"Entry level jobs aren't meant to support a family"

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 05:23:08 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 27, 2015, 01:10:19 PM

uninformed whilst shilling for people killing the minimum wage, killing skilled labor, and killing the middle class.

I want to kill the minimum wage because I prefer direct welfare to alleviate poverty.

I want greater investment and reform in education precisely because skilled labour is so important.

Mate, the least you could do is understand my position before criticising it.

challengerX · September 28, 2015, 05:27:34 AM

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More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 05:29:50 AM

Quote from: spewky bewgie on September 27, 2015, 02:20:02 PM

One solution won't fix an issue that's been compounded for decades.

We're talking specifically about low wages; this is not a structural deficiency of the market, per se, but an unfortunate side-effect of people being unskilled or skilled in the wrong area (people are mis-educated more than they are over-educated; the college premium AFAIK is growing).

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 05:34:26 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 28, 2015, 05:27:34 AM

The people losing their jobs and being out of work for months, however, aren't getting anything beneficial from it.

1. The global reallocation of labour globally is good for everybody.

2. Jobs are also insourced as well as outsourced.

3. Monetary policy reduces slack in the labour market; the biggest wave of globalisation was under the Greenspan Fed, and they managed to steer the labour market through A-okay.

4. The disruption that occurs in the labour market is so small and temporary--while the benefits of free trade are so large--that it doesn't even register mildly on a graph of unemployment. Should we focus more on the disruption effects of free trade and outsourcing? Probably, but it doesn't even begin to reach levels where saying "we should stop this" is a reasonable thing to say.

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These are skilled workers in the IT field I'm talking about. And apart from outsourcing, we have a vast amount of Indians being brought into take over jobs in Silicon Valley and being paid half the wages Americans were being paid for the same work.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to say much about this, other than the fact that--over the whole economy wages have almost perfectly tracked productivity for the past several decades. When it comes to things like HB1 visas or whatever the fuck they're called, economists are divided on their actual impact.

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 05:39:43 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 27, 2015, 02:31:01 PM

A small business in Spain is something that makes around 2,000€ profit. They can't afford to hire people.

You can afford to higher somebody != you should higher somebody.

I haven't seen any literature on Spain's minimum wage so I won't comment on that specifically, but the productivity of workers and the value of their skills doesn't change if suddenly there is a price floor. Even if you can afford to pay somebody above that floor, their overall output might only justify a wage of $5/hr instead of $8/hr or whatever.

Not to mention, setting the minimum wage has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of living; the point (presuming you don't have something like an NIT) is to set it at the equilibrium point between the positive welfare effects of higher income and the negative welfare effects of disemployment. There is precisely no guarantee that this system will yield a sufficient enough income for those at the bottom.

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 05:43:08 AM

Quote from: Tsirist on September 27, 2015, 03:54:05 PM

Personally I love the "economics is a zero-sum game" meme.

How is that relevant to the discussion at all?

Incan · September 28, 2015, 05:53:26 AM

I'm interested Meta, to you what is the right level of education the majority should have?

challengerX · September 28, 2015, 08:27:03 AM

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Mattie G Indahouse · September 28, 2015, 08:39:48 AM

Quote from: PSU on September 27, 2015, 04:39:29 PM

So many fucking idiots in this thread.

No, those jobs are meant for teenager to earn some extra cash. Not for some 40 year old convict to raise his 2 kids.

Don't like it, stay out of trouble. Get an associates. Take out a loan and get educated, it's not fucking hard. Dumbasses

I'm going to take your bait on this. Since these jobs are meant for teenagers then way are there so many people above that age like middle age people working them? It must be harder than it is to get a job in a trade or decent paying job when a shit load of non-teenagers are working these so called "jobs that are meant for teens".

Mattie G Indahouse · September 28, 2015, 08:46:56 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 27, 2015, 02:05:01 PM

Frankly, people earning minimum wage shouldn't be taxed at all.

I'm fine paying taxes since I do use state things it's just that I wish it wasn't so damn high. When it comes to overtime I think it's bullshit that the majority of whatever money I earn working it ends up being taxed. When it comes to being taxed for us it should stay at the amount that's being taking out for a normal paycheck and if there's overtime that should be ignored.

DAS B00T x2 · September 28, 2015, 08:56:41 AM

Quote from: BerzerkCommando on September 28, 2015, 08:46:56 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 27, 2015, 02:05:01 PM
Frankly, people earning minimum wage shouldn't be taxed at all.
I'm fine paying taxes since I do use state things it's just that I wish it wasn't so damn high. When it comes to overtime I think it's bullshit that the majority of whatever money I earn working it ends up being taxed. When it comes to being taxed for us it should stay at the amount that's being taking out for a normal paycheck and if there's overtime that should be ignored.

Talk to your payroll people and ask them to split up any overtime beyond 10 hours into different weeks. You don't lose anything extra that way.

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 09:14:46 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 28, 2015, 08:27:03 AM

How is being unemployed for months when your high paying IT job got outsourced good?

It obviously isn't for the individuals in question, which is why I say we should pay greater attention to this effect, but across the entire economy it doesn't add up to even a fraction of enough to justify some kind of protectionism.

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]LMAO

Not anywhere near the rate jobs are being shipped overseas.

There's currently an insourcing boom in the US due to rising overseas costs. Can't find any evidence for how it ultimately balances out, but like I said: job creation isn't significantly impacted by international flows of capital, but policies from the central bank and the government to do with things like stable demand, employment and human capital.

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Greenspan is a fucking moron.

Greenspan gets too much flak.

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Higher paying jobs are being fucked with to create a job market where there's really no point striving for more than minimum wage.

But this is insanely conspiratorial; middle-income America has seen significant gains in compensation despite growing income inequality. This is a trend to do with productivity; skills don't suddenly become worth less when the rich get more greedy. Wage inequality is driven primarily by technological change which alters some workers' output more than others'. The issue to solving inequality--and poverty--isn't to call CEOs (the high-paid of which are such a small fraction of the labour market it's ridiculous that people focus on them) greedy cunts, string up financial executives and command companies to pay min-wage workers more. The solution is investment in things like education, expanding welfare like EITC, end ridiculous policies like the war on drugs which harms so many poor (black) families by splitting them up and throwing some dude in prison because he got caught with some weed.

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Wages are low for a lot of jobs in a LOT of sectors. Let's not even talk about minimum wage.

We have the same issue in the UK, although it's much more pronounced; productivity is currently depressed. Workers' output simply isn't high enough to sustain the higher wages we'd like to see. It's also worth noting that wages aren't the only part of compensation; workers' also get things like benefits which contribute to total dollar compensation.

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 09:18:21 AM

Quote from: Incan on September 28, 2015, 05:53:26 AM

I'm interested Meta, to you what is the right level of education the majority should have?

It's about the nature and the quality of the education rather than the actual level; there still exists a wage premium to going to college, so it's probably worthwhile to get yourself a BA or BSc in something, but a lot of individuals find themselves mismatched in the labour market because they have studied something somewhat useless in employment terms (art, gender studies, whatever).

Verbatim · September 28, 2015, 09:34:45 AM

Quote from: Meta as Fuck on September 28, 2015, 04:53:14 AM

Quote from: Fuddy-duddy on September 27, 2015, 11:40:56 AM
This is one of the issues that only capitalism could breed.
Because workers in a socialist society could never be under- or over-paid, right?

Not if you're doing it right. Call it utopian, but at least socialism has a concrete solution to the issue, and not speculative "I think this would work" crap.

DAS B00T x2 · September 28, 2015, 10:23:19 AM

Quote from: Fuddy-duddy on September 28, 2015, 09:34:45 AM

Quote from: Meta as Fuck on September 28, 2015, 04:53:14 AM
Quote from: Fuddy-duddy on September 27, 2015, 11:40:56 AM
This is one of the issues that only capitalism could breed.
Because workers in a socialist society could never be under- or over-paid, right?
Not if you're doing it right. Call it utopian, but at least socialism has a concrete solution to the issue, and not speculative "I think this would work" crap.

Worldwide GDP per capita is approximately 13k.

How do we expect every single person in the world to live off of 13 grand a year?

PSU · September 28, 2015, 10:29:37 AM

Quote from: BerzerkCommando on September 28, 2015, 08:39:48 AM

Quote from: PSU on September 27, 2015, 04:39:29 PM
So many fucking idiots in this thread.

No, those jobs are meant for teenager to earn some extra cash. Not for some 40 year old convict to raise his 2 kids.

Don't like it, stay out of trouble. Get an associates. Take out a loan and get educated, it's not fucking hard. Dumbasses
I'm going to take your bait on this. Since these jobs are meant for teenagers then way are there so many people above that age like middle age people working them? It must be harder than it is to get a job in a trade or decent paying job when a shit load of non-teenagers are working these so called "jobs that are meant for teens".

Yeah its not bait but whatever.

Have you ever seen the type of older people who work at mcdonalds or walmart? Sure, some are just people who lost their careers and need to take the job. But most, im talkin 95%, are just losers who have no education and no useful skills. The only thing they do have is experience working odd jobs, something teenagers don't have.

Its not hard whatsoever for them to get these jobs. Places like walmart and mcdonalds are valuing experience and age more than kids who are in school and have limited hours and limited experience.

Tsirist · September 28, 2015, 11:43:33 AM

Quote from: Meta as Fuck on September 28, 2015, 05:43:08 AM

Quote from: Tsirist on September 27, 2015, 03:54:05 PM
Personally I love the "economics is a zero-sum game" meme.
How is that relevant to the discussion at all?

Well it was shortly after OP tried to get the thread back on track. I kinda wanted to jokingly remark on the stance that neither of his presented options would be acceptable. I don't hold that view but I posted the zero-sum remark specifically in response to this:

Quote from: A E S T H E T I C S on September 27, 2015, 02:20:05 PM

Secondly, you cannot manipulate one side of an equation and expect that the other side won't balance it out. That's why it's an "equation."

Of course, he could have been talking about any short-term economic phenomena to which that generally applies, but tbh I get tired of hearing high school economics lectures and generalizations from people who do not specialize in its study. Of course, he later went on to make the following statement, which from his assertion that the "sides" will balance out, doesn't make much sense at all:

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Making rich people less rich doesn't help me at all.

Well, unless he's rich himself.

More Than Mortal · September 28, 2015, 12:54:51 PM

Quote from: Fuddy-duddy on September 28, 2015, 09:34:45 AM

but at least socialism has a concrete solution to the issue

Socialism isn't concrete in any way.

Deleted · September 28, 2015, 04:33:20 PM

Quote from: Fuddy-duddy on September 27, 2015, 11:40:56 AM

On your own, you should be able to live comfortably off any job you get, period.

Raising a family? I'm not sure. Joint income helps, but children are often much more expensive than that. I'm inclined to say that, no, entry level jobs should be able to support families--whether or not they're "meant" to is of no real concern of mine. On the other hand, having children is irresponsible as fuck, and perhaps we shouldn't encourage that sort of behavior.

In general, fuck capitalism and capitalists. This is one of the issues that only capitalism could breed.

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CK97 · September 29, 2015, 08:51:44 PM

I'm just gonna leave this here.

challengerX · September 30, 2015, 05:15:44 AM

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More Than Mortal · September 30, 2015, 08:57:54 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 30, 2015, 05:15:44 AM

You've just admitted it's a bad thing.

No I haven't; read what I said. I said, on the whole, it's beyond worth doing. Does it have drawbacks? Yeah, but these don't outweigh the benefits.

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He deserves it.

For what, exactly?

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Benefits and your wage are like gravy for mashed potatoes. We need more mashed potatoes.

What does that even mean?

challengerX · September 30, 2015, 09:01:20 AM

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More Than Mortal · September 30, 2015, 10:49:07 AM

Quote from: challengerX on September 30, 2015, 09:01:20 AM

Quote from: Meta as Fuck on September 30, 2015, 08:57:54 AM
No I haven't; read what I said. I said, on the whole, it's beyond worth doing. Does it have drawbacks? Yeah, but these don't outweigh the benefits.
A bunch of people losing their jobs and going broke doesn't outwork the benefits for the already rich?

The benefits for free trade span across the board; I agree with you that the disemployment effects of outsourcing for some workers should be paid more attention to, and there should be policies to remedy this like a more effective welfare state, but we have to remember all people are consumers and not just workers (well, the number of the former outweighs the latter) and the benefit to the former is unanimously considered larger than any disemployment effects.

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For acting like he's the shit when he was wrongn about a lot.

Greenspan was easily the best Fed chair the US has had prior to 2001, and while he certainly made mistakes past 2001 with the housing bubble we ought to remember that most people--like the most recent former chairman, Bernanke--also got the same things wrong, as well as the HUD and of course financial executives who led the charge in the fall in underwriting practices.

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We need better wages, fuck benefits.

Sure, but like I say that's an issue of productivity. Welfare is there to smooth the ride for those at the bottom, those who suffer frictional unemployment and those who suffer at the hands of the business cycle. If you want to raise wages, then it's a question of raising productivity. Welfare is a useful tool to help facilitate this.

challengerX · September 30, 2015, 12:33:56 PM

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More Than Mortal · September 30, 2015, 02:01:35 PM

Quote from: challengerX on September 30, 2015, 12:33:56 PM

And that's supposed to be ok because products become a little cheaper for us?

Are you forgetting this makes everybody better off? We all have a greater quality of life as a result of this process; economists aren't part of some conspiracy to keep the middle class down.

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So because other people were shitty he's good because he was slightly less shitty?

No, he's good for navigating the US from 1987 to 2001. He has a better record than most.

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Buzzwords and jargon and excuses for everybody but the people getting shafted.

Where? What buzzwords and jargon have I even used? Wages are a question of productivity, which is helped by free trade in the long-run.

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We don't need to "pay more attention" to the fact that people's lives are being ruined, we need to PREVENT that from happening.

And I suppose the fact that the policies I support perform precisely the function of minimising lives being ruined? Shitty education and the war on drugs is responsible for far more ruined lives than outsourcing.

challengerX · September 30, 2015, 04:30:34 PM

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big dog · September 30, 2015, 05:44:53 PM

Quote from: challengerX on September 30, 2015, 04:30:34 PM

Quote from: Meta as Fuck on September 30, 2015, 02:01:35 PM
Quote from: challengerX on September 30, 2015, 12:33:56 PM
Are you forgetting this makes everybody better off? We all have a greater quality of life as a result of this process; economists aren't part of some conspiracy to keep the middle class down.
I'd rather have this supposed lesser quality of life so people can keep their job they worked so hard for. The fuck are you talking about?

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No, he's good for navigating the US from 1987 to 2001. He has a better record than most.
Fuck him

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Where? What buzzwords and jargon have I even used? Wages are a question of productivity, which is helped by free trade in the long-run.
Through all this jargon all you're really saying is "it doesn't matter if people lose their careers and people don't deserve higher wages because of this arbitrary system created and controlled by the elite".

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And I suppose the fact that the policies I support perform precisely the function of minimising lives being ruined? Shitty education and the war on drugs is responsible for far more ruined lives than outsourcing.
They're all different problems interconnected.

Outsourcing has ruined America.
What the fuck has happened to the quoting.

More Than Mortal · September 30, 2015, 05:48:32 PM

Quote from: challengerX on September 30, 2015, 04:30:34 PM

Outsourcing has ruined America.

See, we fundamentally disagree on this question. I'd go into this further, but I've been drinking and am about to go out with my flatmates. I think you attribute problms to outsourcing whcich are actually the result of other poor policies; regardless, we can both agree that things like education needs to be improved, the war on drgus needs to be ended etc.

I also have no problem making America more competitive in terms of exports, insourcing and all that jazz. I just disagree on the impact outsourcing has had on US workers.

Mordo · September 30, 2015, 05:49:03 PM

ITT: challenger getting so badly rekt by meta he forgets to quote properly