Call me when someone is offering genetic testing with some consequence to them if they get it wrong. Until then, this should be treated as if it were a scam.
You seem to have wandered off somewhere that has nothing to do with this conversation. I am not interested in your opinions about the best country to live in. In support freedom to choose where you live and reduction of all barriers, to the extent possible, in the way of you choosing where you live. The safety net provided by Germany has nothing to do with this. I claimed that the min wage reduced output and increases unemployment. You said the opposite. I asked how you would explain per capita GDP, a measure of output, being higher when min wage is lower. I asked how you would explain unemployment rate being lower when min wage is lower. These are two results directly in conflict with your assertion. You ignored both points in your response and instead essentially said these things are okay because of a better safety net. That is a non sequitur and I am not really interested.
Peer-to-peer communication... Like prices? This is just getting funny. You keep insisting you have some novel perspective and all you do is make an argument for why free and competitive markets are the utopia you seek. You are an example of what I see so frequently, which is someone who understands markets very well as far as what needs to exist to function well, yet has no idea that markets actually provide all those requirements already, if left alone.
That is not very correct. Investors know what the company is doing on the accounting side, in all but very rare fraud cases. Companies like you're talking about are pretty clear on what drives their Non-GAAP measures and they make an effort to explain why the non-GAAP measures are the "right" ones. It's a joke in the investor community how divergent GAAP and non-GAAP rev and earnings become over time. They know. They just invest anyway because they "know" others will too.
Um, no, you are exactly wrong. Uber is valued at $41b because of public stock market traders. The private investors are willing to pay $x, where $x is less than the valuation after IPO minus the time cost of money. This is all driven by idiots investing in the public stock market. They are the engine car that pulls the train.
> There are European countries with minimum and average wages much higher than ours, and they don't have those problems.
I'm sorry but I'm not sure how you would know that. You would need to compare their output currently to their output in an alternative history / parallel universe where the min wage were lower. Barring that, it's interesting that you say this but don't address why almost every EU country has a lower GDP per capita that the U.S. Granted, GDP is a flawed measurement, but feel free to look at other similar measures. The EU also has a higher unemployment rate. About double in fact.
So if I am saying that a higher min wage reduces output and causes unemployment, and you're telling me I am wrong based on what actually happens in the real world, I would have expected some addressing of these numbers. While I am not using them as proof of anything, it does seem to run counter to your claim that the "theoretical arguments" don't have predictive power in the real world.
I love when people who have no understanding of econ101 tell me I don't understand Econ101 and then spend the rest of their comment proving that they don't understand econ101.
Companies don't care about making revenue. They care about making profit. A company absolutely will choose to earn less revenue when it means more profit. Because every hour of Sally's work is a net $1 loss in profit, earning $13 in revenue through Sally's work means $14 loss in costs. The company will always be better off not having Sally work.
I think you have the wrong idea of what it means to work hard. It doesn't mean be inefficient at a task. It means be persistent as you identify growth opportunities and worthy calculated risks. Many people do not do that and look for a "safe" 9-5 job where thry operate in a well defined box and don't have surprises or expectations of upward mobility (except s cost of living raise).
I didn't talk at all about monetization. I would continue explaining, but it is clear that you cannot allow yourself to understand, probably due to worry that your long-held worldview might come into question. Best wishes.
This is a very limited view on competition. Competition creates organization and cooperation without a central plan. Your view is too limited because it ignores that resources are much more plentiful in competitive markets.
I don't know whether their definition of grit is right and I don't know if their magic algorithm is right. I do know that our schools do not teach grit. I do know that our schools have you do 40 copies of the same math problem for homework. I share concerns about the gamification of education, but the particular issue you bring up was it created by educational games.
> Nothing wrong with encouraging kids to work hard, but are you comfortable with Google and Khan Academy using (presumably) tax-free money and their mysterious "grit algorithm" to determine education haves and have-nots?
Yes. I am comfortable trying a bunch of things to see what works. Many people are comfortable continuing what we know doesn't work. I am not.
The world is about competition. Even non-profit organizations are about competition. It might make you feel better to teach kids what you call "cooperation", but since you think cooperation is the opposite of competition, then you should be kept away from teaching children anything about life. People like you have heavily influenced education for 3 or 4 decades, and as a result we are churning out people who have no idea how the world works, and especially how markets work (to enable efficient cooperation).
The current education system doesn't work, and some will be troubled as we attempt various other ways that might work. Some will be troubled as we displace people who currently operate the system that doesn't work.
As for the linked complaint about grit implying that poor kids are poor because they don't try hard, who cares what it implies? I don't care if it hurts someone's feelings to misinterpret what this may or may not imply. I don't care if poor kids are poor because of external reasons. What does it matter? Should we spend our time explaining to them that they are victims of a system and have no hope, or should we teach them how to work hard? Perhaps grit is even more important for poor kids who have to work even harder to get out from where they started?
Politically correct jerks can be offended all they want. That doesn't help kids achieve.
I love this argument. Left wing nuts expand the welfare state to no end. And then point out that people are using the endless welfare programs. Then that is somehow reason to do even more idiotic left wing nut policies so we can reduce usage of welfare programs.
Before I get stuck in an infinite loop of left wing idiocy, I would like to ask: if your goal is to control welfare spending, then why the hell do you keep expanding welfare programs?
The most hilarious part is that your prime example was Medicaid. It was you left wing nuts that just told us in 2009 that we had to expand Medicaid to everyone and their brother in order to achieve health care utopia. And now you're complaining that a lot of people are on Medicaid? You set the fscking eligibility criteria!
Sorry, but why do I give a damn about the level of consumption of anyone else? You say I am happiest when everyone consumes the same amount? It would be nice to see an explanation of that, because I don't get it.
Making the min wage $15/he does not mean bob gets $15/hr. Bob will get whatever the local unemployment compensation agency determines is the right amount of money.
You thought you were avoiding the trap of his question, but the reality is all answers lead you to a trap, because raising the minimum wage is dumb policy. Your bell curve comment makes no sense and I think a bell curve is not what you mean. What you mean, I think, is that raising the min wage improves the lives of everyone or at least a subset of socioeconomic strata, then at some point you get diminishing returns for that subset, and then at some point you actually have negative consequences for that subset. So assuming that is what you mean, that isn't a bell curve concept, but I get why you said that. Let's assume that's what you mean.
Unfortunately, that does not make sense. You seem to have ignored the very valid point my friend made at the end of his post, which is unfortunate because that was the KEY point. Most policies like this only sound good if you assume an otherwise static economy. But that's silly. In this case, if Sally's work output is worth $13 per hour to the company, so long as her wage is less than $13 per hour, she is likely to have a job available (gross oversimplification, but true enough for the purposes of this discussion). Now suppose Sally's city imposes a $14/hr min wage. Sally is ecstatic about getting a raise until she instead gets a pink slip. This is because the company will produce less output. The company will not produce incremental output from Sally, because every hour Sally works means a loss of $1 in profit. An actual loss of $1 per hour; don't get confused and think I am referring to a loss relative to a lower wage. I am speaking about Sally being a net negative on the company's financial viability because every hour of her work costs $14 but her output is only worth $13. The company will let Sally go. Further, this is what should happen to keep the economy healthy; otherwise you are pumping $14 into a machine and getting $13 out of it, when an economy is supposed to do the opposite.
So the mistake your side makes is misunderstanding that at every incremental raise of the min wage, jobs are lost. It doesn't matter that workers have more money to spend, unless that increase in volume leads to inflation of prices, this resulting in Sally's output being worth $14+ from inflation. But your side insists min wage increases do not cause inflation and only lead to higher demand (volume). If volume demanded increases without inflation, that actually has no impact because Sally's company will not produce more units at negative margin. In fact Sally's company will produce less than before the increase in demand.
And if it does lead to inflation, Sally may not get canned, but that is a regressive cost that will hurt many lower wage workers and definitely the unemployed, whose benefits are not indexed to local inflation.
Slashdot Mirror
Call me when someone is offering genetic testing with some consequence to them if they get it wrong. Until then, this should be treated as if it were a scam.
You seem to have wandered off somewhere that has nothing to do with this conversation. I am not interested in your opinions about the best country to live in. In support freedom to choose where you live and reduction of all barriers, to the extent possible, in the way of you choosing where you live. The safety net provided by Germany has nothing to do with this. I claimed that the min wage reduced output and increases unemployment. You said the opposite. I asked how you would explain per capita GDP, a measure of output, being higher when min wage is lower. I asked how you would explain unemployment rate being lower when min wage is lower. These are two results directly in conflict with your assertion. You ignored both points in your response and instead essentially said these things are okay because of a better safety net. That is a non sequitur and I am not really interested.
Peer-to-peer communication... Like prices? This is just getting funny. You keep insisting you have some novel perspective and all you do is make an argument for why free and competitive markets are the utopia you seek. You are an example of what I see so frequently, which is someone who understands markets very well as far as what needs to exist to function well, yet has no idea that markets actually provide all those requirements already, if left alone.
You didn't talk at all about record low interest rates for 7+ years, which I found interesting.
That is not very correct. Investors know what the company is doing on the accounting side, in all but very rare fraud cases. Companies like you're talking about are pretty clear on what drives their Non-GAAP measures and they make an effort to explain why the non-GAAP measures are the "right" ones. It's a joke in the investor community how divergent GAAP and non-GAAP rev and earnings become over time. They know. They just invest anyway because they "know" others will too.
Um, no, you are exactly wrong. Uber is valued at $41b because of public stock market traders. The private investors are willing to pay $x, where $x is less than the valuation after IPO minus the time cost of money. This is all driven by idiots investing in the public stock market. They are the engine car that pulls the train.
> There are European countries with minimum and average wages much higher than ours, and they don't have those problems.
I'm sorry but I'm not sure how you would know that. You would need to compare their output currently to their output in an alternative history / parallel universe where the min wage were lower. Barring that, it's interesting that you say this but don't address why almost every EU country has a lower GDP per capita that the U.S. Granted, GDP is a flawed measurement, but feel free to look at other similar measures. The EU also has a higher unemployment rate. About double in fact.
So if I am saying that a higher min wage reduces output and causes unemployment, and you're telling me I am wrong based on what actually happens in the real world, I would have expected some addressing of these numbers. While I am not using them as proof of anything, it does seem to run counter to your claim that the "theoretical arguments" don't have predictive power in the real world.
I love when people who have no understanding of econ101 tell me I don't understand Econ101 and then spend the rest of their comment proving that they don't understand econ101.
Companies don't care about making revenue. They care about making profit. A company absolutely will choose to earn less revenue when it means more profit. Because every hour of Sally's work is a net $1 loss in profit, earning $13 in revenue through Sally's work means $14 loss in costs. The company will always be better off not having Sally work.
I think you have the wrong idea of what it means to work hard. It doesn't mean be inefficient at a task. It means be persistent as you identify growth opportunities and worthy calculated risks. Many people do not do that and look for a "safe" 9-5 job where thry operate in a well defined box and don't have surprises or expectations of upward mobility (except s cost of living raise).
I didn't talk at all about monetization. I would continue explaining, but it is clear that you cannot allow yourself to understand, probably due to worry that your long-held worldview might come into question. Best wishes.
This is a very limited view on competition. Competition creates organization and cooperation without a central plan. Your view is too limited because it ignores that resources are much more plentiful in competitive markets.
Right. I forgot about how there is no competition in open source software. What Linux distribution do you run, by the way?
The world organizes itself by competition. It's not always monetary competition. But it is competition.
I think you read my comment too fast or something.
I don't know whether their definition of grit is right and I don't know if their magic algorithm is right. I do know that our schools do not teach grit. I do know that our schools have you do 40 copies of the same math problem for homework. I share concerns about the gamification of education, but the particular issue you bring up was it created by educational games.
> Nothing wrong with encouraging kids to work hard, but are you comfortable with Google and Khan Academy using (presumably) tax-free money and their mysterious "grit algorithm" to determine education haves and have-nots?
Yes. I am comfortable trying a bunch of things to see what works. Many people are comfortable continuing what we know doesn't work. I am not.
The world is about competition. Even non-profit organizations are about competition. It might make you feel better to teach kids what you call "cooperation", but since you think cooperation is the opposite of competition, then you should be kept away from teaching children anything about life. People like you have heavily influenced education for 3 or 4 decades, and as a result we are churning out people who have no idea how the world works, and especially how markets work (to enable efficient cooperation).
The current education system doesn't work, and some will be troubled as we attempt various other ways that might work. Some will be troubled as we displace people who currently operate the system that doesn't work.
As for the linked complaint about grit implying that poor kids are poor because they don't try hard, who cares what it implies? I don't care if it hurts someone's feelings to misinterpret what this may or may not imply. I don't care if poor kids are poor because of external reasons. What does it matter? Should we spend our time explaining to them that they are victims of a system and have no hope, or should we teach them how to work hard? Perhaps grit is even more important for poor kids who have to work even harder to get out from where they started?
Politically correct jerks can be offended all they want. That doesn't help kids achieve.
First time any terrorist act happens, it will be blamed on the loss of domestic spying powers. This is how the politics game works.
Yes, let's stick to the news sources that are unbiased like...
I love this argument. Left wing nuts expand the welfare state to no end. And then point out that people are using the endless welfare programs. Then that is somehow reason to do even more idiotic left wing nut policies so we can reduce usage of welfare programs.
Before I get stuck in an infinite loop of left wing idiocy, I would like to ask: if your goal is to control welfare spending, then why the hell do you keep expanding welfare programs?
The most hilarious part is that your prime example was Medicaid. It was you left wing nuts that just told us in 2009 that we had to expand Medicaid to everyone and their brother in order to achieve health care utopia. And now you're complaining that a lot of people are on Medicaid? You set the fscking eligibility criteria!
Go away, clown.
Sorry, but why do I give a damn about the level of consumption of anyone else? You say I am happiest when everyone consumes the same amount? It would be nice to see an explanation of that, because I don't get it.
Making the min wage $15/he does not mean bob gets $15/hr. Bob will get whatever the local unemployment compensation agency determines is the right amount of money.
Then why not raise the min wage much more?
You thought you were avoiding the trap of his question, but the reality is all answers lead you to a trap, because raising the minimum wage is dumb policy. Your bell curve comment makes no sense and I think a bell curve is not what you mean. What you mean, I think, is that raising the min wage improves the lives of everyone or at least a subset of socioeconomic strata, then at some point you get diminishing returns for that subset, and then at some point you actually have negative consequences for that subset. So assuming that is what you mean, that isn't a bell curve concept, but I get why you said that. Let's assume that's what you mean.
Unfortunately, that does not make sense. You seem to have ignored the very valid point my friend made at the end of his post, which is unfortunate because that was the KEY point. Most policies like this only sound good if you assume an otherwise static economy. But that's silly. In this case, if Sally's work output is worth $13 per hour to the company, so long as her wage is less than $13 per hour, she is likely to have a job available (gross oversimplification, but true enough for the purposes of this discussion). Now suppose Sally's city imposes a $14/hr min wage. Sally is ecstatic about getting a raise until she instead gets a pink slip. This is because the company will produce less output. The company will not produce incremental output from Sally, because every hour Sally works means a loss of $1 in profit. An actual loss of $1 per hour; don't get confused and think I am referring to a loss relative to a lower wage. I am speaking about Sally being a net negative on the company's financial viability because every hour of her work costs $14 but her output is only worth $13. The company will let Sally go. Further, this is what should happen to keep the economy healthy; otherwise you are pumping $14 into a machine and getting $13 out of it, when an economy is supposed to do the opposite.
So the mistake your side makes is misunderstanding that at every incremental raise of the min wage, jobs are lost. It doesn't matter that workers have more money to spend, unless that increase in volume leads to inflation of prices, this resulting in Sally's output being worth $14+ from inflation. But your side insists min wage increases do not cause inflation and only lead to higher demand (volume). If volume demanded increases without inflation, that actually has no impact because Sally's company will not produce more units at negative margin. In fact Sally's company will produce less than before the increase in demand.
And if it does lead to inflation, Sally may not get canned, but that is a regressive cost that will hurt many lower wage workers and definitely the unemployed, whose benefits are not indexed to local inflation.
And taxi drivers. Stop uber!