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Old 03-08-2016, 12:56 PM
 
Location: Living rent free in your head
42,758 posts, read 26,022,718 times
Reputation: 33870

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Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd View Post
Are you not aware of the very large number of people in this country that support themselves without working for wages?
Sure, there are a number of ways you can do it:
1) working under the table is always a recipe for success, until you get caught.
2) panhandling
3) start a small businesses which unfortunately requires a capital investment.
4) be a trust fund baby and work when and where it strikes your fancy.
5) become an accomplished thief
6) dumpster dive and sell junk you find on craigslist (until you get arrested for dumpster diving anyway)
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Old 03-08-2016, 01:06 PM
 
10,473 posts, read 5,554,206 times
Reputation: 10551
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
Failed argument. Opportunity cost is by definition the lost gains associated with a forgone alternative, which must actually exist.
I think it's cute that you are apparently trying to argue that opportunity cost doesn't exist, while posting a nice textbook definition of the concept.

One more time for those in the chap seats: EVERY decision has an opportunity cost, notwithstanding your vociferous protestations to the contrary.
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Old 03-08-2016, 01:10 PM
 
10,473 posts, read 5,554,206 times
Reputation: 10551
I posed the following question:

Quote:
Why is the worker not responsible for managing his life such that he can sustain it on his own. . .?
And your answer is that it is illegal? Really?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
Because it's illegal. Housing has legislated minimum sizes...
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Old 03-08-2016, 01:14 PM
 
10,473 posts, read 5,554,206 times
Reputation: 10551
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2sleepy View Post
Sure, there are a number of ways you can do it:
1) working under the table is always a recipe for success, until you get caught.
2) panhandling
3) start a small businesses which unfortunately requires a capital investment.
4) be a trust fund baby and work when and where it strikes your fancy.
5) become an accomplished thief
6) dumpster dive and sell junk you find on craigslist (until you get arrested for dumpster diving anyway)
So, you believe that those six options, and working for wages, are the only ways in which people are able to support themselves in this country?
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Old 03-08-2016, 01:16 PM
 
Location: Ohio
24,623 posts, read 19,082,577 times
Reputation: 21738
Quote:
Originally Posted by ContrarianEcon View Post
Supply and demand for labor does not guaranty that wages will sustain life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd View Post
You keep coming back to this point, that the payer of wages is responsible for sustaining the life of the worker. Why is the worker not responsible for managing his life such that he can sustain it on his own, rather than looking for ways to compel employers to pay above market wages?
Good point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2sleepy View Post
I worked with poor women with young children...
You ought to seriously consider quitting, since all you're doing is harming them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
Available to a few, not to all, in HCOL areas at least.
Being in an high Cost-of-Living area is a choice, not a requirement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
How is opportunity cost relevant if one of the options is not even really possible? The choice has to actually exist in the first place. If the wages cannot sustain life, then the condition does not hold.
The choices do exist. The fact that people fail or refuse to exercise those choices doesn't mean they don't exist.

The purpose of wages is not to sustain life, rather wages are you trading your skills (labor) for money.
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Old 03-08-2016, 01:59 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,811,665 times
Reputation: 15839
Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
There is no such thing as "exploit" in economics. It is a free market exchange of labor for wages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ContrarianEcon View Post
there is such a thing as paying less than what is necessary to sustain life.

So... you agree there is no such thing as exploitation in economics. Sociology and other disciplines have such a concept, but not economics. So long as there is a willing buyer and a willing seller, it cannot be exploitative.

The only place exploitation can come in is when there is government coercion. Some might say seller fraud can be exploitative, but I think it is better to say it is fraud and leave it at that.
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Old 03-08-2016, 02:18 PM
 
18,498 posts, read 15,484,833 times
Reputation: 16168
Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd View Post
I think it's cute that you are apparently trying to argue that opportunity cost doesn't exist, while posting a nice textbook definition of the concept.

One more time for those in the chap seats: EVERY decision has an opportunity cost, notwithstanding your vociferous protestations to the contrary.
Only if the decision represents a choice between two real options. If one of them (no welfare, no job) results in starvation or homelessness, then the issue is moot.
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Old 03-08-2016, 02:20 PM
 
18,498 posts, read 15,484,833 times
Reputation: 16168
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea View Post

Being in an high Cost-of-Living area is a choice, not a requirement.

Not always. Some people don't have the money to move. They are trapped.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea View Post
The choices do exist. The fact that people fail or refuse to exercise those choices doesn't mean they don't exist.

The purpose of wages is not to sustain life, rather wages are you trading your skills (labor) for money.
Right, because you can work when you are dead.
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Old 03-08-2016, 02:27 PM
 
3,792 posts, read 2,371,857 times
Reputation: 768
Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd View Post
You keep coming back to this point, that the payer of wages is responsible for sustaining the life of the worker.
Moral hazard for not doing so. Also paying more wages gets more profit in the long run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TaxPhd View Post
Why is the worker not responsible for managing his life such that he can sustain it on his own, rather than looking for ways to compel employers to pay above market wages?
The market should not be allowed to pay less than enough to sustain life. It is the nature of rich people to accumulate wealth. There are many ways to do this. Some of them leave everyone better off including the rich, others make the rich richer at everyone else's expense.


The former should be encouraged and the latter should be discouraged.


The strong take from the week and then the week die or kill the strong.


Or plenty to go around and everyone is better off.
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Old 03-08-2016, 02:28 PM
 
17,390 posts, read 11,922,116 times
Reputation: 16136
Quote:
Originally Posted by jertheber View Post
Here's the kind of thinking that proposes us as a species only beholden to a soul-less economic mantra, this pretzel logic allows one a clear conscience while doing the unconscionable.. No moral compass beyond the Wall Street Journal, no conscience beyond that of free market values, it's no wonder that these folks can justify the huge volume of poverty in the worlds richest nation..This is precisely the mindset that allowed the horrendous labor construct of human slavery, and it serves the same logic today with regard to the adaptation of slave wages as a norm in a modern society.
Do you give away every penny of your own? If you don't, then lecturing on "conscience" is quite hypocritical.
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