Stephen Joseph

Every time you raise the minimum wage, you raise the cost of inputs into goods which then increase their prices necessitating increasing the wage. *sigh Okay, One last time. We cannot create a wage that the market doesn't create. We cannot create a wage floor and expect for there to be no side effects. The very fact that you, or anyone, thinks they can determine the "just wage" better than the whole hand of the market speaks to ignorance of mathematics, probability, statistics, calculus, do I need to go on? Any attempt at wage and price controls has either reduced a country's economy to rubble, stagnated it, or when relaxed led to massive inflation in the following periods. Invest into education and other human capital goods to raise the wage rate. Do not raise it on an artificial basis. Do not tell an employer to employ someone who only produces $6.00 worth of output for $8.00. Would you do that with your money? NO! Let the employ employ someone for what they are worth to the employer. It has been 225 years since Adam Smith explained the invisible hand of the market. By far and away, it is the longest lasting and most powerful economic concept. Do not pretend that even the smartest and most caring 1000 brains could do better in the long-run than the market left, mostly, alone. *I caveat that to include whatever laws we deem necessary to prevent unfair competition, price-fixing, and other things deemed nasty by us economists* For those that say we should adjust the minimum wage, do you not expect that if people expect wages to go up, they will adjust their expectations accordingly. Do you not agree that if you expect something to happen, that expectation changes how you act than if you did not know something were to occur? I HIGHLY suggest reading up on Robert Lucas' Expectations' Model, Keynesian 'Efficiency Wage' model, and literature on the NAIRU *that some unemployment is actually HEALTHY* When you can back up your arguments with facts, figures, and numbers, then I'll give it some weight.

To NoCal: Do I like the idea of substandard *in our eyes* conditions? No. However, in many instances the safety and conditions of such shops are above the standards before but below ours. We only notice they're below ours. Do you propose we tinker with our economy and pass law preventing this? I'm sure that would help things *sarcasm* The only thing we can do is help bring up these countries economically. As w/r rises, conditions improve. Laws barring practices, trade, and such will only hurt us, and those who had the jobs in the other countries Agree or disagree, I'll cite facts and journals tomorrow. Market analysis is what I do on a daily basis.

Eh. I side with the libbies here. It's too much civil rights going away for me to be thrilled with it. I know if I hadn't done anything I'd be pissed if I was being bothered.

Wages become very equalized amongst countries if you account for relative price levels, marginal producitivity of labor (which alot of people seem to forget that our labor is VERY productive), uncertainty and risk elements, etc... Shall I cite the AER for this too? I mean, that is if anyone READ the articles I posted which kinda you know, are pretty robust works. Seriously, adjust NOMINAL wages to the constraints above, which companies take into account, and disparity pretty much goes bye bye. India's labor is 1/3 as productive as the US, approx. They make 1/3 the wages, approx. I see no problem with that. Any differences in the ratios are solved through free market arbitrage, extinguishing any gains to be made

CWM, I mean no offense when I disagree with you here. But, your evidence is of people you know who got the job. The corollary is all the people you don't know that didn't get the job, were not re-hired, or worked less hours. Research evidence suggests that as the minimum wage rose, so did non-outlawed discriminatory practices. Thusly, in the United States, fast-food managers had to have high school, and now college degrees. Employers laid off older employees in favor of younger more pleasing faces. I speak to this out of my own anecdote. I worked at McDonalds during a min wage rate hike. We had two older women who worked the eating area, one was a greeter and the other cleaned and occasionally held bingo games. Within 3 months, we didn't have either. We did have one more high school student though. But that is just an anecdote. Min Wage increases lead to price increases as the costs of providing a product rose when the wage rose. While in the very short-term a min wage can help those who are employed, the long-run effects extinguish any gains and wind up either employing less people are employing less people of a certain kind. I leave these to you to read. I chose these articles not because I read them, but because I know the names and that they are reputable high standing economists, not because they prove my points or share my ideology. the AER is the foremost economics journal in the United States, so I used it. David Card; Alan B. Krueger The American Economic Review, Vol. 85, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundredth and Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association Washington, DC, January 6-8, 1995. (May, 1995), pp. 238-243. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M Donald Deere; Kevin M. Murphy; Finis Welch The American Economic Review, Vol. 85, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundredth and Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association Washington, DC, January 6-8, 1995. (May, 1995), pp. 232-237. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7 Charles L. Betsey; Bruce H. Dunson The American Economic Review, Vol. 71, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Ninety-Third Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (May, 1981), pp. 379-384. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V

1) No. You're wrong. Economically speaking, it will mean that employers will actually discriminate on other characteristics more Minimum wage laws are BAD BAD BAD. They do NOTHING to help any economy, and only serve to hurt those that they are supposed to help. If you disagree with this, I'll cite journals to help my case. Hopefully, you'll take me at my word. As the economist around here... 2) We talk about outsourcing. What about insourcing? Last 6 months, more jobs have been insourced than outsourced. 3) Jobs are trade. If you believe in free trade, which almost no one today wants to go against, jobs are the same damn thing. Free trade hurts in the short term, and pays hella dividends in the long-term. 4) To ZsasZ: If you apply Keyne's seasonal model of wages along with Lucas' rational expectations, you derive a model that very accurately predicts how wages change. In short, over the short term workers receive wages that are below market clearing levels when that short term is near equilibrium or recession. In the long-term and instances when the economy is booming, labor receives wages much higher than market clearing levels. Keynes also refers to efficiency wage arguments which I find convincing, paying higher wages to elicit higher returns, which occur during booms. My Take: Bush's Energy Policy - Bad. Kerry's Building Program - Bad. Lower Taxes - Good. Prevent outsourcing? Bad. Educate workers? Good. Morale: Politician's Economic Proposals are inherently more harmful due to their special interested nature. Don't believe the hype.

Winning team chooses next mod?

You' said: Where's the part that says "believe everything people say?" You don't, you think that these people aren't telling the truth. Null - People are telling the truth Alt - They aren't It doesn't enter into whether someone says it, it enters in when you're trying to prove your case (that they're lying). Like in court, the burden of proof is on you. That's all I'm trying to say. If you would like, I can dig up some reports on frequencies of falsified statements under oath. Off the top of my head, I seem to recall that a very high percentage of statements made in top courts or inquires were in fact the truth, which means we expect people to tell the truth a good bit of the time. I mean, we'd be screwed in the Justice Department if the reverse were true and we couldn't rely on testimony!

If we were in kindergarten, yes. But we're talking grown up world. I'm sure Kotz appreciates your support of his well-intention, but ill-fated refutation of statistical theory.

Happy Birthday and Libertarian well wishes Mike For your birthday, celebrate by legalizing pot! It will make your bday much more memorable or something...

Where's the part that says "believe everything people say?" Kotz, If that's the best you can do, fine. I *tried* to give an example of research work and how hypotheses are proven/disproven in a scientifically accepted manner. As its kinda what I do for a living, I kinda know, and I tried to strip it down. Right now, you're trying to argue against a model in the 2% chance it could be wrong. No one wins those arguments.

Kotz, You're losing this argument buddy. In Hypothesis testing, you have a null and an alternative. The null, in this case, is that Cheney wasn't involved The alternative is that he was. When you form a hypothesis and test it, you have to be able to reject the null, not accept the null. Therefore the burden of proof rests on the alternative. Simply put, lack of evidence of involvement: fail to reject the null lack of evidence of not involvement: doesn't enter the equation. Yes, it is all in how you set up the problem, but there's two ways of setting it up, and the proper scientific way is to set the null at no effect (no involvement here) and the alt as the opposite Yup.

So in other words, only mentally healthy well-adjusted people are depressed? That's a VERY jaded view of this world. Good. Always have low expectations, that way you will never be disappointed. And you'll never get to the stars either. No one made their fortune in this world by setting low expectations

And the point of that post was? Did that really ADD anything or make a point?

Okay, here's why. So far Abu has been an isolated incident. Can't really think of another time where military peeps have been caught torturing others (unless you count g-bay but that hasnt exploded. Media? Please. I was caught behind a tanker truck explosion in Atlanta once. What did I and others do who were fortunate enough to be far behind? We ran in a helped pull people away. One ambulance got there with a fire truck, then the media showed up, the more emergency services. What did the media do? Reported it, nevermind the fact we were screaming at them to help us get everyone clear. There. That's why I'm personally distrustful of the media.

Umm, EVERY president and vice-president has had a safe haven like this in case shit hits the fan? Tell you what. When 100 years passes and not one political leader has been assassinated, I'll buy your line of logic. Until then...we SHOULD be able to protect those that serve us. Regardless of how you feel, he's still the Vice-President. Really, how irresponsible is it to say "Here's where we hide our people!" This, on top of the journalists in Iraq today, make me want to beat up hippies

So in other words, only mentally healthy well-adjusted people are depressed? That's a VERY jaded view of this world.

Okay, so I'm a media guy I get a random phone call telling me to be somewhere. Now I don't know who called me, but I know they wanted me along a roadside, I know what's been going on. Captain Obvious says BOMB.

Eh. It's Vonnegut. He writes great, but he's so not an optimist. I don't think the world is as dreary and decrepit as he's painting it.

If it wasn't for a miracle shot by Kobe in the first game, we WOULD be saying 2004 NBA CHAMPIONS the Pistons. There is no manifest destiny of the Lakers Orale. Don't ascribe patterns to random events with distributed probabilities.

Umm, I think KKK was lacing that with SARCASM~! dood

+1

Parka, If you have the chance to move to a server, and FS's friend's space doesn't have that annoying ad space geocities does, it might be worth it. FS, thank you for the offer to help Parka.

Credibility? Here?

Ohh, was that meant to be insulting? I *thought* you don't believe in laffer curves Tyler?