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Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

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Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#121

Post by p1necone »

xvedejas wrote: post #110
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…

I dunno, we might want to start getting some sources in on this. This is the one article I've seen beforehand that discusses how much economists endorse the idea of a minimum wage ($15/hr specifically) and it casts doubt on your very confident tone. I don't really know what to believe, maybe more polls are necessary. https://epionline.org/studies/survey-of-us-economists-on-a-1...

I don't think I was being very confident - there was a reason I said "most?". However I'm fairly certain enough economists agree with the idea of a minimum wage that stating that it's a bad idea as if that's just accepted to be the truth is a little odd.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#122

Post by jimmaswell »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118
jimmaswell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes it is going to deter someone who has none. Is it impossible for you to imagine someone who couldn't afford that premium so they resort to using the shower or something? And do you really think a millionaire is going to be deterred from buying too much in that instance?

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#123

Post by danans »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #96
theschmed wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there another kind of argument from morality EXCEPT those that go, "We shouldn't do that because it could harm people?" Hard to take someone seriously who blithely compares genocide to a minimum wage....

Eugenics and wage “protections” like minimum wage are both tied to the same racist underpinnings. The minimum wage was established to price out black workers.

Lots of rights enjoyed by all today in th US - the most important being voting - were originally established specifically at the exclusion of people of color and women.

The problem wasn't the rights themselves, it's that they were purposely offered to white men only.

Therefore it's deceptive to attack the minimum wage as being any more racist in origin than the right to vote is. Much of the law has deeply racist origins that has only been reformed in recent decades, and even then not completely.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#124

Post by logicchains »

p1necone wrote: post #113
logicchains wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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%)

I suppose it's the language: it would support "accepted by a majority of economists", but I don't think 57% support counts as "pretty widely accepted as a good idea by... most economists".

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#125

Post by adjkant »

barry-cotter wrote: post #114
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?

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 i…

> It’s an exciting example of people looking really hard for ways to confirm their priors on both sides.

It seems like you're doing that here yourself:

> The Seattle minimum wage study showed a reduction in hours and benefits and reduced likelihood of new entrants to the labor market.

https://ritholtz.com/2018/10/seattle-studys-shocking-conclus...

Minimum wage may have some complexities to be played out and examined, but to go back to the parent, the net harm here seems to be minimal at best, if not helpful over harmful, quite unlike how most feel about eugenics. That comparison, while criticizing the moral compass of economists generally, is quite something.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#126

Post by adrianN »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #65
wpietri wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An important point the article didn’t address is that high prices direct resources to more important uses. Neither do high prices. Those direct them to people with more money to spend. Confusing "richer" with "more important" is always a bad idea, but especially so with goods like medical supplies. A billionaire who wants to stockpile a million masks just in case definitely not "more important" than a million poor…

In the absence of a law structuring the sale, money is the best proxy we have for importance. The law, in a system of democratic governance, is a big asterisk to that sentence! It's important too. But aside from that, price signaling is our most 'objective' way to determine importance.

You can have a democratic system of government and still ration goods during a crisis. Democracy and economic policy are orthogonal things.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#127

Post by AnthonyMouse »

adjkant wrote: post #112
dantheman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's a thought experiment for you. Think of college as a job. You go there, you do work, you get paid. The amount you get paid is negative because your productivity to the school is near zero and their cost of "employing" you requires them to have a lot of buildings and faculty etc. Yet people take on a lot of debt to be able to work as a student at a college, so they obviously perceive some value in it.

Should we prohibit colleges as "simply not viable moral businesses"?

Now suppose we have something which is halfway in between. The benefit to the institution is positive but small. You're doing productive work but it's only worth $4/hour. On the other hand, you're learning stuff and that's very valuable to you -- much more valuable than an $8/hour job where you're not learning anything. Should we prohibit this and not the school? Why?

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#128

Post by p1necone »

logicchains wrote: post #124
p1necone wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%)

I suppose it's the language: it would support "accepted by a majority of economists", but I don't think 57% support counts as "pretty widely accepted as a good idea by... most economists".

Which is why I said "most?". I knew I wasn't sure so I communicated that. Sorry if it wasn't obvious enough.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#129

Post by p1necone »

4773ueudjj wrote: post #120
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?

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 mainstr…

The parent said unequivocally that minimum wage is a bad idea (and compared it to eugenics of all things), not that it has cons that need to be mitigated.

This is not an uncontroversial opinion, even among economists.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#130

Post by pfranz »

logicchains wrote: post #119
pm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Having difficulty finding work after graduating high school or university is a common complaint among Australian youth, in my experience.

Those numbers don't look all that different from the US. Are people pursuing minimum wage jobs after graduating high school or university? Even high school graduates with no intention of pursuing higher schooling seem to pursue a vocation at something higher than minimum wage.

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