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Some people just have small minds, petty concerns, and misconceptions. I was talking about the minimum wage law and the Fair Labor Standard Act.......not "economics" generally.
Economics Is Not Math
"He traces this problem back to what he suggests is the cause: “The source of all the confusion, in my view, is the idea that if you can’t measure something and model it mathematically, it has no meaning. There is too much mathematics used and expected in economics, and too much of it is of poor quality and distorts the ideas it is meant to undergird.”
Economic problems often involve so many variables that mathematics is the only practical way of attacking and solving them. Alfred Marshall argued that every economic problem which can be quantified, analytically expressed and solved, should be treated by means of mathematical work.
Not really, I'm anxiously awaiting for you to tell me how one calculates economic effects of policies without using math.. I"m really interested in this new found discovery that one has nothing to do with the other..
Disagree. The minimum wage law has never cause mass bankruptcies by big businesses in this country. It does not bankrupt the country for the minimum wage to keep up with the rate of inflation. So, it is possible for these companies to pay $10.10 per hour, which is the amount which the law would authorize. The $15 per hour protests/strikes was to attract attention to the issue that these very wealthy companies are paying their employees so little that they QUALIFY for public assistance programs in order to survive. There's something very wrong with that reality. How do YOU like subsidizing these companies by have to pay their employees with your taxes so they can afford to support themselves and their families? Do you think McDonalds and places like WalMart deserve to have you pay their labor costs via your taxes used for public assistance programs? Raising the minimum wage to an amount which allows people to support themselves by providing for their basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing from their own income is the MIDDLE GROUND. I don't particularly like paying, with my taxes, for McDonald's labor costs.
You aren't getting it. Artificially boosting wages above their actual value results in the elimination of jobs. It criminalizes the sale of labor for its market value, by the relatively unskilled whose labor happens to fall below the artificial minimum. My original reference to the UAW lesson that above-market wages are unsustainable has to do with the MASSIVE job losses among UAW members from the 1960's on--90% of the jobs disappeared.
I don't know why you think Walmart and McDonalds should pay any more than the least amount that is mutually agreeable to each member of a satisfactory workforce. You do not pay more for a can of beans or a car than you have to--you seek to find the best value. So it goes in every buyer in every market for everything--labor is no different.
When black unemployment and teen unemployment are at untenable, nasty, high or record levels, why do you want to criminalize the sale of unskilled labor for its market value and make these problems worse?
Oh, please! There is a percentage of people working in these minimum wage jobs who are 40 and over! What do you have to say about people with college degrees who are now working in these types of jobs because there are so few jobs available for "people who have made themselves more valuable" by getting more education?
You made this same argument earlier in this thread and I replied to it; you conveniently ignored the reply.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CheyDee
Yes, there are college educated people working in fast food restaurants. Shame on them for not first investigating which degrees/trades were more easily marketable in this day and age. Not doing so prior to obtaining their college educaton is outdated thinking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FancyFeast5000
Nitpick much? <snip>
Again, a totally irrelevant and unnecessary comment about me personally in your post. Are you completely incapable of making a post without including personal and irrelevant attacks/comments?
How about stop wasting your time focusing on finding fault with insignificant details in my posts and add something of significance to this thread?
Just one example of several in this thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by FancyFeast5000
It's "MORE than" not "then."
Similar insignificant details would be calling out when you begin sentences/paragraphs with the word "and". Do as I say, but don't do as I do?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FancyFeast5000
And I think it's entirely possible that if you had done that in this case <snip>
I don't know why you think Walmart and McDonalds should pay any more than the least amount that is mutually agreeable to each member of a satisfactory workforce. You do not pay more for a can of beans or a car than you have to--you seek to find the best value. So it goes in every buyer in every market for everything--labor is no different.
Excellent point. The reality is, yes labor is something a buyer looks for the most bang for the buck in, just like anything else he purchases.
It is up to each seller to increase his skills appropriately to put himself in an advantagoeus selling position.
Excellent point. The reality is, yes labor is something a buyer looks for the most bang for the buck in, just like anything else he purchases.
It is up to each seller to increase his skills appropriately to put himself in an advantagoeus selling position.
Unless, of course, one views "jobs" and "wages" as some twisted form of charity that one might obtain for people simply by hectoring and lecturing the purchasers of labor. Barack Obama's pronouncements are the prime example of this, although some posters in this forum have also demonstrated a command of this dysfunctional understanding of the labor economy.
Well, that seems to indicate that you disagree with the results of the poll, which essentially is a claim. Do you have any other poll which indicates a different outcome? Why haven't any of the people who oppose raising the minimum wage done a poll to see how much support they have in their opposition?
Do YOU personally think that most people or a majority of people oppose a raise in minimum wage?
I dismissed it because it's a biased poll. Quit trying to defend using biased polls to make your point.
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