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On January 31 2015 01:11 ACrow wrote: So, this is just in: Greece kicks out the troika, there was some kind of fall out in a meeting between Euro group head Dijsselbloem and the new finance secretary Varoufakis.
They seem to be serious - it doesn't look like they are just playing poker, maybe they already took the money offer by Russia? It's hard to see how they could stay in the euro if they continue to act like this.
Greeces (only?) advantage right now is that they have morality on their side so there is a chance that politicians all over europe have a chance to "sell" help for greece to their people because it is "the right thing to do". But right now they act more like a child with his fingers in his ears, eyes closed and shouting "Bart is so great" who dont want to eat his vegtables.
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On January 30 2015 19:05 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +Anyone who knows anything about Russian liberation of Eastern Europe knows that it was anything but liberation. I personally like to think that the best of humanity triumphed against the horrors of Nazism with the fall of Berlin, but an army that engaged in looting, raping millions of women, and massacres are things that should not be glorified. At least the Western Front Allies atrocities were significantly smaller, even when firebombing Dresden. This is absolute hypocrisy. - Rape and war are an invarriable : as you said, there were rape in the western front too, but rape happened in most war known to men (Algeria is a good exemple of that), and was even used as a weapon by the military in some conflicts ; - The western front was not engaged in war for the same time : three years of war in the eastern front - brutal war - does that to men ; - There were no official directive to use rape as a tool coming from the Red Army : the military were just savage after so long (unlike in Palestine, were rape was used as a tool for ethnical cleansing by the israelis). You really can't compare the two.
On the eastern front almost 100 % of German"women" between age 12-80 were raped (and many between age 8-12 as well) in 44-45. That's everyone. Every schoolgirl and every grandma. It's insane.
They were usually gang raped repeatedly. I've read a Swedish book about the atrocities in the red army offensive (I've read about most parts of the War actually) and it's absolutely disgusting reading. And there WAS official directive to rape German women. Sure no one went out and said "please go rape as many girls as you can" on paper but it's a fact that there were a lot of official propaganda encouraging troops to punish the German population and encouraging rape and directives to not do anything at all to stop it. If you rile your men up and set them loose with full knowledge of what will happen you might as well have put the order in plain writing (instead of hinting about it, giving verbal orders and generally encouraging it).
The fact that they had to stop the entire offensive because it got bogged down in civilian towns just because soldiers got drunk and went on raping sprees just underline the fact.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Zurich15313 Posts
On January 31 2015 01:01 Nyxisto wrote: The sanctions aren't really that big of a deal and actually are specifically targeting politicians and such and not the average population. It's pretty much the minimal response the EU has to show in this conflict so they at least look like they're doing something. All the trade restrictions hitting the population were actually initiated by Russia. Putin probably likes riling up the population with them. Also the oil prices is what's really killing the Russian economy at the moment. Seriously. The blame for any "punishment" of the Russian population lies entirely with Putin. And if the population finds stopping food imports a reasonable reaction to visa restrictions against Russian oligarchs, so be it.
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How german people live without minimum wage ? Minimum wage is a topic that I'm really interested about, and I have difficulties making my own opinion on it. If you put a minimum wage, you'll reenforce enemployment, and the opposite if you remove it, but how come Australians are living quite well with such a high minimum wage, and Germany is also doing well without it.
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On January 31 2015 03:06 Faust852 wrote: How german people live without minimum wage ? Minimum wage is a topic that I'm really interested about, and I have difficulties making my own opinion on it. If you put a minimum wage, you'll reenforce enemployment, and the opposite if you remove it, but how come Australians are living quite well with such a high minimum wage, and Germany is also doing well without it. we actually have a minimum wage now as well ever since... this january I think o/
yeah just googled it, wikipedia says since jan 2015
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On January 31 2015 03:12 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 03:06 Faust852 wrote: How german people live without minimum wage ? Minimum wage is a topic that I'm really interested about, and I have difficulties making my own opinion on it. If you put a minimum wage, you'll reenforce enemployment, and the opposite if you remove it, but how come Australians are living quite well with such a high minimum wage, and Germany is also doing well without it. we actually have a minimum wage now as well ever since... this january I think o/ yeah just googled it, wikipedia says since jan 2015
Cool, I hope it will provide enough data to definitly judge if either minimum wage is good or bad for the economy as a whole.
Were a lot of people under the 8.50€/hour wage before this year?
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On January 31 2015 01:28 Micro_Jackson wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 01:11 ACrow wrote: So, this is just in: Greece kicks out the troika, there was some kind of fall out in a meeting between Euro group head Dijsselbloem and the new finance secretary Varoufakis.
They seem to be serious - it doesn't look like they are just playing poker, maybe they already took the money offer by Russia? It's hard to see how they could stay in the euro if they continue to act like this. Greeces (only?) advantage right now is that they have morality on their side so there is a chance that politicians all over europe have a chance to "sell" help for greece to their people because it is "the right thing to do". But right now they act more like a child with his fingers in his ears, eyes closed and shouting "Bart is so great" who dont want to eat his vegtables. I am not really sure how morality is per se on their side? You mean in the sense that the contraction following 2008 was so extremely horrible for them that they've been punished enough and now should receive aid because they've been 'cleansed' by it the way Germany after WW2 was punished enough so its debt relief was ok? I guess that makes some sense, but the problem is that Greek economic illiteracy is pretty self evident. They lived off the back of other peoples money for 10 years or so, so when a 'far left' party comes in and promises that it will 'free them' from the yolk of 'German imperialism' most believe it. But without that 'yoke' their banking system collapses and along with it whats left of their economy. And its not like Styrizia's platform offers any kind of alternative reform -- which I personally would be interested to see, maybe there is a way to organize an economic thanks to new technology that replicates the markets information gathering/distributing power but without the brutalization of the weaker market participants or something like that but their platform is simply 'we are going to go back to the spending like it was in 2007 + maybe try to stop some rich people' + random hate on all non-Russian foreigners.
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On January 31 2015 03:17 Faust852 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 03:12 Toadesstern wrote:On January 31 2015 03:06 Faust852 wrote: How german people live without minimum wage ? Minimum wage is a topic that I'm really interested about, and I have difficulties making my own opinion on it. If you put a minimum wage, you'll reenforce enemployment, and the opposite if you remove it, but how come Australians are living quite well with such a high minimum wage, and Germany is also doing well without it. we actually have a minimum wage now as well ever since... this january I think o/ yeah just googled it, wikipedia says since jan 2015 Cool, I hope it will provide enough data to definitly judge if either minimum wage is good or bad for the economy as a whole. Were a lot of people under the 8.50€/hour wage before this year? I actually don't know. What I do know is that we had partial minimum wage, minimum wage for certain jobs before 2015 as well. So it's probably really hard to get data from that if you don't know what you're doing and I'm not interested enough in the topic to be any knowledgable about it, sry
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On January 31 2015 03:06 Faust852 wrote: How german people live without minimum wage ? Minimum wage is a topic that I'm really interested about, and I have difficulties making my own opinion on it. If you put a minimum wage, you'll reenforce enemployment, and the opposite if you remove it, but how come Australians are living quite well with such a high minimum wage, and Germany is also doing well without it.
A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that?
As always its more complicated then that but minimum wages have lesser impact on an economy then it seems on the first look. Depending on how its done sometimes its just a big taxraise.
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On January 31 2015 03:24 Micro_Jackson wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 03:06 Faust852 wrote: How german people live without minimum wage ? Minimum wage is a topic that I'm really interested about, and I have difficulties making my own opinion on it. If you put a minimum wage, you'll reenforce enemployment, and the opposite if you remove it, but how come Australians are living quite well with such a high minimum wage, and Germany is also doing well without it. A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that? As always its more complicated then that but minimum wages have lesser impact on an economy then it seems on the first look. Depending on how its done sometimes its just a big taxraise.
I know my economics 101, but I think the subject has so many factors to be sure if one is great or not. Btw the thread is Politico-economics QA so I think the question is in the good thread :p
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A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that? That's a stupid answer befitting a stupid teacher. Minimum wage is not a political question, it's an economic question related to the reality of the labor market (which is not a pure and perfect market where the "price" - or wage - is set through the confrontation of "offer" and "demand").
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On January 31 2015 01:01 Nyxisto wrote: The sanctions aren't really that big of a deal and actually are specifically targeting politicians and such and not the average population. It's pretty much the minimal response the EU has to show in this conflict so they at least look like they're doing something. All the trade restrictions hitting the population were actually initiated by Russia. Putin probably likes riling up the population with them. Also the oil prices is what's really killing the Russian economy at the moment. Closing financial markets to big firms like Rosneft and Gazprom is a pretty big deal. Although you're right the biggest problem is the falling oil price.
Reuters) - The new leftwing government in Athens opened negotiations on its bailout package with European partners on Friday by flatly rejecting the expected extension of the programme and the international inspectors overseeing it.
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met Jeroen Dijsselbloem, head of the euro zone finance ministers' group, for what both described as "constructive" discussions.
However Greek media seized on signs of frosty body language between the two men and the hour-long meeting appeared to do nothing to bridge the gap between the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and European partners.
The meeting marked the start of Greece's drive to persuade its partners to loosen the strict terms of its 240-billion-euro bailout, which has imposed years of harsh austerity on the country in its worst crisis in decades. It precedes visits by Tsipras and Varoufakis to London, Paris and Rome next week.
Although neither France nor Italy have shown any sign of accepting the new government's demand to write off part of its 320 billion-euro debt, they have both previously called for a change of course from German-style budget austerity.
After a volatile week in which banking stocks fell by as much as 40 percent, financial markets, which recovered some ground on Thursday, fell back, with the main Athens stock market index down 1.6 percent .ATG. Greek 10-year yields GT10YT=TWEB were down 22 basis points at 10.37 percent but still well above levels seen before Sunday's election.
Varoufakis said Greece had no intention of cooperating with a mission from the lending "troika" of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, and would not seek an extension to a Feb. 28 deadline with euro zone lenders. source Som background info for people who don't know Dijsselbloem: He's the finance minister of the Netherlands as well. He's of the Dutch Labour party (Partij van de Arbeid) so he's probably sympathetic to Greece and on Italy's and France's side personally. The public opinion in the Netherlands more or less follows the German one though so he's in between a rock and a hard place.
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On January 31 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that? That's a stupid answer befitting a stupid teacher. Minimum wage is not a political question, it's an economic question related to the reality of the labor market (which is not a pure and perfect market where the "price" - or wage - is set through the confrontation of "offer" and "demand").
It's a simplistic explanation, but it suffices to show your typical college student the fallacy of a minimum wage and the effects of raising and lowering it.
No market is perfect, and increasing wages will tend to erode corporate profit ever so slightly, even after the company passes through the increase in expense to its customers. But the fact remains that a fair majority of minimum wage jobs are occupied by the very people to utilize the services of minimum wage prevalent industries, thus negating any potential, albeit miniscule, economic advantage they accumulate, and certainly not one that compensates for the economic cost of administering and maintaining such nonsense.
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On January 31 2015 00:38 WhiteDog wrote:Just like when Bush was going at war for false reasons. Back then, the americans were broadly behind him : it's nationalism at play, and it's exactly the reason why one should not punish the population, because facing what is felt as a danger, citizens usually end up forgetting all critical thinking and following their "leaders" even in the most unjust and idiot behaviors (nazi germany is the same kind of thing). I believe there is a place where we can both show respect toward the population of Russia and at the same time show our disagreement with the politics of Putin - but not by increasing the price of all primary goods. First of all, i'd like to "warn" that i'm russian so you guys can treat my statements appropriately. Dude, i really appreciate your attitide towards my country and people. But! You should know that you delude yourself a little bit (meaning no offense!). While I agree with you on "citizens forgetting all critical thinking in times of danger" thing but i have to admit that my people (in the majority) are xeno(homo)phobic to a greater extent than you think. We, as a nation, strongly believe in our great purpose to "save" the world, especially from western "filthiness" and strongly oppose oursleves to the western world as a "civilization". People here sencerely believe that "our way is the best way" and "not so clever" europeans and americans just don't understand that they live "false" lives with "false ideals" (I guess you would forgive them because they truly and faithfully believe in that meaning "no offense"... from their perspective). I can talk for hours about the origings of this phenomena, but this is pointless i guess. I really like how someone in this thread already stated that "Russia is obsessed with antagonizing the West because that is where they draw their identity from". This is so true. Being russian i couldn't think of better statement to express it. And i wouldn't blame Putin for all this mess that's happening. He is just triggering this reaction from people making them think they are in danger. I can assure you that "election numbers" from russia can be trusted. People in this country strongly approve the governements course. Also, what really matters is that our people actually do not need the western model of democracy. We just need someone to point at the "right" guy to vote for him. All elections end up like that. People are not used to a libreal way of thinking. They just do what "other people do". As for me, i would really like EU and Russia to peacefully and happily coexist, but there is so much to overcome to get to that scenario.
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On January 31 2015 05:35 insitelol wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 00:38 WhiteDog wrote:The main difference is that 90% of Russians Just like when Bush was going at war for false reasons. Back then, the americans were broadly behind him : it's nationalism at play, and it's exactly the reason why one should not punish the population, because facing what is felt as a danger, citizens usually end up forgetting all critical thinking and following their "leaders" even in the most unjust and idiot behaviors (nazi germany is the same kind of thing). I believe there is a place where we can both show respect toward the population of Russia and at the same time show our disagreement with the politics of Putin - but not by increasing the price of all primary goods. First of all, i'd like to "warn" that i'm russian so you guys can treat my statements appropriately. Dude, i really appreciate your attitide towards my country and people. But! You should know that you delude yourself a little bit (meaning no offense!). While I agree with you on "citizens forgetting all critical thinking in times of danger" thing but i have to admit that my people (in the majority) are xeno(homo)phobic to a greater extent than you think. We, as a nation, strongly believe in our great purpose to "save" the world, especially from western "filthiness" and strongly oppose oursleves to the western world as a "civilization". People here sencerely believe that "our way is the best way" and "not so clever" europeans and americans just don't understand that they live "false" lives with "false ideals" (I guess you would forgive them because they truly and faithfully believe in that meaning "no offense"... from their perspective). I can talk for hours about the origings of this phenomena, but this is pointless i guess. I really like how someone in this thread already stated that "Russia is obsessed with antagonizing the West because that is where they draw their identity from". This is so true. Being russian i couldn't think of better statement to express it. And i wouldn't blame Putin for all this mess that's happening. He is just triggering this reaction from people making them think they are in danger. I can assure you that "election numbers" from russia can be trusted. People in this country strongly approve the governements course. Also, what really matters is that our people actually do not need the western model of democracy. We just need someone to point at the "right" guy to vote for him. All elections end up like that. People are not used to a libreal way of thinking. They just do what "other people do". As for me, i would really like EU and Russia to peacefully and happily coexist, but there is so much to overcome to get to that scenario. I'm not saying we should go with flowers in Russia tho :/ I'm saying diplomatic should not be a contest of sanctions, but more intelligent. It should not be an open war, but one that is fought in the shadows. Russia has been virtually considered an ennemy by the entire occident since the 1917 revolution (and before that it was considered as a retarded nation by everyone except maybe for us the french who always had a liking to Russia's culture), so it's not surprising that they feel this way. Europe would need at least one or two generations of "normalized" relationships with Russia for the tension to disappear.
On January 31 2015 05:25 hannahbelle wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that? That's a stupid answer befitting a stupid teacher. Minimum wage is not a political question, it's an economic question related to the reality of the labor market (which is not a pure and perfect market where the "price" - or wage - is set through the confrontation of "offer" and "demand"). It's a simplistic explanation, but it suffices to show your typical college student the fallacy of a minimum wage and the effects of raising and lowering it. No market is perfect, and increasing wages will tend to erode corporate profit ever so slightly, even after the company passes through the increase in expense to its customers. But the fact remains that a fair majority of minimum wage jobs are occupied by the very people to utilize the services of minimum wage prevalent industries, thus negating any potential, albeit miniscule, economic advantage they accumulate, and certainly not one that compensates for the economic cost of administering and maintaining such nonsense. Yes and no. A good teacher would tell you that it depend on the market structure. There are experience of an increase in minimum wage that resulted in a decrease in unemployment - most notably in some state of the US and in some field where the labor is not qualified (usually the interpretation is that the demand is in a monopsony like situation). It's a way better answer for a good teacher to explain its student that the response depend on the specificity of the context - understood economically through the discrepancies between the model, its hypothesis, and the imperfection of the market that you study (it is at the core of the last nobel prize way of studying economics, Jean Tirole). And this is entirely neoclassical, I'm not even putting myself in the place of a keynesian teacher, who would just laugh at the idea that wages are determined through the confrontation of offer and demand.
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I read somewhere that German minimal wage is partially illegal according to European law because they're trying to enforce this on people whose job is about transporting stuff to or through Germany, mostly truck drivers from Eastern Europe where the minimum wage is much lower. Forcing Eastern European employers to raise wages violates the freedom of establishment so I think Germany will have to change its law.
I checked and found out that Germany has suspended these questionable regulations until the Commission decides if they are okay or not.
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On January 31 2015 05:25 hannahbelle wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that? That's a stupid answer befitting a stupid teacher. Minimum wage is not a political question, it's an economic question related to the reality of the labor market (which is not a pure and perfect market where the "price" - or wage - is set through the confrontation of "offer" and "demand"). It's a simplistic explanation, but it suffices to show your typical college student the fallacy of a minimum wage and the effects of raising and lowering it. No market is perfect, and increasing wages will tend to erode corporate profit ever so slightly, even after the company passes through the increase in expense to its customers. But the fact remains that a fair majority of minimum wage jobs are occupied by the very people to utilize the services of minimum wage prevalent industries, thus negating any potential, albeit miniscule, economic advantage they accumulate, and certainly not one that compensates for the economic cost of administering and maintaining such nonsense.
Most of the costs in the industries that people getting paid minimize wage utilize (Walmart, grocery store, gas station, rent, other expenses) are not heavily tied to wages at all. If you think raising the prices a few cents at Walmart and the grocery store in order to pay for a 20% minimum wage increase offsets that increase by itself you are mistaken.
As for the "economic cost" of "administering and maintaining" such nonsense, I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no Bureau of the Minimum Wage tolling economic costs.
Contrary to the tone of your post, study after study has shown that raising the minimum wage has little to no impact on employment, and certainly none that is predictable. Therefore, basing policy decisions on some belief that it will harm employment or not is completely indefensible.
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On January 31 2015 13:19 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2015 05:25 hannahbelle wrote:On January 31 2015 04:23 WhiteDog wrote:A long time ago during my first year of university i remember someone asking this question. The professor explained it that way: You picked the wrong door kid. Studys of politics are on the other floor because that is exacly what minimum wage is, a political concept not an economical. Lets say the average payment is 10 dollar a day, as a baker you will sell your bread for 1 dollar. Now the goverment comes and raises payment for everyone to 100 dollar a day. How much will the bread cost after that? That's a stupid answer befitting a stupid teacher. Minimum wage is not a political question, it's an economic question related to the reality of the labor market (which is not a pure and perfect market where the "price" - or wage - is set through the confrontation of "offer" and "demand"). It's a simplistic explanation, but it suffices to show your typical college student the fallacy of a minimum wage and the effects of raising and lowering it. No market is perfect, and increasing wages will tend to erode corporate profit ever so slightly, even after the company passes through the increase in expense to its customers. But the fact remains that a fair majority of minimum wage jobs are occupied by the very people to utilize the services of minimum wage prevalent industries, thus negating any potential, albeit miniscule, economic advantage they accumulate, and certainly not one that compensates for the economic cost of administering and maintaining such nonsense. Most of the costs in the industries that people getting paid minimize wage utilize (Walmart, grocery store, gas station, rent, other expenses) are not heavily tied to wages at all. If you think raising the prices a few cents at Walmart and the grocery store in order to pay for a 20% minimum wage increase offsets that increase by itself you are mistaken. As for the "economic cost" of "administering and maintaining" such nonsense, I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no Bureau of the Minimum Wage tolling economic costs. Contrary to the tone of your post, study after study has shown that raising the minimum wage has little to no impact on employment, and certainly none that is predictable. Therefore, basing policy decisions on some belief that it will harm employment or not is completely indefensible. Studies tend to show that raising the minimum wage reduces employment. The data is very noisy, and some think the bias is due to a publication bias, but that fact remains. Moreover, increases tend to be in reasonable amounts. I don't think there are any serious economists who don't think that at some point, a higher min wage can be destructive. That's generally the CBO's take - higher min wages will reduce employment, but not by much unless you raise it significantly.
It's also worth noting that while those retail price increases may not negate the min wage increase, they do mean that anyone who didn't get an increase from the min wage hike is essentially taking a pay cut.
Your conclusion doesn't make sense to me. The statement that min wage effects are unpredictable should make you more wary of using that tool rather than less.
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Minimum wage increases raise the wage floor for everyone.
They don't tend to show unemployment. For every one that shows a minor increase in unemployment there is one that shows no change and one that shows a minor decrease. Using silly extreme examples like, "if we raised the minimum wage to $50 per hour it would increase unemployment" is too dumb to address.
The conclusion follows because there is no expected change in unemployment. It might go up a little, it might go down a little, it might stay the same. It's EV zero with almost no chance of disaster.
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On January 31 2015 14:23 IgnE wrote: Minimum wage increases raise the wage floor for everyone.
They don't tend to show unemployment. For every one that shows a minor increase in unemployment there is one that shows no change and one that shows a minor decrease. Using silly extreme examples like, "if we raised the minimum wage to $50 per hour it would increase unemployment" is too dumb to address.
The conclusion follows because there is no expected change in unemployment. It might go up a little, it might go down a little, it might stay the same. It's EV zero with almost no chance of disaster. Not sure what your point is about the floor, min wage is the floor.
No, emprirical studies tend to show unemployment effects. There's some thought that it is due to publication bias, but it exists. From an NEBR paper 2007: + Show Spoiler +We review the burgeoning literature on the employment effects of minimum wages - in the United States and other countries - that was spurred by the new minimum wage research beginning in the early 1990s. Our review indicates that there is a wide range of existing estimates and, accordingly, a lack of consensus about the overall effects on low-wage employment of an increase in the minimum wage. However, the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect. A sizable majority of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries. Two other important conclusions emerge from our review. First, we see very few - if any - studies that provide convincing evidence of positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on the broader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model predicts disemployment effects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups. Source
Pointing out that raising the min wage by a lot is really important too. First, this supports the, frankly very sound, theoretical model that raising min wages reduces employment. Second, it is suggestive that we aren't dealing with a normal distribution of outcomes. Assuming that the EV is set at zero, there is still some risk involved since the upside risk and the downside risk do not net out to zero.
Edit: it's also worth keeping in mind that empirical studies aren't easy to do. The data just isn't that clear on the topic and that's contributing heavily to variation from study to study.
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