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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 15, 2018 - 09:36pm PT
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It is what we make it.
Yes, but the "we" in this context is not "the government" or "a few guys that want things to work a certain way."
As I explained in detail above, "the market" contemplates EVERY person, product, and service that touches it. "Fix" one part of that in isolation, and "the market" simply adjusts the variables that NO person or government thought through when that by-fiat "fix" was performed.
This is not some "theoretical" perspective. We have seen ABSOLUTE fiat experiments tried repeatedly, and in every case, without exception, BLACK markets emerge to literally replace the fiat-market.
There is just THE market, and it remains the "white" market as long as governments leave it pretty much alone. The more "fixes" a government puts in, the more "the market" bifurcates, producing a fiat-market (that really doesn't work) and a so-called "black market" (that really ends up BEING "the market").
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Oct 16, 2018 - 06:59am PT
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Lost me on that last line, xCon. Can you explain? But, yeah, I get your point about the black market not replacing everything. I don't think MB1 was claiming it did. But he's right in that trying to control the market is a lot like trying to grab a fistful of water. You get some, but the rest just squirts out to do its own thing. There are SO many unintended consequences of control. The classic, I think, is rent control. Available rentals are going DOWN in San Francisco because of rent control, and there seems to be some evidence that it's even driving up rents. Of course, for those in such units, it's a good deal--duh--but property owners are almost always going to try maximize returns, especially with high taxes and maintenance to consider. Here's an article that reviews some research by some Stanford prof's that goes into it. Pretty interesting:
https://sf.curbed.com/2017/11/3/16603900/rent-control-san-francisco-stanford-study-gentrification
BAd
Edit--another on rent control:
https://fee.org/articles/three-fallacies-of-rent-control/
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 16, 2018 - 09:55am PT
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^^^ I'm too buried today to respond in detail. Maybe later.
All I'll say for the moment is: Wow, too many metaphors. All undefined and decoupled from real-world facts.
"The market" is on a continuum that is defined by government manipulation. Economies with the most government manipulation have the most bifurcation into fiat and black, with black essentially replacing fiat in the most repressive, manipulated economies. Conversely, economies with the least governmental intervention are freest and most robust.
You seriously need to read more, DMT. I'm sympathetic to your intuitions, but they are woefully detached from the realities of actual markets. And billions of people have suffered to PROVE those realities in governments that honestly believed that more governmental micro-management could produce utopia.
So, "poppycock"? Well, I guess, right back atcha. Define terms like "straw" and "brick," and maybe we can get somewhere. Otherwise, I just point to the FACTS of market experiments and say: The jury is IN, and free-market capitalism is the best (by FAR) economic system that has ever existed; and it has been the system in place throughout human history, except for a few dismally-failed experiments in government manipulation. It is the system human beings use by default, and they will INSIST upon using it, even when governments manipulate to the point the "it" just becomes a "black" market.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Oct 16, 2018 - 11:05am PT
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When we're talking places like San Francisco, Seattle, and Santa Barbara, rents become extremely steep. In Santa B, the average rent for a 374 sq. ft. studio is, dig this: $1,371. If you actually live in SB, transport could be easy on a bike/bus, so that's not huge. If we go with the basic "formula" of having one's housing costs be 1/3 of your income, this worker would need to be pulling down close to $50k/year! That means about $25/hour for EVERY STINKING JOB. So, I push a broom? $25/hour. I clean dishes at a restaurant? $25/hour. What follows from this, of course, is a brutal increase in prices for everything, including the pay rate for every other job that requires skill/training/etc. Those rents? They shoot up. That burger? Yikes. This shiz is like physics. Action/reaction. So many small businesses especially operate on a narrow margin. Imposing a LW on many of them would simply put them out of business, making sure those low-skilled works have no work at all.
Just because a living wage in Santa B of SF might be $25/hour, doesn't mean you have to have that as the minimum wage everywhere.
But for the highest cost places, yeah, that might be a reasonable minimum wage.
Saying that a $25/hour wage is going to cause rents to spike sounds like fear-mongering. Rents are high because of scarcity. I doubt there is anybody on a job construction site in SF making less than $25/hour. If apartment maintenance workers are really making less than $25, I don't see that increasing their wage is going to cause rents to surge from the already high levels.
Places like the SF bay area need to build far more housing. Politically, that is really hard and be its own thread.
Yes, your burger in SF is going to cost more than your burger in Topeka Kansas.
The only businesses that pay minimum wage in a place like SF are places that can't move somewhere else. Like restaurants and janitors.
And food workers in SF lose their job because the minimum wage is $25? Really? People in SF stop eating out? I don't see it. Offices are going to say: what? pay someone $25/hour to clean our toilets? No way. We will stop have them cleaned at all!
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climbski2
Mountain climber
The Ocean
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Oct 16, 2018 - 12:33pm PT
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If the government is paying your employees via foodstamps or other welfare then your business is being subsidized.
Perhaps your business is not of significant value and should go out of business. or perhaps your a thief getting by with robbing the american taxpayer.
i'm all for testing the issue by aditionally taxing you double than the amount america is subsidizing your employees at.
perhaps that is bad policy but i'm willing to give it a go and see for sure.
Adjust as needed later
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climbski2
Mountain climber
The Ocean
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Oct 16, 2018 - 12:35pm PT
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If the government is paying your employees via foodstamps or other welfare then your business is being subsidized.
Perhaps your business is not of significant value and should go out of business. or perhaps your a thief getting by with robbing the american taxpayer.
i'm all for testing the issue by aditionally taxing you double than the amount america is subsidizing your employees at.
perhaps that is bad policy but i'm willing to give it a go and see for sure.
Adjust as needed later
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 16, 2018 - 02:16pm PT
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If the government is paying your employees....
Like most libs, you seem to have forgotten that "the government" has no money of its own. The government produces nothing and gets revenue only by taking.
So, what you're really saying is, "If the taxpayers are paying your employees...."
And, see, most (I think, really all) business-owning taxpayers would respond, "Yeah, agreed. So STOP subsidizing my employees, STOP taxing my business to death to pay for all these takers that aren't even working AT ALL, and then let's see how the chips fall."
And, as you said, adjust as necessary. But, by "necessary," I'm confident that I don't mean what you mean or what DMT means. I have this "ridiculous" notion that breeding is not a job you should get paid for, and picking your nose has ZERO market value. And so on.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
The Ocean
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Oct 16, 2018 - 03:54pm PT
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The government is the original and primary source of money. Thus why the big companies suck at that teat bigtime.
Wealth ...the real thing not so much
why label me a liberal.
If the market does not allow a company to pay it's employees a living wage it is well worth considering if that company does not have enough real value for survival. If it does have enough real value then the taxpayer is being fleeced by giving its employees supplemental income.
This is by no means a liberal and even further from being a socialist position
I maintain my position is very conservative
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 16, 2018 - 04:54pm PT
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The government is the original and primary source of money. Thus why the big companies suck at that teat bigtime.
Wealth ...the real thing not so much
If you're differentiating "money" from "wealth" or from "capital," then I totally agree. Throughout this thread, though, I didn't see that distinction being made.
You might get a chuckle out of that distinction as cast by some economist (I don't remember who now, although I remember the quote):
"Government is the only entity that can take two valuable commodities, such as paper and ink, and by their mere combination render the product worthless."
why label me a liberal.
I didn't think I was. I said, "Like a liberal," because so many liberals tout the same line. I don't know your stands on things in general.
If the market does not allow a company to pay it's employees a living wage it is well worth considering if that company does not have enough real value for survival.
Certainly! But we're back to the pesky concept of "living wage," and that has LOTS of moving parts!
If it does have enough real value then the taxpayer is being fleeced by giving its employees supplemental income.
I'm no fan of that sort of policy. I don't believe in welfare, be it individual or corporate, and I'm ALL for eliminating corporate welfare entirely.
Of course, the divide amounts to Republicans yelling, "Don't touch my corporate welfare," and Democrats yelling back, "Don't touch my individual welfare." Thus, the government just keeps taking and taking, yet somehow managing to spend MUCH more than it takes!
This is by no means a liberal and even further from being a socialist position
Agreed. But, as I say, the Devil's in the details, and without a crisp definition of concepts like "living wage," we're just out to sea.
I maintain my position is very conservative
As you explain it, I would agree. I'm honestly not labeling you. My concern is with clarity of concepts, and that's harder to achieve than many here seem to think.
Thank you!
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Oct 16, 2018 - 04:59pm PT
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@August:
Interesting! So you'd have a different minimum wage all across the country? You'd have to have a different min. wage even in different parts of California. Cost of living in Bakersfield is WAY lower than Santa B. So how finely tuned would these wages be? The lowest end towns/regions are pretty damn cheap compared to the big coastal cities. But then medium sized towns are more expensive, etc. Maybe four or five different minimum wages for different sized economies? How would this be determined? Oy! I can imagine the wrangling over those numbers. Sounds like a nightmare in the making.
Edit: I did a quick seat-of-the-pants analysis for Topeka as I did with Santa B. Apartments run--roughly--about $685 for a one bedroom. If we're going with the rent/housing as 1/3 of income, then about $12--$13/hr covers it for someone flying solo. Damn. We gotta get folks to move to the middle of the country. Actually, when I pedaled across Kansas back in 2007 as part of a solo coast-to-coast tour, I saw homesteading land--yep. They'd give you the land for free if you'd move to the area and build some kind of house.
BAd
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Oct 16, 2018 - 05:12pm PT
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I want the minimum living wage in a place that requires no snow shoveling, ice scraping, mosquito nets, and it should also be close to a good symphony and opera house. Plus less than 10 minutes drive to Whole Foods. Plus the tap water should taste good, not too much chlorine.
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Oct 16, 2018 - 06:36pm PT
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"
The government is the original and primary source of money. Thus why the big companies suck at that teat bigtime."
The oldest "professions" are prostitute, miner, and farmer. Politician is not on that list. The original source of income was digging it from the earth and "servicing" those that did the digging.
Taxing it came later...
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 16, 2018 - 07:07pm PT
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The market should determine the price of labor.
The market can't find its ass with both hands. Don't you read the business page?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 16, 2018 - 09:07pm PT
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the market cannot exist without property rights
which cannot exist without government
Hooowee! That’s some bodacious blathering! I’m gonna forward that one to some
of my economist friends. I bet they wanna lern sumpin tonite too!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Oct 16, 2018 - 09:28pm PT
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Reilly...You have friends...?
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 17, 2018 - 07:39am PT
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I have just one word for you guys: industrial democracy.
It's the future. Live it, or live with it.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 17, 2018 - 09:53am PT
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^^^ That's two words.
Moreover, it's a phrase that is not at all incompatible with free-market labor.
Nothing about that "movement" generates value out of thin air. And the more that workers are owners, the MORE they will realize the necessary connection between labor-value and wages. Such people will be the FIRST to realize that you cannot by mere fiat raise wages.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Oct 17, 2018 - 09:57am PT
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Such people will be the FIRST to realize that you cannot by mere fiat raise wages.
Now, MB, you know that’s not true. It might not work out too swell, but it can be done.
To that end rumor has it that Bernie is down in Venezuela worshipping at the feet of his
economic guru Nicolas Maduro.
RJ, I do! You do realize you can’t take yerself off the list?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Oct 17, 2018 - 10:17am PT
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^^^ LOL
Now, Reilly, I've never met you, but you can count me among your friends.
Of course, around these circles, you might not want to claim it.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Oct 17, 2018 - 10:56am PT
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Nothing about that "movement" generates value out of thin air. And the more that workers are owners, the MORE they will realize the necessary connection between labor-value and wages. Such people will be the FIRST to realize that you cannot by mere fiat raise wages.
Absolutely. You forgot to mention that as workers become the owners and controllers of their work, they get the added benefit of not having to maintain a parasitic capitalist class.
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