I am getting a bit nervous about the 'racial' issues all of a

[OCinBuffalo]

Boy enough contradictions in that tome to fill a swellwed head. So minimum wage was good when it was first implemented in the sweatshops, but we should get rid of it now because employers are different now? Ok.

Swing and a miss. I said two posts ago that this would only be a suspension in an effort to let the market price, wherever it is, for labor be met and get the economy going. As far as when it was a good idea, and when it was a bad one...oh I dunno are Unions still fighting for working conditions...or does OSHA do that now? Is it possible that the world doesn't always work in terms of an idea being permanently good, or bad, regardless of conditions changing around it? I will give you: killing people is always bad, so is socialism. But that doesn't mean that the minimum wage retains it's "goodness" forever and under all circumstance. Are you really that linear of a thinker?

It's always entertaining debating you because I have to spend pages typing explanations about things I never say, but that you claim to be my argument.

Same here.

Where did I claim that eliminating minimum wages would not increase employment? Hint I didn't. What I did say is that reducing mimum wages would not move the needle on the macro economy. The biggest hit to the economy is by job losses among the $50k-$75k workers. Hard to see how you replace that purchasing power by lowering the minimum wage.

One has nothing to do with the other and I know you know that. If you want to get an economy going, how does having people sit on their ass and collect unemployment...help? Also: $50-75k workers implies skilled labor. Your original point was about unskilled labor. Or is that a point that is no longer part of your argument? I would hate to claim it was and have you change your mind again.

 

In all cases, it has been proven over and over, in many countries, that a bottom-up approach to growth not only works but is preferable. This means investment, labor, etc. all being applied to the bottom creates a swell that moves rapidly up the food chain. Given the crisis we are dealing with, the fastest way to get your middle workers back to work, and back to their purchasing power, is to build a solid economy below them.

You're right the economy is interrelated. But you also know the job market will not rebound until you sense a noticeable trend in demand. Even if you throw people into the workforce at far lower wages than before they are not going to increase that consumption, while they still have fixed debts from the good times. So the economy will need to adjust with more bankruptcies and lowering of prices. Sure sounds like deflation to me.

Again, prices are already lowered: Jos. A Bank is doing a buy one suit get 2 free deal. How much more deflation do you need to see? Coffee for a nickel? You are going to spend so much worrying about deflation, that you create more because the longer your "doing nothing" plan goes, the more it erodes consumer confidence and creates even less demand.

 

People making something and buying something is better than doing none of either. And a little demand is better than no demand. And, a little demand can turn into a lot very quickly....you just need infrastructure, natural resources, an educated workforce, technological skill, large capital reserves.....nah, that doesn't sound like America at all.

 

What is your grand plan to stop deflation that has already occurred? A time machine? How is doing nothing going to increase consumption? How is doing nothing going to repay those fixed debts? How is doing nothing going to at least service some of those debts and free up additional capital? Capital is the only thing that hires your $50-75k workers. Where does that capital come from? Thin air? Certainly Obama is an idiot for effecting anything that taxes away capital right now.

 

But not raising taxes is not the only thing that can be done. Capital needs to be attracted to a business plan. As you may know, most business plans are more about the #s and less about the idea from an investor's prospective. Burn rate is king, and anything that will demonstrably lower that, like lowered salaries, is highly attractive to investors. If you don't attract those investors, your $50-75k people can forget about Christmas, never mind back to school. I am sure they would rather be making $40-65k than $4-600 a week.

Illegals do shift the market, but not at the minimum wage levels. They shift it at the $10 wage level. But they also shift it by availing a steady supply of low skill low pay work. Yes if you eliminate that supply the natural laws would dictate that either those jobs would be priced up or those industries would shrink. In either scenario as a consumer you would have fewer choices. I also would have to question the rationale of a national economic policy that stresses a low growth platform to protect the low wage low skill labor force. Did you see Karl Marx in the mirror when you typed your post.

Wait...you are defending the minimum wage...and calling ME Karl Marx?

 

Again, you are acting like this is 2004. It's not btw. I am talking about taking action in a crisis, not normal operation. I would sooner put a bullet in my own head than support stressing low skill work force over high, because that's exactly what I wold be doing financially. But that's when things are relatively normal. Unless you haven't noticed, we are around 10% unemployment, and that is not normal.

 

What's it going to take for you to stop arguing "general practice" and start dealing with the realities?

[GG]

Swing and a miss. I said two posts ago that this would only be a suspension in an effort to let the market price, wherever it is, for labor be met and get the economy going. As far as when it was a good idea, and when it was a bad one...oh I dunno are Unions still fighting for working conditions...or does OSHA do that now? Is it possible that the world doesn't always work in terms of an idea being permanently good, or bad, regardless of conditions changing around it? I will give you: killing people is always bad, so is socialism. But that doesn't mean that the minimum wage retains it's "goodness" forever and under all circumstance. Are you really that linear of a thinker?

 

Actually, minimum wage was never a good idea, because its champions ignored the vibrant job market at the time, and that the immigrants were not chained to their jobs and frequently moved from one job to another to either get more pay or for better work conditions. A lot of the benefits that you think were gained due to union were gained by workers obtaining more knowledge on their own. Not too different than the case now. Central Americans know where the better paying jobs are and they flow there. The $3/hr job does not exist in the US.

 

One has nothing to do with the other and I know you know that. If you want to get an economy going, how does having people sit on their ass and collect unemployment...help? Also: $50-75k workers implies skilled labor. Your original point was about unskilled labor. Or is that a point that is no longer part of your argument? I would hate to claim it was and have you change your mind again.

 

I was talking about unskilled labor because the topic was about unskilled labor. Not too hard to go back in the thread to read what the conversation was about, before you decided to hijack it with a mindless rant about the incentives in the mortgage market and then connected the attractiveness of a sub-minimum wage low skill work to a laid off US middle class worker. Even Lou Dobbs would think that's an idiotic tangent.

 

In all cases, it has been proven over and over, in many countries, that a bottom-up approach to growth not only works but is preferable. This means investment, labor, etc. all being applied to the bottom creates a swell that moves rapidly up the food chain. Given the crisis we are dealing with, the fastest way to get your middle workers back to work, and back to their purchasing power, is to build a solid economy below them.

 

The growth you're referring to is when people start with nothing. It's a totally different comparison when you throw middle class and its standard of living and dump them into a low wage pool. I believe it's been tried twice - Russia in 1917 and China in 1950. There has never been a period in the US history where economic growth was preceded by the native population adjusting to lower incomes. What has happened in the US history is that economic growth was always accompanied by loosening of the immigration policies because you didn't have a steady supply of local cheap labor. When you population is too smart and too rich to dig ditches and pull apart chicken bones, that is a good thing.

 

Of course below you hint at the foundation that can start the recovery, yet you still can't comprehend that lowering wages is a bad thing, or that the low wages would be a temporary blip that would be immediately restored once economic growth reaches XYZ%. And I'm the one who's devoid of reality?

 

Again, prices are already lowered: Jos. A Bank is doing a buy one suit get 2 free deal. How much more deflation do you need to see? Coffee for a nickel? You are going to spend so much worrying about deflation, that you create more because the longer your "doing nothing" plan goes, the more it erodes consumer confidence and creates even less demand.

 

People making something and buying something is better than doing none of either. And a little demand is better than no demand. And, a little demand can turn into a lot very quickly....you just need infrastructure, natural resources, an educated workforce, technological skill, large capital reserves.....nah, that doesn't sound like America at all.

 

What is your grand plan to stop deflation that has already occurred? A time machine? How is doing nothing going to increase consumption? How is doing nothing going to repay those fixed debts? How is doing nothing going to at least service some of those debts and free up additional capital? Capital is the only thing that hires your $50-75k workers. Where does that capital come from? Thin air? Certainly Obama is an idiot for effecting anything that taxes away capital right now.

 

But not raising taxes is not the only thing that can be done. Capital needs to be attracted to a business plan. As you may know, most business plans are more about the #s and less about the idea from an investor's prospective. Burn rate is king, and anything that will demonstrably lower that, like lowered salaries, is highly attractive to investors. If you don't attract those investors, your $50-75k people can forget about Christmas, never mind back to school. I am sure they would rather be making $40-65k than $4-600 a week.

 

Capital is basically frozen right now for reasons that have nothing to do with El Salvadorian fruit pickers staying home.

 

 

Wait...you are defending the minimum wage...and calling ME Karl Marx?

 

Again, you are acting like this is 2004. It's not btw. I am talking about taking action in a crisis, not normal operation. I would sooner put a bullet in my own head than support stressing low skill work force over high, because that's exactly what I wold be doing financially. But that's when things are relatively normal. Unless you haven't noticed, we are around 10% unemployment, and that is not normal.

 

What's it going to take for you to stop arguing "general practice" and start dealing with the realities?

 

Only you would read my posts as a defense of minimum wage. Try reading for a change. Perhaps that would stop the mental vomitorium.

[OCinBuffalo]

Actually, minimum wage was never a good idea, because its champions ignored the vibrant job market at the time, and that the immigrants were not chained to their jobs and frequently moved from one job to another to either get more pay or for better work conditions. A lot of the benefits that you think were gained due to union were gained by workers obtaining more knowledge on their own. Not too different than the case now. Central Americans know where the better paying jobs are and they flow there. The $3/hr job does not exist in the US.

Yes, let's ignore the real history of labor relations in this country and attribute most of it to: workers "obtaining knowledge on their own". When the coal mine wars were going on in West Viriginia and Penn. ...what "knowledge" were those workers "obtaining on their own" exactly?

 

You should call up Cornell and let them know that it's time to shut down their ILR school, since apparently their graduates have been doing nothing for the last 65 years. Yes, while the Teamsters were fighting in the streets, all these "other Teamsters" were busily obtaining knowledge on their own, thus making Jimmy Hoffa irrelevant. Only an unmitigated jackass could possibly deny that much history, that many people's life long efforts, and their very existence, and then accuse me of difficulties with..."comprehension". Yeah, I am pretty much done with taking you seriously.

 

I know for a fact that there are literally 100k's of $3/hr jobs here. Why? Because I've seen the books with my own eyes....or better, the raw data. You, on the other hand apparently "know" what each of millions of Central Americans think? Really? What are they thinking right now? How about now? You know what everyone is paying illegal immigrants....because you know? Are you also a big Scientologist? The last time I heard: "I am capable of knowing what millions of people are thinking" or, "I know because I know", it was coming from them.

 

I think it's hysterical that you keep attempting this dismissive tone thing...and then say idiotic stuff like this. Hysterical.

I was talking about unskilled labor because the topic was about unskilled labor. Not too hard to go back in the thread to read what the conversation was about, before you decided to hijack it with a mindless rant about the incentives in the mortgage market and then connected the attractiveness of a sub-minimum wage low skill work to a laid off US middle class worker. Even Lou Dobbs would think that's an idiotic tangent.

And only an unmitigated Jackass would, lamely, try to equate what I am saying =

"put all low skilled people to work immediately at whatever wage, and do not let the minimum wage get in the way. INSTEAD of letting them take the usual beating from cyclical unemployment, get them going now"

with

"sub-minimum wage low skill work will be attractive to a laid off US middle class worker"

 

Weren't you talking about reading comprehension....and arguing points people weren't making....someplace?

The growth you're referring to is when people start with nothing. It's a totally different comparison when you throw middle class and its standard of living and dump them into a low wage pool.

Good thing that's not what I am saying.

I believe it's been tried twice - Russia in 1917 and China in 1950. There has never been a period in the US history where economic growth was preceded by the native population adjusting to lower incomes.

Right, the entire 1940's, right after the 1930's, never happened. Let's just take that whole Great Depression thing right out of the history books. Like I said: Jaaaaaackaaaaasssss.

What has happened in the US history is that economic growth was always accompanied by loosening of the immigration policies because you didn't have a steady supply of local cheap labor.

Right...and the 1930-40's massive restrictions on immigration in general(Immigration Act of 1924), especially on those perceived to be Communists or leaning that way(um, Jews from Russia and Germany and other Eastern Europeans), and most Asians, detailed here were a great example of "loosening" of immigration policies...accompanying the economic growth of the 40's. .....JackASS!

When you population is too smart and too rich to dig ditches and pull apart chicken bones, that is a good thing.

And it's a massively good thing that I keep jackasses from straying away from the reality that there are 2 artificial wage scales, that one wage scale drags down the other, or, one scale not being set by the market, and instead by some artificial standard, are all BAD THINGS, every day, all the time.

Of course below you hint at the foundation that can start the recovery, yet you still can't comprehend that lowering wages is a bad thing, or that the low wages would be a temporary blip that would be immediately restored once economic growth reaches XYZ%. And I'm the one who's devoid of reality?

No. Bad! I wish their was a way to negatively reinforce you every time you don't actually read what I wrote. Wait, I know: JackAss!

 

If you actually read my posts, you would know that I precisely said: "that the low wages would be a temporary blip that would be immediately restored once economic growth reaches XYZ%" I said 4 times that this would be a temporary solution, or, that it's effect would be temporary. So now I can't comprehend what I wrote myself? Or is it the unmitigated Jackass that didn't read what I wrote...again?

 

Moreover, wages get "lowered" in the aggregate all the f'ing time with great benefit to the economy: I.E. Outsourcing/ Downsizing/Takeovers/Turnarounds. Yes, the net effect of which was lower aggregate wages paid out....which created massive...earnings-->stock booms-->.prosperity in the 1990s...even for those who got downsized = making 2x what they were doing consulting, starting/working for new companies. I worked on large client downsizing efforts in mid/late 90's(deregulation of utilities and health insurance companies)....which lowered wages in the billions, but you "know" that lowering wages (ready for the sing along? "..because..it reduces..disposable...income...which reduces...demand..")is always a bad thing?

 

Wait a minute: you are some kind of financial planner/analyst aren't you?! Because your rhetoric here smacks of "sideline reporter"-speak. Jackasses, who "know business" or a business sector because they read earnings statements about it while not actually having anything to do with it, love talking in absolutes, until they are proven absolutely wrong = the 1930's can't possibly exist now according to your absolute definition of what "always happens". Gotta love it when the Joe Buck's try to act like they actually play the game. You really don't "know" how any of this works because you don't actually "do" it. You just read about in a report.

 

Makes sense now: This the same reason why you talk about ideas in terms of always good or always bad. This is the same reason why you think you can sit at your desk and "know" what immigrants think, or why you think you can simply "know" that people "obtaining knowledge on their own" was how workers improved their pay and conditions.