French Youth Protest Against Employment

[Johnny_Tuff]

 

Good show Mr. Greenspan!

 

Fuck that. I'd hang with any of those croissant-munchers over that wanker any day.

 

Work is a necessary evil, and the less work is necessary, the better. JayB, you go back to dutifully fellating your employer as a gesture of your thanks for the high privilege of occupying one of said person's fine cubicles.

 

[i'm significantly more important than you because I work in a laboratory, and I am afraid there is a communist or group of communists hiding under my bed waiting to share something of mine while I sleep.]

 

But, so, like, you're not denying the employer-fellating, then. Smashing.

[Dechristo]

So, my dollar is worth less due to enfellation?

[JayB]

 

Good show Mr. Greenspan!

 

Fuck that. I'd hang with any of those croissant-munchers over that wanker any day.

 

Work is a necessary evil, and the less work is necessary, the better. JayB, you go back to dutifully fellating your employer as a gesture of your thanks for the high privilege of occupying one of said person's fine cubicles.

 

[i'm significantly more important than you because I work in a laboratory, and I am afraid there is a communist or group of communists hiding under my bed waiting to share something of mine while I sleep.]

 

But, so, like, you're not denying the employer-fellating, then. Smashing.

 

So, do you occaisionally steal pens and logo items and stationary from the office to convince yourself that you aren't "one of them," and that despite appearances, you are monkeywrenching this whole capitalism thing.....one stapler at a time?

[JayB]

Jay, of all the items you list, only one addresses deficits, eliminating the mortgage deduction. Meanwhile, you reduce tax revenues even more by ditching the cap gains tax, raising IRA limits, and ending tariffs.

 

A line item veto does nothing, it is a tool, not a policy. Any of the pork barrel earmarks bullshit could have been cut at anytime by Delay, Hastert, or Frist. Bush could have, and should have vetoed the appropriations bill until they sent him one without pork. Over and over and over until they "got it". But that requires ethical standards.

 

The question is: would you raise taxes or cut spending, and if you're cutting spending what would you cut?

 

We hear all this blustering from the radical right "I'd end funding for the NEA"...well, OK fine, that's a few hundred million, which we spend in the GWOT fiasco every hour of every day. What else?

 

So, your solution is to fuck the middle class and the poor, while giving the wealthy elite even more concessions and doing nothing at all to address the deficits. And please, no supply side bs.

 

You seem to live in this fantasy world where there is a meritocracy. I see nothing but cronyism and systematic looting of the public coffers by those wielding the levers of political power.

 

But at least those dirty fuckin' spics and nigrahs won't make $7/hr anymore while working a harder day than you've ever experienced in your pampered life.

 

Edited to say: I'll give ya the elimination of subsidies as addressing the deficit too, and with that you still got a lot of cuttin' to do. Where should we start? And I'm not real fond of unions within the public sector either so I'm with ya there, but not to the rabid "all unions are evil" degree of the radical right you embrace.

 

I don't have time to address everything in one shot, but when the ECB and BOJ raise rates that, in conjunction with the FED actions, should tighten lending standards on the front side, and dry up some of the oceans of liquidity that the disparity between ECB and BOJ rates have brought into the MBS market by means of the carry trade, which should help to contain one of the primary symptoms of the asset/credit bubble that you were talking about.

 

Ending tarriffs and subsidies alone wouldn't erase the deficit, but over the long term it'd have a significant impact on economic growth, as every billion that gets wasted growing surplus crops that can be produced more cheaply elsewhere - sugar and cotton are great examples - could be either diverted to more productive uses like infrastructure spending or kept out of the government's hands all together. On the whole I'm less concerned about spending for this program or that program than I am about the percent of GDP that's extracted to fund the government. Somewhere there's a level that optimizes both economic growth and government revenue, and that seems like a reasonable goal to shoot for, but if I had to err on one side I'd definitely favor erring on the side of economic growth.

 

As far as the pampering goes - we should compare work histories. When I was 16 years old I was spending 40-50 hours a week working swing/graveyard shifts as dishwasher, and got to do things like clean-up oceans of puke off of toilet fixtures at 3:00AM, then trying to talk the depressed, 35-year old alcoholic coworker that lived with his Mom out of committing suicide that night. Fun stuff.

[cj001f]

 

Good show Mr. Greenspan!

 

Fuck that. I'd hang with any of those croissant-munchers over that wanker any day.

 

Work is a necessary evil, and the less work is necessary, the better. JayB, you go back to dutifully fellating your employer as a gesture of your thanks for the high privilege of occupying one of said person's fine cubicles.

 

[i'm significantly more important than you because I work in a laboratory, and I am afraid there is a communist or group of communists hiding under my bed waiting to share something of mine while I sleep.]

 

But, so, like, you're not denying the employer-fellating, then. Smashing.

 

So, do you occaisionally steal pens and logo items and stationary from the office to convince yourself that you aren't "one of them," and that despite appearances, you are monkeywrenching this whole capitalism thing.....one stapler at a time?

 

Do you occaisonally get to play banker in Monopoly? Do you pee your pants with glee?

[Johnny_Tuff]

So, do you occaisionally steal pens and logo items and stationary from the office to convince yourself that you aren't "one of them," and that despite appearances, you are monkeywrenching this whole capitalism thing.....one stapler at a time?

 

Heck no! I bring things from home and leave them around the office, to show the good of communal living. Mostly red things, of course; pens, coffee mugs, sticky-note pads, large flags with the hammer and sickle on them. Then I try to lighten the mood by making hilarious quips, such as when someone is waiting for the copier to finish their copies, I'll holler "Hey! Quit Stahlin, comrade!" Everyone laughs, and no one realizes that I'm brainwashing them all. I think my cubicle neighbor might be ready to sell everything he owns so we can go in on a potato farm and some horses, as a matter of fact.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

to show the good of communal living. Mostly red things

 

yeah, like mass executions and unmarked graves, the NKVD and artificial famines.

 

great living

 

[Johnny_Tuff]

to show the good of communal living. Mostly red things

 

yeah, like mass executions and unmarked graves, the NKVD and artificial famines.

 

great living

 

 

Yes, I've never read any Solzhenitsyn. Please continue to clobber me with your humorless pedantic sledgehammer.

 

God bless America.

[cj001f]

to show the good of communal living. Mostly red things

 

yeah, like mass executions and unmarked graves

 

sounds like "free market" Chile and Argentina. Don't forget the Americans they executed with our governments complicity

[Johnny_Tuff]

to show the good of communal living. Mostly red things

 

yeah, like mass executions and unmarked graves

 

sounds like "free market" Chile and Argentina. Don't forget the Americans they executed with our governments complicity

 

Hey, don't knock it; there will only be as many killings as the market will bear!

[murraysovereign]

It's pretty clear that what's ailing the French economy is the dearth of regulations that employers have to abide by. They've been pretty consistent in saying that if you increase the cost, regulatory burden, and risk associated with bringing on more employees by making it tougher for us to get rid of non-performers - we'll go on a huge-ass hiring binge, especially young people who have no experience. Couple that with laws that raise the price of unskilled labor above the amount of revenue that employers can generate with the said labor so they loose money every minute the folks in that skill bracket are working for them and you've got a surefire way to tackle the massive unemployment problem facing French youth - currently 20% across the board and way higher amongst the types responsible for last years giant Car-B-Que. Smart.

 

Meanwhile, back in the real world "KPMG's biannual study measures 27 cost components, such as labour, taxes, utilities and real estate... France and the Netherlands are the most cost-efficient European countries, while the U.S. ranked seventh among the nine countries, the study said. Germany edged out Japan as the costliest place to conduct business."

 

Spin, spin, spin...

[KaskadskyjKozak]

God bless America.

 

Da, pust' vsye komunyaki stradat' navek v ade.

[Johnny_Tuff]

God bless America.

 

Da, pust' vsye komunyaki stradat' navek v ade.

 

Oooohhh, that never gets old. Hit me with it again!

[willstrickland]

Jay, I am well aware of the flood of liquidity and the current unwinding of the yen based carry trade. The euro carry trade is neglible in the grand scheme, being much smaller in scope, and having seen a good deal of it unwound from 2003-2005 when the Euro went from somewhere around parity to upwards of 1.30. The end of BOJ's ZIRP will indeed raise rates globally and was the trigger for the unwinding. Especially coupled with the fact that all major central banks are tightening concurrently. Yet, we have no idea what the FED will do...other than more obsfucation, see: end of M3 reporting. Given Bernanke's past utterances, I assume he will continue the Greenspan "mop up" policy. The elephant in the room is that this "mop up" is simply a massive re-liquification that subverts the rebalancing of capital allocation and leads you right back to asset bubbles in another class, courtesy of the leveraged speculator community and their access to endless credit creation. The explosion of MBS and the deluge of derivatives (credit default swaps, etc) have disrutped the standard credit creation mechanisms. Take a look at the notional value of CDSs sometime.

 

Bank issues a load of mortgages, packages them, sells them to Fanny, who issues MBS. Now the bank can continue issuing and selling off the mortgages with little regard for lending standards of running into reserve requirement limitations. The credit mechanism is fucked and continues to morph like the cancer it has become. It has evolved to serve the financial paper handlers rather than the market for capital allocation to productive endeavors.

 

These matters, as intersting, complex, and important as they are, do not sufficiently address the deficit problems. Growing our way out of it, with the demographic bomb about to drop is fantasy land talk IMO. And in the short term, rising rates should slow growth if anything.

 

You state that

 

I'm less concerned about spending for this program or that program than I am about the percent of GDP that's extracted to fund the government

 

Seems like a self-contradictory statment. Are you advocating across the board cuts of a certain percent to every program? As in they should all be cut by the same percent without regard to their relative value to the nation?

 

You may wish to note that the "good ol days" of prosperity in the 50's had a upper end marginal tax rate of something north of 80% if recall correctly. I don't agree with rates that high, but it is interesting.

 

This is the fiscal conservatives dilemma in the current GOP...

 

raise taxes and suffer politically -or-

cut spending and eliminate/reduce the safety net and suffer politically -or-

do nothing and suffer politically because the fiscal conservatives defect or "forget" to go vote. GOP is in a serious bind and the "gay marriage!" rallying cry loses some effectiveness when the base you're trying to rally are in dire economic straights or watching their jobs disappear to the global labor arbitrage game.

 

We can compare work history all you like, I've done some shit jobs in my time too. But it's a variation of a dick measuring contest at best. The point I was trying to make is that you, me, and most other people have it much easier than the typical service worker who can barely make ends meet while working their asses off, yet for some reason you begrudge them a living wage.

 

Do you think pushing even more people into poverty will help the crime rate?

[JayB]

I don't think that most people are actually looking to harm the people at the low end of the wage/skill continuum - but it is worth looking at how no minimum wage vs. living wage will affect them.

 

I think it's pretty clear that if the key to eliminating poverty was mandating a sufficiently high wage, then all any country would have to do to turn itself into another Dubai would be to raise the wage to $100/hour or it's equivalent. Bingo - no more poverty. In reality, the only way to raise real wages is to raise productivity through better technology, training, etc. There's a reason why most of us live in a state of material comfort and plenty that would astonish our great-grandparents, and it's not because we are working any harder than they had to.

 

But back to the people at the low end of the wage-skill curve. What actually happens to them is that when you raise wages above the value that a person with no skills and a GED can generate on an employer's behalf - e.g. the employer will lose money every hour that they keep them on the job, the employer will either shed staff, go out of business, move elsewhere, or hire only people with enough skills to make them more money than they pay out in wages. All that you have to do to confirm this is a quick mental excercise where you keep ratcheting up the wages a dollar at a time, and ask yourself whether or not the local McDonald's franchisee is going to pay $15 an hour to have someone man the till.

 

We've been through this drill before, and what actually happens is that when you raise wages above a given threshold with no increases in productivity, you increase unemployment, and this unemployment is most heavily concentrated amongst the least skilled members of the workforce. Once unemployment gets high enough, the political pressure mounts and the central bank increases the money supply until inflation erodes the momentary gains in real wages that the increased minimum wage brought about, and purchasing power for those earning the lowest wages stays where it was - at best. Meanwhile those who have been saving money rather than borrowing it, and especially those living on fixed incomes - get thoroughly hosed by the ensuing inflation. Less than 3% of the workforce actually earns minimum wage, and half of all minimum wage-earners are under-25, and a high percentage of the under-25's are actually teenagers who aren't supporting a family with what they earn - so on balance I'd rather have a policy that keeps Granny from shivering under the afghan all winter and cracking open the Purina.

 

There's also the fact that very few people who start out earning the minimum wage actually keep earning the minimum wage for very long, as the skills and experience that they pick up on the low-end of the job market eventually translate into higher wages. However, if you raise minimum wages high enough, you will effectively keep the least skilled/educated people from ever taking their first step, and raising the number of unemployable people in the economy, especially amongst the youth, will not have a very beneficial effect on the crime rate.

 

Anyhow - it's interesting that even with your background in economics you support the notion that the way to eliminate poverty is through legislating higher money wages, as that's not a common perspective amongst people with your background. Not as uncommon as Biology majors who don't believe in evolution (actually knew one of those), but pretty rare. Is that something that you cam about through your training in econ or is it a populist working-class solidarity thing that you've hung onto despite your training?

[JayB]

It's pretty clear that what's ailing the French economy is the dearth of regulations that employers have to abide by. They've been pretty consistent in saying that if you increase the cost, regulatory burden, and risk associated with bringing on more employees by making it tougher for us to get rid of non-performers - we'll go on a huge-ass hiring binge, especially young people who have no experience. Couple that with laws that raise the price of unskilled labor above the amount of revenue that employers can generate with the said labor so they loose money every minute the folks in that skill bracket are working for them and you've got a surefire way to tackle the massive unemployment problem facing French youth - currently 20% across the board and way higher amongst the types responsible for last years giant Car-B-Que. Smart.

 

Meanwhile, back in the real world "KPMG's biannual study measures 27 cost components, such as labour, taxes, utilities and real estate... France and the Netherlands are the most cost-efficient European countries, while the U.S. ranked seventh among the nine countries, the study said. Germany edged out Japan as the costliest place to conduct business."

 

Spin, spin, spin...

 

But Murray, if KPMG is correct, that just show's exactly how harmful France's labor policies actually are. If France is the 2nd most cost-effective place to do business in the G7 - at least in the abstract - then employers should be beating down France's door to open up shop there, and their average unemployment should be amongst the lowest in the G7. The fact that this is not the case suggests that something beyond the expenses that KPMG tabulated is seriously discouraging overall employment there. Seems like labor market rigidity is a good candidate for this, and this is consistent with situation where unemployment is concentrated amongst the least skilled portion of the population - which is exactly what you see there.

[Johnny_Tuff]

Less than 3% of the workforce actually earns minimum wage

 

There is no way this could possibly be correct. Three percent? I'm sure you have a fine source for that statistic, but it just doesn't pass the sniff test. I dunno about you, brother, but I see a lot of Wal Marts, fast food joints, gas stations, mini marts, and the like around here, and, from my own work experience growing up (don't worry, I'm sure you worked so much harder than I did ), I don't recall that sort of job paying all too highly. It also makes me wonder how many are really making substantially more than the minimum wage. A 25-cent/hour pay raise may technically mean you are not making minimum wage, but it's not buying you a whole lot more Top Ramen.

[Alpinfox]

...Happy retirement Arthur!

[G-spotter]

Less than 3% of the workforce actually earns minimum wage

 

There is no way this could possibly be correct. Three percent? I'm sure you have a fine source for that statistic, but it just doesn't pass the sniff test. I dunno about you, brother, but I see a lot of Wal Marts, fast food joints, gas stations, mini marts, and the like around here, and, from my own work experience growing up (don't worry, I'm sure you worked so much harder than I did ), I don't recall that sort of job paying all too highly. It also makes me wonder how many are really making substantially more than the minimum wage. A 25-cent/hour pay raise may technically mean you are not making minimum wage, but it's not buying you a whole lot more Top Ramen.

 

how many % earn LESS than minimum wage? working under the radar and sending half home to mom?

[PBRstreetgang]

 

Captialism means being bossed around by the rich, communism means being bossed around by the party. Its better to not be bossed at all.

To the barricades, then to the crags

[willstrickland]

Jay, given your last statement...

 

...what actually happens is that when you raise wages above a given threshold with no increases in productivity...

 

Please reconcile these:

 

Productivy gains have been enormous over the last decade according to govt stats. In that same time period, real wages have been flat to down, while CFO and CEO salaries have roughly tripled.

 

BTW, I don't think you can eliminate povery by just paying everyone wages that are above the poverty threshold. That is not my assertion. But I also don't believe that you automatically hamstring a business by requiring minimum wage. Further, I assert that when your employees are not having to work two jobs to make ends meet and not stressing the fuck out because they can't take a sick child to the doctor, you will increase productivity of those employees and to some degree offset the higher wage.

 

I don't believe that it is moral, ethical, or christian nor a benefit to shareholders to pay corporate execs wildly bloated salary packages while the rank and file employee can't heat their home or feed their kids. You deem it socialist, I call it human compassion.

 

I leave you with two thoughts:

 

1. As of 2005, if the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour.

 

2. In 1965 the CEO:Worker pay ratio was 24:1. Today it is over 430:1. In Japan today it is 55:1.

 

And before you claim "they are worth it" take a look at Treas. Sec Snow's tenure as CEO of CSX Rail, or Ken Lay, Kozlowski, etc, etc.

[archenemy]

Jay, given your last statement...

 

...what actually happens is that when you raise wages above a given threshold with no increases in productivity...

 

Please reconcile these:

 

Productivy gains have been enormous over the last decade according to govt stats. In that same time period, real wages have been flat to down, while CFO and CEO salaries have roughly tripled.

 

BTW, I don't think you can eliminate povery by just paying everyone wages that are above the poverty threshold. That is not my assertion. But I also don't believe that you automatically hamstring a business by requiring minimum wage. Further, I assert that when your employees are not having to work two jobs to make ends meet and not stressing the fuck out because they can't take a sick child to the doctor, you will increase productivity of those employees and to some degree offset the higher wage.

 

I don't believe that it is moral, ethical, or christian nor a benefit to shareholders to pay corporate execs wildly bloated salary packages while the rank and file employee can't heat their home or feed their kids. You deem it socialist, I call it human compassion.

 

I leave you with two thoughts:

 

1. As of 2005, if the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour.

 

2. In 1965 the CEO:Worker pay ratio was 24:1. Today it is over 430:1. In Japan today it is 55:1.

 

And before you claim "they are worth it" take a look at Treas. Sec Snow's tenure as CEO of CSX Rail, or Ken Lay, Kozlowski, etc, etc.

Here, here!!

[Johnny_Tuff]

You deem it socialist, I call it human compassion.

 

In a nutshell, the crux difference between left and right.

[JayB]

Jay, given your last statement...

 

...what actually happens is that when you raise wages above a given threshold with no increases in productivity...

 

Please reconcile these:

 

Productivy gains have been enormous over the last decade according to govt stats. In that same time period, real wages have been flat to down, while CFO and CEO salaries have roughly tripled.

 

BTW, I don't think you can eliminate povery by just paying everyone wages that are above the poverty threshold. That is not my assertion. But I also don't believe that you automatically hamstring a business by requiring minimum wage. Further, I assert that when your employees are not having to work two jobs to make ends meet and not stressing the fuck out because they can't take a sick child to the doctor, you will increase productivity of those employees and to some degree offset the higher wage.

 

I don't believe that it is moral, ethical, or christian nor a benefit to shareholders to pay corporate execs wildly bloated salary packages while the rank and file employee can't heat their home or feed their kids. You deem it socialist, I call it human compassion.

 

I leave you with two thoughts:

 

1. As of 2005, if the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour.

 

2. In 1965 the CEO:Worker pay ratio was 24:1. Today it is over 430:1. In Japan today it is 55:1.

 

And before you claim "they are worth it" take a look at Treas. Sec Snow's tenure as CEO of CSX Rail, or Ken Lay, Kozlowski, etc, etc.

 

I guess it depends on whether you base your beliefs about this on feelings or evidence. There are a few papers out there that argue to the contrary, but the overwhelming consensus is that legislating a higher minimum wage actually ends up hurting the people that you want to help. There's a pretty solid 60+ year consensus on this one amongst economists, and it can be verified by simple thought experiments. As I said above, not only does it hurt the unskilled and uneducated, the inflation, monetary and otherwise that it brings about has a very real, very negative effect upon anyone living on a fixed income. I'm not sure how a policy which not only harms young people with no skills and old people with no earned income is actually compassionate. I can see that it's born of a compassionate impluse, but real compassion requires doing what works - in this case, actually reducing poverty - not what mereley makes us feel good about ourselves.

 

The bit about CEO pay is pretty irrelevant unless you believe that every time Bill Gates gets paid more, it somehow undermines your standard of living. Besides, it would be more accurate to sum up all of the money earned by the CEOs of the Fortune 500 in a given year, and divide it by the total man-hours worked in the US economy, and see what difference it would make in average wages - not much. If corporations overpay for talent - that's between them and their shareholders, and paying a fortune for a guy that doesn't produce much, then that's a bad management decision that will eventually cost the company in market share, share price, etc. There's probably plenty of people in the country that think you are grossly overpaid for what you do - but the beauty of a market economy is that society's need for what you have to offer at any given time, not popular opinion - determines what you make.

 

The only other quibble I have is that I bet your metric includes only money wages, not compensation. If wages are static and health care premiums are rising at 5-10% YOY, then flat wages + rising benefits = higher total compensation. If both really are stagnating, it's hard to imagine how increasing unemployment and inflation are going to help much - unless you think that a reduction in total wages will be helpful to the nation somehow.

[willstrickland]

There's a pretty solid 60+ year consensus on this one amongst economists, and it can be verified by simple thought experiments.

 

 

I beg to differ. It may be consensus among your Univ. Chi Friedmanite winger bretheren. Here's a list of 562 economists who would say otherwise:

 

http://www.epinet.org/stmt/economistsminwage200410web.pdf

 

An excerpt:

 

We believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed. In particular, we share the view the Council of Economic Advisers expressed in the 1999 Economic Report of the President that “the weight of the evidence suggests that modest increases in the minimum wage have had very little or no effect on employment.” While controversy about the precise employment effects of the minimum wage continues, research has shown that most of the beneficiaries are adults, most are female, and the vast majority are members of low-income working families.