Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
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Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#2I wish more people understood the ideas in this article. Opposing the minimum wage doesn't mean you hate the poor; opposing anti-discrimination laws doesn't mean you're racist; opposing generous maternity leave doesn't mean you're sexist. Incentives matter, and often---probably much more often than not---the most straightforward and intuitively appealing solutions introduce incentives pointing in exactly the opposite direction.
Economic law is almost as immutable as physical law: trying to fix poverty using a minimum wage is like building a bridge using the wrong tensile strength for steel. Intent is irrelevant, because you can't fool nature.
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#3We often take into account the most direct effects of a law without taking into account the indirect effects. Or, as Bastiat would put it, we look at the things seen but ignore the things not seen:
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#4I wish more people understood the ideas in this article. Opposing the minimum wage doesn't mean you hate the poor; opposing anti-discrimination laws doesn't mean you're racist; opposing generous maternity leave doesn't mean you're sexist. Incentives matter, and often---probably much more often than not---the most straightforward and intuitively appealing solutions introduce incentives pointing in exactly the opposite…
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#5I wish more people understood the ideas in this article. Opposing the minimum wage doesn't mean you hate the poor; opposing anti-discrimination laws doesn't mean you're racist; opposing generous maternity leave doesn't mean you're sexist. Incentives matter, and often---probably much more often than not---the most straightforward and intuitively appealing solutions introduce incentives pointing in exactly the opposite…
I agree that setting up straw men and other fallacies is a bad thing. There's two sides to every argument and they should be heard without reducing the argument down to insults or misrepresenting the other side's point of view.
On the other hand, I think you're yourself abusing the association fallacy by making a bold assumption that because the article points towards examples of laws with unintended consequences that they also automatically applies to the specific examples you've given. (i.e. opposing the minimum wage doesn't mean you hate the poor, but it equally doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to cause negative unintended consequences as implied)
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#6This is a puff piece ("things have unintended consequences" is as pablum as it gets).
The anti-environmental slant implicit in the piece is intellectually offensive. If land is in the hands of developers with plans for real estate development, the wildlife is already screwed. That doesn't mean tanking environmental regulations is somehow "better" for wildlife.
Ceteris paribus, this article sucks.
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#7I wish more people understood the ideas in this article. Opposing the minimum wage doesn't mean you hate the poor; opposing anti-discrimination laws doesn't mean you're racist; opposing generous maternity leave doesn't mean you're sexist. Incentives matter, and often---probably much more often than not---the most straightforward and intuitively appealing solutions introduce incentives pointing in exactly the opposite…
I agree that setting up straw men and other fallacies is a bad thing. There's two sides to every argument and they should be heard without reducing the argument down to insults or misrepresenting the other side's point of view. On the other hand, I think you're yourself abusing the association fallacy by making a bold assumption that because the article points towards examples of laws with unintended consequences tha…
In the case of minimum wage, it does. I thought it was a good example.
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#8This is a puff piece ("things have unintended consequences" is as pablum as it gets). The anti-environmental slant implicit in the piece is intellectually offensive. If land is in the hands of developers with plans for real estate development, the wildlife is already screwed. That doesn't mean tanking environmental regulations is somehow "better" for wildlife. Ceteris paribus, this article sucks.
I don't think the article is any more anti-environmental than it is anti-deaf people. Isn't it a benefit to the environment to point out policies which damage it when intended to help it so that they can be replaced with policies which help it?
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that setting up straw men and other fallacies is a bad thing. There's two sides to every argument and they should be heard without reducing the argument down to insults or misrepresenting the other side's point of view. On the other hand, I think you're yourself abusing the association fallacy by making a bold assumption that because the article points towards examples of laws with unintended consequences tha…
In the case of minimum wage, it does. I thought it was a good example. http://blog.russnelson.com/economics/minimum-wage.html
I disagree that it is that clear cut.
As a recent counter-example to the blog, view the UK's introduction of a relatively high minimum wage in 1998 which, despite above-inflation increases over several years, have caused little-to-no problems. Incidentally, the UK had it's highest employment rate in 2007 according to National Statistics Online (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12). By the blog's reasoning, the exact opposite should have happened. For the record, I was fairly indifferent when it was introduced, but now I see it as a positive thing.
The blog makes the rather bold statement that "anybody whose labor is not worth the minimum shall not be employed" based around the assumption that anyone who earns less than the minimum wage's job is redundant and can be replaced. This simply isn't true, thinking about the large amount of service industry workers (e.g. waiters, supermarket-workers, fast-food workers) who are typically paid a low wage but are unlikely to lose their jobs. It doesn't mention that many companies can afford to pay more for unskilled workers but choose not to in order to create bigger profits in the knowledge that the employees don't have the choice of getting a better paying job. It avoids mention of the effect of increased consumption in the local economy, or the likelihood that price increases which require more manual labour will effect premium goods and services the most. There's plenty more additional variables too - it's simply not a case of the situation being summarised as "Higher wages = less jobs".
Re: Unintended consequences: What do a deaf woman and an endangered woodpecker have in common?
#10This is a puff piece ("things have unintended consequences" is as pablum as it gets). The anti-environmental slant implicit in the piece is intellectually offensive. If land is in the hands of developers with plans for real estate development, the wildlife is already screwed. That doesn't mean tanking environmental regulations is somehow "better" for wildlife. Ceteris paribus, this article sucks.
What I think people should consider as a good course of action in some cases is not throwing their hands in the air and saying "shucks, we can't do anything", but rather considering things carefully, and perhaps modifying policies as they go in order to improve them given actual outcomes.