Glorious People's Republic of Seattle Declared

[ParkCungHee]

Not necessarily, they could come at the expense of a shareholder's profits, a vp's salary, the IT budget, etc. There are many pots where the money can come from, it doesn't have to be the wages of existing employees.

thatsthejoke.jpeg

 

[El_Machinae]

Today, comrade luiz told me that labour markets are not efficient. I shrank back at his blasphemy assault on one of the sacred tenets of neoliberalism.

I utterly hate these quips of yours. You condescendingly imply luiz has missed something obvious. And then, I have to figure out what you're criticising (which takes mental effort) while struggling against the morale drag your rudeness creates. And then, basically, I have to hope that this 'obvious' insight of yours actually exists.

And, because of the paucity of reward (the likelihood of a reward is decreased due to the morale drag and due to you not being perfect), it just means that I start to ignore your posts. I read some condescending zinger, and just try to ignore it as I move through the rest of the thread. I'm better off just recognizing your tone than realizing you might have some cryptic insight. What happens is that the drag/reward function of your posting decreases to the point where I am just better off using the ignore function. Which is a shame, because I know you're not an idiot.

I have a list of condescending idiots on ignore. It just sucks putting condescending non-idiots on ignore. Yeah, I'm trading a lack of insight (which would obviously be higher if I struggled through each of your condescending quips) for a lack of a drain on morale. Ehn, there are enough intelligent non-condescending posters that I'm just better off reading what they write.

 

[El_Machinae]

Not necessarily, they could come at the expense of a shareholder's profits, a vp's salary, the IT budget, etc. There are many pots where the money can come from, it doesn't have to be the wages of existing employees.

Two of the three examples you just gave are the wages of existing employees.

 

[luiz]

Well, I just proved they can given your model of economics. You can deny math all you like, but unless you

OK, so even allowing for the fact that your hypothetical pot of wages to go up and down, that still doesn't mean distribution isn't a zero-sum competition. There's a fixed amount of wages, they have to add up to the average, therefor any increase in wages has to come at the expense of an existing wage earner.

No, you just misinterpreted what I was saying, maybe because originally I didn't express it clearly enough. I said that currently a minimum wage of $30/hour is impossible in the US, not that it is mathematically impossible by itself and will be forever. It isn't, because the economy isn't static. But the resources for that minimum wage don't exist at the moment.

Increase in wages don't have to come at the expense of other wage earners on the long run (or anyone else's), because total resources increase (productivity increases allowing for higher pay without taking from anyone else). But if a minimum wage of $30/hour was simply dictated right now, we would still have the same total output as we had a second ago, so we can't increase someone's wages without taking from somewhere else.

I hope that's clear enough.

Of course not. You're suggesting that wages have nothing to do with the economy. Wages can be calculated in their own little bubble, so why would economic output even come up?

This is just straight up denial of grade school level math.

See above.

 

[Azale]

I utterly hate these quips of yours. You condescendingly imply luiz has missed something obvious. And then, I have to figure out what you're criticising (which takes mental effort) while struggling against the morale drag your rudeness creates. And then, basically, I have to hope that this 'obvious' insight of yours actually exists.

And, because of the paucity of reward (the likelihood of a reward is decreased due to the morale drag and due to you not being perfect), it just means that I start to ignore your posts. I read some condescending zinger, and just try to ignore it as I move through the rest of the thread. I'm better off just recognizing your tone than realizing you might have some cryptic insight. What happens is that the drag/reward function of your posting decreases to the point where I am just better off using the ignore function. Which is a shame, because I know you're not an idiot.

I have a list of condescending idiots on ignore. It just sucks putting condescending non-idiots on ignore. Yeah, I'm trading a lack of insight (which would obviously be higher if I struggled through each of your condescending quips) for a lack of a drain on morale. Ehn, there are enough intelligent non-condescending posters that I'm just better off reading what they write.

luiz brings the condescension on himself. Maybe you have luiz on ignore too so you don't notice, but he was not being very constructive. This thread was doing pretty ok without him and his random HUAC-esque insults. The posts rebutting him though, outside of mine, have been pretty informative.

 

[ParkCungHee]

No, you just misinterpreted what I was saying, maybe because originally I didn't express it clearly enough. I said that currently a minimum wage of $30/hour is impossible in the US, not that it is mathematically impossible by itself and will be forever.

No, I understood that. And I corrected you.

Increase in wages don't have to come at the expense of other wage earners on the long run (or anyone else's), because total resources increase (productivity increases allowing for higher pay without taking from anyone else).

Yes, but I'm not discussing the effects of economic growth. I'm working with, as you seemed happy to, a single picture frame of wages at a given time. And if that really can't go up without taking out of someone else's wage, absent any economic growth, it naturally follows that any wage you make has to come out of someone elses. If we're assuming there's a total aggregate of wages, that gets divied up, then the only reason anyone makes $7.50 an hour is because someone is making more than 46,000 dollars a year. And conversely everyone settling for less are responsible for higher wages.

Here's another fun paradox. Suppose a law came out today that placed every man, woman, and child into slavery tommorow, and forced them to labor continuously without pay. Even though no one gets paid, this doesn't produce any income shortfall. Since wages in relation to economic growth are static, even though no one would be getting paid, as long as economic growth stayed stable, the average income would stay the same.

But if a minimum wage of $30/hour was simply dictated right now, we would still have the same total output as we had a second ago, so we can't increase someone's wages without taking from somewhere else.

Yes, but the point I've been getting at is that this doesn't necessarily have to come from wages, because wages are only a particular commodity exchange, the amount of money going into wages can actually change, independent of any economic growth. Doing math assuming wages stays constant in relation to economic productivity doesn't prove anything about how the economy would actually function, unless you're willing to accept that the math also proves bizarre scenarios such as the average income being unaffected by no one being paid.

 

[El_Machinae]

luiz brings the condescension on himself.

Maybe, but the contempt/crypticness ratio tends to be lower. It's much easier to skim his posts to glean his points. The points only have to be clearer for that ratio to spin to positive (as a use of my time).

The problem kicks in, I'm saying, when the crypticness of a post doesn't make the mental effort worth figuring out what the poster means. Condescension is a drag on that mental effort. And the person's relative value (as a source of new knowledge) is a boost.

A person who is very clear, but often wrong, isn't really worth reading. Crypticness and rudeness are also drags on the worth of interpreting someone's post. Them being reasonably clever is obviously a boost, but there's a ratio to be had.

Some of the socialists here suffer from this issue (for me). I'm entirely sure they have at least some point (they're smart enough people, so some of their insights are useful), but wading through the rudeness to figure it out just sucks out the motivation. And then, there's the side aspect of crypticness, where I have to estimate how much mental effort it's going to take me to see their point.

The value of a "I've thought of something you haven't, here's a clue, idiot" just isn't all that high. I have to balance my expectation that their thought is worth it against the value of dragging it out of them vs. the contempt. Clues that are intentionally rude and cryptic just are no fun. Eventually they reach a point where they're not worth it.

 

[Azale]

Fair enough, I get what you're saying now.

 

[luiz]

Yes, but I'm not discussing the effects of economic growth. I'm working with, as you seemed happy to, a single picture frame of wages at a given time. And if that really can't go up without taking out of someone else's wage, absent any economic growth, it naturally follows that any wage you make has to come out of someone elses. If we're assuming there's a total aggregate of wages, that gets divied up, then the only reason anyone makes $7.50 an hour is because someone is making more than 46,000 dollars a year. And conversely everyone settling for less are responsible for higher wages.

No, that doesn't follow at all. You're mistaking a simple accounting identity for a cause-and-effect relationship.

If you look at wealth it's even simpler. At given instant, there is a limited amount of total wealth held in the country. At that instant, the only way to give someone a certain amount is to take from elsewhere. But that doesn't mean that the only reason why have people with nothing is the existence of people with millions. You can make millions without taking from anyone, because the economy grows. But at any particular moment total wealth is constrained and indeed any transfers are zero-sum.

Here's another fun paradox. Suppose a law came out today that placed every man, woman, and child into slavery tommorow, and forced them to labor continuously without pay. Even though no one gets paid, this doesn't produce any income shortfall. Since wages in relation to economic growth are static, even though no one would be getting paid, as long as economic growth stayed stable, the average income would stay the same.

I'm not seeing the paradox, or maybe I misunderstood you. Average income does not mean everybody makes the same, or indeed that everyone make anything at all. If everybody but one guy is a slave and makes nothing but this one guy makes zillions than average income could still be high. What's the paradox?

Yes, but the point I've been getting at is that this doesn't necessarily have to come from wages, because wages are only a particular commodity exchange, the amount of money going into wages can actually change, independent of any economic growth. Doing math assuming wages stays constant in relation to economic productivity doesn't prove anything about how the economy would actually function, unless you're willing to accept that the math also proves bizarre scenarios such as the average income being unaffected by no one being paid.

Well I was simplifying, but yeah, the share of the national wealth going into wages can change, but not the total national wealth (at any given instant). So you're still left with a mathematical constraint: if the minimum wage when applied to everybody would actually surpass the total national wealth at a certain point, that's a mathematical impossibility. So my original point was entirely correct, even if presented in a very simplified form.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

And here I was thinking economics was complicated. Turns out it's as easy as math

Shows how much I know.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Some of the socialists here suffer from this issue (for me). I'm entirely sure they have at least some point (they're smart enough people, so some of their insights are useful), but wading through the rudeness to figure it out just sucks out the motivation.

Live a day or two in our shoes, and deal with the stupid amounts of abuse and harassment we receive. You'll lose your patience with people as well.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'm not seeing the paradox, or maybe I misunderstood you. Average income does not mean everybody makes the same, or indeed that everyone make anything at all. If everybody but one guy is a slave and makes nothing but this one guy makes zillions than average income could still be high. What's the paradox?

I didn't say, except one guy. I said everyone. Nobody receives any money for their labor. $0 dollars are received by anyone. However, economic growth stays stable, and since that's now been thrown in, national wealth stays stable.

Now, given the model you've not just outlined, but defended against this criticism, the average income remains at $43,000, even though not a single red cent is earned by anyone.

Well I was simplifying, but yeah, the share of the national wealth going into wages can change, but not the total national wealth (at any given instant). So you're still left with a mathematical constraint: if the minimum wage when applied to everybody would actually surpass the total national wealth at a certain point, that's a mathematical impossibility. So my original point was entirely correct, even if presented in a very simplified form.

Substituting one value for another isn't "simplifying." If that works, I can provide an argument that the United States can support a minimum wage over $60 an hour. Hell, I can present a correct argument that the minimum wage is already $60 an hour.

 

[luiz]

I didn't say, except one guy. I said everyone. Nobody receives any money for their labor. $0 dollars are received by anyone. However, economic growth stays stable, and since that's now been thrown in, national wealth stays stable.

Now, given the model you've not just outlined, but defended against this criticism, the average income remains at $43,000, even though not a single red cent is earned by anyone.

No, I didn't present any model, you have severely misinterpreted what I said. I never said wages are constant, output is constant, etc etc etc. There's no way I ever implied what you wrote above is possible.

At any rate, I'm clarifying now - that's not what I meant, at all. So let's move past that and focus on the second part of your post, where you're actually addressing something I said, OK?

Substituting one value for another isn't "simplifying." If that works, I can provide an argument that the United States can support a minimum wage over $60 an hour. Hell, I can present a correct argument that the minimum wage is already $60 an hour.

No, I was indeed just simplifying. For the sake of the argument, I implicitly assumed the share of the national wealth going into wages would remain constant (because there's no way to easily asses what changes in that regard would happen, specially because a $30 per hour minimum wage would just lead to rampant inflation). You took it from there that I have an ironclad belief in the immutability of the share of national wealth that goes into wages, which is not true, as I already stated. But the simplification was as good as any, since I was just attempting to demonstrate the extreme silliness and indeed impossibility of the $30/hour minimum wage (which is well above the national average wage, but that doesn't mean I consider the average wage to be immutable or independent of the share of national wealth that goes into wages - let's not go there again).

What I do know, however, and this is indeed a simple accounting identity, is that the total share of a nation's wealth that goes into wage can never exceed 100%. In fact it can never reach 100% for obvious reasons. Another thing I know is that at a given moment you can't pay wages that exceed the total national wealth. So considering the most extreme (and totally impossible) scenario, just for the sake of the argument - 100% of the national weath goes to wages and only the working Americans make anything at all, I reach an average wage of around ~37 dollars an hour for full time workers. Note that this is even more absurd than assuming the share would remain constant (in which case the average is below $30, my original point), because it reaching 100% is also an impossibility. I hope this makes it quite clear why a minimum wage of $30/hour is simply impossible in the present stage of development of the USA.

Again (and I'm writing this also as a reply to Ziggy's "funny" comment), this is not supposed to be a detailed economic analysis. A $30/hour minimum wage would have all sorts of effects that I didn't get into if implemented - rising unemployment, inflation, you name it. Total national wealth would go down. But I'm not making that argument here, I'm not laying out any economic model, I'm just pointing out that such a minimum wage can be shown to be unfeasible even at the simplest, purely accounting level.

 

[civvver]

There's certainly a case that could be made for it in San Jose-San Francisco where the average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is $2897/mo and the minimum salary required to qualify for a 30-year loan is up over 100k/yr.

Minimum wage in SJ right now is $10.00 per hour, or $1600/mo assuming you get 40 hrs/week (BIG assumption), and before taxes. Even cutting that rent in half (as in, splitting with a friend/SO), you've only got $400 to cover food for the entire month. And I really hope your job is within walking distance/your bike doesn't get stolen. Also you'll be living the most spartan American lifestyle imaginable: no cable, no phones, no bars. I really don't know how people do it.

They get jobs that pay more than minimum wage.

Seriously I feel everyone's missing the point. You do not top out at min wage. Something like 2% of workers make minimum wage in the US.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm

Upping it will have no serious ramifications either way, yes some prices might go up, yes the borderline workers, those who made $14 before and now make $15 might not be able to afford coffee and mcdonald's anymore if those prices go up, but in general this entire thing is a farce. So few people actually work for that wage, it's been so politicized it's class warfare at its finest when instead we should be focusing on other issues that actually effect our economy.

Upping it to $30 an hour wouldn't even have that big of ramifications if it was phased in slowly. What would happen is inflation. Fed prints more money, prices go up, jobs that previously made $30 an hour now make $60, a big mac costs $12 instead of $4 or whatever it is now.

 

[El_Machinae]

Live a day or two in our shoes, and deal with the stupid amounts of abuse and harassment we receive. You'll lose your patience with people as well.

I can only imagine. It still sucks to be treated poorly when I'm giving an honest go to communicate. I can understand that sometimes a person might want to mistreat others due to the fact that other people have mistreated them. It's something we all have to put up with. It's not easy to rise. And, if I'm being treated poorly, at some point I learn to just not engage (unless, of course, the koans end up being worth the initial efforts).

It's a weird balance, trying to get someone to get to the conclusion themselves and trying to motivate them into trying.

 

[civvver]

Bear in mind that your taxes pay for an overall higher quality of life than ours.

Oh comon now, it takes like 2 hours to see your primary care physician in Canada. I am not joking, I have friends from Canada, if they get sick and need to go in that day or day after, it's a 2-3 hour wait every time. I can get in here in 15 minutes, I can go to urgent care or my regular doctor. My daughter was sick two weeks ago, we called the dr on a saturday morning, saw them half hour later only cus we had to drive 20 minutes to get there. People whine and complain about us quality of health care and life but it is extremely high. Our health care is awesome just too expensive. I'm just sick of everyone on this forum dogging the US relentlessly.

 

[Tarquelne]

Some of the socialists here suffer from this issue (for me). I'm entirely sure they have at least some point (they're smart enough people, so some of their insights are useful), but wading through the rudeness to figure it out just sucks out the motivation.

Just plain ol' liberals are worse.

 

[Traitorfish]

Oh comon now, it takes like 2 hours to see your primary care physician in Canada. I am not joking, I have friends from Canada, if they get sick and need to go in that day or day after, it's a 2-3 hour wait every time. I can get in here in 15 minutes, I can go to urgent care or my regular doctor. My daughter was sick two weeks ago, we called the dr on a saturday morning, saw them half hour later only cus we had to drive 20 minutes to get there. People whine and complain about us quality of health care and life but it is extremely high. Our health care is awesome just too expensive. I'm just sick of everyone on this forum dogging the US relentlessly.

It's reverse-patriotism, I tells ya!

 

[gay_Aleks]

It's reverse-patriotism, I tells ya!

They just know their country is so great, that they just gotta bash it.

 

[sophie]

They get jobs that pay more than minimum wage.

Seriously I feel everyone's missing the point. You do not top out at min wage. Something like 2% of workers make minimum wage in the US.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012.htm

Upping it will have no serious ramifications either way, yes some prices might go up, yes the borderline workers, those who made $14 before and now make $15 might not be able to afford coffee and mcdonald's anymore if those prices go up, but in general this entire thing is a farce. So few people actually work for that wage, it's been so politicized it's class warfare at its finest when instead we should be focusing on other issues that actually effect our economy.

Upping it to $30 an hour wouldn't even have that big of ramifications if it was phased in slowly. What would happen is inflation. Fed prints more money, prices go up, jobs that previously made $30 an hour now make $60, a big mac costs $12 instead of $4 or whatever it is now.

Except there are McDonalds and Targets and Best Buys and Taco Bells in San Francisco. At least one person in the city is being paid no more than $10.55/hr and renting an apartment which costs no less than $1800/mo. This is the argument people in favor of the $15 rate are making. You can hem and haw all you want about how jobs are going to flood out of the city, but at the end of the day there's still a demand for your Starbuckses and Targets and Wal-Marts and Jack In The Boxes. Those places will still be there. People will still be working there. The only difference is at least now they're being paid something bordering on a wage you can actually afford to live in the city on.

The price increase will be mostly negligible especially as a) the number of people with disposable income will increase, b) the number of people not having to work two jobs and therefore having more time to go out and spend money will increase, and c) as people on the lower end of the economic scale tend to spend money more often than save it, the economic activity in the city will increase.

Also don't give me that crap about how nobody actually works at these minimum wage jobs for a living. Come to any college town. You will find thousands of people working minimum wage jobs for a living.