America's greatness is its working classes not "wealth" creators

[EconChick]

The business journal Bloomberg Businessweek points out that the country of Denmark has a minimum pay rate of the equivalent of about $20 an hour, but its business climate is sufficiently healthy for the World Bank to ranked it as the easiest place in Europe to do business in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Denmark is also "among the leading countries in income equality and national happiness." Denmark also had a lower unemployment rate (6.8%) and higher labor participation rate (64.4%) than the United States (7.4%, 63.6% as of September 2013) where the minimum wage is far lower ($7.25).

Great, then move to Denmark.

A number of things. One is that the people of Denmark are relatively homogeneous. They also have a great work ethic as a generality.

If the US was full of people basically like myself or someone with a hard work ethic, we'd be much better off as well. But unfortunately the ratio of those pulling the wagon is damn near 1 to 1 with those in the wagon. We are also a diverse country with many different value systems, races, religions, work ethics, etc..

In other words, they are pretty much the same with similar value systems, religion, race, etc.... we are a melting pot.

To say it's the leading IN EUROPE is not saying much. Europe is a fucking economic mess.

And no they don't have a lower unemployment rate.

People romanticize Europe but the price paid for their socialist tendencies is high, very high Unemployment rates. Denmark just happens to be one of the best at 6.8. Most are up in or near double digits almost all the time.

The list of what's wrong with your post and Europe in general is so long it's not funny. They also have more govt intervention and a lot less freedom. Long list....

 

[EconChick]

As a 1995 paper in the Journal of Economics Literature put it, “There is a long history of empirical studies attempting to pin down the effects of minimum wages, with limited success.” No one found significant employment losses when President Truman raised the minimum wage by 87% in 1950. When Congress raised the minimum wage by 28% in two steps in 1967, businesses predicted large employment losses and price increases. As the Wall Street Journal reported six months later, “Employment and prices show little effect from $1.40-an-hour guarantee.”

Economic research supports raising the minimum wage Economic Policy Institute

The Economic Policy Institute is a very left leaning organization. You have to take it with a grain of salt the same way you'd take the American Enterprise Institute from the right with a grain of salt.

There are times when raising the min wage might have minimal impact...but during a weak recovery like this, it's a bad time to do it.

 

[EconChick]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

Obviously you haven't seen posts where we dig way into numbers where it is gray.

You totally lose normal people doing that. Just look at how many "normal" people follow the big econ discussions in the ECON FORUM threads. That's where we geeks like to hang out but not every day Americans who are trying to figure it out. Look at the sincere people we've lost on this thread (Smarter has left, Chris has shut down) once we delve way down into numbers. It just bores them and confuses them.

Though it has become binary, working in the weeds where it's gray loses those we're all talking to. There has to be an attempt to make it relatable. Not everyone sits on Wall Street and crunches numbers all day long like you do.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

With all due respect my friend, and I do like how you post, there are so many variables that affect the unemployment rate that for you to draw cause and effect between just min wage and unemploy is completely incorrect.

You'd have to look at a lot more variables than you have.

Just for one of hundreds of variables, the timing impact of min wage doesn't even show up immediately as you've suggested in your numbers.

But basically you've not looked at the long list of other variables.

Correct, that is what I'm saying, there is NO evidence that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. NONE.

I mean I CLEARLY showed you a year that if one were so inclined they could say "aha see the raise in the minimum wage DECREASED unemployment" but we both know that it isn't that simple.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

Obviously you haven't seen posts where we dig way into numbers where it is gray.

You totally lose normal people doing that. Just look at how many "normal" people follow the big econ discussions in the ECON FORUM threads. That's where we geeks like to hang out but not every day Americans who are trying to figure it out. Look at the sincere people we've lost on this thread (Smarter has left, Chris has shut down) once we delve way down into numbers. It just bores them and confuses them.

Though it has become binary, working in the weeds where it's gray loses those we're all talking to. There has to be an attempt to make it relatable. Not everyone sits on Wall Street and crunches numbers all day long like you do.

What an insult. A) I didn't leave the thread, I merely stopped talking to one dishonest poster B) Numbers don't confuse me.

 

[EconChick]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

 

[Mac1958]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

I already did. I clearly said the key is finding the proper equilibrium.

That's far more difficult than just taking a "side" and running with it no matter what.

.

 

[SmarterThanTheAverageBear]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

 

[Mac1958]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

Precisely.

We've been terribly narcissistic and incurious.

Complicated issues require more than binary thought.

.

 

[EconChick]

With all due respect my friend, and I do like how you post, there are so many variables that affect the unemployment rate that for you to draw cause and effect between just min wage and unemploy is completely incorrect.

You'd have to look at a lot more variables than you have.

Just for one of hundreds of variables, the timing impact of min wage doesn't even show up immediately as you've suggested in your numbers.

But basically you've not looked at the long list of other variables.

Correct, that is what I'm saying, there is NO evidence that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. NONE.

I mean I CLEARLY showed you a year that if one were so inclined they could say "aha see the raise in the minimum wage DECREASED unemployment" but we both know that it isn't that simple.

I have seen many graphs and stats over the years that show it does. But as you and I agree, it's not that simple.

What is simple is at the anecdotal level.

When someone who owns a Wendy's who has 500,000 dollars allotted in the budget to salaries. Let's say they employ 10 people with that. When min wage goes up, they can only pay 9 people with that 500,000 budget now.

Typically those people have small profit margins, which means they don't make that much money to put in their pockets. So when someone like you says, "well pull it from somewhere else" the other money is allotted to costs they have to pay like building, insurance, supplies, food, etc. etc. etc. And to pull it from low profits pushes some of them to actually go out of business so that now all 10 are unemployed.

This is overly simplistic but this is the counterintuitive nature of raising the min wage.

 

[EconChick]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

Well, I'm just the opposite. I've come to my conclusions after much study, and I'm one of the posters mac is directing his typical vanilla comment at. So NOOOOO, it has no validity for me.

 

[EconChick]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

Precisely.

We've been terribly narcissistic and incurious.

Complicated issues require more than binary thought.

.

No, you're just a vanilla fence sitter.

And the underhanded insults like narcissistic, asshole? Just remember who started them.

Why are you on a POLITICAL THREAD complaining about politics? Go play on the ECON FORUM.

 

[EconChick]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

Precisely.


.

PRECISELY WHO, mac? Get off your cowardly fence. Are you directing your binary comments toward me and others? Of course you are, idiot. So what is precise about his comment that I and others don't study each topic?

It's not precise. It's bullshit. Just like your entry onto political threads.

 

[Darkwind]

Let Me ask those who are arguing about the purchasing power of minimum wage today versus the past, and how we should adjust the minimum wage to equate to a better situation for the worker, a question.

Is it your contention that there should be a single wage paid to everyone in this nation?

Do you support the notion that the government should force everyone into one wage?

Because this is how I see the argument shaping up.

1. We must make minimum wage a living wage.
2. Next, we will argue that a high minimum wage will be fair to the country.
3. After, we will combine the minimum wage issue with the income gap and force all companies to pay the minimum wage to everyone.
4. Last. We will take all wages not paid out to top executives as taxes and give them to our pet projects.

Why is the argument never about moving away from minimum wage and always about harming companies?

 

[EconChick]

Where'd ya run to mac? Everytime you come and fart on a political thread about the economy and I remind you it's political, your cowardly ass runs off.

 

[Mac1958]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

Precisely.


.

PRECISELY WHO, mac? Get off your cowardly fence. Are you directing your binary comments toward me and others? Of course you are, idiot. So what is precise about his comment that I and others don't study each topic?

It's not precise. It's bullshit. Just like your entry onto political threads.

Partisans hate it when you shove a mirror in their face.

Partisans are a big part of the problem.

.

 

[EconChick]

And while we're at it, mac, you have socialist leanings yourself, so don't act like you're talking for everyone here. I can't even stand Europe's social Democrat form of socialism that you think is great.

So you aren't really on the fence, you lean further away from Capitalism than I do.

 

[Mac1958]

Where'd ya run to mac? Everytime you come and fart on a political thread about the economy and I remind you it's political, your cowardly ass runs off.

Not "running" anywhere. I'm at work and look in here once in a while.

Do you stay here all day?

.

 

[EconChick]

.

The OP is essentially the "bottom up" approach favored by the social Democrats, and it doesn't work in a dynamic economy with global competition that depends on efficient deployment of capital.

And, as always, this conversation has been binary all the way through. One or the other. It can't work that way, gang, an equilibrium must be found. Neither "bottom up" nor "top down".

Good grief.

Politicize something and you dumb it down, faster than shit through a goose.

.

And talk about good grief, we're on a POLITICAL FORUM. When you go to vote for President, it's between two people. You can't keep sitting on the fence when you vote....you don't have 50 different flavors to choose from...you have to go with the person that leans more in one direction. Of course it's a blending when executed.

But exactly how are you helping people looking for insight on this thread with that vanilla statement you just made. How much bottom up? How much top down?

Commit to something. Stop sitting on the fence.

Fence sitting? I think what he said has some merit.

There are too many people who simply see left and right and decide "their" opinion on each topic accordingly rather than actually studying each topic and making up their own minds even if their opinion strays from party lines.

Precisely.


.

PRECISELY WHO, mac? Get off your cowardly fence. Are you directing your binary comments toward me and others? Of course you are, idiot. So what is precise about his comment that I and others don't study each topic?

It's not precise. It's bullshit. Just like your entry onto political threads.

Partisans hate it when you shove a mirror in their face.

Partisans are a big part of the problem.

.

Anyone that think the social Democrats of Europe are hip is a partisan. You're just too stupid and vanilla to admit it.

 

[Mac1958]

And while we're at it, mac, you have socialist leanings yourself, so don't act like you're talking for everyone here. I can't even stand Europe's social Democrat form of socialism that you think is great.

So you aren't really on the fence, you lean further away from Capitalism than I do.

I'd love to see you link to where I said that "Europe's social Democrat form of socialism is great".

Looking forward to it.

.