drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:
Very interesting that the supporters of Clinton's position want me to ignore the specifics of the position.

it's not "interesting", it's frustrating that you fixate on the "slogan" of the policy proposal rather than the intent of policies that try to address floor wage levels. "The" position is NOT "the minimum wage must always and everywhere absolutely be $15 and no alternative will ever be considered anywhere" - unless YOU infer that. Policymaking is negotiation - it's about beautiful deals, praise drumpf. So deal.

Your posts called to mind an article I read 2 years ago. Highlights how conservatives and liberals view these issues differently.

http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-h ... -politics/

The Nightman Cometh wrote:TNC favorite Evan Bayh is considering a run for Senate again. Has 10 million in his campaign account still.

Better chance we flip the Senate now.

Sahil Kapur ‏@sahilkapur
Dan Coats was succeeded by Evan Bayh, who was succeeded by Dan Coats. Now Evan Bayh is running to succeed him again. Time is a flat circle.

Dallas police chief David Brown: if I'm looking for a public official as an example for non-Americans of how we do it here when we do it pretty well, I'm holding him up.

I'm not convinced his killer robot needed to carry a bomb, vs maybe the robot-weaponry equivalent of elephant tranquilizer, but he's relentlessly clear & direct in communicating how his organization operates. It may not ACTUALLY operate like that all the time, but he conveys the strong & reassuring feeling that if it doesn't, and he finds out, it will operate more like that tomorrow.

Agreed. And it wasn't just AFTER the tragedy- the way the protesters were treated prior to that was great, also. Seems like everybody realized that their positions are not mutually exclusive, and even more mutually agreeable for both "sides".

Werthless wrote:Your posts called to mind an article I read 2 years ago. Highlights how conservatives and liberals view these issues differently.

http://volokh.com/2014/01/17/jonathan-h ... -politics/

tl;dr

ok, not true: I DID read it, enough to glom that while the author is constitutionally inclined toward Haidt's argument, his rationalism uber alles tic causes him to conclude, in a heap of indecisiveness, that people think and/or feel differently about things. Well, well.

here's what: people obviously come to worldviews with a combination of reason and emotion, in differing mixtures; hey, we're all special snowflakes.

All we have is our imagination. Reason is an intellectual process: it's not natural. It's contrived. It's artificial. It's invented. By humans. Many humans - not all - can imagine how reasoning can have utility. And it does have utility. Reasoning is really useful. But it doesn't supersede our humanity; used well, it amplifies it.

As for me personally, I don't think it's any secret that I find the intellectual tic of reflexively defending views counter to one's own station and that of people most like oneself; to recurrently defend the position of those who, from a political/economic perspective, have every motive to shit down your throat if it provides them some relief; to be... depraved, basically.

Oh, and that Time website liberal-conservative quiz meter thing is Time-quality hogwash, "extensive data" or no extensive data

I don't oppose a raising of the federal minimum wage, so I'm not sure the diatribe is warranted. It sounds like you don't even agree with the position I am opposing -- a federal increase in the minimum wage -- so your posts are rather confusing. We share the same position, which is not in agreement with Clinton's stated position. And yet I am the truculent one?

Werthless wrote: truculent

THAT'S THE WORD OF THE DAY!!

more women coming forward with sexual harassment allegations against Ailes

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... ment.html#

I think we have a consensus among us here at BSG -- maybe not unanimous, but a consensus -- that raising the minimum wage would be an overall positive thing. The amount, effects and implimitation of such a raise, not so much.

For example, the more conservative among us may think raising the minimum wage will cost jobs and even bankrupt small businesses. We may think that a one-size-fits-all increase at the Federal level is too blunt an object and, therefore, favor a more localized approach (an approach, btw, to which, by the way, I am sympathetic). We may think it needs to be phased in over a longer period or that it should or should not have a COLA attached to it.

But as doc has rightly (in my view) pointed out, getting too hung up on a simplistic slogan like "The Fight for 15" or insisting that citing Econ 101 ends the debate misses the much, much bigger picture and does nothing to advance the discussion.

Inequality of all types is tearing this country apart and economic inequality is a big part of the problem. Might raising the minimum wage cost small business owners and shareholders of larger companies some of their profits? Yes, it might but, first of all, if that redistribution (and let's be honest, that's what it is) might not be such a bad thing. And, secondly, it might end up being positive for all concerned.

Our economy is, in large part I believe, stagnant because too much wealth is concentrated at the top and not enough is being recirculated throughout the economy. In an economy such as ours which is 70% consumer-based, the best way to get the economy moving is to put more money in the hands of more consumers. That's the economic argument.

But there's a much larger argument to be made.

No country or civilization has ever long withstood the kind of systemic inequality we're seeing today in America. Being citizens of our country is not a simple geographic fact. Being a member of any sustainable society brings with it some kind of social contact and the more legs upon which that contract stands the stronger it is. And, I would argue, one of the key legs upon which any country's social contract stands is some measure of concern for the common good. America is and hopefully always will be known as a place where great individual achievement is rewarded greatly. But a relatively small group of individuals achieving great things for great rewards surrounded by a huge group of people who are not thriving and, worse yet, have no hope of ever surviving, makes for both a weaker social contract and a weaker country.

At the moment our politics in America (and to a large part throughout the world) seek to kick out from underneath as many of our social contract underpinnings as possible. The more we seek to differentiate our fellow members of society based upon religion, race, sexual orientation and other immutable characteristics, the more we weaken our social contract and the weaker our definition is of what binds us together as a society.

But as immutable as characteristics such as race may be, there are matters which are within our power to change and improve and one of those is economic inequality. More and more we see our society self-separating based upon economic status and that just can't be good for our social contract.

I want to be clear that I'm not arguing for equality of outcome There will always be such inequality and some measure of that inequality based on virtues like hard work, perseverance, etc., is a good thing. But in addition to equality of opportunity (which is a much larger issue) no one can seriously argue that the mere raising of the minimum wage is part of some socialist argument for equality of outcomes. Rather, raising the minimum wage is (in addition to it's purely economic aspects) an indication that we value each man and woman's individual work a bit more relative to society as a whole and also, therefore, something which strengthens our community bonds and makes us a stronger society.

As for me, I believe the economic argument for raising the minimum wage in a consumer-based economy stands well enough on its own. But when we add in the other societal good it will do the issue is a no-brainer. So rather than quibbling about form it behooves us all to focus on the details and get 'er done.

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

Now that I have 3 kids, I spend more time thinking about early childhood development, values, and how to raise kids with the morality, grit, independence, and intellect to thrive in the world today. To piggy back on your post, the inequality and breakdown of the society values is happening long before someone gets a job. By the time kids get to high school, there are clear differences that will carry through for the rest of their lives. It's not a new challenge, how to produce successful children, but it's an exciting one if we can figure out how to raise kids that enables them to succeed.

The comments about childhood development may seem random in the context of a conversation about inequality. However, I think that gets to the heart of the imperfection of policy tools. Some people are doing jobs that are not worth very much to their employer. That's a challenge, and not one that can be easily overcome with rules raising the compensation of the employee. If we force employers to raise wages, then the largest employers will think of ways to improve their processes to require less labor. It increases the return to those investments in process.

It's certainly very appealing to simply argue that we need to raise wages, and significantly, but if we double wages, then certain things will happen. Some people will get paid double. Some people will be laid off. Some businesses will become non-viable. Some prices will increase. Some new technologies will replace workers. We've already seen the effect of technology and its ability to splinter the labor market.Certain types of law have been largely automated. Algorithms are replacing expertise in hospitals, physician practices, and pharmacies. Self-checkout is everywhere, with tiny scales on the bag surface to measure whether you failed to scan an item correctly. Self-driving cars will happen in my lifetime. In this shrinking society, where the best performers have access to larger markets, the returns to being awesome are high. We see it on this board, even, where people with marketable skills are jumping from job to job and getting higher comp. But the returns to unskilled, repetitive labor is shrinking/stagnant. That's not going to change, regardless of the federal minimum wage.

I agree with you. And I don't think childhood development is at all out of place in this discussion. I've been thinking a lot about writing something about how so many of our issues are interwoven and that, as a society, our insistence on addressing issues (if at all) in the parochial manner in which we love to do ends up dividing us more than uniting us.

I'm convinced that if we are to move forward as a society we need to find a unicorn: political (with a small "p") leadership which offers a positive, inclusive, pragmatic and, just as importantly, a comprehensive vision of America's future which vision is not just a cobbling together of partisan talking points.

getting universal pre-k passed through everywhere would be huge.

jamiethekiller wrote:getting universal pre-k passed through everywhere would be huge.

That's part of it. But I think the largest challenge is providing an environment at school for children who have stressful conditions at home. Numerous studies have shown the physiological damage that occurs outside of school that prevents a student from thriving long-term. That's the hardest part of the problem; it's not just lack of income/money that prevents a child from progressing; it's dealing with the stress of violence and other acute problems.

Werthless wrote:I don't oppose a raising of the federal minimum wage, so I'm not sure the diatribe is warranted. It sounds like you don't even agree with the position I am opposing -- a federal increase in the minimum wage -- so your posts are rather confusing. We share the same position, which is not in agreement with Clinton's stated position. And yet I am the truculent one?

the "diatribe" is warranted because your immediate reaction was to wring your hands about "$15 ZOMG!!1!" . Why pretend this wasn't your reaction?

And the person who composes the 1st two sentences above is confused by MY posting?

"I don't oppose a raising of the federal minimum wage... It sounds like you don't even agree with the position I am opposing -- a federal increase in the minimum wage ...."

ffs

drsmooth wrote:And the person who composes the 1st two sentences above is confused by MY posting?

"I don't oppose a raising of the federal minimum wage... It sounds like you don't even agree with the position I am opposing -- a federal increase in the minimum wage to $15 ...."

ffs

I missed a few characters.

Werthless wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:I like how people opposing a doubling of the minimum wage are asked to make am argument against it.

Again, fixating on the dollar figure used as the concept's marketing slogan is insipid thinking on the part of advocates as well as opponents. Please stop doing it. That will make you appear intelligent, rather than merely truculent

But that's why it's bad, because it's so large. It's not indexing to inflation, or other moderate changes. It's doubling it. So the linked studies that show that "the immediate effect on employment is very small" should be placed in that context. A $15/hr minimum wage would have minimal effect on restaurant employment in high COL cities, but places like Reading would make a bad situation worse.

Very interesting that the supporters of Clinton's position want me to ignore the specifics of the position.

So another trust me it'll be bad post. Cool.

Werthless wrote:...If we force employers to raise wages, then the largest employers will think of ways to improve their processes to require less labor. It increases the return to those investments in process.

you may as well have written "if we force employers to PAY wages". Owners of enterprises seek to optimize their use of factor inputs. Constraints can be devised to influence that optimum mix. Those devices won't always work; that doesn't mean they are not 'workable'.

...In this shrinking society, where the best performers have access to larger markets, the returns to being awesome are high.

The returns to being well-connected are also high. And since in most commercial exercises, the ceiling on "awesome" is low - (once he'd gotten his greedy hooks on sufficient capital, JP Morgan was said to have "worked" about 3 hrs/day at his commercial activities) - my money's on "connectedness" to kick the shit out of "competence", economic success-wise.

That is, unless we decide that won't be how it works out

JUburton wrote:Clinton and Sanders will hold a rally together in Portsmouth, NH tomorrow. I would assume that this is the endorsement.

Too little too late. He's doomed her campaign.

SK790 wrote:

Werthless wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:I like how people opposing a doubling of the minimum wage are asked to make am argument against it.

Again, fixating on the dollar figure used as the concept's marketing slogan is insipid thinking on the part of advocates as well as opponents. Please stop doing it. That will make you appear intelligent, rather than merely truculent

But that's why it's bad, because it's so large. It's not indexing to inflation, or other moderate changes. It's doubling it. So the linked studies that show that "the immediate effect on employment is very small" should be placed in that context. A $15/hr minimum wage would have minimal effect on restaurant employment in high COL cities, but places like Reading would make a bad situation worse.

Very interesting that the supporters of Clinton's position want me to ignore the specifics of the position.

So another trust me it'll be bad post. Cool.

We should move it to $30/hr so everyone can afford a nice lifestyle.