Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky • Hacker News Board

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#201

Post by cperciva » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:09 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #186

zanny wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other problem is that today we have labor gluts, particularly of the unskilled variety. Automation reduces the need for workers, those workers become economic outcasts with no influence to have their needs satisfied by capitalism, and the ownership class does not create demand for more unskilled labor - they want founders and professionals who can grow their wealth, that is what they demand. If you drop the minim…

We don't have labor gluts at all. In the US working mothers struggle to find child care for their children, houses go uncleaned, and productive people drive themselves to work. That's a situation of labor scarcity, not a labor glut.

No, we have a labour glut (unemployed people) and a jobs glut (work not being done) at the same time. In other words, a market failure -- caused in part because for work which is valued at less than minimum wage, the market can only function by evading minimum wage laws.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#202

Post by sharkjacobs » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:09 AM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #3

Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this would work is often ignored. > Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they're paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts. No, the workers are now fired. They don't get a raise. > The advanced robo-res…

remember a hundred years ago, when 90% of Americans were employed in agriculture?

Remember when tractors were invented, and now only 2% of americans work in agriculture?

Yeah, it sucks that 88% of americans are unemployed now.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#203

Post by mangeletti » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:12 AM UTC

drodgers wrote: post #129

mangeletti wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only th…

Hi, Australian here. Our nominal prices (in AUD) are about the same as in the US (in USD) and our minimum wage is $17.29 an hour (+ 25% for casual employees). People who make minimum wage here aren't struggling to survive like they are in the US; the minimum wage is actually liveable. Prices don't just rise when the minimum wage does. Firstly, people who make minimum wage make up a small proportion of overall income…

> he will have more purchasing power than before.

Pray tell, how does this magic work?

My little brother can save his paycheck for 1 month right now and afford to pay a minimum wage employee (much like he was a few years ago) for 1 month while also living. This would allow him to start a business. If minimum wage was raised to $15, he would never be able to save enough to pay this employee with his savings. Ever.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#204

Post by pdkl95 » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:18 AM UTC

gamerDude wrote: post #178

JulianMorrison wrote: post #128

I don't want employment, and hell no I definitely don't want full employment, just the opposite. I want us as a species to transition to a leisure society with the ick automated away, and the only jobs humans do being ones humans would love to do for the sheer fun of it. Because a minimum wage has a loophole for "not employed at all", it isn't good enough. A Basic Income has no such loophole, and will allow poor peop…

In a total leisure society, how do we pay for Basic Income? Where does the government get the money to give out to everyone? I agree with you. But I think its not about Basic Income, but the idea of Basic Utility/Survival where we can supply basic needs for free, via automation etc.

> Where does the government get the money to give out to everyone?

The exact same place they get it right now - they pull it out of thin air by fiat. (involving a quasi-government agency ("the fed") as a proxy is optional) Money hasn't been zero sum up since the gold standard.

Governments already define most aspects of money, and they can change it as needed, such as when Nixon declared that the dollar was no longer convertible to gold.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#205

Post by mangeletti » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:21 AM UTC

drewcrawford wrote: post #188

mangeletti wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only th…

I refer you to Question A [0], where in 2013 a few dozen practicing economists were asked this question: > Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment. Not a single economist chose "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree". The results were split very roughly evenly between agree, disagree, and undecided. From this research I have derived th…

First off, I gave a concrete example and said you're an idiot if you can't see the difference between that example and prosperity. I don't see a rebuttal from you. All I see is a genetic fallacy, namely appeal to authority.

The reason nobody agrees whether minimum wage is good or bad is because we have Austrian and Keynesian economics at battle in America. Only one of those two can be better than the other, and if we define "better" as the ability for an individual to work hard and prosper as a result, there is no question about which it is.

The debates are not about things like the validity of the technical aspects of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The debates are about whether the individual should be allowed to prosper any longer. The debates are about whether equality means everyone should have an equal chance and also be allowed to fail, or whether they should get everything free.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#206

Post by pasquinelli » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:23 AM UTC

tmptmp wrote: post #141

JulianMorrison wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Business is a social construct and we can un-construct it if it proves no longer to be the socially valuable way to do things. It's there to serve humans. if it doesn't do that, it's a parasite, drag it out behind the shed and shoot it.

The Marxists and communists have tried doing that thing many times and have failed spectacularly. Business based market economy is the only (till now) successful and socially most beneficial type of society that has ever existed. I upvoted the OP because he/she/it (it may be a bot) has put this thing in clear words.

capitalism hasn't been the only way. capitalism was an improvement over feudalism. hopefully, there'll be more improvements.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#207

Post by mangeletti » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:30 AM UTC

nomat wrote: post #180

clarkmoody wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's continue your thought: If minimum wage increases put upward pressure on wages generally, then what happens? Higher wage levels in general means more money in people's pockets, and this can turn into general price inflation (especially since business costs have risen due to the general level of wages going up). So let's assume you now have inflation. This means everything just got more expensive, so now that new…

Then it seems like the minimum wage is not the underlying issue. If there are too many people and not enough jobs, fiddling with the minimum wage won't have any real effect because regardless of what it is, there are always going to be people who are jobless (and therefore without income). So how do we reconcile the fact that currently, most people must work in order to live and yet there isn't enough work to go arou…

What if we stop trying to control everything and let people make their own choices. In nature, if an animal doesn't hunt for food, it dies. We should take care of those who can't "hunt" because they're handicapped, but we can't afford to because we spend all of that energy on handing things to the ones who don't want to "hunt".

Stop trying to control nature.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#208

Post by johndevor » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:32 AM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #177

tmptmp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Marxists and communists have tried doing that thing many times and have failed spectacularly. Business based market economy is the only (till now) successful and socially most beneficial type of society that has ever existed. I upvoted the OP because he/she/it (it may be a bot) has put this thing in clear words.

The Soviet Union depended on an enormous laboring class to meet its production needs; the whole point is that we no longer do.

We are not there yet. I agree it will happen, the question is when.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#209

Post by drewcrawford » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 4:57 AM UTC

mangeletti wrote: post #205

drewcrawford wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refer you to Question A [0], where in 2013 a few dozen practicing economists were asked this question: > Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment. Not a single economist chose "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree". The results were split very roughly evenly between agree, disagree, and undecided. From this research I have derived th…

First off, I gave a concrete example and said you're an idiot if you can't see the difference between that example and prosperity. I don't see a rebuttal from you. All I see is a genetic fallacy, namely appeal to authority. The reason nobody agrees whether minimum wage is good or bad is because we have Austrian and Keynesian economics at battle in America. Only one of those two can be better than the other, and if we…

> All I see is a genetic fallacy, namely appeal to authority.

Appeal to relevant authority is not a fallacy.

> because we have Austrian and Keynesian economics at battle in America.

This is a common misconception among "armchair economists". There is no battle betwen Austrian and Keynesian economics in America today any more than there is a battle between Confederates and the Union. There was a battle, years ago, but it has been over along time, although there still are a small number of weirdos still carrying on.

Now many of the conclusions of Keynesian and Austrian economics are still alive and well, but the reasoning behind them is completely different, and the war today is between camps with names like Monetarism, Lukasian Rationalist, Chicago School, and so on. The people in that poll are not citing Human Action, anymore than working programmers today are citing the 8088 specification. It is a thing that happened, it was important at the time, but we've moved on.

> The debates are not about things like the validity of the technical aspects of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The debates are about whether the individual should be allowed to prosper any longer.

Have you read an economics paper? They are so technical many programmers cannot get through one. For example, here's some random abstract from the SSRN [0]:

> We provide a formula for the tax rate at the top of the Laffer curve as a function of three elasticities. Our formula applies to static models and to steady states of dynamic models. One of the elasticities that enters our formula has been estimated in the elasticity of taxable income literature. We apply standard empirical methods from this literature to data produced by reforming the tax system in a model economy. We find that these standard methods underestimate the relevant elasticity in models with endogenous human capital accumulation.

There is no debate among working economists about "whether the individual should be allowed to prosper any longer". It is like suggesting mathematicians are debating whether imaginary numbers exist.

[0] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2688947

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#210

Post by danjayh » Sun, Apr 03, 2016, 5:05 AM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #177

tmptmp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Marxists and communists have tried doing that thing many times and have failed spectacularly. Business based market economy is the only (till now) successful and socially most beneficial type of society that has ever existed. I upvoted the OP because he/she/it (it may be a bot) has put this thing in clear words.

The Soviet Union depended on an enormous laboring class to meet its production needs; the whole point is that we no longer do.

Oh, we still do, they're just in second and third world countries. The author of this article focused on service industries that require a physical presence in the local area ... and did not address outsourcing. I think that one likely outcome of this law will be that people will find creative new ways to move work to lower cost locales.