danivon wrote:By the way, it's interesting that you conservatives (and RJ is clearly one of those on this subject) are quick to attack the 'Left' as being ideological and naive, and yet are almost in the same breath writing about how the 'market' will provide.

The market has it's uses, but it's not actually that intelligent (in fact it is dumb as a post). It is good for setting prices, but very bad at externalities. We have a saying over here, "they know the price of everything, but the value of nothing". Markets are good at prices, but poor at value.

That's very interesting. I think that we conservatives are saying that the market is better at figuring this out than you, Ricky, and Freeman, no offense.

I don't think it is the market's job to figure out values. That's the individual's job. Some individuals value hard work; some don't. Some people like to shop at Walmart, others don't. Some people like to work at Walmart. Some people value stuff and others don't. The importance of the market and the price mechanism is that it forces all of us to temper our values with reality. It also gives us the freedom to operate within that reality.

Regarding externalities, I've always seen that a little differently. When I drive my car and cause pollution, that's an externality. Although I made a logical decision for me in buying gas and driving, and Exxon made a logical decision for its shareholders in selling me the gas, we did create pollution and warmed the atmosphere a bit so everyone else suffered an externality. However, I don't quite see the externality in an individual taking a job at Walmart.

Ricky:

Ray I apologize if I've missed your reasons. Lately in this thread your contribution has been pithy comments like this.
Hardly reason.

Yeah, right; classy apology. I really don't see the point of posting the same argument over and over and over again. (That's your thing, not mine.) You can reacquaint yourself with all of my reasoning by clicking on the earlier pages and looking for my posts. There's also a nice search function that you can use if you really give one iota about what I think.

so the market is good at setting prices but government is good at everything else? They set minimum wages (that you are not happy with) they set laws that have unforeseen consequences, they create demands that force places like Walmart to cut peoples hours short ...and then you complain about that as well, the market works its way around these demands doesn't it? The governments demands are what create most of the problems you want to complain about.
Give the market some time and it will most certainly work its way out, government certainly has a role and I am not advocating anarchy by any means. I have no problem with laws to protect people but often times government can go overboard in its eagerness to protect us from ourselves. Preying on the masses for votes based on Robin Hood economics only leads to further and further problems.
The real problem is a bit of socialism is good, for example who would argue free public schooling is a bad idea? But one thing leads to another and to another and to another, we went from something that was good to something that soon (maybe already? looking at the problems of Europe who is further ahead on advancing socialism) can not be maintained.

ray

I think that we conservatives are saying that the market is better at figuring this out than you, Ricky, and Freeman, no offense.

Please reference a point in American history when there was no minimum wage or labour standards. Its that point of reference (1880s to 1920 ) where you end up if the market figures these things out alone.
The market we are referring to isn't just the market for goods and service to consumers. Its the labour market.
The difference between the market of goods and services is that market has elastic demand. That is consumers can decide for themselves that they will delay a purchase, or switch brands or alter their behaviour...
The market for labour is largely inelastic. Everyone needs a job.
Without unions or government regulations the labour force, are in a weak bargaining position before the advent of minimums,

Ray

I don't think it is the market's job to figure out values.

You're right. That's societies. And in a democratic nation, those values eventually become expressed in laws. Amongst those laws were things like welfare, labour laws and regulation, and minimum wage.
Since your nation has decided not to let people starve in the streets and has brought in welfare and other assistance there is a level between that minimal assistance and the lowest income levels earned at a minimum wage.
Another of those values is the notion that people who work hard should be rewarded for their efforts in a fair way that means they don't have to rely on welfare or subsistence government payments... Well, that would be the value we are currently debating. Conservatives attacking the value and "leftists" supporting it... Which strikes me that you are defending the idea of governments supporting low paid workers as a good idea....and that's not "conservative" is it?
That value also dovetails nicely with the idea that corporations shouldn't be subsidized perennially . Especially those operating in well established markets. Like retailing.
That's a conservative value isn't it? And yet its "leftists" who raise the issue and those on the "right" who prefer to ignore this issue...
I don't think this is a disagreement between right and left. I think its the inconsistency of the positions held by those of you who consider your selves conservative. Because if you can defend policy that sustains WalMart and other retailers profits by maintaining wage and labour laws that require people to depend on the state .... you are not conservative.
If ordinary people need to stand on their own two feet, why shouldn't corporations succeed without government assistance for its labour force?
If the magic of the labour market at work could fix this situation there would have been no need whatsoever for the original labour laws and minimum wage...
But, as Neal points out, globalization has made the American market part of the global market. American labour now competes with Bangladeshi labour... Left to the magic of the market ...whats the floor price going to be eventually? A middle class society, like that of 1950-1980 cannot exist where income disparity is as great as it was in the 1880s through 1920. It wasn't the market that ensured the middle class, it was the efforts of unions and labour laws that helped the working class achieve a standard of living envied by the working class in nations around the world....
Until recent decades have seen the working class in the US fall behind many of its peer nations..
In large part because minimum standards have eroded.

RJ, individuals have values. So does wider society. I don't think that I am smarter than the market, but I do think that markets are there to serve society - not the other way around - and so it is down to society (and that does mean through democratic government and legislation) to set the parameters.

Sometimes those parameters need to change. Sometimes the changes have other effects we don't expect or underestimate, in which case we should refine them and learn. Removing those parameters because 'government' is itself a change, and can also have side effects.

Free markets can be a major problem, such as in a case of food shortage. They will quickly set a higher price for food, which will settle when demand falls. Of course, the mechanism by which that demand falls can be famine.

nobody suggested we had no need for government or for some labor laws, we did say there is no need for minimum wages, nor do we need for the intrusive government intervention that we currently have. The market is not magic and has its flaws but government is no magic bullet either, they have stepped in when needed yet do not know when to stop stepping in over and over and over again.

and the food shortage mentioned above???
so we have less food, now you suggest government can step in and force lower prices so we eat just as much and run out of this limited food all the sooner? How about our food prices going up due to foolish government intrusion on the ethanol fiasco?

Tom - the food shortage example is a hypothetical, but one based on recent African famines.

an example that proves ...?
seriously, if there were a food shortage, prices would rise. People would eat less, hunger would prevail no doubt, but the supply would be stretched. If government prevented the rise somehow, then people would eat as they have been and that limited supply would be gone all the sooner resulting in starvation.
Now where govt can be helpful is if they could spend money in their reserves and bring in imported food, keeping the prices the same would be subsidized by the govt and that is a perfect example of how govt intervention can be a good thing of course, again, nobody but nobody is suggesting ZERO government involvement. But to what degree is the million dollar question ...liberals want greater involvement while conservatives want less.

tom

But to what degree is the million dollar question ...liberals want greater involvement while conservatives want less.

If you agree that there should be food stamps programs and other welfare to keep the poorest from hunger .... But that there should be as limited use of these government back stops as possible...

Then arguing against a minimum wage law, and laws and regulations that make it more difficult for business to avoid benefits through the use of short timing employees ... is arguing for more government intervention. Not less.

A program like food stamps requires bureaucracy and must be funded. The more people who are forced to make use of the program the greater the funding required.
The simpler minimum wage laws and other regulations costs the government very little (except enforcement) and reduces the numbers and funds that go into the social welfare programs...
A simple law, or a complicated inefficient bureaucracy, using taxpayers money .... thats what the alternatives are .....
The system in place now ensures more people require the active and continuing intervention of government. Not fewer...

rickyp wrote:The system in place now ensures more people require the active and continuing intervention of government. Not fewer...

Sorry, but are you actually suggesting that food stamps would be a thing of the past if the minimum wage was raised sufficiently?

If so, perhaps you'd like to provide some documentation?

If not, what the heck are you saying?

GMTom wrote:an example that proves ...?
seriously, if there were a food shortage, prices would rise. People would eat less, hunger would prevail no doubt, but the supply would be stretched. If government prevented the rise somehow, then people would eat as they have been and that limited supply would be gone all the sooner resulting in starvation.

Now where govt can be helpful is if they could spend money in their reserves and bring in imported food, keeping the prices the same would be subsidized by the govt and that is a perfect example of how govt intervention can be a good thing of course, again, nobody but nobody is suggesting ZERO government involvement. But to what degree is the million dollar question ...liberals want greater involvement while conservatives want less.

Indeed - your thinking is quite correct - government can spend (on reserves or borrowing) to import food which keeps prices down.

They can also alternatively ration food, so people don't hoard it or benefit from being able to afford more. That, combined with price controls, could spread the load.

What it 'proves' is that markets can cause problems, and not all government (or societal) constraints are going to work, so more thought is needed.

Still, not sure that a different minimum wage is 'more' government or 'less' - it's just a different setting on an existing level of 'government'.

DF - we don't have food stamps here in the UK, other than for asylum seekers. I think quite a few places don't have them at all. So it's perfectly possible that the US could phase them out or replace them with something else, especially if entry-level wages went up.

Of course, food-stamp are an outcome of lobbying against just giving people money, in case they spend it on the 'wrong things'. It does have the side-effect of extra shame for recipients trying to use them in public.

So I can see that for many they are attractive to keep. The real goal would be to reduce the need for them.

danivon wrote:DF - we don't have food stamps here in the UK, other than for asylum seekers. I think quite a few places don't have them at all. So it's perfectly possible that the US could phase them out or replace them with something else, especially if entry-level wages went up.

Of course, food-stamp are an outcome of lobbying against just giving people money, in case they spend it on the 'wrong things'. It does have the side-effect of extra shame for recipients trying to use them in public.

So I can see that for many they are attractive to keep. The real goal would be to reduce the need for them.

Actually, it no longer shames anyone. They get, essentially, debit cards. In fact, restrictions have had to be passed to prevent them from being used at casinos, strip clubs, and bars.

However, this in no way addresses my question.

If you want to say that food stamps might be "phased out" by raising the minimum wage, again, I would ask for some documentation of that.

Want proof of unintended consequences? Here's the former economic adviser of VP Joe Biden, explaining the effects of Obamacare:

Now, it is true that down the road, there will be incentives in the health care law where some firms may decide they'd rather create part time jobs instead of full time jobs -- we'll have to see. But by the way, just in terms of raw job counts, that could actually boost the number of jobs higher because you'd have more part-time jobs.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... _jobs.html

Sweet! So, more part-time jobs (and less full-time jobs)! Heckuva job, Mr. President!

Are you suggesting food stamps can be eliminated by raising the minimum wage? If so, might there be unintended consequences?

Ricky, no
way off the mark! government intervention is what CREATED the walmart part time nonsense, minimum wage requirements simply present further consequences and if costs go up, does the retailer simply absorb them or do they pass it along? Raise the minimum wage and you find both prices rise as well as fewer hours available to work plus a requirement to cut back on full time jobs. Is that what you want? Higher prices and fewer hours to work, more unemployment? Talk about unintended consequences, by forcing walmart to pay more you end up forcing people to shop at the place with the lowest prices and what happens? Walmart is rewarded while everyone else suffers.

Doctor Fate wrote:If you want to say that food stamps might be "phased out" by raising the minimum wage, again, I would ask for some documentation of that.

Let me get this straight. I suggest that you 'may' be able to do something, and you want 'documentation'?

What form would that documentation take? Shall I fill it out in triplicate and get it notarised, or will a single paper copy suffice?

Seriously, it's a suggestion, not a legislative Bill. Chill, or otherwise provide your 'documentation' for your ideas to reform disability (not op-eds or studies about the problems and causes, but for the solutions and what they'd do).

Want proof of unintended consequences?

Not really, as I've already acknowledged them as being a thing. Labouring the point beyond the need to is ricky-esque.

Are you suggesting food stamps can be eliminated by raising the minimum wage? If so, might , there be unintended consequences?

Yes, there could well be some. I've not denied it, and won't. Similarly, I think there are unintended consequences to reducing entitlement to food stamps - as mentioned by Tom.