Chicago "Cook County" Approves $13.00 hr Minimum Wage (Detroit: low income, unemployment rate)

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by BRU67

And the liberal argument for the minimum wage is "I think the labor of those people is worth $X, so I'm going to make you pay that, business owner, I'll leave it to you to figure out how to implement it."

This is what they call an unfunded mandate, and I think the whole premise is more than a little arrogant, particularly since most liberal policymakers do not own businesses or live around or interact with those people themselves. It's also an artificial intervention into market forces, which is at best a Band-Aid over a much greater problem.

IMHO, if you want to raise wage rates, implement policies to attract higher paying jobs. Spend less money so taxes are lower, for one example. That will create a higher demand for labor across the board and raise wage rates the correct way.

You didn't refute anything he wrote, just came up with "lawmakers don't own businesses!" by that token, laws shouldn't be passed unless the people in Congress have personal experience on the matter? What? It's like telling a lawmaker who takes the bus that they can't possibly make laws about cars. That's not really the way society functions.

If you think jobs are meant to be stepping stones, that is a terribly flawed argument. Necessary jobs always need to be filled. Why should people not be paid enough for doing something necessary?

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by coldwine

I assigned you the task of responding to a list of criteria. You have failed to do so.

I'm still awaiting the response you were told to compose.

Uh oh. Did I go beyond the scope that your talking points can address? You "opened the door," as they'd say in your profession, LOL!

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by EddieOlSkool

You didn't refute anything he wrote, just came up with "lawmakers don't own businesses!" by that token, laws shouldn't be passed unless the people in Congress have personal experience on the matter? What? It's like telling a lawmaker who takes the bus that they can't possibly make laws about cars. That's not really the way society functions.

If you think jobs are meant to be stepping stones, that is a terribly flawed argument. Necessary jobs always need to be filled. Why should people not be paid enough for doing something necessary?

And Congress, or in this case the Cook County Board of Commissioners, is the one equipped to decide this, not the market which uses the labor? Le sigh.

Look, just admit it guys. You want to shift wealth from one group to another group which you feel is more deserving than what the job market believes they are worth. I can accept that, if not agree with it (it's a slippery slope for one thing, and just a Band-Aid of course), but at least own it.

[NealIRC]

Originally Posted by NealIRC

Do you got any examples?

I took a semester of micro and macro each, and I think their fundamental point, I believe, is something called supply and demand. And everything pretty much bases off of that.

Laws of supply and demand, LX curve. If the demand goes up, we must increase the prices.

But there was a 10 principles of economics, and I believe 1 of them, is "assume all people are rational." This is in response to maxiizing profit. Certainly it's possible for someone sometimes to not follow that, i.e., burn money or pay for the more expensive thing for the same quality.

ColdWine, you never replied to this post, and that's why I pasted the crap from Wikipedia.

Is it supply and demand that is always wrong?

The LX curve?

I didn't see you say "primary literature" but I'm still looking for examples.

[NealIRC]

Originally Posted by BRU67

Look, just admit it guys. You want to shift wealth from one group to another group which you feel is more deserving than what the job market believes they are worth. I can accept that, if not agree with it (it's a slippery slope for one thing, and just a Band-Aid of course), but at least own it.

And you know what the vast primary problem with those that have minimum wage jobs? They're all into drugs.

And the drug test is only once - around the time of hiring. So people know to quit drugs for a little bit.

I wish they would have random, surprise drug tests (and something to be stated during the interview).

"Would you submit to random, surprise drug tests, throughout the course of hire?"

[BRU67]

Really, we have a low minimum wage rate because we have 11- 20 million largely unskilled illegal immigrants in the country, our high-paying manufacturing jobs have fled overseas, and our property tax based educational system is failing the poor by providing them with a substandard education. Add those things up and labor at the bottom end is going to be cheap.

It is much easier for liberals to wave their magic "social policy wand" and demand that business pay more money than to actually address these issues. I suspect that is because actually addressing the root cause might impact some of their core constituents (public employee unions, affluent staunchly liberal areas with well funded schools, large Democratic voting blocks, etc).

[ARaider08]

Originally Posted by BRU67

Really, we have a low minimum wage rate because we have 11- 20 million largely unskilled illegal immigrants in the country

Not directly. Do they push the cost manual laborers can bargain for down? Yes, but not to the degree that automation and other technological advancements do. This has held true for centuries of human advancement.

Originally Posted by BRU67

, our high-paying manufacturing jobs have fled overseas,

Well, again with the tech advancement. They were on death's door anyway. Turnover and labor skill "churn" seems to be a big problem these days.

Originally Posted by BRU67

and our property tax based educational system is failing the poor by providing them with a substandard education.

This seems hardly related to your other points but I wouldn't disagree on the notion that this is bad.

Benefit maximization systems aren't hard to build, computationally. The problem is shifting to a "true" government (a system of wealth exchange from high wealth to low wealth) is potentially seen as heresy

Originally Posted by BRU67

Add those things up and labor at the bottom end is going to be cheap.

Well, off by 1 in those statements but whatever.

Originally Posted by BRU67

It is much easier for liberals to wave their magic "social policy wand" and demand that business pay more money than to actually address these issues. I suspect that is because actually addressing the root cause might impact some of their core constituents (public employee unions, affluent staunchly liberal areas with well funded schools, large Democratic voting blocks, etc).

It's targeting a problem that's bigger than small businesses.
Higher profits signal more investors which signal bigger returns to management. Laborer's hardly get a whiff of the returns from higher profits in many companies. Management moves without acknowledgement of employee standards of living, rakes in more and continues to suck a pool of low wealth dry. Then, it moves on. The example of a leech is a good one.

This affects smaller businesses by having to adhere to policies targeting bigger companies with controversial compensation scales.

[BRU67]

Originally Posted by ARaider08

Not directly. Do they push the cost manual laborers can bargain for down? Yes, but not to the degree that automation and other technological advancements do. This has held true for centuries of human advancement.


Well, again with the tech advancement. They were on death's door anyway. Turnover and labor skill "churn" seems to be a big problem these days.


This seems hardly related to your other points but I wouldn't disagree on the notion that this is bad.

Benefit maximization systems aren't hard to build, computationally. The problem is shifting to a "true" government (a system of wealth exchange from high wealth to low wealth) is potentially seen as heresy



Well, off by 1 in those statements but whatever.


It's targeting a problem that's bigger than small businesses.
Higher profits signal more investors which signal bigger returns to management. Laborer's hardly get a whiff of the returns from higher profits in many companies. Management moves without acknowledgement of employee standards of living, rakes in more and continues to suck a pool of low wealth dry. Then, it moves on. The example of a leech is a good one.

This affects smaller businesses by having to adhere to policies targeting bigger companies with controversial compensation scales.

I'm generally skeptical when people point to automation as the cause of the rapid decline of our manufacturing sector. That has become a common refrain for those who support the bad trade agreements we have entered into since the early 1990s. However, automation's impact on the labor market has been disputed:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-a...acturing-jobs/

The evidence suggests there is essentially no relationship between the change in manufacturing employment and robot use. Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the United States.

More likely, trade agreements allowing competition from cheap labor/low regulation countries has had the greater impact. For one example, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico has risen from $2 billion in 1994, the year NAFTA was passed, to $60 billion in 2015. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA led to the net displacement of 682,900 jobs. Of these, 61% were relatively high paying manufacturing jobs (thank you, Wiki):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA%...tes_employment

Aside from that, let's just look at plain old common sense. If automation has rendered low skilled human labor obsolete in manufacturing, then why are U.S. manufacturers flocking to Mexico and China and pushing for the passage of TPP to open up other cheap labor markets? According to Coldwine, it is prohibitively expensive to ship things from overseas back to the U.S. So, if the manufacturing process is automated anyway, then why don't we just make our manufactured goods here with robots and save the shipping costs? As an added bonus, the technological jobs needed to maintain automated factories could be kept here.

[pvande55]

Minimum wage workers need the money so they can pay the upcoming beverage tax. Don't low income workers drink more soda?

[ARaider08]

Originally Posted by BRU67

I'm generally skeptical when people point to automation as the cause of the rapid decline of our manufacturing sector. That has become a common refrain for those who support the bad trade agreements we have entered into since the early 1990s. However, automation's impact on the labor market has been disputed:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-a...acturing-jobs/

The evidence suggests there is essentially no relationship between the change in manufacturing employment and robot use. Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the United States.

More likely, trade agreements allowing competition from cheap labor/low regulation countries has had the greater impact. For one example, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico has risen from $2 billion in 1994, the year NAFTA was passed, to $60 billion in 2015. According to the Economic Policy Institute, NAFTA led to the net displacement of 682,900 jobs. Of these, 61% were relatively high paying manufacturing jobs (thank you, Wiki):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA%...tes_employment

Aside from that, let's just look at plain old common sense. If automation has rendered low skilled human labor obsolete in manufacturing, then why are U.S. manufacturers flocking to Mexico and China and pushing for the passage of TPP to open up other cheap labor markets? According to Coldwine, it is prohibitively expensive to ship things from overseas back to the U.S. So, if the manufacturing process is automated anyway, then why don't we just make our manufactured goods here with robots and save the shipping costs? As an added bonus, the technological jobs needed to maintain automated factories could be kept here.

Read "An Exorbitant Privilege"