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On March 09 2011 12:39 Shanlan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:16 Offhand wrote:On March 09 2011 12:11 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 12:00 Offhand wrote:On March 09 2011 11:46 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 11:34 Deja Thoris wrote:On March 09 2011 10:44 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 10:23 Ome wrote:
Corporations have proved time and time again that they will cut corners on everything to increase profit margins, see BP oil last year, or the practice by Nike, the Gap and others who employ young children overseas.
Unions somewhat keep Corporations in check. Of course there are bad unions, bad union leadership, and good, decent corporations. But overall they protect the worker from exploitation that would certainly occur if they did not exist. This is not a union's job. It's your job, as a consumer, to choose products that are created in ways you deem to be ethical. Until society is ready to do that, no one in it deserves to think they're doing their part to stand up for their position on the environment, how overseas workers are treated, etc. You are kidding or trolling, right? Society is far away from that level of maturity and will probably never reach it. If that's actually the case, then democracy's kind of screwed, isn't it? I'm being completely honest, you have no right to demand that a company do something that you aren't willing to accept the consequences of. If child labour doesn't make shoes, they are going to be a hell of a lot more expensive. So far society has spoken, and it would rather the children make shoes. The responsibility for that lies solely in each and every person who's benefitted from that. Yes, the people on the top who are making millions off of the whole deal are being unethical, but they're a symptom, a monster you and I helped create through our own greed and apathy. I don't disagree with you, but the fact of the matter is, we can't make these choices. Do you want to buy shoes or clothes in this country? You're supporting child sweatshops. Do you want US produce? You support illegal immigration. Do you buy gas? You may as well suck Satan's dick for that one. We live in a society where these choices are unavoidable. It's not possible to "vote with your wallet" when all your options boil down to "evil" and "more evil". Regulation is a necessary part of a capitalist society. With some things like oil, I agree, but the fact is that companies have tried being ethical and sustainable, and the problem is that prices are so high, it becomes a luxury for the rich. Can you afford to spend double on your shoes, or to only drink free-trade coffee? If you bought non-chemical toilet paper, ate vegetarian to preserve our farmland, ate only free-range eggs, bought electronics made in Japan or the US or Europe, etc. your standard of living would drop, and by a lot. Show someone a picture of starving kids and sweat shops, and they will say "yes, I want this to end," but will they give up their savings, their ability to buy a nice house, their car, their TV, their morning coffee, just to save these people? If the answer is no, and it is, who is going to make that happen? I'd say it's being procrastinated because people are afraid of what would happen if things really did change like this. I sure as hell wouldn't like losing my internet, power, ability to fly to Europe and the Carribean, etc. These things are only affordable if you're a member of the upper class. Poor people don't shop at Luis Vinton or eat at Whole Foods. You can only afford these "guilt free" expensive purchases if you're a member of the elite, which precludes the majority of people. This all supports my belief that we need to tax the fuck out of the rich. Wealth disparity in the US is ridiculous and the political systems in place do nothing but maintain the status quo. That only serves to prove his point. Only the rich can afford to be "morally" righteous in their economic decisions. The next step is to force the rich who have worked for their money to turn around and support the rest of the country? Would you want to work hard and start a successful business only to have 99% of it taken away and spent on the drug-addicts on the street or the gangs roaming the ghettos? Social welfare doesn't fix the problem and wealth redistribution is theft with a prettier name. Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:16 Offhand wrote:On March 09 2011 12:15 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 12:12 Offhand wrote:
Companies only produce what they can sell. There's no reason to overproduce, and supply creating its own demand has been a proven economic fallacy for years. You've yet to address why companies reporting record profits shouldn't raise their worker's wages. Fixed economic demand is the same thing as overabundance of labour supply, which I've covered. The second you raise your wages after a good year, people are competing for your jobs, which drives the wages down over time. This is only true in a no-growth economy (also the same as being not true). First, I'd like to point out you've assumed a no-growth economy. Fixed supply = fixed demand. Second, in a perfectly free market profits would be near zero. Competition between firms would drive down prices till they reached costs, with free labor market determining the wage. So your argument of firms controlling wages is a fallacy. Wages are determined by the labor market not by the firm. Unless the labor market isn't free, like when there's unions, and minimum wage, and salary caps.
Except that in the US, the rich hardly pay any taxes in proportion to what they make as compared to the income brackets below them. So, please stop with your neo-conservative bullshit. What you're saying isn't reality.
We need to help everyone succeed, not just let people fend for themselves because assholes like you don't care about anyone else except yourself and people who think like you.
Capitalism should still be used to determine the distribution of resources, but what the US does to its poorest people is criminal. Yet, you're steamed because you have to pay taxes. Look, if you want to make the world a better place, it doesn't involve fucking over a group of people because you can.
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On March 09 2011 12:36 ThaZenith wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:22 pfods wrote:On March 09 2011 11:18 Dogsi wrote:
Unions are not necessary. Supply and demand dictates salaries in an open economy. Hence why Asia's booming. Asians generally are willing to work for notably smaller salaries.
All unions do is abuse situations and give incentive to find alternatives.
The advance in salaries and work conditions was due to regulation and strengthening of the economy. Not because of unions.
Should unions be allowed to exist? Of course. However, they should NOT be protected. If a union goes on strike, the employer should be free to fire all of them on the spot. I sure wish we lived in a japanese society, with increasing hours and decreasing wages. Or china, where I can work for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and risk dying in my 40s. I like how a lot of the hardcore "for union" people spout stuff that isn't relevant, and doesn't include all the facts if it is. And btw, I can't think of the right word, but goods in Japan have been getting steadily cheaper for years. Wages falling at the same % as the price of goods are falling = same purchasing power. They can buy the exact same quantity of stuff as they could before. And china isn't a developed country, so don't be retarded. Less developed countries have lower wages, period. It's like randomly saying, because Chile has a low wage, then America needs unions! Think your argument through please.
Lower wages+low cost of goods(china)=same purchasing power.
Don't contradict your own arguments and then call me retarded.
Although I never said anything about wages in china anyways. I mentioned working conditions/hours.
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On March 09 2011 12:39 Shanlan wrote:
Second, in a perfectly free market profits would be near zero. Competition between firms would drive down prices till they reached costs, with free labor market determining the wage.
So your argument of firms controlling wages is a fallacy. Wages are determined by the labor market not by the firm. Unless the labor market isn't free, like when there's unions, and minimum wage, and salary caps.
Perfect competition assumes unlimited resources, an infinite number of buyers and sellers, perfect information, no transaction costs, indistinguishable products, no economies of scale, perfect labor and capital mobility, as well as free entry and exit. It's a nice simplification to get people started, but ultimately it's like modeling a horse with a massless, frictionless sphere.
Most of our economic sectors tend to mirror monopolistic competition or oligopoly. Also information asymmetry is very high; firms have access to vastly more information than either their workers or their consumers.
Indeed the labor market without unions fall closer to the category of oligopsony or, rarely, monopsony (some public sector jobs may fit here). Because of this, firms are able to be price setters rather than price takers.
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It's hard for me to not side with unions who are often fighting for better wages and job security when there people in the world getting million dollar bonuses yet other people still remain poor and dieing. Not only in their home country but in countries of the world. This world is passed Kings and Queens.
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On March 09 2011 12:46 pfods wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:36 ThaZenith wrote:On March 09 2011 12:22 pfods wrote:On March 09 2011 11:18 Dogsi wrote:
Unions are not necessary. Supply and demand dictates salaries in an open economy. Hence why Asia's booming. Asians generally are willing to work for notably smaller salaries.
All unions do is abuse situations and give incentive to find alternatives.
The advance in salaries and work conditions was due to regulation and strengthening of the economy. Not because of unions.
Should unions be allowed to exist? Of course. However, they should NOT be protected. If a union goes on strike, the employer should be free to fire all of them on the spot. I sure wish we lived in a japanese society, with increasing hours and decreasing wages. Or china, where I can work for 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and risk dying in my 40s. I like how a lot of the hardcore "for union" people spout stuff that isn't relevant, and doesn't include all the facts if it is. And btw, I can't think of the right word, but goods in Japan have been getting steadily cheaper for years. Wages falling at the same % as the price of goods are falling = same purchasing power. They can buy the exact same quantity of stuff as they could before. And china isn't a developed country, so don't be retarded. Less developed countries have lower wages, period. It's like randomly saying, because Chile has a low wage, then America needs unions! Think your argument through please. Lower wages+low cost of goods(china)=same purchasing power. Don't contradict your own arguments and then call me retarded. Although I never said anything about wages in china anyways. I mentioned working conditions/hours.
When wages decrease in proportion to prices, like japan, purchasing power stays the same.
When wages are low and prices are low, there's no changing of anything so obviously purchasing power stays the same. There's no implied real value of purchasing power by saying "low". (no idea what you were arguing)
And your comment about hours working may have been true 20 years ago, but china is rapidly becoming more developed. Hundreds of millions pulled out of poverty in the last decade(s) there. With development comes better working conditions.
None of what you're pointing out relates to unions either. That's why I implied your lower intelligence, not because of the points themselves. Stay on topic? o.o
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On March 09 2011 12:28 A3iL3r0n wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 11:57 Shanlan wrote:
The debate with unions boils down to a few main points. Unions are economically inefficient, they create unemployment, (price/wage) inflation, and decreases productivity of workers. Unions do increase worker rights and conditions, they get better benefits, higher wages, and better work environment.
The question is whether the gain in worker benefits justifies the loss in efficiency.
It is my opinion that the gain in benefits does not justify the loss in efficiency. Especially in an economic recession. I'll provide a few examples to support my opinion.
First, we examine the role of unions in a market where labor supply is less than demand. Companies in this scenario will be glad to increase wages, benefits, and conditions for workers. The problem arises when unions dictate that those increases apply to all employees. Even in a labor scarce market employers will want to replace poor workers with good ones, but the union will prevent that. So the result is less proficient workers will be hired than in a free market, so there will be better workers in a less profitable firm who could have been hired to a better wage and position but aren't due to union restrictions. Also overall the improvement to the rest of the workers will be less because the poor workers will need to be compensated as well. I don't feel the improvement to the poor worker justifies the losses sustained by the proficient ones.
Second, we examine the role of unions in a labor rich market, such as now. Employers now have a lot of employees to select from, and they would like to hire more total workers which increases the efficiency of the firm but they can only hire at the marginal profit which is lower than the union mandated wage. In this case due to the high demands of the workers the firm is unable to hire otherwise out of work employees due to the high average cost and subsequent high marginal cost demanded by the union. The high marginal cost of the firm means less supply and higher prices, which inflates the price and decreases the output of the economy. In fact with the inflated prices and globalization it affects global prices which allows all competitors to raise prices, and in firms without unions those profits, due to the still labor rich market, will not transfer to the workers. The result is higher unemployment, higher prices, and in certain cases worse conditions for non-unionized workers.
The second case is why we generally see unions in unskilled industries. A union is in essence a collusion of workers working to promote their own interests and keep out competition. In economics collusion is always inefficient but sometimes necessary as the benefits it creates outweigh the costs.
Applied to the public sector unions become even more powerful and inefficient. Public jobs are highly inefficient because it is really hard to calculate their productivity and measure their worth. When you add unions the inefficiencies compound. This leads to government being one of the most inefficient type of organization we know of.
It is my opinion that unions should not be able to bargain with the employers. Employment agreements should be between the employee and the employer, it leads to the most efficient wages and benefits. Unions should serve as a lobbying organization for the problems workers face, and educating workers on market conditions so they can negotiate their own wages fairly. All worker rights resulted not because of individual unions but because of government regulation. Minimum wage, working hour regulations, working conditions, etc. are all the result of active oversight by the government, which as inefficient as it is, it is ideally unbiased, transparent, and accountable.
The best way to fight worker inequality is education, information, and worker awareness. I see a lot of misinformation regarding the principles of a free market, capitalism, and labor laws. With knowledge comes equality. Yes, we definitely need to protect business owners because they are getting fucking screwed right now. Why don't you compare the education and opportunities of the wealthier people who own businesses versus their employees? Totally fallacious post. Yes, in a perfect world, each worker would contract with employers to provide services and the employers would never do anything to screw over their employees in self-interest. But, it doesn't work that way in the real world. Your view point is that of the business owner, yet you try to present your argument as if it were for the common good. As the private sector contracts, the government needs to expand to fill in the gaps. Is government perfect? No. But people rely on public services (hence their workers) to get by. Making those government jobs less attractive is only going to result in shittier people getting hired as the more talented workers go somewhere else.
Business owners don't suffer as much from unions as does the public. They'll still earn profits and make a living, albeit less, but the public will receive inflated goods, less of it, and contend with a higher unemployment rate.
Education is based on merit, there's no obstacle for anyone to pursue education than their own abilities.
If the employee doesn't like the terms of the contract they can turn it down. You're saying workers are entitled to a certain level of living for just being willing to work, and that is arrogant and pompous thinking.
As the private sector contracts the government sector needs to contract too, where do you think the funding comes from? If there are less people working then there's less taxes, if there's less taxes then less people could/should work for the government. Unless you're in favor of expanding our public debt even further.
People don't work for the government because it pays well, they never will. The earning opportunity in the private sector is much higher. People work for the government because it is stable and has a higher purpose. Unions also oppose rewarding talent, they ask that all members are treated based on seniority not ability. So that brand-new teacher who was able to get the students to want to learn will still get paid less than the old teacher who hands out worksheets so he can take a nap.
Unions are a roadblock in the way of a free labor market, and they always will be. The question is do they generate more benefit to workers than they do harm to society?
Specifically in the case of public workers, I say no. The barrier to entry of new talent and the quagmire of old inefficient workers prevents progress in some of the most important industries.
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Unions are nothing more than labor-side monopolies. If we recognize the harmful affects of monopolies relative to a free market on the business-side, why do we hold a double standard?
Exploiting an advantaged position in order to price-gouge: bad when business does it, good when labor does it?
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On March 09 2011 12:22 SharkSpider wrote:
This is a valid viewpoint, but it comes with some speedbumps. First off, the US needs talent to be able to compete. It gets a talent inflow because of its good standards of living, tech companies, lowish taxes, etc. I've experienced this, as someone in math it's fully my intention to work in whatever country lets me earn the most and keep the most of what I earn, while also having a CPI that lets that wealth mean as much as it would elsewhere. Ie, I'll work for the highest bidder, on an international level, and so will many of the other actuaries, statisticians, economists, physicists, etc. who I study with. Taxing more will help in the short term, but it drives people away from your country in the long run.
The poverty line for an individual living in the continental US is $10,890 as of 2010. This is about what you make working full time at McDonalds.
An Indian with a BS in CS can expect to earn anywhere from $10k-20k depending on their experience. This is upper middle class for India. For reference, a CS major fresh out of college in the US can expect to make $30k.
You must admit, there's no reason to hire anyone in a first world country if the job can be outsourced. Should labor in the US be restricted to jobs that only require a physical presence in the US? Under the current conditions and your belief that people should always work for what the lowest bidder is willing to do, why wouldn't they?
+ Show Spoiler +Mind you, this whole system will go tits up when peak oil is actually realized. The main reason outsourcing works is that the US constantly strives to keep transportation costs as low as possible via international diplomacy, wars, etc. The US' chief export is transportation after all.
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On March 09 2011 11:49 RedBarchetta wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 07:48 etherwar wrote:On March 09 2011 05:43 DoubleReed wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, the Wisconsin issue is about public office unions. Firefighters, teachers, police officers, etc. etc. All this talk about better economics and private businesses doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in this context. Unions aren't that common in private enterprise, and where they are, they are often challenged (look at Directors Guild of America for instance).
This is about public unions specifically.
The Unions actually involved have said they will take massive pay cuts instead of giving up their union rights. This Republican Senators and Governor seem to be the only ones around who seems to think this is a good idea. The Wisconsin Teachers Union (The union actually involved in the situation you're referencing) did "concede" and say they would pay a relatively small portion of their benefits. Right now, they don't pay any towards their benefits/pension which is absolutely ludicrous. The WI Governor is proposing that they ONLY be able to collectively bargain for their salary, and only up to the cost of living index. This has turned into an all-out flame war/pissing contest from both sides. And make no mistake, NEITHER side is willing to budge. What you are dealing with in the Wisconsin teacher's union situation is a complete and utter spectacle drummed up by Democrats and the WI teacher's union. It's specifically designed to drum up this stupid argument about labor and corporate rights. That helps you to fit into one "side" so that you may in turn denounce the other "side". It's all about WI teachers getting as much as they possibly can on the public dime. Teacher's unions are absolutely bad for the taxpayers that fund their salaries and for the students that get drug into these arguments and indoctrinated by their teachers. The Teacher's union protects good and bad teachers alike, and makes firing a teacher pretty damn hard. They're also in bed with the Democrat political organization, which capitulates to the union's wants because of the associated campaign donations. The Democrats (or Liberals, choose your flavor) would love to have you believe that this is a Republican assault on unions (and by extension, the common man), and then they'll turn around and donate huge money to the next Democrat governor (and legislators). Next, those elected officials take part in the renegotiation of the union contracts and somehow "find it in the budget" to sweeten their deal a little bit. It's been going on in Wisconsin for YEARS... and the previous outgoing WI Governor Doyle actually rushed through passing SIX (6) separate public union contracts in December of 2010 before the current Gov. Walker could take office, despite requests from Gov. Walker to wait for him (this is why he's pissed and won't budge, right or wrong). http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/11/22/state_democrats_rush.phpAn applicable approach to the subject of Wisconsin teachers being "underpaid", a common misconception brandied by the Unions: http://www.wpri.org/WIInterest/Vol11No3/Niederjohn11.3.pdfIt seems like we want to somehow link what we pay teachers, or what we spend on education, directly to how much achievement we get from students, while there are just too many other factors in play. Take a look at the census data from 2008 on how much we spend per pupil by state. ( http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/08f33pub.pdf ) [page 14] I can assure you that while, DC tends to spend an enormous amount on their public education systems, it's continually labeled as one of the worst school systems in the country. Don't even get me started about the bullshit legislators that ran from the state to prevent the due course of lawmaking, how is that for some childish shit. In fact, they ALL deserve a giant FUCK YOU AND GROW UP from every last one of us. Politics, you gotta laugh at it because it keeps you from crying. By the way, I only think unions are appropriate for low-wage, low-skilled jobs. But there they serve a definite and beneficial purpose that is not fundamentally slanted against the public interest. Sorry for the lengthy post, but all the uneducated crap I read today made me want to lay it all down on the table. Wow.... First of all, this is a direct assault on individual liberties. We could talk all day about whether or not public schooling/teachers, etc are good things but that would not affect this bill in any way. The primary issue with the legislation is that it is an attempt to strip the individual off the basic right to organize for a common interest.
Direct assault on individual liberties? You act like this is allowed all over the country. In fact, it's not. Lots of states don't allow their public employee unions the powers the WI one currently has. In fact, it's super rare to have a deal as sweet as those guys have, public or private sector.
As for Gov Doyle rushing through those bills...was he wrong? Yes. But could you expect any better from Walker? No. Was Walker just playing politics when he asked for them to be delayed? Yes
I'm not even taking sides (except against public unions which I explain in my post before)... I'm just trying to distill the predominantly Democratic talking points that have been offered here. There are two sides to every coin. I agree Walker was in the wrong, but you don't hear the other half of the story there either... Walker is unreasonable. Doyle was unreasonable. You hear about the former and not the latter.
Nobody believes the teachers are underpaid--you will find a good portion of the people against this bill think teachers do get paid too much
People have definitely offered the argument that teachers are underpaid, and that their median salary has decreased over the last 4-5 years (which is true), but their benefits have gotten better.
I'm not even against teachers earning more. I have high school teacher friends and I know how hard they work. I'm just against them having the right to organize against the state for more taxpayer dollars. Unions don't do as good a job protecting good teachers as they do bad ones.
Your argument about DC is irrelevant
Just pointing out that spending on education is not directly relevant to the education results achieved
Yeah, shame on those legislators for obstructing an unjust law that Walker is trying to force through without sufficient time for public discussion.
Yeah, shame on every Democrat or Republican who abandons his or her post in order to obstruct the business of the political body they were elected to represent. So you think it woulda been ok for Republicans to leave the country to prevent quorum during the health care package debate? (Talk about forcing through without sufficient time for public discussion)
Are you OK when Republicans prevent cloture in the US Senate and thus obstruct the legislative process?
I'm not ok with any of that bs. That extremist crap has got to go if we're ever going to get this country back on the right track imo
The WI Public Unions may be OP, but that does not in any way justify this sharp curtailing of basic liberties. Using "the public interest" as an excuse to do this is all fun and games until the government is pointing the barrel at you.
Wow? I think the bill is extreme myself, but I definitely think this will have a negligible effect on anyone's "basic liberties"... unless you consider the cushy union deal that WI teachers currently have a basic civil liberty
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On March 09 2011 12:58 Magrath wrote:
It's hard for me to not side with unions who are often fighting for better wages and job security when there people in the world getting million dollar bonuses yet other people still remain poor and dieing. Not only in their home country but in countries of the world. This world is passed Kings and Queens.
1) Do you really think anyone in public primary and secondary education is getting paid millions of dollars?
2) If you own a business you can pay yourself and your employees whatever you want. If you pay them too much, you'll lose money. If you don't pay them enough, another company will steal them from you by offering better pay/benefits.
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On March 09 2011 13:00 ThaZenith wrote:
When wages decrease in proportion to prices, like japan, purchasing power stays the same.
When wages are low and prices are low, there's no changing of anything so obviously purchasing power stays the same. There's no implied real value of purchasing power by saying "low". (no idea what you were arguing)
I have the same question for you, given I never mentioned wages in china, you just seemed to bring it up, so I too made a non-sequitur
On March 09 2011 13:00 ThaZenith wrote:
And your comment about hours working may have been true 20 years ago, but china is rapidly becoming more developed. Hundreds of millions pulled out of poverty in the last decade(s) there. With development comes better working conditions.
Why even discuss this with you when you deny reality so completely? Working conditions in china are less than ideal, empirical fact.
On March 09 2011 13:00 ThaZenith wrote:
None of what you're pointing out relates to unions either. That's why I implied your lower intelligence, not because of the points themselves. Stay on topic? o.o
Well, it actually does, in relation to the original comment I made that you decided to take and run with about japanese purchasing power, etc. Perhaps you should worry about mannering up instead of back seat moderating?
Don't worry, I don't require a response 
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On March 09 2011 12:45 A3iL3r0n wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:39 Shanlan wrote:On March 09 2011 12:16 Offhand wrote:On March 09 2011 12:11 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 12:00 Offhand wrote:On March 09 2011 11:46 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 11:34 Deja Thoris wrote:On March 09 2011 10:44 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 10:23 Ome wrote:
Corporations have proved time and time again that they will cut corners on everything to increase profit margins, see BP oil last year, or the practice by Nike, the Gap and others who employ young children overseas.
Unions somewhat keep Corporations in check. Of course there are bad unions, bad union leadership, and good, decent corporations. But overall they protect the worker from exploitation that would certainly occur if they did not exist. This is not a union's job. It's your job, as a consumer, to choose products that are created in ways you deem to be ethical. Until society is ready to do that, no one in it deserves to think they're doing their part to stand up for their position on the environment, how overseas workers are treated, etc. You are kidding or trolling, right? Society is far away from that level of maturity and will probably never reach it. If that's actually the case, then democracy's kind of screwed, isn't it? I'm being completely honest, you have no right to demand that a company do something that you aren't willing to accept the consequences of. If child labour doesn't make shoes, they are going to be a hell of a lot more expensive. So far society has spoken, and it would rather the children make shoes. The responsibility for that lies solely in each and every person who's benefitted from that. Yes, the people on the top who are making millions off of the whole deal are being unethical, but they're a symptom, a monster you and I helped create through our own greed and apathy. I don't disagree with you, but the fact of the matter is, we can't make these choices. Do you want to buy shoes or clothes in this country? You're supporting child sweatshops. Do you want US produce? You support illegal immigration. Do you buy gas? You may as well suck Satan's dick for that one. We live in a society where these choices are unavoidable. It's not possible to "vote with your wallet" when all your options boil down to "evil" and "more evil". Regulation is a necessary part of a capitalist society. With some things like oil, I agree, but the fact is that companies have tried being ethical and sustainable, and the problem is that prices are so high, it becomes a luxury for the rich. Can you afford to spend double on your shoes, or to only drink free-trade coffee? If you bought non-chemical toilet paper, ate vegetarian to preserve our farmland, ate only free-range eggs, bought electronics made in Japan or the US or Europe, etc. your standard of living would drop, and by a lot. Show someone a picture of starving kids and sweat shops, and they will say "yes, I want this to end," but will they give up their savings, their ability to buy a nice house, their car, their TV, their morning coffee, just to save these people? If the answer is no, and it is, who is going to make that happen? I'd say it's being procrastinated because people are afraid of what would happen if things really did change like this. I sure as hell wouldn't like losing my internet, power, ability to fly to Europe and the Carribean, etc. These things are only affordable if you're a member of the upper class. Poor people don't shop at Luis Vinton or eat at Whole Foods. You can only afford these "guilt free" expensive purchases if you're a member of the elite, which precludes the majority of people. This all supports my belief that we need to tax the fuck out of the rich. Wealth disparity in the US is ridiculous and the political systems in place do nothing but maintain the status quo. That only serves to prove his point. Only the rich can afford to be "morally" righteous in their economic decisions. The next step is to force the rich who have worked for their money to turn around and support the rest of the country? Would you want to work hard and start a successful business only to have 99% of it taken away and spent on the drug-addicts on the street or the gangs roaming the ghettos? Social welfare doesn't fix the problem and wealth redistribution is theft with a prettier name. On March 09 2011 12:16 Offhand wrote:On March 09 2011 12:15 SharkSpider wrote:On March 09 2011 12:12 Offhand wrote:
Companies only produce what they can sell. There's no reason to overproduce, and supply creating its own demand has been a proven economic fallacy for years. You've yet to address why companies reporting record profits shouldn't raise their worker's wages. Fixed economic demand is the same thing as overabundance of labour supply, which I've covered. The second you raise your wages after a good year, people are competing for your jobs, which drives the wages down over time. This is only true in a no-growth economy (also the same as being not true). First, I'd like to point out you've assumed a no-growth economy. Fixed supply = fixed demand. Second, in a perfectly free market profits would be near zero. Competition between firms would drive down prices till they reached costs, with free labor market determining the wage. So your argument of firms controlling wages is a fallacy. Wages are determined by the labor market not by the firm. Unless the labor market isn't free, like when there's unions, and minimum wage, and salary caps. Except that in the US, the rich hardly pay any taxes in proportion to what they make as compared to the income brackets below them. So, please stop with your neo-conservative bullshit. What you're saying isn't reality. We need to help everyone succeed, not just let people fend for themselves because assholes like you don't care about anyone else except yourself and people who think like you. Capitalism should still be used to determine the distribution of resources, but what the US does to its poorest people is criminal. Yet, you're steamed because you have to pay taxes. Look, if you want to make the world a better place, it doesn't involve fucking over a group of people because you can.
Tax brackets are proportional by definition, 40k of 100k is the same proportion as 120k of 300k. The end sum is the main difference. What you're suggesting is, no matter how hard you work you'll make the same amount of money.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.
I don't see how encouraging people to become successful "fucks over" the rest, when successful businesses offer more jobs and better wages.
Lastly, ad hominem arguments server no purpose in an academic debate. Also I'm a poor student who gets tax refunds because I can't even qualify for the lowest tax bracket. But I don't think it's fair for me to take other people's hard earned money just because I don't make as much.
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On March 09 2011 12:20 Shanlan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:10 Rashid wrote:On March 09 2011 11:57 Shanlan wrote:
First, we examine the role of unions in a market where labor supply is less than demand. Companies in this scenario will be glad to increase wages, benefits, and conditions for workers. The problem arises when unions dictate that those increases apply to all employees. Even in a labor scarce market employers will want to replace poor workers with good ones, but the union will prevent that. So the result is less proficient workers will be hired than in a free market, so there will be better workers in a less profitable firm who could have been hired to a better wage and position but aren't due to union restrictions. Also overall the improvement to the rest of the workers will be less because the poor workers will need to be compensated as well. I don't feel the improvement to the poor worker justifies the losses sustained by the proficient ones.
You know, i have somebody in the neighborhood who owns a carwash business. He hires about 15-20 indian illegal immigrants and pays them each roughly US$100 a MONTH. Do you want any one of your loved ones to work like donkeys for US$100 a month? Your brother or sister perhaps? Or maybe your mother? Or even yourself? Perhaps you should actually read what I wrote. The excerpt you quoted refers to a labor scarce market, which in your case isn't. I also don't see how it applies.
I wouldn't work for $100/month and I doubt anyone I know would either. This is because I know I can get a better job that pays better. If I had a choice between not eating and working for $100/month then yes I would.Simply stating that low wages exist and asking if I would like to do it doesn't serve a purpose. I'm sure the Indians working there would like to work for more money or be a CEO and live in a big house, but they can't because they don't have the skills or abilities to do it. I'm sure you might have a valid opinion but I don't see one in this post or how it serves to further this discussion.
That's the point. You yourself aren't willing to work for US$100 a month, and i'm pretty sure the guy who hired those indians isn't willing to do the same either, but for some reason you think it's ok for these indians to do the low-pay hard -labor job that you or even anybody you know isnt willing to do. But just because those indians are so desperate that they are willing to work for US$100 a month, doesn't mean that i should take advantage of them. JUST BECAUSE I CAN, DOESN'T MEAN I SHOULD.
As a socially responsible employer, if i wanted to hire them, I should pay them the proper salary and give them the proper benefits, REGARDLESS of what they is willing to sell himself for.
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On March 09 2011 12:56 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 12:39 Shanlan wrote:
Second, in a perfectly free market profits would be near zero. Competition between firms would drive down prices till they reached costs, with free labor market determining the wage.
So your argument of firms controlling wages is a fallacy. Wages are determined by the labor market not by the firm. Unless the labor market isn't free, like when there's unions, and minimum wage, and salary caps. Perfect competition assumes unlimited resources, an infinite number of buyers and sellers, perfect information, no transaction costs, indistinguishable products, no economies of scale, perfect labor and capital mobility, as well as free entry and exit. It's a nice simplification to get people started, but ultimately it's like modeling a horse with a massless, frictionless sphere. Most of our economic sectors tend to mirror monopolistic competition or oligopoly. Also information asymmetry is very high; firms have access to vastly more information than either their workers or their consumers. Indeed the labor market without unions fall closer to the category of oligopsony or, rarely, monopsony (some public sector jobs may fit here). Because of this, firms are able to be price setters rather than price takers.
Good points, but I think the main cause stems from labor surplus, which makes firms price setters. There weren't any of these problems with unions when the economy was expanding and there was a labor shortage.
That's why I advocate for unions to be a lobbying group that promotes education, combating information asymmetry, and lobbies for market reforms. I believe in solutions that drive towards a more ideal free market vs ad hoc solutions that don't work in the long term.
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On March 09 2011 13:12 pfods wrote:Don't worry, I don't require a response
Thank god. I shouldn't have bothered correcting the guy with no relevant point anyway. If you want me to explain more fully, pm me and I will.
On March 09 2011 13:11 trainRiderJ wrote:
2) If you own a business you can pay yourself and your employees whatever you want. If you pay them too much, you'll lose money. If you don't pay them enough, another company will steal them from you by offering better pay/benefits.
This is basically the key. Even without unions, there's incentive to offer a higher wage to get the best workers, and thus be more efficient/profit more. Unions aren't "necessary", but I can see why people want them. Wages won't magically drop to $3/hour without them.
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On March 09 2011 13:07 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Unions are nothing more than labor-side monopolies. If we recognize the harmful affects of monopolies relative to a free market on the business-side, why do we hold a double standard?
Exploiting an advantaged position in order to price-gouge: bad when business does it, good when labor does it?
Indeed we might get the best results if both corporations and unions did not exist. I'd rather see multiple unions in each sector that roughly equal the number of major firms competing in that sector. I forget the economic term for this estimate (effective firms competing, which takes into account the range over which smaller firms compete)... but like, if there are 3 major American auto manufacturers it would be nice if there were 3 American autoworker unions. This is why it's an ugly solution. A labor monopoly going against a small number of hiring firms is probably more fair than a perfect supply of labor going against a small number of firms, although neither is truly balanced.
Over the last 50-60 years, unionization rates in the United States have plummeted. During the same time, our nation's growth in GDP per capita has slowed, unemployment has increased, and our Gini coefficient (a measure of wealth inequality) has grown substantially - well beyond even what right-leaning economists were arguing for 20 years ago.
And what benefits have we seen in return? Are our products more competitive overseas than they were decades ago? Has inflation fallen in the long run?
Obviously economies are vastly complex systems and changes in the domestic labor market account for only part of the changes. (the trend for outsourcing is killing American labor) But I don't think we've gotten anything in return for the worsening of our labor markets; we need to rethink the policies we've changed to allow this to occur.
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On March 09 2011 04:16 SharkSpider wrote:
The problem, now, is that Unions have legal and contractual rights in most developed countries. This gives them the power to deny jobs to people who would accept them for less pay, who are often the people who need them the most. It's no longer a case of Unions working against the tyranny of business for the sake of the working man, it's a case of inside-groups working for their own self-interest at the expense of the outside-group. (Economically, higher wages plus termination restrictions force the net up, at the expense of higher total employment.)
Without unions, you get more short-term employment, better international competition, less oursourcing leading to long-term employment, and wages distributed among the workforce, albeit at a lower level. With unions, short-term unemployment increases, jobs are outsourced over time for countries with looser labour laws, companies are less profitable so international investors withdraw capital from the country, and income is concentrated on a smaller group of the workforce who have no defining characteristics other than seniority in an organization.
This is basically a key example of why supply-limiting wealth distribution is a bad idea. Cut union power, increase tax on profits and give that to the population in forms of infrastructure. For clarification on why this is better, the key is the marginal utility of a worker. Taxes will not bring the "worth" of hiring an extra worker below zero if it's not negative already. Upward pressure on wages will bring the worth of hiring an extra worker below zero. People are accusing businesspeople of being greedy, but any businessperson will hire a worker who costs less than the product he creates, in theory even if the difference is a dollar or two. The real, sickening greed is people who would both lower the money the government gets in taxes and put someone else out a job just for a wage increase that economics doesn't call for.
You need to be repeated. Unions create unemployment. They are a part of the HAVES and there are millions of HAVE NOTS who would take half of what they make to have a job.
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On March 09 2011 13:22 Shanlan wrote:
Good points, but I think the main cause stems from labor surplus, which makes firms price setters. There weren't any of these problems with unions when the economy was expanding and there was a labor shortage.
That's why I advocate for unions to be a lobbying group that promotes education, combating information asymmetry, and lobbies for market reforms. I believe in solutions that drive towards a more ideal free market vs ad hoc solutions that don't work in the long term.
The 90s/tech boom were a nice time for most people indeed
And yes, unions could do a lot more to work on educating/improving their members as more skilled workers (that'd also give people more incentive to join). In many ways, unions have fought hard on a few issues that affect the workforce while completely ignoring others. A professor named Barry Pump pointed this out in contrasting state unionization vs state tax regressiveness and vs state welfare spending - his conclusion being that unions haven't done a good job making state/local taxes more fair for the lower class, but they may have helped people earn wages that get them off of welfare.
But I think, especially in sectors where firms are consolidating, some form of collective bargaining is probably a necessity.
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On March 09 2011 13:24 ThaZenith wrote:Thank god. I shouldn't have bothered correcting the guy with no relevant point anyway. If you want me to explain more fully, pm me and I will. Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 13:11 trainRiderJ wrote:
2) If you own a business you can pay yourself and your employees whatever you want. If you pay them too much, you'll lose money. If you don't pay them enough, another company will steal them from you by offering better pay/benefits. This is basically the key. Even without unions, there's incentive to offer a higher wage to get the best workers, and thus be more efficient/profit more. Unions aren't "necessary", but I can see why people want them. Wages won't magically drop to $3/hour without them.
That kind of incentive only happens in the top brass of corporations, where companies would pay top dollar to have the right management team with the right skills. It rarely happens within the general working class of factory workers, construction workers, food service, etc.
Unions aren't necessary? Wages wont magically drop to $3/hour without unions? Lol, do some research on working condiitons in India and China. Or go back to your history books and read about the Industrial Revolution. Or better yet just wiki 'LAISSEZ FFAIRE'.
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On March 09 2011 13:34 TributeBoxer wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 04:16 SharkSpider wrote:
The problem, now, is that Unions have legal and contractual rights in most developed countries. This gives them the power to deny jobs to people who would accept them for less pay, who are often the people who need them the most. It's no longer a case of Unions working against the tyranny of business for the sake of the working man, it's a case of inside-groups working for their own self-interest at the expense of the outside-group. (Economically, higher wages plus termination restrictions force the net up, at the expense of higher total employment.)
Without unions, you get more short-term employment, better international competition, less oursourcing leading to long-term employment, and wages distributed among the workforce, albeit at a lower level. With unions, short-term unemployment increases, jobs are outsourced over time for countries with looser labour laws, companies are less profitable so international investors withdraw capital from the country, and income is concentrated on a smaller group of the workforce who have no defining characteristics other than seniority in an organization.
This is basically a key example of why supply-limiting wealth distribution is a bad idea. Cut union power, increase tax on profits and give that to the population in forms of infrastructure. For clarification on why this is better, the key is the marginal utility of a worker. Taxes will not bring the "worth" of hiring an extra worker below zero if it's not negative already. Upward pressure on wages will bring the worth of hiring an extra worker below zero. People are accusing businesspeople of being greedy, but any businessperson will hire a worker who costs less than the product he creates, in theory even if the difference is a dollar or two. The real, sickening greed is people who would both lower the money the government gets in taxes and put someone else out a job just for a wage increase that economics doesn't call for. You need to be repeated. Unions create unemployment. They are a part of the HAVES and there are millions of HAVE NOTS who would take half of what they make to have a job.
what about companies that close branches/factories/etc or lay off people, but increase the salary/bonuses of their executives?
Unions may prevent anti-unionists from joining a job, but the good they provide far outweighs the bad. The same cannot be said for greedy corporations.
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EPT
