpost]

There is rarely a direct and immediate impact on unemployment from changes in the minimum wage. The wage increases typically do not result in cutting jobs. They result in reductions in job creation as employers adjust to the increased costs by using less labor and more capital, by paying existing workers overtime instead of hiring more workers, or by out sourcing. And by not expanding, such as not building new stores. All of that takes time, but is inevitable.



Not if they can invest the money elsewhere and make a lot more return on their investment.
Sorry, this is going to be long. I am going to show you that increases in the minimum wage do not result in job losses either in the long run or the short.

The minimum wage was first instituted October 24, 1938. Here are the jobs created during 1939:
1939 177 180 -186 206 202 -83 243 370 376 61 70
Minimum wage was raised .05 / hour on October 24, 1939.
Job creation for the 1940 :

1940 64 112 111 -127 181 98 -36 410 458 455 403 504

1945 ten cent increase on Oct 24, 1945.
This was the outlier; probably caused by the end of WWII.
1945 42 0 -108 -352 -139 -156 -275 -407 -1966 98 398
115
However by 1946 we find huge increases in job creation:
1946 728 -589 942 716 440 384 421 489 266 186 302 -17

Jan 25, 1950 MW up by 35 cents:
1950 14 -232 654 424 341 367 369 734 255 270 66 77
One bad month in February, but otherwise quite good. Now compare 1950 with 1949 which was three years after the last MW increase.
1949 -353 -175 -262 -8 -248 -243 -209 91 163 -834 294 272
There was a recession in 1949, but if your theory was correct an increase in the MW would have extended the recession. That did not happen.

March 1, 1956 MW up 25 cents.
1956 starting in April 80 131 77 -629 678 -32 181 41 108
1957 -42 210 58 Not as good as some, but we gained jobs in 9 of the 12 months and gained jobs overall.

Sept. 3, 1961 MW up 15 cents
Oct. 1961 134 222 128
1962 20 296 89 325 25 18 102 92 139 64 14 -28
Jobs created fourteen consecutive months after increase.

Sept. 3, 1963 MW up ten cents.
Oct 1963 206 -29 105
1964 127 265 146 25 166 132 191 208 283 -109 423 203
Positive job creation in thirteen of the next 15 months.

February 1, 1967 MW increased fifteen cents.
1967 208 20 103 -63 151 132 137 255 21 62 478 197
Jobs created 10 of next 11 months

Feb 1, 1968 MW up twenty cents.
Feb 1968 409 82 259 97 252 222 202 159 233 265 260
1969 193 260 208 166 256 308 94 275
Positive job growth 19 consecutive months.

May 1, 1974 MW up forty cents.
And Jan 1, 1975 MW up ten cents
And Jan 1, 1976 MW up twenty cents.
Job growth from June 1974 through 1976
June 1974 55 32 -15 -5 13 -368 -602
1975 -360 -378 -270 -186 160 -104 249 386 78 303 144 338
1976 489 311 232 244 18 65 170 158 188 13 332 211
Here we had some major job losses in late '74 and early '75 with a recovery through 1976. Note there was a recession from Nov. 1973 through March 1975.

January 1, 1978 MW up thirty five cents
1978 187 353 513 702 346 442 254 276 137 336 437 283
Twelve straight months of job gains.

Jan 1, 1979 MW up twenty five cents.
1979 137 243 426 -62 372 318 106 82 27 157 94 95
Positive job growth in eleven of twelve months in 1979.

Jan. 1, 1980 MW up twenty cents.
1980 131 79 112 -145 -431 -320 -263 260 113 280 256 195
This one was not as good but we do end up with a net gain of 267,000 jobs for the year. There was also a recession from January to June.

January 1981 MW up twenty five cents.
1981 95 67 104 74 10 196 112 -36 -87 -100 -209 -278
A net loss of jobs during this year.

Apr 1, 1990 MW up forty cents with exceptions.
And Apr. 1, 1991 MW up forty five cents.
May 1990 150 22 -46 -206 -86 -159 -147 -58
1991 -123 -305 -158 -212 -126 90 -50 19 34 16 -57 24
Another net loss of jobs.

Oct 1, 1996 MW up fifty cents
and September 1, 1997 MW up forty cents.
Nov 1996 299 168
1997 232 302 315 291 260 257 289 -11 508 340 304 304
1998 273 194 146 279 400 210 120 351 219 194 281 347
positive job gains in 25 of 26 months immediately following increase in minimum wage.

July 24, 2007 MW up seventy cents.
July 24, 2008 MW up seventy cents.
July 24, 2009 MW up seventy cents.
Aug 2007 -24 77 86 111 93
2008 14 -85 -79 -215 -186 -169 -216 -270 -459 -472 -775 -705
2009 -794 -695 -830 -704 -352 -472 -351 -210 -233 -170 -21 -220
2010 -13 -40 154 229 521 -130 -86 -37 -43 228 144 95

Major job losses here, but we all know what happened at the end of the Bush term.

So what did we find out? In general I used job growth/loss statistics for twelve months after a MW increase although in some cases where increases occurred in consecutive years I combined those.

After an increase in the minimum wage, we had positive job growth in
1940; 1950; 1956; 1961; 1963; 1967; 1968; 1974-1976; 1978; 1979; 1980; 1996-1997.
We had negative job growth in 1981, 1990, 1991 and 2007-2009.

We also had negative job growth in 1945, but that was followed by major gains in 1946.

So essentially, following increases in the minimum wage, we had twelve instances of job growth and four instance where jobs were lost.

Interestingly, three of those time where jobs were lost under Republican presidents and their lousy economic policies.

[Clocker]

Sorry, this is going to be long. I am going to show you that increases in the minimum wage do not result in job losses either in the long run or the short.


Sorry, but your numbers don't show anything. I have already said in this thread that increases in the minimum wage rarely if ever result in existing jobs going away. They result in fewer new job being created. Or they result in vacant positions not being filled. In a growing economy, the growth will continue and new jobs will be created. But a higher minimum wage will result in fewer new jobs than would otherwise happen. You can't see that by viewing historic data. You see that by surveys of employers about hiring plans and by comparing pre-increase projections with post-increase data. Economists conduct these studies, and statistics show that increases in minimum wage rates have an impact on future job creation, or lack thereof.

You cannot measure the impact of a minimum wage increase by looking at the change in employment afterwards. The fact that "B" happening after "A" does not mean that "A" caused "B". The Walmart example shows the process. The City Council raised the minimum wage and Walmart canceled 3 stores. Were any jobs lost? No existing jobs were affected. But 900 planned jobs were eliminated.

[mostpost]

What is a fair wage? When Occupy Wall Street protesters were demonstrating in the streets, they were demanding a fair wage. They defined a fair wage as a minimum of $20 an hour. The word "fair" in meaningless in economics. The president has been endlessly calling for the millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes. His only explanation for "fair" is "more". Supposedly, he knows what is "fair", so he gets to say what it is.

It is a basic principle of economics, and of common sense, that you cannot pay a worker more than the value he contributes to the business. Whether that is "fair" or not is not relevant to the decision to hire the worker.
The problem with that idea is that it only establishes a maximum. And it leaves the determination of what a worker contributes solely to the employer.
The only way to determine the value of a worker is through negotiation between equals. In some cases that can be a negotiation between an individual worker and management. In most cases it needs to be between a union represented worker and management.

The business owner or his management does not determine the most he can pay his employee and still make a profit and then offer the employee that salary. He determines the least he can pay him Which may be far less than he could afford. It is up to the negotiation between equals to close that gap.

[Dave Schwartz]

I agree with both statements. My point is that attempts to legislate a "fair" wage don't work, and usually have unintended consequences. And the problem also points to the desperate need for welfare reform.

IMHO, legislation rarely works for anything but not just because it is "legislated."

Rather, it doesn't work because by the time the bill is voted on it has been watered down so far in order to not hurt the financial investments of the congress' supporters. In other words, they don't want to bite the hands that feed them.


As "evil" as capitalism and the free market may be, they have produced the greatest standard of living for the greatest number of people in the history of man. The economy is not doing well, and too many people blame the greedy capitalists without really looking at the fundamentals, and without looking at the huge drag on the economy of the rapidly growing government bureaucracy.

I agree with that.

IMHO, we need a congress that votes the individual consciences of its members. However, the catch is that the members must ultimately have the constituency's best interest at heart. That second part is what is lacking.

[mostpost]

Sorry, but your numbers don't show anything. I have already said in this thread that increases in the minimum wage rarely if ever result in existing jobs going away. They result in fewer new job being created. Or they result in vacant positions not being filled. In a growing economy, the growth will continue and new jobs will be created. But a higher minimum wage will result in fewer new jobs than would otherwise happen. You can't see that by viewing historic data. You see that by surveys of employers about hiring plans and by comparing pre-increase projections with post-increase data. Economists conduct these studies, and statistics show that increases in minimum wage rates have an impact on future job creation, or lack thereof.

You cannot measure the impact of a minimum wage increase by looking at the change in employment afterwards. The fact that "B" happening after "A" does not mean that "A" caused "B". The Walmart example shows the process. The City Council raised the minimum wage and Walmart canceled 3 stores. Were any jobs lost? No existing jobs were affected. But 900 planned jobs were eliminated.
You're new here, but you are as obtuse as any of the old cons. You say that in a growing economy the growth will continue, without realizing that the increase in the minimum wage is what helped fuel that growing economy. You said yourself upthread that if people have more money they will be able to buy more things.

All your talk about what might happen if is just that. Talk with no evidence to back it up. I am talking about actual jobs that were created or lost . The figures I cited are from www.bls.gov.
1939 177 180 -186 206 202 -83 243 370 376 61 70
1940 64 112 111 -127 181 98 -36 410 458 455 403 504
1941 308 364 250 374 714 469 486 407 292 112 76 80
1942 244 165 423 415 421 256 442 518 266 260 159 242
1943 259 221 158 93 -50 185 -80 -155 -62 191 144 -72
1944 -86 -118 -252 -229 -77 -38 -43 -56 -177 37 3 150
1945 42 0 -108 -352 -139 -156 -275 -407 -1966 98 398 115
1946 728 -589 942 716 440 384 421 489 266 186 302 -17
1947 166 18 42 -114 146 171 -66 216 243 214 71 92
1948 108 -149 143 -311 426 237 128 15 119 -44 -56 -166
1949 -353 -175 -262 -8 -248 -243 -209 91 163 -834 294 272
1950 14 -232 654 424 341 367 369 734 255 270 66 77
1951 434 288 294 -15 96 115 -6 -53 -53 54 140 159
1952 -9 223 -18 112 29 -359 -142 778 397 279 218 348
1953 -19 194 135 -42 59 31 14 -49 -122 -123 -336 -204
1954 -235 -86 -223 19 -212 -69 -62 -9 56 63 235 152
1955 166 147 319 283 266 278 195 127 150 169 161 213
1956 170 192 128 80 131 77 -629 678 -32 181 41 108
1957 -42 210 58 82 -89 -83 56 6 -196 -167 -208 -172
1958 -308 -501 -276 -274 -113 -1 125 196 273 -21 458 145
1959 393 206 329 304 229 129 125 -466 91 -69 276 540
1960 99 239 -55 354 -340 -125 -44 -31 -44 -84 -182 -219
1961 -60 -127 106 -36 157 194 147 175 88 134 222 128
1962 20 296 89 325 25 18 102 92 139 64 14 -28
1963 89 115 91 258 36 42 137 115 168 206 -29 105
1964 127 265 146 25 166 132 191 208 283 -109 423 203
1965 163 217 203 255 234 198 273 265 262 228 279 324
1966 207 268 395 245 275 399 191 206 138 209 165 180
1967 208 20 103 -63 151 132 137 255 21 62 478 197
1968 -95 409 82 259 97 252 222 202 159 233 265 260
1969 193 260 208 166 256 308 94 275 -87 201 -31 152
1970 -64 126 151 -105 -226 -94 27 -123 17 -430 -110 381
1971 76 -61 54 178 210 6 63 52 252 22 202 264
1972 337 207 293 218 304 293 -51 428 131 404 293 305
1973 350 397 269 170 190 240 25 255 115 324 304 126
1974 69 149 42 89 163 55 32 -15 -5 13 -368 -602
1975 -360 -378 -270 -186 160 -104 249 386 78 303 144 338
1976 489 311 232 244 18 65 170 158 188 13 332 211
1977 244 295 404 339 359 399 348 238 458 262 379 235
1978 187 353 513 702 346 442 254 276 137 336 437 283
1979 137 243 426 -62 372 318 106 82 27 157 94 95
1980 131 79 112 -145 -431 -320 -263 260 113 280 256 195
1981 95 67 104 74 10 196 112 -36 -87 -100 -209 -278
1982 -327 -6 -129 -281 -45 -243 -343 -158 -181 -277 -124 -14
1983 225 -78 173 276 277 378 418 -308 1114 271 352 356
1984 447 479 275 363 308 379 312 241 311 286 349 127
1985 266 124 346 195 274 145 189 193 204 187 209 168
1986 123 107 93 188 125 -93 318 113 346 187 186 204
1987 171 232 249 338 227 171 346 170 229 492 231 294
1988 94 452 276 245 227 363 223 121 340 268 339 289
1989 262 258 192 173 118 117 39 47 249 111 277 95
1990 336 249 215 41 150 22 -46 -206 -86 -159 -147 -58
1991 -123 -305 -158 -212 -126 90 -50 19 34 16 -57 24
1992 52 -67 56 159 126 61 72 141 37 179 139 213
1993 310 241 -49 309 268 174 299 162 242 280 262 312
1994 269 203 466 350 331 310 362 298 354 207 418 276
1995 320 207 223 161 -14 232 79 275 244 150 148 132
1996 -22 435 264 162 323 281 234 199 220 247 299 168
1997 232 302 315 291 260 257 289 -11 508 340 304 304
1998 273 194 146 279 400 210 120 351 219 194 281 347
1999 123 409 108 373 213 263 293 191 203 403 291 300
2000 233 130 471 287 225 -46 166 2 127 -12 223 138
2001 -32 69 -29 -281 -41 -126 -122 -156 -244 -327 -296 -172
2002 -143 -135 -22 -83 -6 52 -92 -14 -58 124 7 -162
2003 89 -158 -215 -51 -10 -3 20 -44 105 197 13 119
2004 159 43 333 247 306 78 37 125 155 343 65 128
2005 130 240 135 362 168 246 372 192 65 81 335 158
2006 274 316 280 181 21 80 210 179 159 -3 205 169
2007 234 90 186 76 141 80 -35 -24 77 86 111 93
2008 14 -85 -79 -215 -186 -169 -216 -270 -459 -472 -775 -705
2009 -794 -695 -830 -704 -352 -472 -351 -210 -233 -170 -21 -220
2010 -13 -40 154 229 521 -130 -86 -37 -43 228 144 95
2011 69 196 205 304 115 209 78 132 225 166 174 230
2012 311 271 205 112 125 87 153 165 138 160 247 219

These are figures on payroll employment from the bureau of labor statistics. Your what if fantasy numbers have no meaning. Neither does what Walmart says they might do.

[Clocker]

I am talking about actual jobs that were created or lost . The figures I cited are from www.bls.gov (http://www.bls.gov).

You list a lot of raw data. Not even the BLS site where you got the data makes any claim of cause and effect.

This and many other studies show that a minimum wage has a negative impact on jobs. No one has ever claimed, let alone proved, that increasing minimum wages created a single job.

In the study "Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment Dynamics (http://econweb.tamu.edu/jmeer/Meer_West_Minimum_Wage.pdf)," Jonathan Meer (http://econweb.tamu.edu/people/faculty.htm?id=52), an assistant professor of economics at Texas A&M who specializes in public economics, and Jeremy West, a graduate student in economics, "focused on employment dynamics – job creation and job destruction directly, rather than just net employment," Meer explains. "We very carefully controlled for a number of factors that could conflate increases in the minimum wage and changes in employment, and found that job creation was reduced substantially, but job destruction did not increase. Net job growth falls in response to an increase in the minimum wage, but employee turnover is unaffected."

So it's not that working people would lose their jobs if the minimum wage went up, rather, fewer people would be hired in the future.

"This makes intuitive sense: firing people is unpleasant and costly, so adjustment takes some time as employers reduce their hiring of new or replacement workers," Meer explains. "Some previous studies, especially ones with shorter time horizons, have failed to find an effect on the level of employment because it takes time for these effects to be reflected in total employment."

He says there are numerous reasons not to increase the minimum wage or to even have one at all, and his reasoning is simple: "when something costs more, people purchase less of it. Low-skill labor is no different.

[Clocker]

IMHO, legislation rarely works for anything but not just because it is "legislated."

Rather, it doesn't work because by the time the bill is voted on it has been watered down so far in order to not hurt the financial investments of the congress' supporters. In other words, they don't want to bite the hands that feed them.


Legislation doesn't work because it is based on the assumption that the government can make better decisions than the free market, despite thousands of years of experience to the contrary.


IMHO, we need a congress that votes the individual consciences of its members. However, the catch is that the members must ultimately have the constituency's best interest at heart.

People do what they are rewarded for. Members of Congress are not rewarded for voting their conscience or for looking out for the best interests of their constituents. They are rewarded with campaign contributions and votes for bringing home the pork. We have become a nation run by special interest groups. And a special interest group includes the direct beneficiaries, the organizations and lawyers who support it, the vendors who supply it, the government employees who administer its programs, and the Members of Congress who are supported by it. Everyone agrees that the government is out of control, and it all needs to be fixed. Except my program, which is vital.

And the various parts of the bureaucracy have become their own special interest groups. For anyone interested in this topic, I suggest the book "The Triumph of Politics" by David Stockman. Stockman was Reagan's budget director, and the book explains why Reagan's plan to cut government spending was a total failure. Everyone on both sides of the aisle agreed to the need for cuts. Except for this one program, of course.

A vivid story from Stockman shows the government in microcosm. At a cabinet meeting to discuss budget cuts, Stockman was going through his proposed cuts, including cuts in head count, for each department. He said that he proposed a cut of 600 jobs in the State Department. Sec. of State Al Haig went ballistic. There was no way he could carry out the President's foreign policy with such draconian cuts in his department. State had 22,000 employees at the time. Reagan, who hated this kind of confrontation, got Haig calmed down and proposed that they split the difference and cut 300 jobs. Haig went off again, and Reagan proposed another compromise of cutting 150 jobs. Haig grudgingly agreed. The cuts were never made, and State's head count continued to grow throughout the administration. The process was essentially the same with every department and every Congressional program and every special interest group, and spending continued to grow.

[PaceAdvantage]

... Who will also be a Democrat.

I just do not see the Republicans winning another Presidential election - until they become democrats.

(And before all you Republicans jump on me, remember that I am a registered R.)

I remember , long before the last election when I told my R-friends that Romney had no chance. They would get so angry at me. It is simply reality.Last I heard it was supposed to be about 100 years before a Republican would win again...I believe this was after Obama won in 2008...so far, they're right... :lol:

They said Republicans were dead and buried...but the Rs came back to take the House...ooops....

Me thinks you aren't being realistic with your assessment of Republican chances going forward. The American public is a fickle bunch...

[PaceAdvantage]

Interesting the fact THAT current Pres. has HELPED further the 1%'s cause and been FURTHER right than MOST previous Pres.'s... :faint: Pass the bong, won't you?

[Clocker]

You're new here, but you are as obtuse as any of the old cons.


You shouldn't pigeon-hole people based on their opinion on a given topic. I have no use for either party, and find both sides to be greatly lacking in common sense. When it comes to business and economics, the left tends to be far more ignorant than the right.

You say that in a growing economy the growth will continue, without realizing that the increase in the minimum wage is what helped fuel that growing economy.

Every time you interpret what I said, you get it wrong. What I said was that in a growing economy, an increase in the minimum wage will not increase unemployment, but it will slow the rate of job growth.

You said yourself upthread that if people have more money they will be able to buy more things.

Yes, but if wages for minimum wage jobs are artificially increased, that money has to come from some place, which means that it is not being spent some place else. The total amount of spending is a zero sum game at this point. And spending the money to increase the wages of marginally productive, usually entry level, employees, means that it is not available for more productive uses, which would in turn create even more jobs.

[sammy the sage]

Pass the bong, won't you?

Never tried it...but is ON the bucket list :lol:

the true facts are THAT wages are a REFLECTION of what THE banker's are DOING to this country....

and if you don't realize or recognize what I'm writing about...then I really can't relate to you...

the upper 1% are DESTROYING us... :mad: .

a little math LESSON is needed here I see....regardless OF party BLIND affiliation...(hey P.A. did I spell that right...under the influence of RAIN vodka)...

so...let's say you made a 1 million $$$'s...and taxed at 30%...

now under so=called leftist you make 1.5 million...and taxed at 40%...

your still 200k to THE good...700k vs 900k...

so DESPITE current resident roach....the middle and lower class's are getting CRUSHED...

and he WAS for the little guy....right :rolleyes: ...

notice in finality....that it was a noted right winger who ATTEMPTED a feeble personal bash...yet leftest's have BEEN strangely SILENT to THE facts...

[PaceAdvantage]

I'm a right winger?

Let's see...On abortion, I don't really have an opinion either way. I'd rather not see it happen, but I'm not one of those who will march in a rally or foam at the mouth when the subject of abortion rights come up.

On gay marriage, I really don't care either way. Doesn't affect me, unless you think it leads to the moral decay of society, which I haven't seen any evidence of...

Let's see...what other right wing hot buttons are there...

I'm certainly not a religious fanatic, so you can cross the Christian right off my list of possible associations.

How right wing am I Mr. Sammy? You don't know a thing about me...

Also, why do you keep harping on spelling? When did I ever come down on you for spelling? Unless it's an absolute butcher job on someone in racing, like Wayne Lukas spelled Lucas, I don't beat people up for spelling...so you must have me confused with someone else...

[mostpost]

You list a lot of raw data. Not even the BLS site where you got the data makes any claim of cause and effect.

This and many other studies show that a minimum wage has a negative impact on jobs. No one has ever claimed, let alone proved, that increasing minimum wages created a single job.
Well, I looked at your study and I don't understand it. They keep talking about simulations, but where is the actual data? The authors use a lot of misdirection to make the results come out the way they wanted.

You have your study, but there are many studies which prove just the opposite.
http://www.raisetheminimumwage.com/pages/job-loss

That is a list of studies which prove an increase in minimum wage does not have a negative effect on job growth. Those studies show the same thing my simple post did.

[mostpost]

You shouldn't pigeon-hole people based on their opinion on a given topic. I have no use for either party, and find both sides to be greatly lacking in common sense. When it comes to business and economics, the left tends to be far more ignorant than the right.
I never said anything about Republicans or Democrats. I said you were the same as other conservatives here. Are you going to tell me you are not a conservative? Everything you post screams conservative.



Every time you interpret what I said, you get it wrong. What I said was that in a growing economy, an increase in the minimum wage will not increase unemployment, but it will slow the rate of job growth.
Except that many studies prove that is not the case. As does the fact that twelve of the fifteen times we raised the minimum we had more jobs created.
You talk some theoretical nonsense about how many jobs were not created, but you have no proof this was the case. On Oct. 1, 1996 we raised the minimum wage fifty cents to $4.75 an hour. Over the next fourteen months we created 3,858,000 new jobs. Those are real jobs that pay real wages. Your "might have been" jobs never existed. Not only that, but all those people who had jobs are now taking home up to $1040 more each year-minus taxes of course.



Yes, but if wages for minimum wage jobs are artificially increased, that money has to come from some place, which means that it is not being spent some place else. The total amount of spending is a zero sum game at this point. And spending the money to increase the wages of marginally productive, usually entry level, employees, means that it is not available for more productive uses, which would in turn create even more jobs.
I do not concede that wages for minimum wage jobs are artificially increased. I contend they are increased in response to changes in other wages and in prices.

[JustRalph]

[QUOTE=hcap]
Thank you for showing me how to do that. Those cons don't stand a chance now.

You realize most of the "cons" figured out how to post a web based pic long ago.....yet you have the balls to call somebody else "obtuse" later in the thread.


You are a piece of work

[mostpost]

Legislation doesn't work because it is based on the assumption that the government can make better decisions than the free market, despite thousands of years of experience to the contrary.

There is no empirical evidence that businesses can make better decisions than government. There is also no evidence that the free market makes any decisions at all. The free market may tell you that you made a bad decision, but it can not make a decision on its own. Furthermore, with enough money, you can influence and even control the free market. WalMart can go into a town and undersell its competitors until they are forced to close. How free is the market then?

Social Security and Medicare have administrative costs under 5%. Private health insurance has costs over 20%. You're going to tell me that local and state governments are unable to pay for their operations. I'll tell you that is because Republican legislators and governors have refused to fund those operations.

Tom mentioned the USPS-a favorite target of his-and how it was losing money at an enormous rate. What he always neglects to mention is that about 80% of that money is because the Republican Congress is requiring USPS to prefund its health and pension plans 100% for the next seventy years. They are stealing money from the United States Postal Service. Which of your precious private companies could survive if $5B a year was being stolen from them?

[newtothegame]

.

There is no empirical evidence that businesses can make better decisions than government. There is also no evidence that the free market makes any decisions at all. The free market may tell you that you made a bad decision, but it can not make a decision on its own. Furthermore, with enough money, you can influence and even control the free market. WalMart can go into a town and undersell its competitors until they are forced to close. How free is the market then?

Social Security and Medicare have administrative costs under 5%. Private health insurance has costs over 20%. You're going to tell me that local and state governments are unable to pay for their operations. I'll tell you that is because Republican legislators and governors have refused to fund those operations.

Tom mentioned the USPS-a favorite target of his-and how it was losing money at an enormous rate. What he always neglects to mention is that about 80% of that money is because the Republican Congress is requiring USPS to prefund its health and pension plans 100% for the next seventy years. They are stealing money from the United States Postal Service. Which of your precious private companies could survive if $5B a year was being stolen from them?
billion isn't being stolen....stop being a drama queen!
The money was promised, therefore it is being set aside to ensure that its there when needed. You see, things like the general fund and other funds have a way of disappearing and not being used for their intended purposes.....
You need to be thankful someone is being responsible.
Or, we could just start with your pension and not guarantee it??? How would that work for ya??? :lol:

[JustRalph]

billion isn't being stolen....stop being a drama queen!
The money was promised, therefore it is being set aside to ensure that its there when needed. You see, things like the general fund and other funds have a way of disappearing and not being used for their intended purposes.....
You need to be thankful someone is being responsible.
Or, we could just start with your pension and not guarantee it??? How would that work for ya??? :lol:

Paying your own bills and saving money to do it is a foreign concept to him

[Clocker]

I never said anything about Republicans or Democrats. I said you were the same as other conservatives here. Are you going to tell me you are not a conservative? Everything you post screams conservative.

I am non-partisan. I am an empiricist. I go where the data takes me. The fact that the data leads me to a different conclusion than you reflects your political bias, not mine.

I do not concede that wages for minimum wage jobs are artificially increased. I contend they are increased in response to changes in other wages and in prices.

Minimum wage laws are, by definition, artificial. They are the result of political interference in the market, to impose political, non-economic outcomes on the economic system.

There is no empirical evidence that businesses can make better decisions than government.

The American capitalist system is the freest market system ever in the history of man, and has resulted in the highest standard of living, top to bottom, of any economic system in the history of man. That is empirical evidence.

There is also no evidence that the free market makes any decisions at all.

The free market system sets prices, allocates resources, and determines production and distribution. No other economic system does so as efficiently. Any time the government gets involved in that process, the result is usually chaos. The sub-prime mortgage melt-down was the result of government interference in the housing market. The list of similar fiascoes just within my life time is long and depressing.

Well, I looked at your study and I don't understand it.

That is the problem. That is the simplest economic study I could find that explains the issues. You still ignore the basic question. If you mandate higher wages, where does the money come from? If I run a small business with 20 employees, and if the minimum wage goes up $1/hr., my costs go up $20/hr times 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year. That's $40,000, plus any impact on my payroll taxes. That $40K comes out of other spending I might have done, like hiring more people, or out of increased prices, which means I either lose customers or my customers have less to spend on other things. There is no gain. The pie didn't get any bigger. It is all just a redistribution of a fixed amount of money according to the desired outcome of politicians, rather than according to rewarding the effort that created the pie that the government is dividing up.

Why is the government better qualified to determine the distribution of that money than the people who earn it? Answer, the government has proven that it is not qualified. Especially the current government.

Here is what this government has done to middle class incomes during the Obama "recovery":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/03/median-income-800x540.png


And that concludes my participation in this dialog. The facts are the facts. Repeating them to people who ignore the facts is an exercise in futility.

[TJDave]

If you mandate higher wages, where does the money come from? If I run a small business with 20 employees, and if the minimum wage goes up $1/hr., my costs go up $20/hr times 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year. That's $40,000, plus any impact on my payroll taxes. That $40K comes out of other spending I might have done, like hiring more people, or out of increased prices, which means I either lose customers or my customers have less to spend on other things. There is no gain. The pie didn't get any bigger.

Not true. If government mandates accross the board wage increases every company and employee is involved. Consumers and employees have more money to spend and those with whom they spend, spend with others, or save, or invest. It's called the multiplier effect. Your consumers actually have more to spend on your product.

[JustRalph]

Not true. If government mandates accross the board wage increases every company and employee is involved. Consumers and employees have more money to spend and those with whom they spend, spend with others, or save, or invest. It's called the multiplier effect. Your consumers actually have more to spend on your product.

The problem comes because you are both somewhat right, Dave. It's pure redistribution of wealth

Clocker is right in his scenario, as well you are. The missing point is, the extra money spread around came directly out of the business owners bank account. Your point about across the board wage increases does not include every employee, just those who receive an increase. There will be a huge group that don't because they are already exceeding the minimum. It's wholesale redistribution of wealth. Plain and simple

[Clocker]

Not true. If government mandates accross the board wage increases every company and employee is involved. Consumers and employees have more money to spend and those with whom they spend, spend with others, or save, or invest. It's called the multiplier effect. Your consumers actually have more to spend on your product.

http://gifs.gifbin.com/1232550426_worf%20face%20palm.gif


You don't make the pie bigger by increasing the price per slice.

[Clocker]

The missing point is, the extra money spread around came directly out of the business owners bank account.

And either the business owner has less to spend elsewhere, so other people suffer, or the business owner has to raise prices, so everyone makes more money, but prices go up proportionally, and no one is better off in real terms.

[Robert Goren]

The problem comes because you are both somewhat right, Dave. It's pure redistribution of wealth

Clocker is right in his scenario, as well you are. The missing point is, the extra money spread around came directly out of the business owners bank account. Your point about across the board wage increases does not include every employee, just those who receive an increase. There will be a huge group that don't because they are already exceeding the minimum. It's wholesale redistribution of wealth. Plain and simpleWhat isn't?

[hcap]

Can I get an AMEN, BROTHER?

The flip side of a fair wage is a fair contribution.
Tell that the union boys.That is a fair comment but then how do you explain this?

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/30/henry_ford_s_150th_birthday_his_fight_for_higher_w ages/fredgraph-69_1.png.CROP.article568-large.png

That "pretty" and "colorful" chart came from this article about Henry Ford and his overlooked policy on wages.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/30/henry_ford_s_150th_birthday_his_fight_for_higher_w ages.html

Henry Ford, who was born 150 years ago today, is remembered as the guy who unleashed the full potential of the assembly line, beginning in 1913 when the Ford Motor Company cranked out Model T's much faster and cheaper than anyone could imagine.

But his business philosophy, known as Fordism, went beyond the implementation of mass production.

Ford argued that high wages were essential for economic and moral reasons. As he wrote in his autobiography:

...."What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages — most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living — the rate of their wages — determines the prosperity of the country".

Ford set a powerful precedent in 1914 when he doubled wages for workers on his assembly line in Dearborne, Mich. The move was in part a reaction to high turnover among his workers, who found the work too hard and unrewarding. At the same time, he argued that it was good for his business.

High wages support a good market:

...."If we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales. Country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity, provided, however, the higher wages are paid for higher production"

No aspect of Fordism became more passé than his ideas about high wages. While liberal economists like Robert Reich still argue about the economic benefits of greater income equality, corporations have realized that they can get away with paying relatively less and less.

[Clocker]

Ford set a powerful precedent in 1914 when he doubled wages for workers on his assembly line in Dearborne, Mich. The move was in part a reaction to high turnover among his workers, who found the work too hard and unrewarding.

Oops, the nasty reality of the market rears its ugly head again. For all his talk about morality, Ford had to react to the supply and demand of the labor market and pay enough to attract and keep workers.

While Ford talked about societal benefits, there is no indication that he was paying his workers more than the value that they added to production. Also, Ford was in a unique position as regards to his cost structure. His use of the assembly line made him more profitable than his competitors. If in fact he paid his workers a larger share of the income to productivity than they contributed, that was a decision that he was in a position to make at the time, and he could do it and stay profitable and stay in business.

Most firms today operate in a much more competitive market. McDonald employees are demonstrating for a "living wage", $15/hour or more. McDonalds cannot pay that wage and stay in business if Burger King and Wendys and others don't have to pay it. And if they all have to pay it, then they all have to increase prices to cover the higher costs.

A "living" wage or an increase in the minimum wage has to be paid for, the money has to come from someplace. In low margin businesses, the only place it can come from is the consumer. The over all result is ultimately a general increase in costs and prices, or a decrease in the over all standard of living. In either case, the minimum wage earner is back to earning a "non-living" wage.

[hcap]

But then again how do you explain the graph I posted indicating that while corporate profits relative to GDP are soaring, employee compensation relative to GDP has steadily decline. Beginning mostly around the year 2000?

Did the entire market as conservatives claim lose a competitive edge around G.W. Bush's 1st tenure simply because of globalization and a shift in cheap labor overseas, or did conservative policies center and focus on mostly corporate profits and ignore the American worker by design.? I would think that both corporate and worker income would both drop facing the globalization threat.

Yet as you can see corporate profits skyrocket and worker profits diverge big time. If conservatives are correct about cheap global labor rates of developing countries as the ONLY factor in lowering the middle class income, how come this inequality of diverging wages, especially considering major increases in productivity by workers themselves (not tech only) why didn't both factions suffer equally? And of course Ford was able to increase worker pay and drop the average cost of the automobile simultaneously, AND increase his own profits.

Are you saying also that any increase in worker productivity---The Spoils Only Belong to The Corporation only?

...Nontechnical Labor Productivity Improvements

Improved labor productivity is commonly associated with application of new scientific technology. However, nontechnical ideas can also profoundly improve productivity.

Adam Smith began his 18th-century economics classic, The Wealth of Nations, with a chapter called the "Division of Labor." He described the 18 separate assembly steps in making a single metal pin. He estimated that a single person, working alone, could make 20 pins in a day. He also observed that 10 people on an assembly line could make 48,000 pins in a single day - an output of 4,800 pins per worker per day. That's quite an improvement in labor productivity.

"The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labor," Smith wrote.

Henry Ford's application of such techniques to the automobile assembly line is a well-known innovation that greatly increased labor productivity. Consequently, the price of cars dropped low enough for millions of Americans to afford one"

I must remind you the article I posted quotes Ford. Henry Ford said much to indicate what is true feeling were in regard to of the buyers ability to buy his product.

...."What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages — most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living — the rate of their wages — determines the prosperity of the country".

..."If we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales. Country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity, provided, however, the higher wages are paid for higher production"

Arte you saying he lied outright? My guess he acted from a broader sense of enlightened self interest.

[Clocker]

But then again how do you explain the graph I posted indicating that while corporate profits relative to GDP are soaring, employee compensation relative to GDP has steadily decline. Beginning mostly around the year 2000?

Corporate profits are growing because because businesses have adjusted to the new normal economy of slow growth, low interest rates, creeping inflation, and big government. They have adjusted to ever increasing government regulation, uncertainty, and federal policies and tax codes that reward them for replacing labor with capital, for downsizing, and for outsourcing.

Adam Smith began his 18th-century economics classic, The Wealth of Nations, with a chapter called the "Division of Labor."

Adam Smith also warned about the "stationary state" of stagnant economic growth caused by big government, increased regulation, and huge bureaucracies. And he showed that such conditions inevitably led to ever widening gaps in income distribution between the haves and the have-nots.

I must remind you the article I posted quotes Ford. Henry Ford said much to indicate what is true feeling were in regard to of the buyers ability to buy his product.

...

Arte you saying he lied outright? My guess he acted from a broader sense of enlightened self interest.

I have no doubt that he said and believed that. That shows and proves nothing about the relation between what Ford paid his workers and the contribution of labor to his productivity and profits. I'm sure the concept was foreign to business owners at the time. Ford may have been overpaying or underpaying his workers, there is no way to tell. No matter what he felt, there is no evidence that he paid wages above what he had to to avoid turnover and maintain productivity.

But it doesn't make a bit of difference today. As I said before, Ford lived and operated in a different world. Even if he felt the need to, and if he did, pay his workers more than what they contributed in production value, companies can't do that today. Ford did what he did because he wanted to and was operating in an environment that allowed him to. The current environment doesn't allow that. Paying workers more than they contribute to value is why Ford was in deep trouble a few years back and why GM and Chrysler went bankrupt and why Detroit did too.

[hcap]

You gotta be kidding. You have not addressed the issue of why corporate profits have soared while labor has suffered so badly in comparison.
Corporate profits are growing because because businesses have adjusted to the new normal economy of slow growth, low interest rates, creeping inflation, and big government. They have adjusted to ever increasing government regulation, uncertainty, and federal policies and tax codes that reward them for replacing labor with capital, for downsizing, and for outsourcing.I would say if I was a socialist tool. (According to some on this board I am :lol:.. )

"You are apparently a capitalist stooge"

Seriously though (at least as serious as any undercover covert operative could be...thanks So_Cal_Fan) why did you not address all them lowly workers, who as we all know have shown marked increases in productivity since the year 2000, why did they not garner a portion of said so-called triumphs of Capitalism since the year 2000? You know those triumphs that happened only because of what corporations have so successfully adjusted to? :cool:

[Clocker]

why did you not address all them lowly workers, who as we all know have shown marked increases in productivity since the year 2000,

You presented no evidence to show that worker productivity has increased. Actually, you showed no evidence to show that capital productivity has increased either. The graph you posted shows corporate profits and worker income. You are apparently implying, without proof, that one going up is the cause of the other going down. You are also implying, without evidence, that the graph is somehow related to productivity.

[hcap]

You presented no evidence to show that worker productivity has increased. Actually, you showed no evidence to show that capital productivity has increased either. The graph you posted shows corporate profits and worker income. You are apparently implying, without proof, that one going up is the cause of the other going down. You are also implying, without evidence, that the graph is somehow related to productivity.The graph I posted showed corporate income vs worker income. I am legally blind, but even I can see the declining red line in the graph. Did you miss that by any chance?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/30/henry_ford_s_150th_birthday_his_fight_for_higher_w ages.html
"For a visualization of what has happened on this front in the past half century, check out a graph of corporate profits relative to GDP versus employee compensation relative to GDP. While corporate profits relative to GDP are soaring, employee compensation relative to GDP has steadily decline. And it's not just a case of rising tides: median U.S. income in 2012 fell to levels not seen since 1995.

The industrial revolution is not continuing as Ford predicted, and — at least as far as wages are concerned — that's a tragedy."

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/30/henry_ford_s_150th_birthday_his_fight_for_higher_w ages/fredgraph-69_1.png.CROP.article568-large.png

Here ya go.....

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/assets_c/2010/03/productivity%2010-03%20-%201-thumb-570x377-22594.png

[Ocala Mike]

Careful, hcap, you're treading on thin ice invoking Henry Ford as one of your "heroes." I am sure you're aware that he was an incorrigible anti-semite to his dying day.

I will give you a pass, however, and wait patiently the "spin" put on those two graphs by the usual suspects on here that you've presented which, as I interpret them, make things look like we're headed for an inevitable worker revolt.

[Clocker]

The graph I posted showed corporate income vs worker income. I am legally blind, but even I can see the declining red line in the graph. Did you miss that by any chance?

I saw it. Again. And it is still very pretty. And there is still not even the slightest attempt to show any correlation or causation between the two lines. Or to provide empirical evidence as to why either of them are going the way they are going. Or to provide any empirical evidence linking either line to productivity. You have provided a new pretty graph for productivity, but again without explanation, linkage or evidence of causality.

[hcap]

Careful, hcap, you're treading on thin ice invoking Henry Ford as one of your "heroes." I am sure you're aware that he was an incorrigible anti-semite to his dying day.

I will give you a pass, however, and wait patiently the "spin" put on those two graphs by the usual suspects on here that you've presented which, as I interpret them, make things look like we're headed for an inevitable worker revolt.I am well aware of Henry's personal vendetta against Jews, but I thought I post "even the most cold heated among conservatives" could act out of enlightened self interest and positively help us peons. And dramatically set the stage for the now dead (or dying) middle class.

Meanwhile I am trying to take care of a very colorful antisemite over on the Religious thread. :cool:

[Clocker]

And dramatically set the stage for the now dead (or dying) middle class.

As discussed earlier, Adam Smith showed that historically, big government, bureaucracy, and regulation kills the middle class.

Here's another pretty graph for your collection.

http://www.sentierresearch.com/Charts/HouseholdIncomeIndex_UnemploymentRate_06_2013.jpg

[hcap]

I saw it. Again. And it is still very pretty. And there is still not even the slightest attempt to show any correlation or causation between the two lines. Or to provide empirical evidence as to why either of them are going the way they are going. Or to provide any empirical evidence linking either line to productivity. You have provided a new pretty graph for productivity, but again without explanation, linkage or evidence of causality.Where is your revidence, or a nice pretty graph that explains your point. At the moment you have shot your load taking potshots at me. I will bring to your attention that although correlation is no proof of causation, sometimes circumstantial evidence is a lot better than NONE AT ALL. Most post has already showed that in your lack of reasonable debate as far has the minimum wage is concerned.

Mean whnile my alotted monthly time on political issues here on the PA Off Topic right-Left gab jamboree better known as the 365/248/7 Obama?Dem/Lib hatefest is drawing to a close.

Back to the more rational environment the Religious thread and some more of Boxcarian lunacy.

But when you present some evidence I will promise to return. :)

[hcap]

As discussed earlier, Adam Smith showed that historically, big government, bureaucracy, and regulation kills the middle class.

Here's another pretty graph for your collection.

http://www.sentierresearch.com/Charts/HouseholdIncomeIndex_UnemploymentRate_06_2013.jpgT his is a totally different issue and is the result of stagnating and severely declining middle class wage compensation. You are putting the cart before the horse that drioves the cart

Notice the Big turning point is th GW Bush policy induced Recession.

As I said bye-bye

Mostpost, I leave the rest in your capable hands. Careful though some of the opposition can also post purty pitures :cool:

[Clocker]

I will bring to your attention that although correlation is no proof of causation, sometimes circumstantial evidence is a lot better than NONE AT ALL.

You will have to agree then that the continued decline of incomes under the Obama administration is at least circumstantial evidence of his responsibility for the growth of government and regulation.


Notice the Big turning point is th GW Bush policy induced Recession.

I agree. Bush, his administration, and the Pelosi-Reid Democratic Congress were just as irresponsible and guilty of increasing the bloated bureaucracy as Obama.

[Ocala Mike]

Another big reason for the upsurge in corporate profitability - a substantially lower "effective" tax rate.

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18093-as-corporate-profits-reach-record-levels-their-effective-tax-rates-decrease

[fast4522]

The real problem with spending everyone else s money is that at some point you run out of it. This is the case today, there is no good reason to borrow more money from China to fund the welfare state. These people who will defend this guy with their dying breath so future generations will have to pay for their ideas of what should be should be the first to starve.

[mostpost]

You presented no evidence to show that worker productivity has increased. Actually, you showed no evidence to show that capital productivity has increased either. The graph you posted shows corporate profits and worker income. You are apparently implying, without proof, that one going up is the cause of the other going down. You are also implying, without evidence, that the graph is somehow related to productivity.
Do you deny that corporate profits have soared in the last ten years? Do you deny that wages have declined at a more rapid rate in the last ten years than in any other period? If those two facts are not related then please tell me is the cause of those excessive profits?

Has there been a sudden decrease in the cost of raw materials? I don't think so. Has there been a dramatic decline in the price of fuel, electricity, water etc? I haven't seen any in my life. Do these companies no longer have to pay rent or a mortgage? The truth is that of all the costs of doing business, the one which has shown a decline over the last decade is labor. The correlation is direct and obvious and anyone who doesn't see it doesn't want to see it.

[mostpost]

Oops, the nasty reality of the market rears its ugly head again. For all his talk about morality, Ford had to react to the supply and demand of the labor market and pay enough to attract and keep workers.

While Ford talked about societal benefits, there is no indication that he was paying his workers more than the value that they added to production. Also, Ford was in a unique position as regards to his cost structure. His use of the assembly line made him more profitable than his competitors. If in fact he paid his workers a larger share of the income to productivity than they contributed, that was a decision that he was in a position to make at the time, and he could do it and stay profitable and stay in business.

Most firms today operate in a much more competitive market. McDonald employees are demonstrating for a "living wage", $15/hour or more. McDonalds cannot pay that wage and stay in business if Burger King and Wendys and others don't have to pay it. And if they all have to pay it, then they all have to increase prices to cover the higher costs.

A "living" wage or an increase in the minimum wage has to be paid for, the money has to come from someplace. In low margin businesses, the only place it can come from is the consumer. The over all result is ultimately a general increase in costs and prices, or a decrease in the over all standard of living. In either case, the minimum wage earner is back to earning a "non-living" wage.

Ford recognized that he was not paying his workers equal to the value they added to his product. He also recognized that if he paid them more, they would be better able to purchase his cars.

An increase in wages, minimum or otherwise, does not need to be accompanied by an increase in productivity, if the workers are being paid less than what they are contributing.

You don't have to pay for a wage increase with a price increase. It can be paid for with an increase in business. That is what Ford was talking about. "I'll pay you more; you'll buy my cars."

[mostpost]

http://gifs.gifbin.com/1232550426_worf%20face%20palm.gif


You don't make the pie bigger by increasing the price per slice.
You seem to think of wages as money taken out of the economy, but wages add to the economy as much as investments; maybe more

[Clocker]

An increase in wages, minimum or otherwise, does not need to be accompanied by an increase in productivity, if the workers are being paid less than what they are contributing.

You don't have to pay for a wage increase with a price increase. It can be paid for with an increase in business. That is what Ford was talking about. "I'll pay you more; you'll buy my cars."


Recommended remedial reading:


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uSgsELZvL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

[mostpost]

As discussed earlier, Adam Smith showed that historically, big government, bureaucracy, and regulation kills the middle class.
I have not read much Adam Smith, but I have the feeling you are not accurately relaying his thoughts. I found this article which lists eighteen areas in which Smith favored government regulation.


http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/03/adam-smith-and-the-role-of-government.html

the Navigation Acts, blessed by Smith under the assertion that ‘defence, however, is of much more importance than opulence’ (WN464);

Sterling marks on plate and stamps on linen and woollen cloth (WN138–9);
enforcement of contracts by a system of justice (WN720);

wages to be paid in money, not goods;

regulations of paper money in banking (WN437);

obligations to build party walls to prevent the spread of fire (WN324);

rights of farmers to send farm produce to the best market (except ‘only in the most urgent necessity’) (WN539);

‘Premiums and other encouragements to advance the linen and woollen industries’ (TMS185);

‘Police’, or preservation of the ‘cleanliness of roads, streets, and to prevent the bad effects of corruption and putrifying substances’;

ensuring the ‘cheapness or plenty [of provisions]’ (LJ6; 331);

patrols by town guards and fire fighters to watch for hazardous accidents (LJ331–2);

erecting and maintaining certain public works and public institutions intended to facilitate commerce (roads, bridges, canals and harbours) (WN723);

coinage and the mint (WN478; 1724);

post office (WN724);

regulation of institutions, such as company structures (joint- stock companies, co-partneries, regulated companies and so on) (WN731–58);

temporary monopolies, including copyright and patents, of fixed duration (WN754);

education of youth (‘village schools’, curriculum design and so on) (WN758–89);

education of people of all ages (tythes or land tax) (WN788);

encouragement of ‘the frequency and gaiety of publick diversions’(WN796);

the prevention of ‘leprosy or any other loathsome and offensive disease’ from spreading among the population (WN787–88);

encouragement of martial exercises (WN786);

registration of mortgages for land, houses and boats over two tons (WN861, 863);

government restrictions on interest for borrowing (usury laws) to overcome investor ‘stupidity’ (WN356–7);

laws against banks issuing low-denomination promissory notes (WN324);
natural liberty may be breached if individuals ‘endanger the security of the whole society’ (WN324);

limiting ‘free exportation of corn’ only ‘in cases of the most urgent necessity’ (‘dearth’ turning into ‘famine’) (WN539); and

moderate export taxes on wool exports for government revenue (WN879).

"Viner concluded, unsurprisingly, that ‘Adam Smith was not a doctrinaire advocate of laissez-faire’.

Adam Smith was writing in the eighteenth century. The world is far more complex now. I'm sure he would find many more occasions to endorse government regulation and oversight today.

[mostpost]

Recommended remedial reading:


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uSgsELZvL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
I went to look for this book on Amazon and the first thing I see is that Steve Forbes is co-author. Strike one. Then I read this review.
I was actually looking for a book on economics... This book is more of a conservative rant. It's not so much that I disagree with what he says so much as the fact that its all politics and very little economics. Buy this book if you want to hear how much the author thinks liberalism stinks... not if you want "Economics in one lesson." I definitely feel like I got tricked into buying it.
I'll pass, thanks.

[mostpost]

As discussed earlier, Adam Smith showed that historically, big government, bureaucracy, and regulation kills the middle class.
Adam Smith died in 1790. How could he show anything historically after that.

Here is what my history books show. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries government did not regulate working conditions in any way. In that era children as young as seven worked in factories. The work day was twelve to fourteen hours with no overtime. Weekends weren't. Women were chained to their work stations. See Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Explain to me how that was good for the middle class.

About the same time a few powerful men were cornering the market in many commodities. Monopolies in Oil and other industries allowed them to control wages and prices. The Sherman anti trust acts aka government put an end to that.

The Great Depression and the Stock Market Crash of 1929 occurred because of a lack of government regulation. I don't think 30% unemployment and bread lines are good for the middle class.

In 1999 Gramm, Leach, Bliley repealed Glass Stegall. Regulation of the banking and investments industry was replaced by Laissez Faire. Maybe you can explain to the folks who lost their homes in the last ten years why that was good for the middle class.

[JustRalph]

Yeah, Steve Forbes wouldn't know anything about money or economics

How foolish to suggest such a thing

[mostpost]

Yeah, Steve Forbes wouldn't know anything about money or economics

How foolish to suggest such a thing
Try to get the point. Forbes is a conservative business owner. Anything he says will be biased by that fact.

[Clocker]

You have not read Adam Smith, but you state with confidence that I am not accurately relaying his thoughts. And despite not having studied Adam Smith, you feel yourself qualified to assert that "...he would find many more occasions to endorse government regulation and oversight today."

And without knowledge of Hazlett's book, you reject it out of hand because you incorrectly deduce that Steve Forbes was the co-author. (Forbes wrote the forward to the newest edition.) And you reject it out of hand even though it extensively cites the works of one of your favorite authors, Adam Smith.

[newtothegame]

Try to get the point. Forbes is a conservative business owner. Anything he says will be biased by that fact.
And you're a liberal union guy for most of your life....
So, by your reasoning, you also will be biased on one side.
You see, instead of looking at what Steve jobs (who created one of the worlds largets businesses) is saying, you would rather say "another conservative" with an agenda.....
laughable :lol:

[mostpost]

And you're a liberal union guy for most of your life....
So, by your reasoning, you also will be biased on one side.
You see, instead of looking at what Steve jobs (who created one of the worlds largets businesses) is saying, you would rather say "another conservative" with an agenda.....
laughable :lol:
True, but I am biased for the side that benefits everybody. When the middle class prospers, everyone prospers. When the upper class prospers, the upper class prospers. That is an historical truth.

Oh, and no one said anything about Steve Jobs in this thread. We were talking about Steve Forbes. Not to be picky, but Jobs should be capitalized. Otherwise you are talking about jobs performed by some guy named Steve, and not the founder of Apple.

[johnhannibalsmith]

... As you ingrammatically said...



I knew I'd get a chance to dig that one up.

[Tom]

True, but I am biased for the side that benefits everybody.

:lol::lol::lol::lol:HELP ME! :lol::lol::lol:

[JustRalph]

True, but I am biased for the side that benefits everybody. When the middle class prospers, everyone prospers. When the upper class prospers, the upper class prospers. That is an historical truth.


You're biased for the side that keeps poor people poor, minorities believing they can only achieve by voting Dem and never forget handing out freebies to keep the needy, needy.

The so called poor have been voting for Dems forever.........and they have come so far

[JustRalph]

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