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Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

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Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#111

Post by p1necone »

AlexandrB wrote: post #99
h0l0cube wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. What are the harms of a minimum wage? Do you have any empirical sources to back that up?

I love how the parent stakes out several moral positions but tries to present them as objective truth or just “the way things are” with no evidence presented. Clever. In my experience, once you get past the basics, economics is largely about dressing up ideology in the trappings of science. More generously, economics seems to be most similar to philosophy with competing schools of thought that differ primarily in wha…

This seems to be a very common tactic with American right wingers (on the internet at least) - speak/write as if the actually controversial/differing parts of your belief are obviously true, and only go into detail on what logically follows from those axioms.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#112

Post by adjkant »

dantheman wrote: post #105
h0l0cube wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. What are the harms of a minimum wage? Do you have any empirical sources to back that up?

Minimum wage puts a floor on the amount of value necessary for someone to be employable. Many people, especially those just starting out can't produce that much value.

The irony of this comment is that it is exactly missing the morality in an economic situation, the claim being that if you are capable of work and are trying your best, you deserve to have enough pay to live off of.

Minimum wage does not price people out of jobs, it puts a cap on the profit that a corporation can squeeze out of its workers. Employers who would be paying under it are simply not viable moral businesses, they would be businesses based off the exploitation of its workforce.

Now we can have economic arguments about what is true here, but the purpose of minimum wage today is a moral one and that must be factored in.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#113

Post by p1necone »

logicchains wrote: post #109
p1necone wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes." Come on, you know the idea of a minimum wage is pretty widely accepted as a good idea by a lot of people, including (most? edit: apparently majority, but not by much) economists. You can't just phrase something as if it was widely accepted as true and make it so. Don't get me wrong, you're a…

>Come on, you know the idea of a minimum wage is pretty widely accepted as a good idea by a lot of people, including (most?) economists. From a recent study https://cei.org/blog/what-do-economists-think-about-minimum-... : "A new poll of professional economists finds 74 percent of respondents opposing a $15 per hour minimum wage—and nearly a mirror image of non-economist public opinion, which is nearly a mirror oppos…

That sounds like it supports my statement? 74% oppose a specific increase, but only 43% oppose having a minimum wage. (That wording is ambiguous as to whether that's 43% of 100% or 43% of 74%, but both are < 50%)

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#114

Post by barry-cotter »

h0l0cube wrote: post #91
nonidentified wrote: post #76

Speaking as an economist, I tend to get nervous when other economists talk about circumstances where "morality trumps economics." As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality. Economists widely endorsed eugenics in the first half of the 20th century, for example. And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. Personally, I…

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. What are the harms of a minimum wage? Do you have any empirical sources to back that up?

People whose labor is worth less than the minimum wage become unemployable. Being unemployed means you can’t acquire skills or experience and is bad for your mental health and social attachment.

If you want to look at the literature you can start with Card and Krueger, which shows minimal effects for a small minimum wage discontinuity, I believe on the NJ/NY border. The Seattle minimum wage study showed a reduction in hours and benefits and reduced likelihood of new entrants to the labor market. It’s an exciting example of people looking really hard for ways to confirm their priors on both sides.

Or you can look at Europe. Greater employment protections raise the price of employing someone leading to greater unemployment. Minimum wages do the same thing more explicitly. Businesses buy less of things that are more expensive.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#115

Post by labster »

giardini wrote: post #95
nonidentified wrote: post #76

Speaking as an economist, I tend to get nervous when other economists talk about circumstances where "morality trumps economics." As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality. Economists widely endorsed eugenics in the first half of the 20th century, for example. And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. Personally, I…

nonidentified says> "As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality." Hah! As a profession, you've had a miserable track record on _economics_! The profession should be academically "tarred, feathered and ridden out of town", departments dismantled and the models handed over to Operations Research departments along with a strong warning.

I wouldn't do that. It's widely accepted among economists that reducing funding for economics departments would be terrible for the university budget as a whole.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#116

Post by danans »

nonidentified wrote: post #76

Speaking as an economist, I tend to get nervous when other economists talk about circumstances where "morality trumps economics." As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality. Economists widely endorsed eugenics in the first half of the 20th century, for example. And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. Personally, I…

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes.

You are comparing the moral stance of supporting eugenics with the moral stance of supporting a minimum wage? Are those just the first two random moral stances taken by economists that you recall, or are you trying to color the perception the latter with the true horror of the former?

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#117

Post by adjkant »

danans wrote: post #116
nonidentified wrote: post #76

Speaking as an economist, I tend to get nervous when other economists talk about circumstances where "morality trumps economics." As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality. Economists widely endorsed eugenics in the first half of the 20th century, for example. And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. Personally, I…

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. You are comparing the moral stance of supporting eugenics with the moral stance of supporting a minimum wage? Are those just the first two random moral stances taken by economists that you recall, or are you trying to color the perception the latter with the true horror of the former?

> Speaking as an economist

> As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality.

You can't say they didn't warn you!

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#118

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jimmaswell wrote: post #75
hamandcheese wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If toilet paper was $20/roll, people would think twice before hoarding, and would probably also use less squares overall.

And a lot of people would just have to go without, As opposed to everyone getting a little with price controlled rationing.

I think this is the biggest flaw in your argument. If toilet paper was $20/roll, that wouldn't deter someone who has none in the slightest bit. They'd buy one roll and pay $20 in a second. But that guy who was trying to buy a thousand? He's thinking twice.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#119

Post by logicchains »

pm wrote: post #108
h0l0cube wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. What are the harms of a minimum wage? Do you have any empirical sources to back that up?

Agreed, what harm does a minimum wage cause? We have a reasonable minimum wage in Australia (though I don't think it's been adjusted for inflation for a while) and it facilitates time for education, which in turn facilitates social mobility. On the other hand, you can have no minimum wage, and end up with a class of working poor who have no time to educate themselves, thus condemning them to a life of constant work w…

Australia has relatively high youth unemployement, a predicted effect of a high minimum wage: https://www.statista.com/statistics/811644/youth-unemploymen.... Having difficulty finding work after graduating high school or university is a common complaint among Australian youth, in my experience. The hardest part is getting the first job, getting the foot in the door, and this is because a minimum wage prevents many entry-level jobs from existing, where the value the positions would generate is much less than the minimum wage, so it makes no sense to create the positions.

>On the other hand, you can have no minimum wage, and end up with a class of working poor who have no time to educate themselves, thus condemning them to a life of constant work with no hope of social mobility.

The minimum wage can also create cycles of poverty by pricing people out of work. Some portion of the people who are "least hireable" are unable to get jobs because nobody would pay them $15/hour, so their only option is living permanently on welfare, which has a demoralising effect, and is associated with poor outcomes for their children. Imagine for instance the stereotypical Frankston junkie.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#120

Post by 4773ueudjj »

h0l0cube wrote: post #91
nonidentified wrote: post #76

Speaking as an economist, I tend to get nervous when other economists talk about circumstances where "morality trumps economics." As a profession, we have a miserable track record on morality. Economists widely endorsed eugenics in the first half of the 20th century, for example. And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. Personally, I…

> And many modern economists endorse a minimum wage, as eugenicists did then, but with even less regard for the harm it causes. What are the harms of a minimum wage? Do you have any empirical sources to back that up?

This line of online questioning is the lazy dismissal of the 21st century. This comment has a positive score and even a child that agrees with it and yet it's akin to asking any theorist "do you have sources for that?" in response to them saying something wildly uncontroversial within their domain. It adds nothing to the discussion and only shows that the respondent is so wildly out of touch with the relevant mainstream that they're not worth answering because the challenge is going to be one of persuading them rather than informing them.

Minimum wage is a widely studied issue with well documented pros and cons. It's weaknesses, when addressed in isolation, are so well understood that most discussion at a high level on the topic is not whether it has pros/cons but what instruments it should be combined with to mitigate its cons (the mainstream answer is usually tax breaks of various kinds, often targeting the employee and not the employer.)

Would you ask a Gender Studies professor to defend the assertion that the feminine gender construct is typically defined by its submissive traits or would you ask how these observations are used to make observations and proposals about the real world?

Would you ask a mathematician their sources when they begin to explain linear algebra or would you ask questions that help to understand their perspective on the matter?

Hacker News supposedly has a rule against shallow comments and yet for some reason knee jerk requests for sources with no additional substance to drive the dialogue forward are considered 'reasonable'.

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