It's not uncommon for skilled people to be out of work. The question is what policies do we enact to prevent this? Tariffs? Quotas? Bans? Boycotts? Taxes?
All of those polcies are destructively counter-productive. The only real solution, as it has worked in Switzerland, is to cut taxes drastically. This would at least give businesses incentives to hire people again rather than go overseas.
Everyone said the same thing about farmers when they got new machines like combines that enabled them to produce more food cheaper. In the short run, yes, these farmers did reap a good profit.
But in the long run, all the other farmers started to catch up. Video games have consistently been priced at $50-$70, but the quality and complexity has been steadily increasing. Now why is that?
Ahh yes steel tariffs. Did you know steel tariffs have been protecting inefficient US steel companies, as well as forcing automakers and other steel-buyers to cut thousands of jobs to pay for steel that is almost double the price?
Tariffs have a history of driving up prices, causing a net job loss, while protecting greedy-competetitors.
I've been using Opera for about 3 years now. For around 98% of the sites I visit, Opera does a fine and dandy job. But what about the 2% that require IE?
Right-click. Open document in Explorer.
The point is that even at 90% market share they're not invincible. The key is to convince people to use Firefox for general usage, to which it is superb. When enough people do this more sites will start using designing their websites for Firefox. Ya, it's an uphill battle, but it's not the sheer rock face you make it out to be.
Don't own a TV. There is very little worth watching. If you do own a TV you use V-chips to screen out channels anyway. Now of course children can run off and go to their friend's place and watch their TV, but once again that's your responsibility as a parent.
Either way it's a trade off between 'freedom of speech' and 'think-of-the-children!'. I don't think the government should be thinking of the children, parents should.
There's a big difference between actual anonymity and perceived anonymity
Agreed. So long as 2 computers are exchanging files their IP addresses must be known to each other. ISPs know exactly which IP address belongs to who. They just have no reason to sue you for copyright infringement, they'd just been driving away their customers.
Hiding one's IP address is a fundamental barrier of anonymous TCP/IP file transfer. However progress is being made here.
My brother spilled water on his keyboard and naturally the thing was completly borked. He refused to believe it at the time however.
In his wisdom he unscrewed the keybaord, opened it up and hair dried the circuits in vain. Obviously he ended up buying a new keyboard.
Seriously. All manner of filth just accumulates just below the keys.
I'd like to know why no one has come up with a decent, washable keyboard. Most of the ones on the market are way too expensive are just too impratical. Are there some engineering problems with the design? Outside of the whole water-and-electricity-don't-mix thing I mean.
1. I'm aware of this. This is exactly where I went to fix my mouse. As I said, after 1h of tweaking my mouse was still uncontrollable. I also sought help in the forums for optimal settings. They told me to edit some config file that I couldn't find
2. I'm aware. Please read the entire discussion in the newbie forums. I ran into several conflict errors and unsatisfied dependencies.
3. I do not why it crashes either. But I have no inclination to use Mandrake 10 unless one-click-install is implmented, and I can control uninstallation with similar ease.
4. RPMS did not automatically add shortcuts anywhere. I couldn't run any programs from my home directory either.
5. C-Media. The driver is supported, but installation instruction were very complicated. I couldn't do it in the end.
6. Mandrake 9.2. The monitor Hz level was set between 40-90. My monitor only supported 60-70. Thus, my monitor freaked out when the Hz went too high.
I heard L--ndows wasn't free, but recently I also heard that's change. I knew L--ndows was user-friendly as well, but I was hoping to go for the full Linux experience and not go halfway.
I heard Mandrake was one of the easiest distros to use in terms of configuration and drivers. Sp I gave 9.2 a shot after getting the isos on FTP sites.
THE GOOD
1. Much prettier interface. Everything from the icons to the taskbar, to Konqueror was top notch
2. All my hardware worked right away; sound card, mouse, keyboard, video card, with exception of my Palm Pilot cradle. I had some monitor problems as you'll read about as well.
3. Speedy as hell. You'd run a program and it would actually run within a reasonable time.
4. Internet worked right off the bat. Awesome.
5. The video player played a lot of files easy-peasy and I didn't have to fight with codecs.
6. I could still access my Windows folders. Another great benefit.
THE BAD
1. My mouse was uncontrollable. XP has both a speed and acceleration option that is great for mouse control. The mouse options box in Mandrake didn't have these options and it was frustrating to use the mouse, even after twinking these settings for an hour.
2. By far the biggest problem: Installing programs. In XP it's as easy as double clicking an icon and picking a directory. Not so with Linux. You can read my post on the newbie forums here.
I have no idea where anything installs to, nor the best way to uninstall things. Inevitably I have to use the command line. Even as an X-MSDOS user I found it very frustrating.
3. Despite claims of stability, Konqeror crashed repeatedly. I can not say why.
4. After installing a program, finding where it installed to would be like pulling teeth. Making a shortcut would be even worse.
5. Installing the correct driver for my soundcard was very complicated, even after reading the INSTALL file. I eventually gave up.
6. I got a sync out of range message when I first tried running Mandrake. I left the monitor settings on default during install. This took hours to discover and fix.
But above all installing programs is a pain. This means, once the desktop is setup, Mandrake is a dream. But configuring it requires far too much expertise, at least it seems like it. I found myself posting time and time again on the forums. They were very helpful people but their answers often left me more confused than I started.
I'm not trying to flame, just provide constructive criticism and ways to help make Mandrake better. I wish them the best.
The Forbes article is quite right. Minimum wage laws do not cause massive unemployment, but this depends on the minimum wage increase. For example, increasing minimum wage from $5 to $6 will only unemploy people making $5/h, which is clearly a minority. This does not make minimum wage beneficial at all, as overall employment has decreased, and nobody gets an increase in their wages either.
If someone makes $0.75/h, surely a minimum wage of say, $3, $4, or $5 will cause drastic unemployment. I'm not sure what level you wish to set, but too little a minimum wage will be pointless, and too high a level will be devastating. Anything in between will be a combination of both.
The article's most supportive claim for your argument is as follows: Minimum wage can help in certain situations when the free market is values labor lower than what it should be. By increasing minimum wage they will shuffle off into more productive employment.
This is indeed possible. The free market is not smooth. It is often jerky and sudden, as the business cycle indicates. But it is difficult to tell when labor is being undervalued. A permanent minimum wage policy may do good in some situations, but harm in many others. I apologize for not providing more examples, my books are in another city at the moment.
Here's the NYTimes link that isn't dead, it's not directly about unemployment, but rather about the situation of 'exploited' labor: here
And although we can't follow up Nhep Chanda, between working in a factory, and looting through garbage, she'd probably be better off 20 years from now with the former.
A combination of pure capitalism and socialism can be beneficial, particularly in controlling education, pollution, and natural monopolies. This much is true. The effects of other policies are questionable.
Thank you for the debate and I hope we've both taken something out of this,
Killswitch1968
Once again I'll address your points and arguments. If I missed any arguments you made, please list them concisely so it makes it easier to rebut them. Starting from the top:
1. When you make a statement, you assume its automatically true, but do not allow such things for me. Many of the theoretical perspectives you apply only work in countries that are A) industrialized B) Value human rights C) Have a similar belief system to our own, and you cannot tell me that Asian countries value the individual over the group. ...
Course you don't provide any proof of [the relationship between unemployment and minimum wage], and its just as much opinion as my own.
Basic economic principles are not false simply because advanced principles also exist. The advanced principles simply build upon them. The basic economic truths are not falsified. Calculus still recognizes that 2+2=4.
Economics does not discriminate industrialized vs. unindustrialized, human rights or no human rights. These principles have applied since the dawn of civilization, from the egyptians, to the Romans, to the Dark Ages, and today. The only assumption economics makes is that property is protected. If people are being robbed involuntarily, then none of these rules apply.
Here's another example of minimum wage laws creating massive unemployment:
When Hong Kong was a British colony and its wage rates were set by supply and demand, its unemployment rate was less than 2 percent. After China took it over and mandated worker benefits the unemployment rate went over 8 percent. And these are CHINESE standards of minimum wage.
Another example: "Nhep Chanda averages 75 cents a day for her efforts. For her, the idea of being exploited in a garment factory -- working only six days a week, inside instead of in the broiling sun, for up to $2 a day -- is a dream." NYTimes (link is dead, I apologize)
Similarly in South Africa, massive waitlists for employment were generated from minimum wage laws. Employers would be swamped with hundreds of resumes in one day after announcing an opening.
Source: PT. Bauer, ?Regulated Wages in Underdeveloped Countries,? The Public Stake in Union Power, ed. Philip D. Bradley (University of Virginia Press, 1959), p. 346.
Adequate proof? Even basic supply and demand curves can demonstrate this, albeit the real life examples are more powerful. Minimum wage laws are indeed counterproductive, as I previously mentioned and you so cursorily dismissed.
Therefore, 3rd world countries must still obey economic laws. Living standards, better working conditions, etc. are just minimum wage by another name in their overall effects. Your Honduras example is flawed because nobody has talked to the workers. Are they glad they actually have a job? Are they glad that no minimum wage laws exist that would drive them onto the street? Are they glad that they can leave this job whenever they want?
The American laws for minimum wage and living standards had little to do with our economic growth. Every economics textbook (that you claim to have picked up) will state: A countries wealth depends on its productivity, not minimum wage laws. (and yes, some go so far as to mention state minimum wage. If you need a source I will dutifully provide.
I can guarantee if minimum wage laws were lifted scarcely anybody would see a drop in their wages. More importantly, millions of teenagers could now be hired and gain valuable work experience that they otherwise would not have.
2. You make a cause-effect fallacy when you say that outsourcing increasing employment in the long run.
This is partly true. The only way a cause-effect fallacy can be detected is by doing a radnomized statistical study. That is we randomly allocate >10 countries, and put them in 2 treatment groups. One that prevents all trade (or outsourcing, or has minimum wage, or whatever) and one that has free trade. Only then can cause and effect be determined.
Obvi
I got a Pentium 5 Series 17Quadrillion Hyperfubar with a squigabyte of intellicache."
Most of the time 'funny' on slashdot involves Profit!!! or something in communist russia. But this, this was awesome. You sir are an asset to the community.
You are not making any points. You keep regurgitating that they need standards and living wages and minimum wage and all these things that I knock down repeatedly, yet you continue on in the most pretentious and mocking manner. If I left out quoted text it's because it was redundant. If I missed something important, than bring it to my attention. Otherwise you are creating strawmen.
Here is the link, I hope it doesn't disappear again: here
I can not quote you on everything because it is reptetious and mostly void of argument. I do my best to summarize your arguments (rather than quoting paragraphs and making red herrings) because it is simply more logical, and a more condensed read. Let me start with your arguments you've made and why they are wrong:
1. Companies should be forced to pay living wages and improve living standards of their employees.
Wrong. As I've said before you are damning them to unemployment. You consistently ignore that in every post you make, and it is the crux of my argument.
Providing a low wage is not slavery whatsoever. Like I said it's voluntarily. You say that's stupid because they will die without the job so they have to take it, and therefore have no choice. Let's see why this is a poor argument.
i) If the choice is to take this job or starve to death, your solution is to let them starve, or at least the majority of them through your insane minimum wage laws.
ii) If the choice is to take this job or take another low paying job, you are making them worse off by preventing them from getting access to those jobs, either through minimum wage or making it outright illegal.
You then list off a host of oxymorons: Voluntary rape, voluntary slavery, voluntary murder, etc. None of these make any sense. They would really be: voluntary sex, voluntary work, and voluntary suicide. Very poor argument.
They choose to work in hazardous conditions and take a low pay? Why? Because they would rather take this job than a local job. Who are you to deny them that? Once again: you cannot give them better working conditions because you will be damning to unemployment. Come up with a better solution, if you can.
As far as I can tell that's your major argument. And you've made no effort other than pejoratives to argue back. Come up with a solution that doesn't involve massive unemployment in third world countries and we'll talk.
2. We are exporting our jobs away making us poorer
You brought this up on 2 occasions and both times you ignored an important reality.
As I've said many times, cheaper imports mean more savings which mean more spending. Yes, a minority of people will lose their jobs, but many more will gain jobs now that the economy has grown due to the increased spending power of money. It's likely that person will find work in one of these new jobs. Whether it's better or not depends on the talents of that person. It's possible he won't get a better job, but that's no excuse for forcing millions of people to pay for overpriced goods.
You are only looking at it from one side, while conveniently ignoring the millions of other people who have benefited and contributed to the economy. The car example is one of these. Yes, the automakers lost their jobs, but thousands of other people gained jobs. Yet you conveniently ignored this.
3. It apparently doesn't take into account, a vast labor pool of desperate laborers, which means no need to increase wages. No labor laws, means no incentive to improve wages, or working conditions. As you've pointed out, its not economical to do so, and there is no incentive to for a business to do any of that. Therefore, they do not gain better wages, and the economy does not improve, or if it does, it takes a very long time. D therefore doesn't take place, or when it does, all the jobs are lost when the people or government make demands on better conditions. The compan
In order to see the logic, all you have to do is re-read your initial post and what I said. Pretty much, you said. If you lose your job to somebody in the 3rd world who can be paid less, that's okay, too bad for you. However, if we make the requirement that outsourced business require liveable working conditions and be paid the minimum wage at the very least (in order to do business in the US), that is bad.
No. The logic wasn't based on 3rd world labor = good, American labor = bad. It's based on government intervention screwing up the marketplace. This is artificial unemployment. THAT is what I'm against. Minimum wage laws have a history of causing unemployment. Here's your proof/source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/153901_unemp loy26.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=49
I am completly in favor of employing 10 third world workers if it puts one American out of work. Why? Because I am not as nationalistic as you. I realize that an unemployed American will be far better off than an unemployed Indian.
Seriously though, I'd choose A everytime. Paying well, doesn't = being overpaid. In many cases, it can mean, enough pay to raise a family, buy a house, car, etc... B is stupid, and in the long run, I think that it will end up hurting more than it does good.
A) may be a better choice. For example:
An American worker can make 150 T-shirts in 1h at $15/h.
A Chinese worker can make 10 T-shirts at 2$/h.
In this case it would be wise to higher the American worker. He makes 10 T-shirts/$h where as the Chinese worker only makes 5 T-shirts/$h.
But this is not always the case. It depends on productivity. To blindly pay somebody more out of 'good conscience' will end up putting you out of business. The above anaylsis is crucial if you want to stay competetive. Any attempt to 'level the playing field' will cause more unemployment and drive up the price of goods.
Am I supposed to care if they become unemployed?
As a reasonable human being, yes of course you should. It's funny you complain that these people need protection like living standards and minimum wage laws, and all along you don't really care what happens, just so long as it benefits American. Try to be a little more compassionate.
People in the US become employed because of 3rd world labor, and I'm seriously supposed to care? Boohoo, it costs a company some pocket change to add fire escapes and to remove the carcinogens. Honestly, I don't care if it costs more money for them to improve their working environment. In the long run, if its a stable business, the costs will be paid for, or is implication that corporations need to flee with minimal loss of revenue from a country the second the govt. starts making reasonable demands?
Yes, sometimes increasing the living environment makes the workers more productive. Sometimes it doesn't. These are the decisions that a business must make on their own. And they are very good at it. Believe me, if increasing working conditions would make the business more efficient they would have done it already. But to arbitrarily say that they must do these things makes them less competetive and causes unemployment by increasing costs. Let the workers decide if they want to work under the conditions, or take a low paying job somewhere else.
Who are you to say that they should be able to play by different and easier rules? Who are you to say that they have a right to steal jobs from us? In simple mathmatics, there is no way any worker in the US can truly compete with 3rd world labor. We have laws that require workers to be paid a minimum amount. They do not. We have laws stating we have a right to a safe work environment, no descrimination, a limit on how long a person can work without a break...etc...Now your saying, its okay for somebody to sell products in the US, but not play by the rul
1. It doesn't matter how long you've studied, what you studied, what your investment is, or anything like that. Your going to university doesn't guarantee you anything. It doesn't matter that you studied computer science. If you went to school for 4 years and can't get a job over 30K, then that was a poor decision on your part. University is about making yourself valuable to employers. That requires you own intiative and research. Nobody will hand you a job because you have a degree.
2.
So what your saying is that firing productive well paid workers, and unemploying them is okay. Then hiring slave labor, thats not very productive and paying them more is bad because its not profitable. That if we pay them minimum wage it will make them unemployed. So unemploy US workers good, unemploy 3rd world workers bad. Umm yeah..... I can see the logic in that.
I have no idea where you got my 'logic' from. I am against paying 3rd world people minimum wage beacuse it will unemploy them. I am against forcing companies to hire overpriced American labor because it will drive up the price of goods and make the economy more sluggish and more unemployed. Therefore: I am against unemployment.
Employers are not in the business of supplying jobs, they are in the business of supplying products. This means either:
A. Hiring very productive people and paying them well.
B. Hiring fairly unproductive people and paying them little.
Which you choose depends on the actual numerical values of the production output, and the wages paid. In this case, it is more economical to pay Indians to do the same work as Americans. If Americans don't want to work under those 'dreadful' conditions, that's too bad. I'm happy for the Indians who actually have a job.
There's nothing wrong with someone willing to do your job for less, regardless of where they live.
3. Productivity is not just goods, it's service as well. America is a producer of 'service' people. These include your 'fast food' employee, but also doctors, lawyers, managers, CEOs, marketers, decision makers. These are jobs that require talent. Moreover this talent is scarce. Computer programmers are not scarce. And if you know anything of economics, this means computer programmer wages will fall. And they should.
More on third world laborers: Third world laborers are more inefficient. They aren't as educated and they don't have the machines we do. Paying them even minimum wage would grossly overvalue their production. Giving them so-called "livable" environment is also expensive. Any measure that would over-value the employees would cause them to be unemployed.
It is unfortunate these workers live in such conditions. They didn't grow up with an education or with great infrastrucutre. That is the reality. You can't remedy this with your policies, only through slow economic growth. Such growth comes from free trade and a healthy economic climate.
If they have a choice between a $0.30/h corporate job or a $0.15/h local job, who are you to deny them the corporate job? You are unknowingly damning them to a lifetime of poverty. By forcing companies to pay $5.00/h you are removing those jobs as these companies will find another country that is worth $5.00/h
Yes competition is a prerequisite for low prices. Fortunately there are no monopolies on clothes, shoes, tires, electronics, etc. Therefore prices will go down, despite your picturesque vision of corporate shareholders feeding from the trough.
People then save money when import goods are cheaper. This is either saved or spent, both of which stimulate the American economy. People predicted that when all the auto-making jobs went to Mexico after NAFTA that we'd have massive unemployment. In reality the reverse happened. This is comparative advantage and I suggest you read up on it before you post again.
1. Well educated people who don't have jobs - Being well educated doesn't mean anything. I could go to school for 4 years and learn how to snake juggle, but it doesn't mean I should make $40K/year. You are worth only as much as your productivity, and if someone is willing to work for less than you in, that's your problem.
2. "If we outsource all our jobs we won't be able to pay for our goods" - Makes absolutely no sense for a huge number of reasons:
a) When we outsource production goods are cheaper to produce. These savings are passed on to the consumer who can then spend their money on other goods or save it, making it avaiable to companies. Both of which increase employment nationally.
b) Even if the amount of job created were less than the amount of jobs gained, we couldn't possible outsource everyone. Eventually unemployment would rise and people would bid down their wages, making American competetive again. This might seem so terrible that our wages might drop, but wages are not wealth. Our production ability makes us wealthy. This happened with Japanese automakers, and they are doing just fine.
3. Outsourcing should be regulated to protect the poor Chinese laborers handcuffed to converyor belts making shoes - First of all, it's not slave labor because they have volunteered to do it. They obviously chose this job out of a list of alternative things they could be doing. By denying them this job you will make them worse off. We cannot superimpose American standards on third world countries.
Minimum wage will be a terrible thing to implement as well. These workers are far less productive than Americans. If you pay them minimum wage it won't be profitable to hire them anymore, and they'll all be unemployed. Your policies will hurt these third world countries, not help them.
You may take a pay cut, but everyone around you will be making far less money than you. It is very common for the wealthy in India to have servants for cooking, cleaning, gardening, anc even driving.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not uncommon for skilled people to be out of work. The question is what policies do we enact to prevent this? Tariffs? Quotas? Bans? Boycotts? Taxes?
All of those polcies are destructively counter-productive. The only real solution, as it has worked in Switzerland, is to cut taxes drastically. This would at least give businesses incentives to hire people again rather than go overseas.
Everyone said the same thing about farmers when they got new machines like combines that enabled them to produce more food cheaper. In the short run, yes, these farmers did reap a good profit.
But in the long run, all the other farmers started to catch up. Video games have consistently been priced at $50-$70, but the quality and complexity has been steadily increasing. Now why is that?
Ahh yes steel tariffs. Did you know steel tariffs have been protecting inefficient US steel companies, as well as forcing automakers and other steel-buyers to cut thousands of jobs to pay for steel that is almost double the price?
Tariffs have a history of driving up prices, causing a net job loss, while protecting greedy-competetitors.
I've been using Opera for about 3 years now. For around 98% of the sites I visit, Opera does a fine and dandy job. But what about the 2% that require IE?
Right-click. Open document in Explorer.
The point is that even at 90% market share they're not invincible. The key is to convince people to use Firefox for general usage, to which it is superb. When enough people do this more sites will start using designing their websites for Firefox.
Ya, it's an uphill battle, but it's not the sheer rock face you make it out to be.
Don't own a TV. There is very little worth watching. If you do own a TV you use V-chips to screen out channels anyway. Now of course children can run off and go to their friend's place and watch their TV, but once again that's your responsibility as a parent.
Either way it's a trade off between 'freedom of speech' and 'think-of-the-children!'. I don't think the government should be thinking of the children, parents should.
Great post. I don't have much to add, except kudos.
Agreed. So long as 2 computers are exchanging files their IP addresses must be known to each other. ISPs know exactly which IP address belongs to who. They just have no reason to sue you for copyright infringement, they'd just been driving away their customers.
Hiding one's IP address is a fundamental barrier of anonymous TCP/IP file transfer. However progress is being made here.
My brother spilled water on his keyboard and naturally the thing was completly borked. He refused to believe it at the time however.
In his wisdom he unscrewed the keybaord, opened it up and hair dried the circuits in vain. Obviously he ended up buying a new keyboard.
Seriously. All manner of filth just accumulates just below the keys.
I'd like to know why no one has come up with a decent, washable keyboard. Most of the ones on the market are way too expensive are just too impratical. Are there some engineering problems with the design? Outside of the whole water-and-electricity-don't-mix thing I mean.
1 piece tights for the ladies, yowza.
1. I'm aware of this. This is exactly where I went to fix my mouse. As I said, after 1h of tweaking my mouse was still uncontrollable. I also sought help in the forums for optimal settings. They told me to edit some config file that I couldn't find
2. I'm aware. Please read the entire discussion in the newbie forums. I ran into several conflict errors and unsatisfied dependencies.
3. I do not why it crashes either. But I have no inclination to use Mandrake 10 unless one-click-install is implmented, and I can control uninstallation with similar ease.
4. RPMS did not automatically add shortcuts anywhere. I couldn't run any programs from my home directory either.
5. C-Media. The driver is supported, but installation instruction were very complicated. I couldn't do it in the end.
6. Mandrake 9.2. The monitor Hz level was set between 40-90. My monitor only supported 60-70. Thus, my monitor freaked out when the Hz went too high.
I heard L--ndows wasn't free, but recently I also heard that's change. I knew L--ndows was user-friendly as well, but I was hoping to go for the full Linux experience and not go halfway.
I heard Mandrake was one of the easiest distros to use in terms of configuration and drivers. Sp I gave 9.2 a shot after getting the isos on FTP sites.
THE GOOD
1. Much prettier interface. Everything from the icons to the taskbar, to Konqueror was top notch
2. All my hardware worked right away; sound card, mouse, keyboard, video card, with exception of my Palm Pilot cradle. I had some monitor problems as you'll read about as well.
3. Speedy as hell. You'd run a program and it would actually run within a reasonable time.
4. Internet worked right off the bat. Awesome.
5. The video player played a lot of files easy-peasy and I didn't have to fight with codecs.
6. I could still access my Windows folders. Another great benefit.
THE BAD
1. My mouse was uncontrollable. XP has both a speed and acceleration option that is great for mouse control. The mouse options box in Mandrake didn't have these options and it was frustrating to use the mouse, even after twinking these settings for an hour.
2. By far the biggest problem: Installing programs. In XP it's as easy as double clicking an icon and picking a directory. Not so with Linux. You can read my post on the newbie forums
here.
I have no idea where anything installs to, nor the best way to uninstall things. Inevitably I have to use the command line. Even as an X-MSDOS user I found it very frustrating.
3. Despite claims of stability, Konqeror crashed repeatedly. I can not say why.
4. After installing a program, finding where it installed to would be like pulling teeth. Making a shortcut would be even worse.
5. Installing the correct driver for my soundcard was very complicated, even after reading the INSTALL file. I eventually gave up.
6. I got a sync out of range message when I first tried running Mandrake. I left the monitor settings on default during install. This took hours to discover and fix.
But above all installing programs is a pain. This means, once the desktop is setup, Mandrake is a dream. But configuring it requires far too much expertise, at least it seems like it. I found myself posting time and time again on the forums. They were very helpful people but their answers often left me more confused than I started.
I'm not trying to flame, just provide constructive criticism and ways to help make Mandrake better. I wish them the best.
The Forbes article is quite right. Minimum wage laws do not cause massive unemployment, but this depends on the minimum wage increase. For example, increasing minimum wage from $5 to $6 will only unemploy people making $5/h, which is clearly a minority. This does not make minimum wage beneficial at all, as overall employment has decreased, and nobody gets an increase in their wages either.
If someone makes $0.75/h, surely a minimum wage of say, $3, $4, or $5 will cause drastic unemployment. I'm not sure what level you wish to set, but too little a minimum wage will be pointless, and too high a level will be devastating. Anything in between will be a combination of both.
The article's most supportive claim for your argument is as follows:
Minimum wage can help in certain situations when the free market is values labor lower than what it should be. By increasing minimum wage they will shuffle off into more productive employment.
This is indeed possible. The free market is not smooth. It is often jerky and sudden, as the business cycle indicates. But it is difficult to tell when labor is being undervalued. A permanent minimum wage policy may do good in some situations, but harm in many others. I apologize for not providing more examples, my books are in another city at the moment.
Here's the NYTimes link that isn't dead, it's not directly about unemployment, but rather about the situation of 'exploited' labor:
here
And although we can't follow up Nhep Chanda, between working in a factory, and looting through garbage, she'd probably be better off 20 years from now with the former.
A combination of pure capitalism and socialism can be beneficial, particularly in controlling education, pollution, and natural monopolies. This much is true. The effects of other policies are questionable.
Thank you for the debate and I hope we've both taken something out of this,
Killswitch1968
Once again I'll address your points and arguments. If I missed any arguments you made, please list them concisely so it makes it easier to rebut them. Starting from the top:
...
1. When you make a statement, you assume its automatically true, but do not allow such things for me. Many of the theoretical perspectives you apply only work in countries that are A) industrialized B) Value human rights C) Have a similar belief system to our own, and you cannot tell me that Asian countries value the individual over the group.
Course you don't provide any proof of [the relationship between unemployment and minimum wage], and its just as much opinion as my own.
Basic economic principles are not false simply because advanced principles also exist. The advanced principles simply build upon them. The basic economic truths are not falsified. Calculus still recognizes that 2+2=4.
Economics does not discriminate industrialized vs. unindustrialized, human rights or no human rights. These principles have applied since the dawn of civilization, from the egyptians, to the Romans, to the Dark Ages, and today.
The only assumption economics makes is that property is protected. If people are being robbed involuntarily, then none of these rules apply.
Here's another example of minimum wage laws creating massive unemployment:
When Hong Kong was a British colony and its wage rates were set by supply and demand, its unemployment rate was less than 2 percent. After China took it over and mandated worker benefits the unemployment rate went over 8 percent. And these are CHINESE standards of minimum wage.
Another example: "Nhep Chanda averages 75 cents a day for her efforts. For her, the idea of being exploited in a garment factory -- working only six days a week, inside instead of in the broiling sun, for up to $2 a day -- is a dream." NYTimes (link is dead, I apologize)
Similarly in South Africa, massive waitlists for employment were generated from minimum wage laws. Employers would be swamped with hundreds of resumes in one day after announcing an opening.
Source: PT. Bauer, ?Regulated Wages in Underdeveloped Countries,? The Public Stake in Union Power, ed. Philip D. Bradley (University of Virginia Press, 1959), p. 346.
Adequate proof? Even basic supply and demand curves can demonstrate this, albeit the real life examples are more powerful. Minimum wage laws are indeed counterproductive, as I previously mentioned and you so cursorily dismissed.
Therefore, 3rd world countries must still obey economic laws. Living standards, better working conditions, etc. are just minimum wage by another name in their overall effects. Your Honduras example is flawed because nobody has talked to the workers. Are they glad they actually have a job? Are they glad that no minimum wage laws exist that would drive them onto the street? Are they glad that they can leave this job whenever they want?
The American laws for minimum wage and living standards had little to do with our economic growth. Every economics textbook (that you claim to have picked up) will state: A countries wealth depends on its productivity, not minimum wage laws. (and yes, some go so far as to mention state minimum wage. If you need a source I will dutifully provide.
I can guarantee if minimum wage laws were lifted scarcely anybody would see a drop in their wages. More importantly, millions of teenagers could now be hired and gain valuable work experience that they otherwise would not have.
2. You make a cause-effect fallacy when you say that outsourcing increasing employment in the long run.
This is partly true. The only way a cause-effect fallacy can be detected is by doing a radnomized statistical study. That is we randomly allocate >10 countries, and put them in 2 treatment groups. One that prevents all trade (or outsourcing, or has minimum wage, or whatever) and one that has free trade. Only then can cause and effect be determined.
Obvi
Most of the time 'funny' on slashdot involves Profit!!! or something in communist russia. But this, this was awesome. You sir are an asset to the community.
You are not making any points. You keep regurgitating that they need standards and living wages and minimum wage and all these things that I knock down repeatedly, yet you continue on in the most pretentious and mocking manner. If I left out quoted text it's because it was redundant. If I missed something important, than bring it to my attention. Otherwise you are creating strawmen.
Here is the link, I hope it doesn't disappear again:
here
I can not quote you on everything because it is reptetious and mostly void of argument. I do my best to summarize your arguments (rather than quoting paragraphs and making red herrings) because it is simply more logical, and a more condensed read. Let me start with your arguments you've made and why they are wrong:
1. Companies should be forced to pay living wages and improve living standards of their employees.
Wrong. As I've said before you are damning them to unemployment. You consistently ignore that in every post you make, and it is the crux of my argument.
Providing a low wage is not slavery whatsoever. Like I said it's voluntarily. You say that's stupid because they will die without the job so they have to take it, and therefore have no choice. Let's see why this is a poor argument.
i) If the choice is to take this job or starve to death, your solution is to let them starve, or at least the majority of them through your insane minimum wage laws.
ii) If the choice is to take this job or take another low paying job, you are making them worse off by preventing them from getting access to those jobs, either through minimum wage or making it outright illegal.
You then list off a host of oxymorons: Voluntary rape, voluntary slavery, voluntary murder, etc. None of these make any sense. They would really be: voluntary sex, voluntary work, and voluntary suicide. Very poor argument.
They choose to work in hazardous conditions and take a low pay? Why? Because they would rather take this job than a local job. Who are you to deny them that? Once again: you cannot give them better working conditions because you will be damning to unemployment. Come up with a better solution, if you can.
As far as I can tell that's your major argument. And you've made no effort other than pejoratives to argue back. Come up with a solution that doesn't involve massive unemployment in third world countries and we'll talk.
2. We are exporting our jobs away making us poorer
You brought this up on 2 occasions and both times you ignored an important reality.
As I've said many times, cheaper imports mean more savings which mean more spending. Yes, a minority of people will lose their jobs, but many more will gain jobs now that the economy has grown due to the increased spending power of money. It's likely that person will find work in one of these new jobs. Whether it's better or not depends on the talents of that person. It's possible he won't get a better job, but that's no excuse for forcing millions of people to pay for overpriced goods.
You are only looking at it from one side, while conveniently ignoring the millions of other people who have benefited and contributed to the economy. The car example is one of these. Yes, the automakers lost their jobs, but thousands of other people gained jobs. Yet you conveniently ignored this.
3. It apparently doesn't take into account, a vast labor pool of desperate laborers, which means no need to increase wages. No labor laws, means no incentive to improve wages, or working conditions. As you've pointed out, its not economical to do so, and there is no incentive to for a business to do any of that. Therefore, they do not gain better wages, and the economy does not improve, or if it does, it takes a very long time. D therefore doesn't take place, or when it does, all the jobs are lost when the people or government make demands on better conditions. The compan
No. The logic wasn't based on 3rd world labor = good, American labor = bad. It's based on government intervention screwing up the marketplace. This is artificial unemployment. THAT is what I'm against. Minimum wage laws have a history of causing unemployment. Here's your proof/source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/153901_unemp loy26.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=49
I am completly in favor of employing 10 third world workers if it puts one American out of work. Why? Because I am not as nationalistic as you. I realize that an unemployed American will be far better off than an unemployed Indian.
A) may be a better choice. For example:
An American worker can make 150 T-shirts in 1h at $15/h.
A Chinese worker can make 10 T-shirts at 2$/h.
In this case it would be wise to higher the American worker. He makes 10 T-shirts/$h where as the Chinese worker only makes 5 T-shirts/$h.
But this is not always the case. It depends on productivity. To blindly pay somebody more out of 'good conscience' will end up putting you out of business. The above anaylsis is crucial if you want to stay competetive. Any attempt to 'level the playing field' will cause more unemployment and drive up the price of goods.
As a reasonable human being, yes of course you should. It's funny you complain that these people need protection like living standards and minimum wage laws, and all along you don't really care what happens, just so long as it benefits American. Try to be a little more compassionate.
Yes, sometimes increasing the living environment makes the workers more productive. Sometimes it doesn't. These are the decisions that a business must make on their own. And they are very good at it. Believe me, if increasing working conditions would make the business more efficient they would have done it already. But to arbitrarily say that they must do these things makes them less competetive and causes unemployment by increasing costs. Let the workers decide if they want to work under the conditions, or take a low paying job somewhere else.
or Rocky 5000
2. I have no idea where you got my 'logic' from. I am against paying 3rd world people minimum wage beacuse it will unemploy them. I am against forcing companies to hire overpriced American labor because it will drive up the price of goods and make the economy more sluggish and more unemployed. Therefore: I am against unemployment.
Employers are not in the business of supplying jobs, they are in the business of supplying products. This means either:
A. Hiring very productive people and paying them well.
B. Hiring fairly unproductive people and paying them little.
Which you choose depends on the actual numerical values of the production output, and the wages paid. In this case, it is more economical to pay Indians to do the same work as Americans. If Americans don't want to work under those 'dreadful' conditions, that's too bad. I'm happy for the Indians who actually have a job.
There's nothing wrong with someone willing to do your job for less, regardless of where they live.
3. Productivity is not just goods, it's service as well. America is a producer of 'service' people. These include your 'fast food' employee, but also doctors, lawyers, managers, CEOs, marketers, decision makers. These are jobs that require talent. Moreover this talent is scarce. Computer programmers are not scarce. And if you know anything of economics, this means computer programmer wages will fall. And they should.
More on third world laborers: Third world laborers are more inefficient. They aren't as educated and they don't have the machines we do. Paying them even minimum wage would grossly overvalue their production. Giving them so-called "livable" environment is also expensive. Any measure that would over-value the employees would cause them to be unemployed.
It is unfortunate these workers live in such conditions. They didn't grow up with an education or with great infrastrucutre. That is the reality. You can't remedy this with your policies, only through slow economic growth. Such growth comes from free trade and a healthy economic climate.
If they have a choice between a $0.30/h corporate job or a $0.15/h local job, who are you to deny them the corporate job? You are unknowingly damning them to a lifetime of poverty. By forcing companies to pay $5.00/h you are removing those jobs as these companies will find another country that is worth $5.00/h
Yes competition is a prerequisite for low prices. Fortunately there are no monopolies on clothes, shoes, tires, electronics, etc. Therefore prices will go down, despite your picturesque vision of corporate shareholders feeding from the trough.
People then save money when import goods are cheaper. This is either saved or spent, both of which stimulate the American economy. People predicted that when all the auto-making jobs went to Mexico after NAFTA that we'd have massive unemployment. In reality the reverse happened. This is comparative advantage and I suggest you read up on it before you post again.
1. Well educated people who don't have jobs - Being well educated doesn't mean anything. I could go to school for 4 years and learn how to snake juggle, but it doesn't mean I should make $40K/year. You are worth only as much as your productivity, and if someone is willing to work for less than you in, that's your problem.
2. "If we outsource all our jobs we won't be able to pay for our goods" - Makes absolutely no sense for a huge number of reasons:
a) When we outsource production goods are cheaper to produce. These savings are passed on to the consumer who can then spend their money on other goods or save it, making it avaiable to companies. Both of which increase employment nationally.
b) Even if the amount of job created were less than the amount of jobs gained, we couldn't possible outsource everyone. Eventually unemployment would rise and people would bid down their wages, making American competetive again. This might seem so terrible that our wages might drop, but wages are not wealth. Our production ability makes us wealthy. This happened with Japanese automakers, and they are doing just fine.
3. Outsourcing should be regulated to protect the poor Chinese laborers handcuffed to converyor belts making shoes - First of all, it's not slave labor because they have volunteered to do it. They obviously chose this job out of a list of alternative things they could be doing. By denying them this job you will make them worse off. We cannot superimpose American standards on third world countries.
Minimum wage will be a terrible thing to implement as well. These workers are far less productive than Americans. If you pay them minimum wage it won't be profitable to hire them anymore, and they'll all be unemployed. Your policies will hurt these third world countries, not help them.
You may take a pay cut, but everyone around you will be making far less money than you. It is very common for the wealthy in India to have servants for cooking, cleaning, gardening, anc even driving.
There was a case where a man verbally abused a spammer. I think he was actually prosecuted for it. Oh I wish I had the article.
I had a hard time finding them actually, at least one's that are posted daily. Suggestions?
1. The Daily Show
2. Conan O'Brien
Even most Trek episodes one can get commercial free on the web, there just isn't any incentive for me to watch TV.