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VitalSigns posted:Seriously jrod, while you entertain me, maybe you should take a break from hitting You don't even understand my argument. Workers aren't paid at exactly their marginal productivity level obviously. The marginal productivity per hour of a worker is the ceiling on what an employer is going to be willing to pay a worker. There are very few exceptions, like a very short time where an employer might take a loss while training an employee based on the expectation that in short order they will become much more productive and any loss will be recouped quickly. But worker simply are not going to be paid, as a rule, higher than their marginal productivity. They have to be providing more value to the business than they cost in wages, because the goal of a business is to make profits. So, technically, a worker could earn anywhere from $0 an hour up to their marginal productivity per hour. However, all economic actors have different choices for employment. They could quit and work somewhere else. And if a very productive worker is being grossly underpaid, a competitor has an incentive to bid his services away because he will still see a healthy profit by doing so. So it is the other economic options like changing jobs, the ability of a worker to become an entrepreneur himself or to join a collective with other workers and earn more that provides the floor on wages. It is this process of negotiation which determines any of our wages. When I was in my early twenties, only a few years ago, I was working at a job where I was paid $23 an hour or more than $15 more than the minimum wage. Why was I earning that much more when they only had to pay me $7.25 an hour? Obviously, my productivity was higher than $23. Plus they knew that the skills I had (nothing to brag about at the time, mainly computer skills and writing ability) were valued by other employers at close to the same wage rate. If you are a member of a group that is discriminated against and are in the minority, how can you rise up and overcome these obstacles? One way is to out-compete white workers on price. As Walter Williams says, if every employer has to pay every worker the same wage, then there is no economic cost to discrimination. If you are a minority and you live in a predominantly racist society, you will have fewer options for employment as you will be discriminated against. This is wrong and we shouldn't accept this, but it is a reality in many parts of the world and no law can change peoples hearts. What this means is that the lower floor for wages will be somewhat lower for a disliked minority than it would be for the majority group that has far more economic power. I don't believe most employers are racist, yet some stereotypes persist. The black kid from the inner city might still be looked at as a "thug" even subconsciously. People might be less likely to hire someone who fits a certain profile and one of those discriminated against traits might be skin color. People born into a welfare system, or government housing projects, into poverty and likely with a single parent raising them have few economic options available to them. Don't further limit their economic options by outlawing certain voluntary wage contracts they might want to enter into. If a 15 year old black kid wants to work a low paying job for $5 or $6 an hour, for gently caress's sake let him do it. Allow him to get some work experience, let him meet new people and see a way out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that he might be trapped in.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:42
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and examine your own ideas critically for some internal consistency.
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Mother dies sleeping in her car, working 3 jobs, so Jrod can get through the check out line a little bit quicker. A libertarian success story.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:45
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jrodefeld posted:Are you telling me that if an employer is deciding between hiring two different people who are 23, and one of them has worked at half a dozen jobs since he was 15 or so, showed up on time, was highly recommended and responsible and the other person never worked a real job in their life, that the employer is equally likely to choose either one of them? Well the second guy in your scenario is probably a privileged white kid so he's got that going for him. It depends on a lot of factors including what the job is and what the other kid did/who highly recommends him. For example I'm more likely to hire a computer science graduate on the cheap versus a 23 year old kid who's worked in fast food and warehouses even though the latter is proven to be reliable. The kid you seem to favor needs to show an aptitude for what the job is. Who gives a poo poo if he shoes up on time but just sits around doing nothing because he has no idea what he's doing. quote:The specialized knowledge and education that are required for certain higher paying jobs is not really relevant to my argument. Employers use all manner of criteria to decide which person to hire, a great deal of which doesn't have to do with any specialized technical knowledge. Furthermore, there is great value in learning a work ethic and how to interact with bosses and deal with the corporate system, develop people skills and things of that nature at an earlier age. They only aren't relevant because you aren't interested in reflecting reality in your libertarian mythology. Again you are clearly illustrating you have no idea how to operate a business. quote:Let's suppose you start working at a fast food place at 15 making minimum wage. You aren't making much but you don't need much money at that age anyway. After six months or a year, you are given a raise and you make maybe $9 or $10 an hour. You continue looking for different work. Maybe you work at a retail clothing store, a grocery store or someplace like that. You've managed to save a few thousand dollars and so you buy a computer and start learning various skills with software. Eventually you are given a low level management position and you gain some experience overseeing others. By the time you are in your early 20s, you might have some substantial savings, some technical skills you've acquired either at you're various jobs or through spending your salary on education or tools (like a computer) and you've got a more impressive resume that most people your age. A lot wrong with this.. for example if you're in your early 20s with substantial savings you are probably living mostly on "Daddy's dime." Most of the job skills you've accumulated up to that point are pretty likely to be worthless unless you've lucked out into something relevant to a budding career. This is typically pretty rare though. quote:What your argument boils down to is that it is okay with you if State policies that artificially limit the economic opportunities for the disadvantaged result in kids reaching 24 or 25 and having never worked a day in their life. You're just arguing for the "free market" to artificially limit economic opportunities for disadvantaged kids. I'm sorry but most property owners are all about "me and mine" and don't really give a poo poo about helping the fellow man without a motivator like tax write-offs. There are some people are are genuinely good who will gladly donate to charities but not nearly enough to make up for the lack of a state sponsored social safety net. Frankly I'll take paying a few dollars in taxes and making sure a least SOME good is being done. It's not perfect but it's certainly better than starving people who aren't landowners. quote:And here is another point. You act as though if minimum wage laws were repealed, then all of our wages would be pushed down by the companies that employ us. But there is no reason to think that. If we have no minimum wage tomorrow, is the person who is making $20 an hour all of a sudden going to be forced to accept $18 because all wages will be pushed lower? Of course not. Lots of jobs are a race to the bottom and a lack of minimum wage jobs makes it a lot easier to prey on the desperate. It's sort of like the whole "volunteering to sell yourself into slavery" thing you seem to be an advocate of. That guy making 20 dollars an hour may still be affected though.. It's possible his industry takes a hit because there is less overall money in the economy so now his boss has to cut his pay or his job to stay afloat. Shutting off minimum wage is pretty damned irresponsible. There are plenty of source to support this but none of them are linked on mises.org so I won't bother to post them here. quote:People who start making more than the minimum wage are doing so because their productivity has increased and they can command a higher wage on the market even though their employer is not legally obligated to pay them a cent over $7.25. Define productivity. We have several folks for example that generate 0 revenue but they're pretty important since they deal with things like finances and operations. These are folks where you can't directly associate a dollar value to their job but it's impossible to conduct business without them. You've either got a limited understanding of how business works in a modern economy or you're being intentionally dense to try to make a point. quote:If the minimum wage was repealed, the VAST majority of people, including those who currently make the minimum wage, will not earn a cent less. However, new low skilled jobs will exist, more teenagers and people with incredibly low productivity will be able to be hired for the first time. Citation needed. If I run a shop that depends on minimum wage workers then it's in my best interest to cut my costs as much as possible in an effort to gain a competitive advantage in my marketplace. I'm not going to worry about people working somewhere else because minimum wage workers are largely disposable and there may as well be an unlimited supply of them. Naturally I expect my competitors to do the exact same thing to compete with me and thus the cycle begins. Also most minimum wage earners today are over the age of 20 in the united states. quote:And people who work for $6 an hour might do so for three to six months and, like everyone else, gain some skills and increased productivity and soon be earning much more. Low wage jobs are supposed to be the first rung on the economic ladder, from which people quickly advance. Not everyone quickly advances.. Sometimes there is nowhere to advance to. quote:Haven't you ever been in a store where there are long lines but only one cashier? Why is there only one cashier? Or they might have automatic checkout machines if you are lucky. Yes, retail stores will need at least one or two cashiers but why don't they have three or four? Minimum wage laws are one reason. The expense of hiring more cashiers, even if it would make it easier for the customers, is not worth it to the bottom line because they would be legally obligated to pay them more than they are worth in terms of pursuing profits. Typically there's only a cashier or two on duty because they're trying to keep costs down and it's not like you're going to put all your poo poo in your shopping cart back on the shelf and go somewhere else so you just sit and wait it out. If they paid people a dollar an hour they'd still have 1 or 2 cashiers open because it means that much more profit margin. Large business by and large doesn't give a poo poo about the customer experience. So why not think about the other reasons? quote:So we have one cashier in many stores who might benefit from having three or four, we have long lines of customers who'd prefer to get out of the store in a hurry and not have to hassle in line. And in the meantime we have black teenage unemployment at 39% nationally. So what good is having a job if I can only make 160 dollars a month which will get you exactly 1/2 of a studio apartment in some of the cheapest markets in the united states?
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Mar 31, 2015 06:51
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jrodefeld posted:You don't even understand my argument. We've been waiting for you to make one for 239 pages. One of your own, I mean.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:51
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quote:It is this process of negotiation which determines any of our wages. When I was in my early twenties, only a few years ago, I was working at a job where I was paid $23 an hour or more than $15 more than the minimum wage. Why was I earning that much more when they only had to pay me $7.25 an hour? Obviously, my productivity was higher than $23. Plus they knew that the skills I had (nothing to brag about at the time, mainly computer skills and writing ability) were valued by other employers at close to the same wage rate. Using your own contrived child-like measurements if you're only generating 23 dollars an hour while I'm paying you 7.25 then you're a worthless employee and I will probably fire you.. For comparison I expect our consultants to do ~5-6 times their salary per year in billable hours..
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Mar 31, 2015 06:56
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Cemetry Gator posted:I think if he actually agreed to a live debate, he wouldn't be able to hide how he can't actually formulate any arguments, and can only parrot the same few talking points he's heard from Mises.org. We've all noticed how whenever he discusses a subject, he brings up the same arguments over and over again. When he responds to what people have to say, he just repeats his assertions, maybe changing a few words around, but he never actually provides us with a new argument. There is a thing called real life that tends to intrude on these discussions. I don't appreciate how every time I don't post on here for a couple of weeks, I am supposedly a "coward" and I am "ducking" the debate. Furthermore, I'd really love to see you in the position I am in. If you personally went to a heavily populated libertarian/Austrian forum, a SA for educated and informed libertarians and free market economists, and tried to go thirty against one and see how you'd feel. I'm not asking for sympathy because I clearly came here for this very reason, but this whole attitude of "wow, we really showed him up!" is sort of absurd given the power in numbers you possess on this forum. If I don't respond to YOUR specific post right away, maybe it's not because I can't or don't want to answer but maybe it is because my time is limited and I can't spend every second of every day responding to each and every poster. If I tried to do that, I would get criticized (as I have in the past). For the record, I am not agreeing to a live debate at this time because I don't have the privacy, the time nor the equipment to do that. If it was a live debate, it would have to be moderated and I'd have to be convinced that it would be fairly set up and administered. And, finally, if I do a live video debate on libertarianism and the video gets subsequently reposted all over the internet, that is a big commitment and I have the right to decide if and when I want to be "famous" in that way. Instead, consider this a friendly exchange of ideas. Understand and appreciate the inherent disadvantages that I have in constantly going one against thirty and see if we can both learn something from each other.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:58
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jrodefeld posted:You don't even understand my argument. Workers aren't paid at exactly their marginal productivity level obviously. The marginal productivity per hour of a worker is the ceiling on what an employer is going to be willing to pay a worker. There are very few exceptions, like a very short time where an employer might take a loss while training an employee based on the expectation that in short order they will become much more productive and any loss will be recouped quickly. If you admit that workers can be paid below their marginal productivity, then you can no longer conclude a priori that any particular increase in the minimum wage will create unemployment. jrodefeld posted:But worker simply are not going to be paid, as a rule, higher than their marginal productivity. They have to be providing more value to the business than they cost in wages, because the goal of a business is to make profits. Right, and workers are generally paid less so raising the minimum wage will not destroy their jobs as long as it remains below their marginal productivity. $1/hr minimum wage is bad, $100/hr minimum wage is bad, $7.25/hr is all right based on recent studies that showed no or almost negligible employment effects, $12/hr or $15/hr will need to be evaluated empirically. jrodefeld posted:So, technically, a worker could earn anywhere from $0 an hour up to their marginal productivity per hour. However, all economic actors have different choices for employment. They could quit and work somewhere else. And if a very productive worker is being grossly underpaid, a competitor has an incentive to bid his services away because he will still see a healthy profit by doing so. This contradicts what you said above. If it were true then workers would always be paid close to their marginal productivity and they are not, as you have already admitted. And the incentive in this case might be to make a deal with your competitor not to poach each other's employees. Of course here in America, evil statists have outlawed this laudable free market practice. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 07:00
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jrodefeld posted:There is a thing called real life that tends to intrude on these discussions. I don't appreciate how every time I don't post on here for a couple of weeks, I am supposedly a "coward" and I am "ducking" the debate. It's not that you don't respond right away. It's that you completely ignore any post of substance in favor of fighting accusations of racism or people who've given up on you when you finally do come back. I get it, life happens.. When you come back try not to just search for "jrod/hhh/rothbard is a racist" and respond to that poo poo alone.. Carlos puts a lot of time in his posts and you largely ignore his counter.. And he once again has countered your argument and frankly speaking your original counter argument was a long winded way of saying "nananana I am not listening because you cannot be right!" Also people get frustrated when you plop a 4000 word essay in here to respond without even the most rudimentary summary that shows you understand the material.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:02
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why do your supposed scenarios always involve assumption that do not occur in reality.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:02
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Caros posted:I might have missed it earlier, but has anyone suggested a Nana based voluntary Universal Healthcare System? It works for Jrod so clearly it must scale up to be able to cover everyone! I find it funny how you think that admitting to being helped by charity at one point somehow implies I am inconsistent and hypocritical when I oppose the coercive and re-distributive welfare State. Don't conflate love making and rape anymore, okay? It is doubly strange that you give this example when the only reason I asked for any help in the first place is that medical care costs are artificially inflated beyond what they would be under free market conditions. To make it really simple. Charity = good and noble. Coercive redistribution = immoral and unjustifiable.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:04
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jrodefeld posted:There is a thing called real life that tends to intrude on these discussions. I don't appreciate how every time I don't post on here for a couple of weeks, I am supposedly a "coward" and I am "ducking" the debate. But it's because your arguments are terrible and you are a bad person. That you think these issues are something that there can be a "friendly exchange of ideas" on, showcases how truly detached you are from the consequences of what you advocate. I would not debate a white supremacist or a fascist in a friendly manner, and you are just as bad.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:06
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jrodefeld posted:I find it funny how you think that admitting to being helped by charity at one point somehow implies I am inconsistent and hypocritical when I oppose the coercive and re-distributive welfare State. You know where healthcare costs are REALLY LOW? England! Also "coercive redistribution" is basically just you paying a service charge for things like air traffic controllers, a military, freeways, research and development for fundamental technologies that would otherwise not generate a profit, infrastructure to support modern commerce and a wide variety of other things.. Functionally not much different to paying your DRO dues! Interestingly enough with a good accountant you can probably avoid even being "coerced' out of your hard earned ill-gotten gains!
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Mar 31, 2015 07:08
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jrodefeld posted:Are you telling me that if an employer is deciding between hiring two different people who are 23, and one of them has worked at half a dozen jobs since he was 15 or so, showed up on time, was highly recommended and responsible and the other person never worked a real job in their life, that the employer is equally likely to choose either one of them? I certainly will. I've done hiring for numerous companies, and honestly the fact that a person has had a series of McJobs doesn't factor at all into my hiring process unless I'm hiring for a McJob. For example, if I'm hiring for a property management job I don't give a gently caress that you worked at mcdonalds for four years, I give a gently caress if you have property management experience. If you don't then the only reason I'm ever even going to look at your resume is if you come recommended which is to say nepotism. Minimum wage experience basically does not matter significantly in the workplace, and certainly not in the long run. If for example I'm looking at someone with a year of experience and someone with ten years of experience in minimum wage I'd weight them as functionally identical because all that tells me is that you are not literally retarded. quote:The specialized knowledge and education that are required for certain higher paying jobs is not really relevant to my argument. Employers use all manner of criteria to decide which person to hire, a great deal of which doesn't have to do with any specialized technical knowledge. Furthermore, there is great value in learning a work ethic and how to interact with bosses and deal with the corporate system, develop people skills and things of that nature at an earlier age. Reality is not relevant to your argument. I want to be clear, as a person who has hired for numerous jobs as well as a person who worked minimum or near minimum wage for 3/4 of a decade I can tell you that you are full of poo poo. quote:Let's suppose you start working at a fast food place at 15 making minimum wage. You aren't making much but you don't need much money at that age anyway. After six months or a year, you are given a raise and you make maybe $9 or $10 an hour. You continue looking for different work. Maybe you work at a retail clothing store, a grocery store or someplace like that. You've managed to save a few thousand dollars and so you buy a computer and start learning various skills with software. Eventually you are given a low level management position and you gain some experience overseeing others. By the time you are in your early 20s, you might have some substantial savings, some technical skills you've acquired either at you're various jobs or through spending your salary on education or tools (like a computer) and you've got a more impressive resume that most people your age. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry, wait, did you just seriously suggest that a fifteen or sixteen year old is going to be making $9 - $10 an hour after their first raise from minimum wage? For fucksake you retard the federal minimum wage is $7.25, which means that you expect that the employee would make a 25% raise in their first six months to a year of working at McDonalds. News flash fuckface, I've actually worked at a McDonalds, and you know what my first wage was in pretty much the exact situation you describe? $0.25. And that was good. That was "You did a fantasitic loving job for your first six months here is a big raise. And that is in Canada. As far as I can tell by googling the average first raise of a McDicks employee in their first year is $0.15. Why the gently caress would I take anything you say seriously? I mean the rest of your hypothetical is even more retarded, wherein you think that you can switch to a grocery store and somehow go up in wages. Newsflash again Jrod, they don't care what the gently caress your last salary was. No one is poaching McDonald's employees. At best you start at your existing wage or slightly below it, but more likely you start at minimum wage because they don't give a poo poo what you were paid at your last job because you are an unskilled worker and there are millions like you. Jesus christ... just... jesus. quote:Whether you go to college and gain more specialized skills is up to you but at the least you'll have more money with which to pay for higher education than many of your peers. Then there are trade schools and online colleges that cost fractions of what large universities do but nonetheless give you more marketable skills. You do realize your hypothetical falls apart the moment this guy hits eighteen right? Like in your example, which is wrong, he is making maybe $10 when he turns 18. Now I suppose he could be living with rich family like you apparently do, but most people move out at eighteen, and then guess what, he is now below the federal poverty line! Isn't this fun! How the gently caress do you think this guy is somehow saving for higher education when he can barely pay rent and food at his McJob? Oh right, because you have a total lack of understanding of what is actually happening in the jbo market. Oh Yeah. Don't forget that the only reason he got hired at $7.25 was because of the federal minimum wage. In your hypothetical he'd be without a minimum wage and would have been hired at maybe... lets say $5. Do you honestly think a business would double your wage in six months to a year? Are you really that naive and sheltered about how low skill employment actually works? quote:What your argument boils down to is that it is okay with you if State policies that artificially limit the economic opportunities for the disadvantaged result in kids reaching 24 or 25 and having never worked a day in their life. I am okay with the state artificially limiting employment (thought they don't) if it means bringing wages up from literal slave wages to merely offensive poverty wages. I'd be happier with a $15 minimum wage to be honest but I'll take $10.10 or even $7.25 over the race to the bottom where you get "work skills" at $2 an hour and somehow magically leverage those into a complex computing job. Jesus.. wait this just got worse. Are you seriously suggesting that the person in your example doesn't own a computer? Who the gently caress doesn't own a computer or would need to spend thousands of dollars on one if it was their first PC and was designed for videogaming? quote:And here is another point. You act as though if minimum wage laws were repealed, then all of our wages would be pushed down by the companies that employ us. But there is no reason to think that. If we have no minimum wage tomorrow, is the person who is making $20 an hour all of a sudden going to be forced to accept $18 because all wages will be pushed lower? Of course not. It wouldn't happen instantly perhaps, but it would happen. McDonalds would drop the floor out of their hires because they could, and over time the value of unskilled labor would fall drastically because there is a significant imbalance in favor of business. Personally I'd like to think this would lead to mass scale riots, but I'm not enough of an accelerationist to accept all those people getting hurt just to prove you wrong you pretentious fucknugget. quote:People who start making more than the minimum wage are doing so because their productivity has increased and they can command a higher wage on the market even though their employer is not legally obligated to pay them a cent over $7.25. So are you ever going to address the fact that productivity has more than doubled while wages have remained stagnent? Because that is a big neon sign screaming You are a loving retard Jrod[/b.] quote:If the minimum wage was repealed, the VAST majority of people, including those who currently make the minimum wage, will not earn a cent less. However, new low skilled jobs will exist, more teenagers and people with incredibly low productivity will be able to be hired for the first time. When I worked overnights at shoppers we had a crew of three people. We didnt' have three people all on minimum wage. We didn't have three people because they were exactly at that level of productivity, but because the physical requirements of the job require three people, one to stock, one to do inventory and one to work the till. If minimum wage vanished they would pay those people less. If Minimum wage increased, they would pay those people more. Under no circumstance would they not have those three people because their wages don't matter, they need them there for the store to function overnight. How do you reconcile this with your idiotic belief that people are paid exactly what they are worth because of free market voodoo magic. quote:And people who work for $6 an hour might do so for three to six months and, like everyone else, gain some skills and increased productivity and soon be earning much more. Low wage jobs are supposed to be the first rung on the economic ladder, from which people quickly advance. Honest question Jrod, have you ever worked a minimum wage job? Do you know the rate at which raises happen? Hell are you aware that it is unusual for [b]anyone to have a wage jump of more than 10% annually barring some major change such as a completed education leading to new fields of employment? Those people working for $6 an hour would be working for $6.25 the next year, if they are lucky, and you are an idiot for thinking otherwise. quote:Haven't you ever been in a store where there are long lines but only one cashier? Why is there only one cashier? Or they might have automatic checkout machines if you are lucky. Yes, retail stores will need at least one or two cashiers but why don't they have three or four? Minimum wage laws are one reason. The expense of hiring more cashiers, even if it would make it easier for the customers, is not worth it to the bottom line because they would be legally obligated to pay them more than they are worth in terms of pursuing profits. Because stores don't overhire? I mean lets use your example, that cashier is being paid $7.25, but in your world he'd be replaced with two people each being paid $3.62, or one person being paid substantially less than the other despite compatible skills. Do you really think it is an improvement to have two people making disgustingly low wages? If you can't pay your bills at $3 then $3 is functionally no different than $0. Which you'd know if you have ever been poor. quote:So we have one cashier in many stores who might benefit from having three or four, we have long lines of customers who'd prefer to get out of the store in a hurry and not have to hassle in line. And in the meantime we have black teenage unemployment at 39% nationally. You really do not understand how workplaces work Jrod. You are speaking in weird alien hypotheticals that bear no relation to reality. Also stop trumpeting black unemployment as if you are the only one who cares. You aren't and we've established that you are a racist so playing your "I care about black issues too" card is really lovely camouflage at this point, especially when I know you are just parroting Walter Block and other Mises thinkers who use that as ideological cover for a policy that would devastate the poor.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:08
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jrodefeld posted:I find it funny how you think that admitting to being helped by charity at one point somehow implies I am inconsistent and hypocritical when I oppose the coercive and re-distributive welfare State. This right here is what I'm talking about. Your morality is twisted and vile.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:08
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How does the "minimum wage as racist protectionism" policy even work? If I offer $2/hr for a job and an equally-qualified black and white man apply and I am racist, I will hire the white man. If the minimum wage requires me to offer $7/hour and those same men apply I and I am racist, I choose the white man. If the minimum wage is $100/hr and I can't afford it then I go out of business instead of hiring either of them. At what point in the minimum wage does the white man mysteriously not get hired? I don't get this. I could see it if it were not a position for profit but one for luxury, like I want to get a housekeeper for a wage so insultingly low that no white person would apply. If the minimum wage were high enough to attract white people it may be so high that I hire no one and do it myself, sure. But if there's one thing everyone knows about South Africa, it's that the minimum wage has never prevented white people from hiring a  domestic worker
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Mar 31, 2015 07:12
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VitalSigns posted:How does the "minimum wage as racist protectionism" policy even work? Well you see, paying a black guy 25 cents an hour isn't technically slavery!
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Mar 31, 2015 07:13
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jrodefeld posted:It is doubly strange that you give this example when the only reason I asked for any help in the first place is that medical care costs are artificially inflated beyond what they would be under free market conditions. Why is this not true in the rest of the world. Why do you assert this when all evidence points to the contrary. why do you pretend we haven't had this exact discussion a dozen times, with it ending each time with you abandoning the topic after being unable to present any arguments aside from praxeological deductions based on principles we then demonstrate are factually untrue. if this is an exchange of ideas, why do you never acknowledge counter points nor offer any evidence for your assertions. Is it because you are an evangelist for a cult to sociopathy, and are therefore only interested in being told you are right,not in actually understanding the world nor having your (delusional) preconceptions challenged? Also what time zone are you in? Because lately you've been posting in what is the middle of the night for most of North America; I'm up because of insomnia so occasionally I catch you live posting, but it's consistently at this time lately. Just curious. Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 07:18
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jrodefeld posted:I find it funny how you think that admitting to being helped by charity at one point somehow implies I am inconsistent and hypocritical when I oppose the coercive and re-distributive welfare State. Holy loving poo poo, you absolute, utter, degenerate, stultified quaffer of horse-semen. Did you just seriously compare having to pay taxes to rape?! I guess you weren't loving kidding when you cited Molyneux as one of your "intellectual luminaries", you unreconstructed piece of poo poo, because loving hell, if there ever was clear proof of inherent misogyny in your attitude, this is it. You are en empathic void.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:22
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VitalSigns posted:How does the "minimum wage as racist protectionism" policy even work? It's more about exploiting of a group of already desperate marginalized people. Chinese workers were used for railway work because they were so desperate for a chance at work they world accept inhuman conditions and terrible pay. It's essentially keeping a slave population. A minimum wage just removes the incentive to try to get this arrangement.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:23
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Rockopolis posted:I figure I'll throw you a change of pace, jrodefeld. I can't imagine you're enjoying this, at all. Yeah, okay let's change it up a bit. There are a million things we could talk about that we might agree on or interests that we might share, so we don't need to be bogged down in our disagreements such that we forget that we are still human beings and have a lot of commonalities. Yes, I play games. I've played both Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite and they were both great. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I understand the allusions to libertarianism in the first game or how some might interpret it that way. Although I took the first game more as a comment on Ayn Rand objectivism and the folly of the idea of Utopia rather than a sweeping critique of libertarianism. I think you'll notice that a good number of ambitious CEOs and powerful people look to Ayn Rand as an inspiration. She did after all speak about how businessmen were the "most persecuted minority" or something to that effect. The "we are all John Galt" idea surely could be a motivating influence on ambitious businessmen. I'm not the most well read person on Ayn Rand. I think she is intelligent enough and influential enough to be taken seriously as a philosopher. She obviously influenced a lot of people who eventually became libertarians, even though she herself was never one. Personally, I have no great affection for Rand. That is not the tradition where libertarianism belongs as far as I am concerned. I think it is a gross mistake of modern politics to consider libertarianism as a part of the right. In reality, free market anarchism, liberalism, and the associated ideas were always considered a part of the left. Liberals were the "progressives" of the 19th and early 20th century, while the Conservatives were the reactionaries, those who defended State power, who defended slavery, the financial elite and the old order of feudalism, of monarchy and theocracy. The liberals sought to undermine all that through Adam Smith's "invisible hand". The freed market meant that we systematically removed privilege from those who were propped up by State power and liberated man through an adherence to liberal values, individual rights and private property. But enough about all that. I've gone over that in the past. Do I think that a libertarian experiment will turn out like the underwater civilization in Bioshock? Of course not. But we should never think of our goal as Utopia, as the very idea itself can be incredibly dangerous. Utopia can never exist unless the very nature of man is somehow transformed, which is not likely. I definitely game, not nearly as much as I used to. I play a handful of games a year I'd say. I don't really self identify as a "gamer" only because I've got a lot of other loving hobbies and I really don't let games take precedents over the many other things I enjoy. I tend to avoid the sort of games that suck up too much of your time, I stay away from the MMORPGs. Usually I go for games (if we're taking single player games) that take 10, 20 or 30 hours and they are done. I am tempted by this Witcher 3 game that is coming out in a month or so though. I happened to play the previous game in the series accidentally and I was real impressed.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:32
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https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/vr-legend-john-carmack-persuaded-libertarian-party-texas-accept-bitcoin-donations/ I knew this many years ago, but I think I blocked it out of my mind or something. What a shame.  edit: Oh JRode's back. Goody. Mr Interweb fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 07:34
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jrodefeld posted:Yeah, okay let's change it up a bit. There are a million things we could talk about that we might agree on or interests that we might share, so we don't need to be bogged down in our disagreements such that we forget that we are still human beings and have a lot of commonalities. Dick Morris enjoys feet. What are your thoughts on this?
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Mar 31, 2015 07:37
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jrodefeld posted:Are you telling me that if an employer is deciding between hiring two different people who are 23, and one of them has worked at half a dozen jobs since he was 15 or so, showed up on time, was highly recommended and responsible and the other person never worked a real job in their life, that the employer is equally likely to choose either one of them? Yup. Even ignoring specialized jobs where I want someone with specific knowledge, why would I care if my manager ever actually flipped burgers themselves? That really has nothing to do with being a manager. All working fast food jobs and the like tells me is the person can be in a specific place at a specific time, which is something I assume all humans are reasonably capable of doing anyway if they did things like make the interview on time, go to High School, have a working watch, etc. quote:Furthermore, there is great value in learning a work ethic and how to interact with bosses and deal with the corporate system, develop people skills and things of that nature at an earlier age. Different work environments call for different interactions with bosses, different ethical concerns, etc. I want my retail worker to take orders without question or complaint. I want lawyers at my firm to know when to follow marching orders, when to ignore them without consulting anyone, and when to go over their supervisor's head. Being a cashier doesn't teach you how to give orders and manage multiple subordinates. I want a manager to have those skills, and those skills are basically the only thing I want to see in a manager. quote:Let's suppose you start working at a fast food place at 15 making minimum wage. You aren't making much but you don't need much money at that age anyway. After six months or a year, you are given a raise and you make maybe $9 or $10 an hour. You continue looking for different work. Maybe you work at a retail clothing store, a grocery store or someplace like that. You've managed to save a few thousand dollars and so you buy a computer and start learning various skills with software. Eventually you are given a low level management position and you gain some experience overseeing others. By the time you are in your early 20s, you might have some substantial savings, some technical skills you've acquired either at you're various jobs or through spending your salary on education or tools (like a computer) and you've got a more impressive resume that most people your age. Wages do not increase like this. Also $10/hr is still below the living wage in many areas so unless you're being subsidised by your parents I don't really see where you're going to have the time or money for that thousand dollar computer. quote:What your argument boils down to is that it is okay with you if State policies that artificially limit the economic opportunities for the disadvantaged result in kids reaching 24 or 25 and having never worked a day in their life. --Jrod circa 1938, in protest of the Fair Labor Standards Act, banning child miners. quote:And here is another point. You act as though if minimum wage laws were repealed, then all of our wages would be pushed down by the companies that employ us. But there is no reason to think that. If we have no minimum wage tomorrow, is the person who is making $20 an hour all of a sudden going to be forced to accept $18 because all wages will be pushed lower? Of course not. The fact you're asking about immediate, next day impacts of repealing minimum wage laws tells me you don't really understand the arguments here or concepts like "slow decline over time". quote:People who start making more than the minimum wage are doing so because their productivity has increased and they can command a higher wage on the market even though their employer is not legally obligated to pay them a cent over $7.25. No they don't. Wages are not directly tied to productivity. I largely make the salary that I do because 1) my skillset is specialized enough that not everyone can do my job, and 2) I and most other college graduates have debts to pay from college. On the other hand, when you're in a position that requires no schooling and can be done by almost anyone, there's really no reason to pay you more no matter how many years you've been with the company. quote:If the minimum wage was repealed, the VAST majority of people, including those who currently make the minimum wage, will not earn a cent less. However, new low skilled jobs will exist, more teenagers and people with incredibly low productivity will be able to be hired for the first time. You haven't really provided a good argument for why we want to hire more teenagers. Child labor is pretty not sweet and I don't see your argument for why it is actually the poo poo. Only some vague thing about how what black teens need to end the wealth gap is less schooling, more dead end quote:Yes, retail stores will need at least one or two cashiers but why don't they have three or four? Minimum wage laws are one reason. But wait Jrod, I thought nobody's wages would go down if minimum wage was abolished? Now the minimum wage cashier has been fired and replaced by people making 1/3rd what the former cashier made? burnishedfume fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 07:37
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Two of us are contesting your assertion that we should hire a guy just because he's had a half dozen minimum wage jobs and are refuting the idea that you can easily assign a dollar value to "employee productivity" which you have yet to define in any meaningful and measurable fashion.. Hey, at least we learned Ayn Rand didn't go far enough! So why do you ignore the fact that healthcare costs are much much lower in places like Europe where the free market doesn't even factor into it? Why aren't you addressing anything calling out your overly simplistic view on how wages work? Why do you think that a kid making 7.25 an hour is going to get a raise to 9 or 10 dollars an hour after only a year? Do you understand that minimum wage employees are by and large disposable? edit: now three of us!
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Mar 31, 2015 07:43
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Wait what? If the job can be done by one person, what rational profit-seeking businessman would hire 2-3 additional people? Why wouldn't I just operate with one cashier like I am already and pay them 25% if they're willing to work for that without the minimum wage? Is this the part of the argument where businessmen shift from profit-seeking self-interested actors to benevolent workfare charities?
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Mar 31, 2015 07:44
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VitalSigns posted:Wait what? If the job can be done by one person, what rational profit-seeking businessman would hire 2-3 additional people? The reality is even if you did find a benevolent business man he's going to still operate for maximum profits just to remain competitive with the sociopath who doesn't give a poo poo one way or another.
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Mar 31, 2015 07:45
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Political Whores posted:But it's because your arguments are terrible and you are a bad person. That you think these issues are something that there can be a "friendly exchange of ideas" on, showcases how truly detached you are from the consequences of what you advocate. I would not debate a white supremacist or a fascist in a friendly manner, and you are just as bad. But you haven't proven any of these horrible things you imagine would result from libertarian policies. It is just an accusation. All a libertarian advocates is that law is based on outlawing acts of aggression and enforcing restitution and punitive actions proportionally in response to aggression. Voluntarism and cooperation are permitted and acts of invasion against the self ownership of others is wrong. Now, it is a utilitarian question for sure whether a society that is governed as such would be slightly more prosperous or less than a society like, say, Sweden. But you are imagining a dystopian hellscape. I don't think you understand that the examples you seem to think are reflective of libertarian ideology (Somalia, late 19th century Corporate abuse, current US medical care distribution, etc). If you listen to any libertarian commentary, you will understand the difference. Yet you persist in citing examples of coercive violence as reflecting libertarian ideology when that is the main thing that libertarians explicitly oppose. We say take the police and, instead of allowing them to initiate coercion against the innocent use them to protect people from coercion and protect their property. I'll say it again because it bears repeating. If people are honestly too self centered and egotistical to create a decent society and/or take care of the elderly or the poor under conditions of freedom then for that very reason we cannot tolerate a State. A State just means you take some of the worst people in a given population and entrust them with tremendous power to dominate others. Yes, money might get to the poor but money will go to bombing Iraq, or to Monsanto. The money gotten through coercion usually has strings attached. The price to getting welfare is dependency and, unspoken of course, the idea that these people will vote for the Democratic Party. Somalia was a lovely and violent place when it had a government. When that government collapsed, surprise, it is still a violent and lovely place. It is not worse off but the problem is the people. The problem is the people.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:09
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Ayn Rand was a cult leader, those who idolize her a either deluded, sociopathic, or teenagers with tendencies towards delusion and sociopathy. That many businessmen treat her as a philosopher is a strong indicator of how much capitalism rewards sociopaths.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:12
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jrodefeld posted:There is a thing called real life that tends to intrude on these discussions. I don't appreciate how every time I don't post on here for a couple of weeks, I am supposedly a "coward" and I am "ducking" the debate. Going to point out that every person who has offered to debate you, including myself has actually given you the choice of moderators. We literally would let you pick the Ghost of Ludwig Von Mises if you could get him to filter questions in a reasonable manner.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:14
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A libertarian society is already based around violence, as it is based on property rights. To call for a libertarian society without aggression is impossible by definition.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:17
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jrodefeld posted:I'll say it again because it bears repeating. If people are honestly too self centered and egotistical to create a decent society and/or take care of the elderly or the poor under conditions of freedom then for that very reason we cannot tolerate a State. A State just means you take some of the worst people in a given population and entrust them with tremendous power to dominate others. Why are they 'some of the worst'. What makes this assertion true. How have they been entrusted with power to dominate; do you consider enforcement of rules domination, and if not, please elaborate on exactly why enforcement of a minimum wage or taxation is domination, but the hoarding and leveraging of wealth over the impoverished is not. You constantly fall back on the demonization of government workers, despite time and again getting called out on it. Also, gently caress you for your bullshit about Somalia, as usual you have a facile, ignorant and frankly, racist understanding of complex situations, because only through an almost infantile understanding of the world is libertarianism a viable idea. Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 08:23 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 08:19
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jrodefeld posted:But you haven't proven any of these horrible things you imagine would result from libertarian policies. It is just an accusation. All a libertarian advocates is that law is based on outlawing acts of aggression and enforcing restitution and punitive actions proportionally in response to aggression. Voluntarism and cooperation are permitted and acts of invasion against the self ownership of others is wrong. gently caress you you stupid racist we already dealt with why that image of Somalia is loving racist. You are such a terrible human being even posting here as if you deserve to be answered repulses me a little. You are beneath contempt.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:20
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DrProsek posted:A libertarian society is already based around violence, as it is based on property rights. To call for a libertarian society without aggression is impossible by definition. I'm just going to squat on this lawn in front of the house you live in. If you want me to leave, you need to appeal to my reason and convince me through argumentation that property rights exist and it's wrong for me to be there. Hey! Stop pushing! What are you doing, put the gun down, put the gun down!
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Mar 31, 2015 08:21
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jrodefeld posted:But you haven't proven any of these horrible things you imagine would result from libertarian policies. It is just an accusation. All a libertarian advocates is that law is based on outlawing acts of aggression and enforcing restitution and punitive actions proportionally in response to aggression. Voluntarism and cooperation are permitted and acts of invasion against the self ownership of others is wrong. "All libertarians are asking is to radically redefine society towards our personal fetish for property rights." Sorry, had to rephrase that for you because it annoys me when you pretend like a switch to a libertarian society would be anything simple. It would be a drastic upheaval of some of the basic tenets of human society. Just the idea of moving away from any form of government would be totally unheard of in all of history. quote:Now, it is a utilitarian question for sure whether a society that is governed as such would be slightly more prosperous or less than a society like, say, Sweden. It wouldn't be. quote:But you are imagining a dystopian hellscape. I don't think you understand that the examples you seem to think are reflective of libertarian ideology (Somalia, late 19th century Corporate abuse, current US medical care distribution, etc). If you listen to any libertarian commentary, you will understand the difference. Yet you persist in citing examples of coercive violence as reflecting libertarian ideology when that is the main thing that libertarians explicitly oppose. None of the current or past examples of free market abuses are actual free market abuses because I say they are not actual free market abuses but are in fact statists being statists. Seriously Jrod, why is the 100% British healthcare system both less expensive and more effective than the public/private system enjoyed by the US? quote:We say take the police and, instead of allowing them to initiate coercion against the innocent use them to protect people from coercion and protect their property. So you think that we should use police for the same thing we think police should be used for. Great! No one here thinks police should be attacking innocent people, at best we disagree on what qualifies as innocent. For example you think people who don't pay taxes are innocent while I think they are thieves who gain all the benefits of society while refusing to pay taxes. quote:I'll say it again because it bears repeating. If people are honestly too self centered and egotistical to create a decent society and/or take care of the elderly or the poor under conditions of freedom then for that very reason we cannot tolerate a State. A State just means you take some of the worst people in a given population and entrust them with tremendous power to dominate others. Yes, money might get to the poor but money will go to bombing Iraq, or to Monsanto. The money gotten through coercion usually has strings attached. The price to getting welfare is dependency and, unspoken of course, the idea that these people will vote for the Democratic Party. Ohhhhh, Monsanto!? Oh Jrod, Jrod, Jrod! I'm so excited. Do you believe that Geneticall Modified Organisms are dangerous too? Please tell me you do! I'm so ready for this! I just want to hear you say it! Talk Organic Food to me! Err... Sorry, that was awkward. Little drunk tonight. quote:Somalia was a lovely and violent place when it had a government. When that government collapsed, surprise, it is still a violent and lovely place. It is not worse off but the problem is the people. Is it their inferior non-white culture that you think is the problem? Or the skin color in general?
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Mar 31, 2015 08:23
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jrodefeld posted:You don't even understand my argument. Why don't you think about why this is? jrodefeld posted:Workers aren't paid at exactly their marginal productivity level obviously. The marginal productivity per hour of a worker is the ceiling on what an employer is going to be willing to pay a worker. There are very few exceptions, like a very short time where an employer might take a loss while training an employee based on the expectation that in short order they will become much more productive and any loss will be recouped quickly. Yes. This is both true and has literally nothing to do with the minimum wage, because the marginal productivity of any worker isn't exactly the minimum wage. Strangely enough, as Caros has pointed out repeatedly and you keep evading, we know that productivity has gone up while wages have remained stagnant. Explain this. jrodefeld posted:So, technically, a worker could earn anywhere from $0 an hour up to their marginal productivity per hour. However, all economic actors have different choices for employment. They could quit and work somewhere else. And if a very productive worker is being grossly underpaid, a competitor has an incentive to bid his services away because he will still see a healthy profit by doing so. Alternatively, competitors have incentives to all agree to pay their unskilled labor as little as possible in order to keep costs down, since, as has been pointed out repeatedly - there is no shortage of unskilled labor. Managers and businesses do not analyze, for the most part, how good <x> cashier is vs <y> cashier, or <z> warehouse worker vs <q> warehouse worker, unless one of them is flagrantly incompetent - and if they're flagrantly incompetent, they do not need the #1 CASHIER IN NORTH AMERICA, they need a warm body as quickly as possible, because it's unskilled labor. You do not understand this. I'm beginning to think you are incapable of understanding this. jrodefeld posted:So it is the other economic options like changing jobs, the ability of a worker to become an entrepreneur himself or to join a collective with other workers and earn more that provides the floor on wages. You also are literally incapable of seeing the imbalance in power in negotiations between employee and employer. Yes, "joining a collective with other workers" is helpful. You know what else is helpful? Being able to live because you have money with which to buy goods and services. This is why strikebreakers exist. I don't think it's a good thing that they do, but unionization without government support is not as powerful as you think. jrodefeld posted:It is this process of negotiation which determines any of our wages. When I was in my early twenties, only a few years ago, I was working at a job where I was paid $23 an hour or more than $15 more than the minimum wage. Why was I earning that much more when they only had to pay me $7.25 an hour? Obviously, my productivity was higher than $23. Plus they knew that the skills I had (nothing to brag about at the time, mainly computer skills and writing ability) were valued by other employers at close to the same wage rate. I'm not inclined to believe you about your wages. I am inclined to think, again, that you know literally nothing about unskilled labor, especially in the United States. Do you know what would happen if I tried to negotiate with my local grocery store about my wages for being a cashier? They would say thanks but no thanks and hire someone else, because that is a thing they can do. Even if I am 20% better at cashier-ing and only want 10% more, they'll go with the cheaper person because it actually doesn't matter that much, we're both being paid way less than our marginal productivity. jrodefeld posted:If you are a member of a group that is discriminated against and are in the minority, how can you rise up and overcome these obstacles? One way is to out-compete white workers on price. As Walter Williams says, if every employer has to pay every worker the same wage, then there is no economic cost to discrimination. So you are literally advocating black people put themselves into wage slavery. Race to the bottom, yeah! jrodefeld posted:If you are a minority and you live in a predominantly racist society, you will have fewer options for employment as you will be discriminated against. This is wrong and we shouldn't accept this, but it is a reality in many parts of the world and no law can change peoples hearts. What this means is that the lower floor for wages will be somewhat lower for a disliked minority than it would be for the majority group that has far more economic power. "It's okay to discriminate on wages too. You just make it seem like it's the discriminated-against group's choice!" You are a horrible person. jrodefeld posted:I don't believe most employers are racist, yet some stereotypes persist. The black kid from the inner city might still be looked at as a "thug" even subconsciously. People might be less likely to hire someone who fits a certain profile and one of those discriminated against traits might be skin color. For example, if you were hiring someone. jrodefeld posted:People born into a welfare system, or government housing projects, into poverty and likely with a single parent raising them have few economic options available to them. Don't further limit their economic options by outlawing certain voluntary wage contracts they might want to enter into. Economic coercion doesn't exist, jrodefeld? Because you agree that people are not necessarily being paid their marginal productivity, and yet people who are poor should... take jobs that pay them even less, so they can continue to be poor, even though we have already established that the minimum wage is below marginal productivity for basically every job we have right now. This is why there are not mass firings when the minimum wage goes up... even though you refuse to acknowledge any study that disagrees with your worldview. jrodefeld posted:If a 15 year old black kid wants to work a low paying job for $5 or $6 an hour, for gently caress's sake let him do it. Allow him to get some work experience, let him meet new people and see a way out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that he might be trapped in. It's weird how it's always black people that you want working really poor jobs, huh? You literally do not understand a single loving thing about unskilled labor. You do not understand how the job market works; I'm going to assume this is because your mother is as incompetent at running a business as she is at parenting. You literally have no idea about anything in labor markets at all, presumably because you have been able to sponge off your grandparents instead of doing anything that you didn't feel like doing, ever. jrodefeld posted:But you haven't proven any of these horrible things you imagine would result from libertarian policies. It is just an accusation. All a libertarian advocates is that law is based on outlawing acts of aggression and enforcing restitution and punitive actions proportionally in response to aggression. Voluntarism and cooperation are permitted and acts of invasion against the self ownership of others is wrong. On the one hand, jrodefeld insists that bad things have never happened under policies libertarians advocate. On the other hand, all of recorded history. jrodefeld posted:Now, it is a utilitarian question for sure whether a society that is governed as such would be slightly more prosperous or less than a society like, say, Sweden. No, it's really just common sense. jrodefeld posted:But you are imagining a dystopian hellscape. I don't think you understand that the examples you seem to think are reflective of libertarian ideology (Somalia, late 19th century Corporate abuse, current US medical care distribution, etc). If you listen to any libertarian commentary, you will understand the difference. Yet you persist in citing examples of coercive violence as reflecting libertarian ideology when that is the main thing that libertarians explicitly oppose. Ah, no true Scotsman. If bad things happened because of it, by definition it cannot be Libertarian. That's what it comes down to. This is because any criticism of Libertarian thought would require you to re-evaluate your ideals - something your lovely mom spent too much time worrying about the minimum wage to teach you, I suppose. jrodefeld posted:We say take the police and, instead of allowing them to initiate coercion against the innocent use them to protect people from coercion and protect their property. Ah, yes, because I forgot as a ~Statist~ I encourage the police to "coerce the innocent". Wait, no, that's not a thing that I condone, ever, which is precisely why I want more regulation and not less. This would not happen with less regulation in a Libertarian AnCap society because [CITATION NEEDED] jrodefeld posted:I'll say it again because it bears repeating. If people are honestly too self centered and egotistical to create a decent society and/or take care of the elderly or the poor under conditions of freedom then for that very reason we cannot tolerate a State. A State just means you take some of the worst people in a given population and entrust them with tremendous power to dominate others. Yes, money might get to the poor but money will go to bombing Iraq, or to Monsanto. The money gotten through coercion usually has strings attached. The price to getting welfare is dependency and, unspoken of course, the idea that these people will vote for the Democratic Party. HAHAHAHA. "AFRICANS CAN'T MANAGE LIBERTARIAN SOCIETY, BUT SURELY WHITE PEOPLE CAN! YOU JUST NEED THE RIGHT PEOPLE!" You're so close to getting it but so loving far away.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:27
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1000101 posted:The reality is even if you did find a benevolent business man he's going to still operate for maximum profits just to remain competitive with the sociopath who doesn't give a poo poo one way or another. Eh in real life businessmen don't have to be perfectly efficient. They can afford to waste money for personal emotional reasons, like giving their idiot son a 6-figure sinecure, that happens all the time. Less likely to do it for their minimum wage schlubs though, since if they gave a drat about people over profits they'd pay a living wage. This argument isn't available to Libertarians of course, because that would mean that if you are racist enough it's worth it to be a little inefficient and not let a black be a manager ever. Political Whores posted:It's more about exploiting of a group of already desperate marginalized people. Chinese workers were used for railway work because they were so desperate for a chance at work they world accept inhuman conditions and terrible pay. It's essentially keeping a slave population. A minimum wage just removes the incentive to try to get this arrangement. Sure I get that, but do we really expect the whites to just go "welp, you beat me, Chinaman, good show", cross their legs and starve to death stoically? If there's no minimum wage, and they're prevented from getting together and running off the Chinese with violence, eventually they're going to be desperate enough to bid down their wages enough and accept conditions execrable enough that the racism can kick in and get them hired again. Eventually they are going to join that race to the bottom. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 08:30
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jrodefeld posted:I find it funny how you think that admitting to being helped by charity at one point somehow implies I am inconsistent and hypocritical when I oppose the coercive and re-distributive welfare State. Oh I completely missed this one. Firstly, get hosed. Seriously, get hosed. You survived a serious medical issue because you had family members with the means to carry you through it, but you lack any sort of self-awareness or even basic human empathy to consider what would have happened to you if not for Nana. Here, let me help you. You would have died or suffered permanent injury, possibly while homeless on the street. Does that bring it home for you? Because I will remind you, I've seen what the free market does to people. I have borne witness to the free market chewing someone up and spitting them out. I have borne witness to a society that lets a woman die from treatable illness because she does not have the ability to pay. You know what Jrod, I will happily hold a gun to the head of every libertarian who bitches about paying their share of society if it keeps people from dying and suffering for no discernable reason. I have no goddamned sympathy for your childish arguments. Get hosed. Let me make it really simple. People dying of preventable illness because you are a selfish entitled little poo poo = One of the most hosed up things imaginable. Don't conflate people getting medical treatment with rape.
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Mar 31, 2015 08:46
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jrodefeld posted:
I never thought I'd see you sum up the problem with your ideology so succinctly! I'm almost proud of you!
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Mar 31, 2015 08:49
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Seriously jrod, are you Mitt Romney? This is like his college days story of how there's opportunity all around you. When good ol' Mitt saw that renting in Boston was much more expensive than a mortgage, but no bank would give a loan to a college student with no down payment and no credit history, did he give up like a poor? No, he went straight to his daddy, borrowed the money from him, escaped the high rents and sold the house for a profit. See, poors, there's opportunity all around. Anyone can do it, it's easy!
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Mar 31, 2015 08:49
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I have another thing to add about the minimum wage debate. I really resent your attempts to paint libertarians as the ones who don't care about the poor when the policies you espouse have been so incredibly harmful to those you profess to want to help. I did link to an article earlier but I'm sure no one read it. Nonetheless I want to highlight a few paragraphs. It was written by Sheldon Richman who is a person I greatly admire. He is a long time libertarian and he is as much an advocate on behalf of the poor and vulnerable as anyone I have read. He identifies the same problems I do: quote:The victims are the most vulnerable people in society: the unskilled. For the most part, these are young people (many from the middle class) without work experience. Few people over 24 make the minimum wage, and those who do usually move up before long. Young people desperately need that first job to learn skills and work habits, and of course income, but “progressive” politicians, whether they know it or not, favor policies that destroy entry-level jobs. Remember, the minimum-wage law doesn’t create employment; it forbids jobs that pay too little. http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-minimum-wage-harms-the-most-vulnerable/ I'd appreciate a response to some of the specific points I highlighted. It is important to note that under libertarian reforms, workers would have far more economic options and be more able to go into business for themselves or form coops with other workers. The State and established interests have erected barriers to entry which consign the poor to a life of poverty. There are an awful lot of very sincere and intelligent left-libertarians who have written extensively about the plight of the poor. There is a whole slew of reforms that would immensely help those in poverty to escape that life that libertarians advocate for. Have you read Gary Chartier and Sheldon Richman? Or Roderick Long on this topic? Or are you speaking through prejudice about how awful you think libertarians are?
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Mar 31, 2015 08:50
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