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[GreatJustice]

You're missing the point. Even if we had everybody working on slave wages, and in the most desirable position possible to employers, there are still going to be lots of unemployed people. That figure will only grow. That is the point, and that is why it is a deeply flawed idea that the unemployed should be "punished" for "being unproductive". And, of course, we don't want people working on slave wages because that'll ruin the economy as well (see:economy is a function of movement).

No there wouldn't. In the long term (so discounting "temporary unemployment" from, say, a factory closing down and people switching to another job), assuming you had a workforce of people willing to bid very low for their wages, unemployment would be a number approaching zero. Mind, obviously a workforce of slaves working $1 an hour wouldn't be ideal, but the circumstances under which such people would be hired would be completely different and the economy wouldn't function the same.

This isn't a perfect example (because of the massive cronyism of the time), but about the 1870s-1890s make it pretty clear that this is the case. Keep in mind, this was a period when (A) capital accumulation was comparatively low (= less employers with less jobs available) and (B) immigration, especially of those with basically no "skills" to speak of, was at all time highs (= more workers chasing the aforementioned "less jobs"). Wages were pretty damn low and working conditions were quite poor, but unemployment tended towards being very low and generally dropping while wages tended to increase due to capital accumulation.

Now, in those days, when there was a recession, the standard response was not necessarily to lay off workers, but to cut wages temporarily. This allowed businesses to restructure and raise wages again later. Yet politically, it was worthwhile to "protect workers' wages" by artificially keeping them high in times of crisis, which is precisely what Hoover did in the 1930s, leading to massive unemployment (though those workers who weren't laid off were quite well paid). Even Keynes recognized this, which is one of the main reasons he advocated for inflation in times of recession (so as to "trick" workers into accepting wage cuts).

Also, people on extremely low wages would require welfare anyway. Removing the minimum wage wouldn't help that and in fact, would make it worse. Actually, Germany has such mini-jobs. Turns out, they don't work. People receive up 400 EUR a month, which isn't taxed or liable for social benefits. However, this also means it doesn't contribute towards pensions. Germany also has/had no official minimum wage (Minimum wage is negotiated per sector).

Turns out, what happens is that real jobs are split up into several mini-jobs, lowering efficiency and costs, damaging the social framework and trapping people in a low skill, low wage environment. It hasn't lowered unemployment, and is one of the causes of the severity of the European economic crisis. Because mini-jobs dropped labour costs, Germany became a major exporter within in the European Union, fueled by credit based purchases in the South.



Also, low wages stifles innovation into more work efficient systems. Don't sabotage the AI overlord Communist Utopia.

Obviously it wouldn't work if there was a substantial government welfare system. Or labour unions capable of restricting hiring through legislation, for that matter. I will say, though, that it is pretty odd to connect "German mini-jobs" (Germany is comparatively prosperous in the EU) to "Germany becomes a net exporter" (generally considered to be a good thing?) to "German exports caused the economic crisis".

[misko27]

As for the guns issues:
There are two cities in the USA which are most dangerous when it comes to gun-related violence, and those are Washington, DC, and New York. Guess which two American cities has most strict policies outlawing gun ownership?

Something in the south, I presume? In states of Texas, Arizona etc?

Nah, it is (obviously) Washington and New York. Both have banned guns a long, long time ago, and in both you are most likely to be shot (considering US, of course, not places like Venezuela, where there is pretty much no government at all). And I'm obviously using per capita rates here, LordSlowpoke, not absolute numbers (not that absolute numbers should be way higher in LA than Washington anyway; also in quite a few other big cities that are way larger that DC).

Now, looking at the rest of the world - second and third countries in gun ownership per capita are Switzerland and Finland. I think both are very well known for their mass shootings* or violent gun-totting murderers of any kind at all.

*Those are almost exclusively taking place in no-gun zones. I wonder why? Isn't it possible that people trying to make a mass shooting are choosing places where nobody can shoot back?...

I'm not exactly sure on statistics here, but aren't UK cops wearing anti-stab vests now? Because there is like, a ton of knife related violence? Since there are no guns?

Bans on guns are unconstitutional under US law, and have been consistently declared so by court cases; so that's very interesting to hear. I live in New York, and so while I can't speak for DC (Who have tried to ban handguns), I know our death from Gun Violence is one of the lowest in the nation for cities.

The rate of gun death for central cities ranges from a high of 69.1 in New Orleans to a low of four in San Jose. Detroit has the second highest rate (41.4) followed by Las Vegas (36.9), Miami (33.5), and Baltimore (33.1). St. Louis, Richmond, Memphis, Cleveland, and Philadelphia — all with rates above 20 gun deaths per 100,000 people — round out the top 10. All have a rate of gun death that is roughly two or more times higher than their metro rate. On the flip side, New York City follows San Jose with second lowest rate (4.9), followed by central San Diego (7.1), and Seattle (8.3).

We do have some of the strictest gun in the nation. *shrug.*

[Descan]

The point of a basic income is so that if you lose your job, you're not going to end up on the street. You WILL probably need to move to a cheaper house if you can't find a job in time, but you WILL have a house, you WILL have food. It's not REALLY an economic argument, but it's one of those glorious ones that can serve as one, as I'll make a point on further down~

The reason I don't like welfare is because of all the strings. "You MUST use this money for food, you NEED to be looking for a job every day for 8 hours, even if that's now how it works any more."

People are smart, and poor people are not dumb, they're just unlucky. If they had money they'd know what to do with it to get out of poverty.

The other benefit is that with a wider consumer base of people who have more disposable income, the economy picks up. And with the base also lifted in that way, it's less susceptible to shocks of "People aren't spending, we need to fire people to save costs, now the people we fired aren't spending money, oh god our customer base is gone."

And if people have enough money to survive even without a job, you can get rid of minimum wage and let the wage per job settle to whatever natural level it would be. People working that job wouldn't need that wage high enough to survive. And if you don't NEED that job to survive, you can tell the manager "Yeah, I'm not going to work here for 2 dollars an hour. It's not worth it."

[10ebbor10]

You're missing the point. Even if we had everybody working on slave wages, and in the most desirable position possible to employers, there are still going to be lots of unemployed people. That figure will only grow. That is the point, and that is why it is a deeply flawed idea that the unemployed should be "punished" for "being unproductive". And, of course, we don't want people working on slave wages because that'll ruin the economy as well (see:economy is a function of movement).

No there wouldn't. In the long term (so discounting "temporary unemployment" from, say, a factory closing down and people switching to another job), assuming you had a workforce of people willing to bid very low for their wages, unemployment would be a number approaching zero. Mind, obviously a workforce of slaves working $1 an hour wouldn't be ideal, but the circumstances under which such people would be hired would be completely different and the economy wouldn't function the same.

This isn't a perfect example (because of the massive cronyism of the time), but about the 1870s-1890s make it pretty clear that this is the case. Keep in mind, this was a period when (A) capital accumulation was comparatively low (= less employers with less jobs available) and (B) immigration, especially of those with basically no "skills" to speak of, was at all time highs (= more workers chasing the aforementioned "less jobs"). Wages were pretty damn low and working conditions were quite poor, but unemployment tended towards being very low and generally dropping while wages tended to increase due to capital accumulation.

Now, in those days, when there was a recession, the standard response was not necessarily to lay off workers, but to cut wages temporarily. This allowed businesses to restructure and raise wages again later. Yet politically, it was worthwhile to "protect workers' wages" by artificially keeping them high in times of crisis, which is precisely what Hoover did in the 1930s, leading to massive unemployment (though those workers who weren't laid off were quite well paid). Even Keynes recognized this, which is one of the main reasons he advocated for inflation in times of recession (so as to "trick" workers into accepting wage cuts).

snip

Obviously it wouldn't work if there was a substantial government welfare system. Or labour unions capable of restricting hiring through legislation, for that matter. I will say, though, that it is pretty odd to connect "German mini-jobs" (Germany is comparatively prosperous in the EU) to "Germany becomes a net exporter" (generally considered to be a good thing?) to "German exports caused the economic crisis".

First of all, I didn't say what you're saying I said. Overgeneralization is a dangerous. I gave one of the multitude of causes.

The minijobs are exempt for the welfare system. Basically, what happened was that many regular jobs were converted to mini-jobs, saving employers a lot of money, and reducing unemployment (and government related expenses) in the statistics. This caused a significant drop in domestic demand as people started spending less. Meanwhile, the low labour costs starts drawing in low-skills jobs from Southern Europe, and because of this and the lower domestic demand, Germany starts exporting towards the South. However, this export isn't sustainable, as it's mainly based on credit and loans, rather than actual economic growth in those countries.

Basically, Germany's economical model produces an unfair advantage for industry in their country, thereby damaging the industries and economies of the rest of the Union.

Have an article from the Guardian

[GreatJustice]

Spoiler: Warning! Conjecture! (click to show/hide)

Hmm. A bit of a weird system, honestly. From what I can tell, the main problem there is that it provides gigantic incentives to hire lots of workers doing very little work, mostly thanks to tertiary benefits (with relation to taxes, and so on). It certainly deals with unemployment, but it isn't terribly good for efficiency (basically you're trading "market efficiency" for "political efficiency", since a minijobber seems to make paperwork easier) and is unlikely to work for the minijobbers themselves (partly because of an influx of migrant workers as a consequence and partly because no real capital accumulation is occurring). Anyhow, while partially related, it isn't really what I'd advocate since it kind of misses the underlying problems of the employment market overall.

In short, it looks like some sort of weird, Friedmanite idea, like "tax incentive social engineering" and the Efficient Market Hypothesis.

Anyhow, the minimum wage is a very pointless thing, because it ignores the fact that a business's response to a minimum wage increase is not "Darn, guess we'll have to cut into everything else and just increase the wages of our minimum wage workers", it's "Let's fire half of the workers, pay the others minimum/slightly above minimum, and then force the remainder to work 70 hour shifts with the threat of layoffs hanging over their heads!". It also cuts off entry level jobs, meaning it's harder to get experience for a higher level job.

The guaranteed minimum income actually does achieve what it claims, though it has a wide variety of problems of its own. The big one is that a prosperous, Western country with a GMI or something similar is going to need very restrictive immigration policies, because "livable" in France is "luxury" to about 70% of the world. Plenty of other issues too, of course.

[Max White]

And if people have enough money to survive even without a job, you can get rid of minimum wage and let the wage per job settle to whatever natural level it would be. People working that job wouldn't need that wage high enough to survive. And if you don't NEED that job to survive, you can tell the manager "Yeah, I'm not going to work here for 2 dollars an hour. It's not worth it."

Whoa, nope! Bad idea! Very bad idea.
The end result of this is that employers lower wages beyond reasonable levels, and employees deal with it because they get paid anyway. The longer you go, the more it becomes the case the government is paying all the wages while the business is reaping all the profits, a very inequitable system indeed. You need a minimum wage to ensure that once somebody gets a job, they are getting their income from it rather than government assured income. #MixedMarketEconomicsWork

[Helgoland]

Eh, no - there's still a level (at around €3/hour I'd think) where you stop working if it's not necessary for your survival. I'm very much in favor of a basic income, coupled with the abolishment of minimum wages. It gives workers a stronger position in the marketplace and reduces market distortion in the low wage sector as is currently happening in most countries.

[Max White]

See to my understanding people will still work for very, very little wage, in exchange for the potential to get a better job later on as long as they can still pay the rent. At such a low income your goal becomes getting a good reference on your resume and hopefully moving up in the world, after all, even now unpaid interns are a real thing.

[Lagslayer]

See to my understanding people will still work for very, very little wage, in exchange for the potential to get a better job later on as long as they can still pay the rent. At such a low income your goal becomes getting a good reference on your resume and hopefully moving up in the world, after all, even now unpaid interns are a real thing.

From what I understand, it's becoming increasingly normal to have to pay them to be their intern.

[GreatJustice]

And if people have enough money to survive even without a job, you can get rid of minimum wage and let the wage per job settle to whatever natural level it would be. People working that job wouldn't need that wage high enough to survive. And if you don't NEED that job to survive, you can tell the manager "Yeah, I'm not going to work here for 2 dollars an hour. It's not worth it."

Whoa, nope! Bad idea! Very bad idea.
The end result of this is that employers lower wages beyond reasonable levels, and employees deal with it because they get paid anyway. The longer you go, the more it becomes the case the government is paying all the wages while the business is reaping all the profits, a very inequitable system indeed. You need a minimum wage to ensure that once somebody gets a job, they are getting their income from it rather than government assured income. #MixedMarketEconomicsWork

Well yeah, but employers are always trying to lower wages, it's just that, in a market economy, capital accumulation begins to lead to workers being comparatively more valuable, competition increases for hiring, and workers begin to make enough that they can go into business for themselves (ignoring artificial barriers of entry eg. thousands of page of paperwork). That's why in the 19th century, when literally everything was stacked against workers (very little capital, corporations with huge government backing, massive immigration reducing wages, etc), wages and living standards still increased quite substantially. The functional difference between the "low guaranteed minimum income" solution proposed by Descan and the current minimum wage is that less people are employed and it's harder to get an entry level job.

Plenty of problems with a GMI, mind, but compared to a minimum wage, it's pretty clearly superior. So long as it isn't very high, anyway.

[Max White]

Well yeah, but employers are always trying to lower wages, it's just that, in a market economy, capital accumulation begins to lead to workers being comparatively more valuable, competition increases for hiring, and workers begin to make enough that they can go into business for themselves (ignoring artificial barriers of entry eg. thousands of page of paperwork). That's why in the 19th century, when literally everything was stacked against workers (very little capital, corporations with huge government backing, massive immigration reducing wages, etc), wages and living standards still increased quite substantially. The functional difference between the "low guaranteed minimum income" solution proposed by Descan and the current minimum wage is that less people are employed and it's harder to get an entry level job.

Plenty of problems with a GMI, mind, but compared to a minimum wage, it's pretty clearly superior. So long as it isn't very high, anyway.

What a shame it never actually happens like that. While employers are always trying to lower wages, suppliers are always trying to raise costs for everything, including non-elastic markets, and that tends to go poorly for individuals that have little trade power. As such people tend to have a very hard time accumulating wealth, and by the time they are meant to be going into business for themselves, they have contributed so much to their employer that they have no hope of ever gaining market share.

[GreatJustice]

Well yeah, but employers are always trying to lower wages, it's just that, in a market economy, capital accumulation begins to lead to workers being comparatively more valuable, competition increases for hiring, and workers begin to make enough that they can go into business for themselves (ignoring artificial barriers of entry eg. thousands of page of paperwork). That's why in the 19th century, when literally everything was stacked against workers (very little capital, corporations with huge government backing, massive immigration reducing wages, etc), wages and living standards still increased quite substantially. The functional difference between the "low guaranteed minimum income" solution proposed by Descan and the current minimum wage is that less people are employed and it's harder to get an entry level job.

Plenty of problems with a GMI, mind, but compared to a minimum wage, it's pretty clearly superior. So long as it isn't very high, anyway.

What a shame it never actually happens like that. While employers are always trying to lower wages, suppliers are always trying to raise costs for everything, including non-elastic markets, and that tends to go poorly for individuals that have little trade power. As such people tend to have a very hard time accumulating wealth, and by the time they are meant to be going into business for themselves, they have contributed so much to their employer that they have no hope of ever gaining market share.

If it never happened like that, then the standard of living of the average person would have halted by about 1850. It pretty reliably does work out that way, historically speaking, barring some form of control preventing it from happening.

[Max White]

Historically speaking, we tax the wealthy and provide public services to the poor in order to break that cycle.

[Owlbread]

John Barrowman AKA Captain Jack Harkness explaining why Robert Burns would vote No and why unity is the answer

[Max White]

How can something so sexy be so full of logical fallacies and appeal to emotion?