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The rich world needs higher real wage growth

economist.com

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Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#191

Post by TheCoelacanth »

oriol16 wrote: post #135
Animats wrote: post #100

The emphasis on oil may reflect a European perspective. Only 19% of US oil is imported now, and the US generates very little electricity from oil. The US is a natural gas exporter. If the US wants energy independence, it's within reach. At the other extreme, Japan imports essentially all its oil, as does the UK. Both import most of their natural gas.

US burns 20mbd and produces less than 10mbd. Are you sure imports are only 19%?

Where are you getting the 10 and 20 million barrels per day numbers? Those are roughly the crude oil production and total petroleum product consumption numbers given here[1], but those aren't measuring comparable things because there are products other than crude oil that go into the consumption number. The same source gives 14.2 million barrels per day as the total petroleum product production.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=268&t=6

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#192

Post by jwatte »

dalbasal wrote: post #56

This article really demonstrates how meaningless most economics reporting is, it's nearly as bad as markets/finance reporting. Oil is $75, about average over the last decade. It has almost nothing to do with employment, wage growth or GDP except inasmuch as all major economic measures affect eachother. A year ago oil prices were low, did that mean the opposite of this article (whatever that is) was true? This kind of…

Reducing Union power probably counts as "stacking against workers," as does a minimum wage that is not enough to actually live on. But there are much deeper injustices.

The zip code you're born in predicts future success better than any other attribute, including IQ!

If your parents can take you in when your business attempt falls, you're in a different world than of your parents are a single mother of three, through no fault of your own.

Aristocracy is hereditary, always has been, seems to remain that way. This, is what "stacked" really means.

Whether you think this is actually bad for America or not is a different question.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#193

Post by samatman »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #165
samatman wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a large office in Ann Arbor, so Grand Rapids was an odd choice here.

Why?

Because Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor are effectively interchangeable in the point you're making.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#194

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

qmalzp wrote: post #186
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Google only interviews candidates already living in the cities where the offices are? Google never relocates a candidate from somewhere else? This is super false. Google doesn’t open an office in Denver because there is already a sufficient talent market in Denver to staff the whole place. There isn’t. They open an office in Denver so that when a person passes the interviews and will need relocation they can be re…

If you pass the interview as a generalist, Google absolutely prefers for people to work in their Mountain View office. 1. The cost of relocation is minuscule compared to the total cost of employing someone, so I don't buy that argument. 2. Do you have data to back up that Google engineers in Denver get paid less than their Mountain View counterparts? I believe this is true when comparing US to non-US salaries, but at…

Based on salarytalk.org and h1bdata.info, median software engineer salary in MV is $127,000 - $129,000. In Pittsburgh: $113,000 - $114,000.

Relocating without a pay cut would be uncomparable, since it would involve pay cut dynamics for an established worker. Google is probably atypically generous in all these areas though, and I don’t think it counters the points about status. They want wage arbitrage to alleviate some headcount, doesn’t mean all headcount, and very likely Google would be among the least worried since revenue per headcount is so ludicrously higher than what they pay in total comp anyway. It still doesn’t suggest they open these office locations for some other reason than urban status or co-location with academic center status. Google US locations look mostly exactly like that’s what they are doing.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#195

Post by WalterBright »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #187
WalterBright wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gets spent faster than a dollar in a billionaire’s Billionaire's don't hoard cash. Money they don't spent is all invested. Billionaires know how to manage money, and don't pile it up in Scrooge McDuck cash vaults.

> Billionaire's don't hoard cash Velocity’s relationship with income is well documented. (Note, too, that velocity most properly measures the purchase of goods and services. Transaction velocity also includes investment. Even that goes down as income goes up.)

I'd like to see some documentation that rich people hoard cash. Note that money stuffed into a checking account is still invested - the bank loans it out to people who spend it.

Even so, I seriously doubt wealthy people have non-trivial amounts of money in checking accounts, because the interest paid on them is nearly non-existent. Wealthy people know how to manage their money, and investing it in 0% checking accounts, stuffing it in mattresses, or burying it in tin cans are all terrible investments.

Drug dealers wind up with large blocks of cash because they have difficulties laundering it so they can invest it. The idea that anyone else has pallets of cash in their basements is sheer nonsense.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#196

Post by aborochoff »

wonder_er wrote: post #182
pembrook wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economics is not pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is essential oils being marketed as medicine. Economics is a social science, just like anthropology, archaeology, history, linguistics, political science, psychology, sociology, etc. etc. It's never going to be something with Laws of Gravity or the like, because humans are never wholly predictable or rational creatures. But that doesn't mean we can't come up with models t…

> Why do you think central bank policy has been able to prevent a depression from occurring over the last 90 years, when in the past they were a regular occurrence? There is a strong school of thought that argues that central bank policy has created _more_ and _worse_ depressions than before. The fact that we can now debate if a central bank is a good thing or a bad thing is evidence that it's all pseudoscience.

People debate whether or not global warming is happening (or whether its man made). Does that mean the field behind global warming research a pseudoscience (by your definition)?

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#197

Post by dajohnson89 »

dalbasal wrote: post #56

This article really demonstrates how meaningless most economics reporting is, it's nearly as bad as markets/finance reporting. Oil is $75, about average over the last decade. It has almost nothing to do with employment, wage growth or GDP except inasmuch as all major economic measures affect eachother. A year ago oil prices were low, did that mean the opposite of this article (whatever that is) was true? This kind of…

you succinctly described what bothers me about reading the economist.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#198

Post by ben_w »

walshemj wrote: post #133
ben_w wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Start with food, get a meal down to less than a dollar. I know food prices vary a lot from place to place, but in the UK right now (at current exchange rates) you could eat for a bit over $1 per day, never mind per meal. I’ll grant you that’s student meals, a balanced mixture of rice lentils and vegetables, but it’s all your protein, vitamin and caloric needs.

1$ is 75p and I doubt that you can have a fully balanced meal on just rice and vegetables or th at you could do this for 75P double it to 1.50 maybe but wouldn't be a very good long term diet.

Rice: 3535 kcal/67g protein for £0.45

Lentils: 3530 kcal/258g protein for £1.75

Together they form a complete mix of all the important protein subtypes. Mix 9:1 because lentils have a lot more protein and rice is a lot cheaper. Scale down intake to match calorie requirements. @2500 kcal/day: £0.29 rice, £0.125 lentils.

Vegetables: 5 portions for £0.45

(Government recommends 5 portions per day for healthy diet).

Total: £0.855 per day for recommend daily male calorie consumption. £0.76 for women.

$1.13 for men. $1.00 for women. Close enough.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#199

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

samatman wrote: post #193
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor are effectively interchangeable in the point you're making.

Not even close. For one, Waymo has offices in Detroit for obvious reasons. Ann Arbor offers direct connection to University of Michigan and proximity to Detroit and local airports.

In fact, the status effect difference between Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids is a perfect example of my point. What differentiates the two places when thinking of where to locate a new campus? Exactly status effects and network effects from secondary status effects. The talent pool in the two places and costs of living, etc., are not meaningfully different. The choice is down to what places carry a premium in status that is more attractive to workers.

Re: The rich world needs higher real wage growth

#200

Post by AnthonyMouse »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Eliminating slack” means encouraging employers to raise wages (which can cause inflation) to fill productive jobs. If you reallocate money without creating new currency, what you get isn't really inflation. Prices may adjust because the demand for things lower income people buy increases and the demand for things higher income people buy decreases, and prices follow demand. But supply and demand isn't inflation. A…

> If you reallocate money without creating new currency, what you get isn't really inflation You’re forgetting about velocity. A dollar in a middle class earner’s hands gets spent faster than a dollar in a billionaire’s. That faster spending stokes both growth and inflation.

> You’re forgetting about velocity. A dollar in a middle class earner’s hands gets spent faster than a dollar in a billionaire’s. That faster spending stokes both growth and inflation.

At a fixed money supply, growth causes deflation. People want to engage in more transactions and they need money to do it, which increases demand for currency.

You often see inflation during periods of growth because when there are high returns to be had, people take out loans to expand and banks making loans creates new money. The new money causes inflation. But if you really didn't want that to happen, it's simple to prevent it by requiring banks to hold more reserves (so they won't make as many loans).

But it's not clear why preventing moderate inflation should even be desirable. If you get a 10% raise at the same time as prices increase by 4%, who's complaining? You're up 6% annually and your mortgage, credit card debt and share of the national debt are down 4%.

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