THIS is a Republican I would vote for!

Originally posted by sh76
I'm sorry about your condition. For future reference, a statement could be a hyperbole even if not sarcastic. I didn't literally mean "a million jobs overnight." I meant "many jobs in a relatively short period of time." For better of for worse, a little hyperbole is a standard device on internet message boards, since we all want to make strong points and we don ...[text shortened]... ppens, I was explaining why higher minimum wage will not necessarily have a net positive effect.

Thank you for your unexpected kindness. I'm not used to it, and I'm constantly feeling wary of everyone and expecting conflict. Not just on a political debate forum, but everywhere.

I see your point about hyperbole, and can agree that suddenly raising the federal minimum wage to $12 overnight out of nowhere would, at least temporarily, cost some jobs. Employers who pay low wages are used to cutting corners, and some would be cut short if they had to face a sudden change like that without time to adjust.

Is this a fair summary of your concern? You're talking about the immediate effects of making a change like that, as opposed to the ideal destination for us to end up eventually?

Originally posted by normbenign
"Higher living wages for low-income workers have a stimulative effect for the economy", if they are market driven, that is the service provided by the employee is worth the pay. If it is not, the employer isn't in business to provide jobs. If he can make the same money without employees will he not do so?

Where does the money come from, the tooth fai ...[text shortened]... the stuff you are regurgitating you've heard from others with no experience running a business.

Your assumptions about my career are not accurate, but I certainly don't have as much business experience as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose New Deal reduced the unemployment rate from 24.9% to 14.3% within four years. Fiscally conservative Republican presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover provided us with ample demonstration of what can happen when the "free market" is left to its own devices. For another thing, if Nike can get away with paying factory workers 8c per pair or less, then they'll do so.

GM and Chrysler collapsed due to the economic crisis, combined with the fact that they'd kept on selling lots of SUVs and Hummers, and were slow to adjust to making alternative energy vehicles. By December 2008, auto sales were 37% lower than they had been a year earlier.

Originally posted by karnachz
Thank you for your unexpected kindness. I'm not used to it, and I'm constantly feeling wary of everyone and expecting conflict. Not just on a political debate forum, but everywhere.

I see your point about hyperbole, and can agree that suddenly raising the federal minimum wage to $12 overnight out of nowhere would, at least temporarily, cost some jobs. E ...[text shortened]... s of making a change like that, as opposed to the ideal destination for us to end up eventually?

Well, I don't think the effects would be quite so temporary. Yes, employers would have to adjust to the new normal, but the new normal may include fewer people being employed, fewer summer jobs for young people looking to get a foot in the door, fewer paid internships that are subject to min wage, etc.

I understand that there needs to be a minimum wage and minimum working conditions. We're past the age of sweatshops. But I think $12/hr is too high. That is so far above the actual market value of the services of some employees that it's unrealistic to expect the current employment norms to be sustained in the long run.

Originally posted by sh76
Well, I don't think the effects would be quite so temporary. Yes, employers would have to adjust to the new normal, but the new normal may include fewer people being employed, fewer summer jobs for young people looking to get a foot in the door, fewer paid internships that are subject to min wage, etc.

I understand that there needs to be a minimum wage and m ...[text shortened]... es that it's unrealistic to expect the current employment norms to be sustained in the long run.

How do you determine the "actual market value" of the services? In third-world countries, Nike factory workers get paid 8c per pair of shoes. Is this a fair price, or does the government need to regulate a fair price, based on a balance between incentives and fairness? (I.e. welfare capitalism.)

Based on the "free market", the equilibrium price for some jobs would keep going down and down, until finally wealth and income disparity led to a recession, as it did following the fiscally conservative Republican presidencies of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. In other words, there is no sustainable equilibrium price, without government intervention.

Given the enormous level of wealth and income disparity in the U.S. presently, I suggest that the current minimum wage is too low, by a considerable margin. Certainly I'm open to the idea of phasing in changes gradually over time.

Originally posted by sh76
Well, I don't think the effects would be quite so temporary. Yes, employers would have to adjust to the new normal, but the new normal may include fewer people being employed, fewer summer jobs for young people looking to get a foot in the door, fewer paid internships that are subject to min wage, etc.

I understand that there needs to be a minimum wage and m ...[text shortened]... es that it's unrealistic to expect the current employment norms to be sustained in the long run.

What's your take on the Australian labour market?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
What's your take on the Australian labour market?

Production flocking overseas, car industry in collapse, all manufacturing in collapse, cheaper to buy chinese steel than steel in a country made of iron ore. National airline anounces 1000 layoff in the last couple of days.

Overpriced and under productive.

As if that isn't bad enough buratcracies continues to grow.

Been here the last 3 years.

Originally posted by Wajoma
Production flocking overseas, car industry in collapse, all manufacturing in collapse, cheaper to buy chinese steel than steel in a country made of iron ore. National airline anounces 1000 layoff in the last couple of days.

Overpriced and under productive.

As if that isn't bad enough buratcracies continues to grow.

Been here the last 3 years.

Yes, it does look like the entire country is collapsing with 3.3% GDP growth in 2012 and and unemployment rate of 5.6%. Pretty soon people in Australia will have to revert to barter and subsistence farming.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Yes, it does look like the entire country is collapsing with 3.3% GDP growth in 2012 and and unemployment rate of 5.6%. Pretty soon people in Australia will have to revert to barter and subsistence farming.

Did I say the entire country dolt boy?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Yes, it does look like the entire country is collapsing with 3.3% GDP growth in 2012 and and unemployment rate of 5.6%. Pretty soon people in Australia will have to revert to barter and subsistence farming.

The guvamint can cock it up pretty bad and all the Aussies need to do is dig another hole, but there is a limit to that, you asked about the labour market right?

Originally posted by Wajoma
Did I say the entire country dolt boy?

The bizarre and hysterical notion that "all manufacturing [in Australia is] in collapse" more than deserves mockery.

Originally posted by Wajoma
Did I say the entire country dolt boy?

Yet another example of an unprovoked personal attack being fired at someone who expresses a progressive POV. It's not as though I'm the -only- progressive in this newsgroup who's on the receiving end of unprovoked and unwarranted personal attacks. Far from it. KazetNagorra was politely debating a point, and you suddenly went ad hominem without provocation.

I'm guessing that KazetNagorra's point was that, overall, Australia has recovered fairly well from the economic crisis, due in significant part to its high minimum wage and relatively progressive taxation. When the poor and middle class have a higher income, and more of the tax burden is on the rich rather than the middle class, there is more distributive stimulus spending, which is exactly what you need to fix or prevent a recession. It worked during the Great Depression, when FDR's New Deal reduced the unemployment rate from 24.9% to 14.3% within four years.

Europe is faring the worst, after implementing austerity measures and spending cuts. Likewise, the austerity measures under Herbert Hoover worsened the Great Depression, leaving the unemployment rate at 24.9% by the time FDR took office.

If you're a libertarian, you will no doubt consider it an inconvenience that it's not -possible- to run a society based on libertarian economic policies, because wealth will increasingly be distributed up to the top 1% until the economy crashes into a recession/depression. That, however, is the reality that we seem to be facing. Do you -really- want the freedom to pay no tax, for as long as it lasts, until the unemployment rate goes so high that society eventually collapses into partial anarchy?

Originally posted by karnachz
Yet another example of an unprovoked personal attack being fired at someone who expresses a progressive POV. It's not as though I'm the -only- progressive in this newsgroup who's on the receiving end of unprovoked and unwarranted personal attacks. Far from it. KazetNagorra was politely debating a point, and you suddenly went ad hominem without provocation. ...[text shortened]... until the unemployment rate goes so high that society eventually collapses into partial anarchy?

You've made quite a few presumptions about what happens in a libertarian economy.

KN makes the presumption as well that because of numbers, currently decent, that everything is hunky dorry in the Assie economy. I'll admit I don't know.

I do know that with central banks pumping inflationary cash into economies, that a good face can be put on debt zombies. Eventually the piper has to be paid, and big spending crashes in bubbles.