Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

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Sy Borg
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

Post by Sy Borg »

Alas, various tragedies of the commons will defeat all of these measures (from observing boom-bust dynamics). There is one answer - for a lot of terrible things to happen and drastically reduce human numbers. Soon after the great plague of mediaeval Europe with all of its losses and traumas, one might have expected England and Europe to have spent a period in a daze, lost and not knowing what to do. In truth, within a very short time everything was being rebuilt and improved upon and people were more prosperous and happy than they had ever been.

The truth about us humans can be thought of as hideous, hilarious, inspiring or depressing, depending on our inclinations (or mood?).
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

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Greta wrote:Alas, various tragedies of the commons will defeat all of these measures (from observing boom-bust dynamics). There is one answer - for a lot of terrible things to happen and drastically reduce human numbers. Soon after the great plague of mediaeval Europe with all of its losses and traumas, one might have expected England and Europe to have spent a period in a daze, lost and not knowing what to do. In truth, within a very short time everything was being rebuilt and improved upon and people were more prosperous and happy than they had ever been.

The truth about us humans can be thought of as hideous, hilarious, inspiring or depressing, depending on our inclinations (or mood?).
I choose *&^%%#! @%$^#!! for mood about humans. And for Gods, too. I mean, let's not forget who is ultimately responsible for this mess. We wouldn't be in this mess today, if He hadn't created the world. Bad, bad god.
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

Post by Steve3007 »

In truth, within a very short time everything was being rebuilt and improved upon and people were more prosperous and happy than they had ever been.
This is true. It was very good for the wages of peasants, I've read. There was suddenly a very pressing labour shortage which pushed up wages:

economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/1 ... -history-1

I'm hoping that the next big one (that I'm reliably informed will kill 6 billion) will disproportionately target software engineers.
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

Post by Eduk »

thanks for making me laugh Steve :)
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

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Seriously speaking, if six billion of us perished overnight, with no damage to private property (i.e. neutron bomb... here we come), then it's not going to be the same as the peasant's rich life after the plagues in Europe.

There is basically one good reason why the same or similar event would differently affect the economy: stored goods.

In the middle ages they could hardly even store food to last the entire winter. Eating-meat farm animals definitely were slaughtered in the fall, in order to preserve starchy and sugary veggies (ones with caloric value) for the humans.

So a clearing of the overcrowded fields and villages meant that there was too much work, lots of work for the remaining labour force. Much like how the manufacturing boom drove up US workers' wages after WWII. In the nineteen fifties and sixties, 50% of the world's industrial production was made in the US of A.

However, if we get a clearing now of eliminating six out of every seven and half persons, it would mean that societies (in the Western world, anyhow) would float or sail effortlessly for at least a decade on stored goods: both industrially produced goods, and food supply. Granted, there would not be much cherries or fresh green peppers, but there will be lots of canned veggies, canned meat, canned people, because nuclear holocausts favour the survival of prison population, what with the protection of thick walls around them.

So instead of an economic boom that is precipitated by well-paid hard work, there will be an economic stagnation with goods available plentifully, without any work put into producing them.

There will be problems within the lack of need to work: services that can't be stored will be damaged. If you have enough food, toys, cars, you are not going to work in a water facility, or in electrical plants, or in barber shops. Why should you? The incentive of "pay" will have been erased, as nothing will have a price, since their values will be available for free. Money will literally be useless.

Lots of hairy, smelly people will sit on their verandas, sipping Coke, smoking whatever they want (police will be replaced by roving street gangs made of true sadists who like to hurt others for its own sake), and on the lookout for roving gangs of sadists.

The illegal drug industry will go nose down, belly up. Because it's basically a cash industry, and if no cash, and cash can't provide you with happiness, then you can't sell drugs and you can't employ prostitutes. All sex will be reduced to either true love, or to rape, or to consensual sex. I hate to say it, but this is what it looks like. All drug use will be reduced to what you can loot from pharmacies and what you can raise in your own backyard.
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

Post by Steve3007 »

With 1.5 billion people left I don't think the canned food would last very long. And a lot of it would be destroyed by people fighting over it or might have perished in the initial apocalypse (depending on the nature of that apocalypse).

Also, when I was a student I did live on canned food for quite a while. I think I might prefer to join the 6 billion.
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

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Steve3007 wrote:With 1.5 billion people left I don't think the canned food would last very long. And a lot of it would be destroyed by people fighting over it or might have perished in the initial apocalypse (depending on the nature of that apocalypse).

Also, when I was a student I did live on canned food for quite a while. I think I might prefer to join the 6 billion.
You're actually right about this, Steve, I was way wrong. The canned food supply may last only a week. I don't know.

Let's try and find it out.
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Re: Can we afford to pay a high wage to US workers?

Post by Alias »

Scottie wrote:"Jobs" aren't "coming back."
This is true.
The economy lost jobs for reasons we don't really want to understand. Many jobs lost by attrition are clerical and administrative jobs made redundant by technology. One good clerk with Microsoft Office can do what it took 10 to do in 1970. Those jobs aren't coming back.
Nor should they. Half of them didn't need doing in the first place; many of the rest were servicing and recording transactions that no longer need to take place. Almost nobody enjoyed doing those jobs or got any satisfaction or sense of accomplishment from them. The very few that were actually rewarding and worthwhile still are - but they're probably being done by interns and graduate students for no pay.
Jobs were lost when US companies outsourced manufacturing to jurisdictions where regulations favored low pay and little regulation. Many reactionaries believe that China 'took' our jobs. They were given to China by US businesses who understood that it was cheaper to outsource and import finished product back to the US. This was a conscious choice on the part of business elites.
I'm glad you said this. It bears repeating from time to time. Corporate apologists prefer to forget the part where capital always serves the quarterly returns, not a nation or its people. They try to make a national issue of something that has never been anything but an economic one. America can't be great (past, present or future) unless its billionnaires' financial interest demand that it be so.
Jobs can be created by new market sectors opening up and by companies willing to enter those markets and hire Americans to work. The US is currently missing the boat on renewable energy infrastructure. Why? I'm guessing because US companies still don't want to be involved in manufacturing where they'll have to pay reasonably well and offer benefits, again, a conscious choice. They'd rather do finance than manufacturing. Our last few administrations were stuffed with corporatists who directly benefit from this strategy and have worked to pass laws that do not penalize US companies who outsource and to roll back pro-labor regulation here at home.
On the up-side, corporatists are not the most desirable employers. Small independent companies would do renewable technology better - more flexibly, more responsively and with a great deal more regard for local concerns, both human and environmental.

And then --- shouldn't we ask the obvious questions: Why jobs? Who wants a job? Are jobs a good idea?
Is there not a better organization of human effort, ingenuity and co-operation? Is there not a better way to allocate resources to human needs than having a boss tell a lot of voiceless minions what he wants done and how much he's willing to pay for their labour?
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