Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I've read Henry Hazlitt's explanation of how minimum wage laws decrease employment, believe me. There's something to be said for his argument. However, if we want to be technical the minimum wage in the context of a welfare state actually is an unconditional help to the poor, since those who retain their jobs are in a better position while those who lose their jobs drop from low income employment to state support.

Pretty much the honest answer I'd expect: we don't really care whether the minimum wage suppresses employment or not, because on our scale of priorities, employment doesn't rank very high on the list.

I do appreciate the candor, and that is pretty much how I'd answer the question were I pressed to answer it fairly from the perspective of someone who supports it: while raising the minimum wage does suppress employment opportunities, we have to establish our priorities, and raising wages for people who already have jobs is a higher priority FOR SOME than helping people who want jobs to find work.

Now, if I were the person looking for a job, I might have a different answer......or if I were looking to hire a probationary employee on a six-month tryout first, before deciding whether to make him/her permanent, I might also have a different answer.....


Left unsaid in your answer, of course, is that as more and more people are added to the unemployment list, and fewer and fewer people have "well-paying" jobs, how does money that comes from fewer working people support more and more people who are out of work??

[GrinCDXX]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Left unsaid in your answer, of course, is that as more and more people are added to the unemployment list, and fewer and fewer people have "well-paying" jobs, how does money that comes from fewer working people support more and more people who are out of work??

Yes, if we find ourselves in a permanent death spiral of ever increasing unemployment, the country will be in trouble. Excellent observation.

[FreshFish]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Yes, if we find ourselves in a permanent death spiral of ever increasing unemployment, the country will be in trouble. Excellent observation.

Actually, there is an elegant and pleasing way out: people who do have jobs report that they are working longer and are under more stress than ever before. Meanwhile, qualified people who could do those jobs can't get hired anywhere.

We'd have to re-adjust our attitude toward material consumption substantially, but I myself would prefer a society that is less materialistic and derived more enjoyment from hobbies and avocational interests and volunteer activities: in other words, those that have jobs share them with those that don't have them but easily could do them. We all work a bit less, but reduce spending by even more than we reduce working, and so everyone's quality of life improves.

There is something a bit barren about working so long and so hard that one cannot enjoy spending what one earns on those things that bring the most pleasure.

The fundamental problem of course is that those things that bring the most pleasure cannot be traded in the marketplace, and so capitalism has no use for them and actually "campaigns" against them so to speak.

[trixR4kids]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

How does quitting smoking help you memorize Hamlet?

Depends on whether you live in CO or not

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Trix wins.

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Lets get some citations out of you knucks:

1) It was claimed Seattle was losing jobs as a result of $15 minimum wage. Source please?

2) It was also claimed that raising minimum wage hurts fast food jobs. I find that to be highly unlikely, so source please?

[joecct]

Lets get some citations out of you knucks:

1) It was claimed Seattle was losing jobs as a result of $15 minimum wage. Source please?

2) It was also claimed that raising minimum wage hurts fast food jobs. I find that to be highly unlikely, so source please?

There was a news or video article that a pizza shop had to lay off people and cut hours and remove discounts bcause of the new law. Google pizza Seattle wage and see if it pops up.

[unofan]

There was a news or video article that a pizza shop had to lay off people and cut hours and remove discounts bcause of the new law. Google pizza Seattle wage and see if it pops up.

see my last post. One pizza shop is an anecdote, not data.

[Kepler]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

Another reason McCutcheon, voter suppression and "17th amendment repeal" efforts are ramping up: people are, very gradually, waking up.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

17th Amendment repeal? You mean 16th?

[Kepler]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

17th Amendment repeal? You mean 16th?

No, 17th. Direct election of Senators. I'm sure they'd advocate repeal of the 16th too. And maybe the 19th.

[Rover]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I like how a bad economic theory, that raising the minimum wage costs job, is being directly challenged. For too long this was taken as fact. Much like Kansas has been a good expiriment in supply side economics (it failed) lets see how Seattle does with a $15 minimum wage.

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I still don't understand what the article has to do with the 17th. I might have missed something in the article or I'm just not making the connection today.

[Kepler]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

I still don't understand what the article has to do with the 17th. I might have missed something in the article or I'm just not making the connection today.

It's not in the article, it's another of the attempts to pry the vote back from the "wrong" people (i.e., non-conservatives). There's a school of thought on the ideological right that direct election of Senators is somehow bad because it's "mob" rule. There's a far more important school of thought on the pragmatic right that it is easier to bribe state legislators to push through the "right" Senators than it is to, you know, actually have elections.

The overall idea is that as more people wake up the Republicans' raison d'être of keeping the top marginal tax rate low is imperiled, therefore they must impede democracy to serve their paymasters.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0

No, 17th. Direct election of Senators. I'm sure they'd advocate repeal of the 16th too. And maybe the 19th.

Hey now, the last one is phrased as "End Women's Suffrage". And it's actually surprising to see how many people think "suffrage" is a form of suffering, rather than the right to vote.