We do a lot of business in China, and to retain good employees we basically pay double the going rate. If you are talented, you can command a big premium there. I wouldn't want to be a worker on the factory floor, but skilled technical people can do very nicely.
The fact that the UK slides the scale based on age at all is my point, not the absolute numbers. I just thought it was interesting as I was looking up the numbers.
A "free market" includes so much more than a lack of price controls. For instance, it requires free movement of labor, goods, and capital. It requires equivalent knowledge about the transaction by the buyer and seller. It's also a completely abstract idea that does not exist in the real world - certainly not at scale. In the real world, sure, we've found through trial and error that a government can be very good at "setting the rules" and maintaining the conditions for something approaching an ideal free market. Using regulation, you can make the market either more or less free depending on your desired outcome. My comment addresses the point that "free market" advocates conveniently skip over, which is that by creating an artificial entity that shields individual owners from the consequences of their actions, they have created the single largest intervention in the free market ever conceived - though I've seen it argued that IP laws have an even greater effect. Either way, people who fancy themselves against government regulation rarely seem to pick the two biggest regulations that we have today.
It's worth noting that Germany exempts youth from the normal minimum wage jobs through it's (seemingly effective) apprenticeship program. So that government seems to agree with me. Similarly, the UK has a lower minimum wage for young people than for older people. At the low end of the scale, it is actually lower than in the US. This would also seem to support my argument.
Earth is not a closed system - we have a constant input of energy. If I go to the store and spend $3 on oil and potatoes, then use them to make and sell $5 french fries, I've created $2 from thin air that I then get to keep and spend on something else. The money supply needs to keep up with this creation of wealth. Print too much and you cause runaway inflation. Print to little and you risk deflation, which is a disaster because once money is an investment unto itself people will simply hoard it and the economy takes a tumble. In other words, printing cash is not the way to create wealth - it is the response to the creation of wealth.
Exactly. I think you can make a pretty good argument for allowing passive investing, but it is hard to defend protecting active managers with limited liability if your goal is a free market with limited government regulation. It's the single largest government regulation we currently have.
You could take the minimum wage away from the shareholders, or you could tax the shareholders and then redistribute the wealth that way. Either way, the overall effect on the economy is the same - though there are of course pros and cons to each method.
Or how about Germany's relaxation of employment rules for youth "apprentices" so that they are more attractive to employers. Or the UK scaling minimum wages with age, dipping below even the US for the youngest workers? What I am saying is not even remotely controversial.
As you point out, states have different rules. We don't have free day care in PA, and it sounds like that indeed is distorting the market in an unintended way.
Uh: France 21.80% Germany 6.60% United Kingdom 12.00% United States 9.60%
If youth unemployment were by design, Germany wouldn't have a (very effective) apprenticeship program that exempts youth from the usual employment rules to make them more attractive to hire and train. The UK wouldn't have minimum wage that scales with age, which is actually lower than the US at it's lowest point.
I was thinking of France when I wrote the comment, and how countries like Germany and the UK have rules which exempt youth from the employment protections afforded to everyone else so that they are more employable. I actually think that could be a reasonable solution in the US - do a UK-style minimum wage that slides with age and experience. UK "apprentice" wage is lower than the US minimum wage, and it maxes out at around $10/hour. Germany has a youth apprenticeship program that solves both the "young people are too expensive" and the "young people have no skills" problems at the same time.
Pain is supposed to mean "don't do that". Unfortunately, the populous aren't interpreting the signals properly, if at all!
I like the analogy. It's like taking a bunch of pain pills to correct one pain, but then you need to take more pills to counter the side effects. And more pills to counter those side effects.
Most importantly, the tendency is that unemployment in Europe is higher where wages are lower.
If you include Eastern Europe, you have to admit there is still a hangover from decades of under-investment during the time behind the iron curtain. I didn't think it was controversial to point out that higher employment costs correlates to higher unemployment.
Agreed the problem is very complex and does not come down to a single cause - but there isn't really any controversy in saying that higher employment costs are correlated to unemployment. Any kind of subsidy or distortion of the market is going to have consequences somewhere else - no change is "free".
Agreed - selling a product for less than it costs to produce is a net loss of wealth - it's similar to the broken window fallacy. But minimum wage is still a subsidy - just not one that you pay through taxes.
I'm always polite, always say thank you, always give them a smile. I've worked retail and know what a shitty job it is.
But somehow being nice and empathetic does not magically turn them into people who are halfway competent at their jobs. The change still gets counted wrong and the order still gets screwed up. Working retail exposed me to plenty of morons, both customers and co-workers.
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In that case, include tax benefits as well. Those have increased by $25-30 billion since the early 90s.
No. China. You can live very well in China for a lot less than you can in Silicon Valley.
We do a lot of business in China, and to retain good employees we basically pay double the going rate. If you are talented, you can command a big premium there. I wouldn't want to be a worker on the factory floor, but skilled technical people can do very nicely.
Federal and state funding has not decreased, tuition has increased.
The fact that the UK slides the scale based on age at all is my point, not the absolute numbers. I just thought it was interesting as I was looking up the numbers.
A "free market" includes so much more than a lack of price controls. For instance, it requires free movement of labor, goods, and capital. It requires equivalent knowledge about the transaction by the buyer and seller. It's also a completely abstract idea that does not exist in the real world - certainly not at scale. In the real world, sure, we've found through trial and error that a government can be very good at "setting the rules" and maintaining the conditions for something approaching an ideal free market. Using regulation, you can make the market either more or less free depending on your desired outcome. My comment addresses the point that "free market" advocates conveniently skip over, which is that by creating an artificial entity that shields individual owners from the consequences of their actions, they have created the single largest intervention in the free market ever conceived - though I've seen it argued that IP laws have an even greater effect. Either way, people who fancy themselves against government regulation rarely seem to pick the two biggest regulations that we have today.
I phrased that poorly - I should have wrote "attempts to solve".
It's worth noting that Germany exempts youth from the normal minimum wage jobs through it's (seemingly effective) apprenticeship program. So that government seems to agree with me. Similarly, the UK has a lower minimum wage for young people than for older people. At the low end of the scale, it is actually lower than in the US. This would also seem to support my argument.
Earth is not a closed system - we have a constant input of energy. If I go to the store and spend $3 on oil and potatoes, then use them to make and sell $5 french fries, I've created $2 from thin air that I then get to keep and spend on something else. The money supply needs to keep up with this creation of wealth. Print too much and you cause runaway inflation. Print to little and you risk deflation, which is a disaster because once money is an investment unto itself people will simply hoard it and the economy takes a tumble. In other words, printing cash is not the way to create wealth - it is the response to the creation of wealth.
Exactly. I think you can make a pretty good argument for allowing passive investing, but it is hard to defend protecting active managers with limited liability if your goal is a free market with limited government regulation. It's the single largest government regulation we currently have.
You could take the minimum wage away from the shareholders, or you could tax the shareholders and then redistribute the wealth that way. Either way, the overall effect on the economy is the same - though there are of course pros and cons to each method.
You are doing that, but you are also expending resources to produce something of lesser value, so total wealth is reduced.
I have to hang my head in shame. I did not detect your sarcasm. I'm from the East Coast and everything.
France.
Or how about Germany's relaxation of employment rules for youth "apprentices" so that they are more attractive to employers. Or the UK scaling minimum wages with age, dipping below even the US for the youngest workers? What I am saying is not even remotely controversial.
How can you have a free market when people aren't responsible for their actions?
As you point out, states have different rules. We don't have free day care in PA, and it sounds like that indeed is distorting the market in an unintended way.
Uh:
France 21.80%
Germany 6.60%
United Kingdom 12.00%
United States 9.60%
If youth unemployment were by design, Germany wouldn't have a (very effective) apprenticeship program that exempts youth from the usual employment rules to make them more attractive to hire and train. The UK wouldn't have minimum wage that scales with age, which is actually lower than the US at it's lowest point.
I was thinking of France when I wrote the comment, and how countries like Germany and the UK have rules which exempt youth from the employment protections afforded to everyone else so that they are more employable. I actually think that could be a reasonable solution in the US - do a UK-style minimum wage that slides with age and experience. UK "apprentice" wage is lower than the US minimum wage, and it maxes out at around $10/hour. Germany has a youth apprenticeship program that solves both the "young people are too expensive" and the "young people have no skills" problems at the same time.
Pain is supposed to mean "don't do that". Unfortunately, the populous aren't interpreting the signals properly, if at all!
I like the analogy. It's like taking a bunch of pain pills to correct one pain, but then you need to take more pills to counter the side effects. And more pills to counter those side effects.
Most importantly, the tendency is that unemployment in Europe is higher where wages are lower.
If you include Eastern Europe, you have to admit there is still a hangover from decades of under-investment during the time behind the iron curtain. I didn't think it was controversial to point out that higher employment costs correlates to higher unemployment.
Agreed the problem is very complex and does not come down to a single cause - but there isn't really any controversy in saying that higher employment costs are correlated to unemployment. Any kind of subsidy or distortion of the market is going to have consequences somewhere else - no change is "free".
US agricultural output is at or near all-time highs.
US industrial output is at or near all-time highs.
Agreed - selling a product for less than it costs to produce is a net loss of wealth - it's similar to the broken window fallacy. But minimum wage is still a subsidy - just not one that you pay through taxes.
ALL workers are "wealth creators".
No, they aren't. If you are creating something that costs more to produce than it does to sell, you are actually destroying wealth.
I'm always polite, always say thank you, always give them a smile. I've worked retail and know what a shitty job it is.
But somehow being nice and empathetic does not magically turn them into people who are halfway competent at their jobs. The change still gets counted wrong and the order still gets screwed up. Working retail exposed me to plenty of morons, both customers and co-workers.