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Tis an ill wind that blows no jobs....

Started by Prickly, July 19, 2004, 10:18:12 AM

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Prickly

http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-25-04-2.html
Yet more evidence that controlled, orderly economies leave people worse off than free, chaotic ones....
Pope Prickly the Pielyamorous Porcupine of the Bent Quarter Cabal and, more recently, the Sunrise If You Dare Cabal

Before the beginning, there was a 50/50 chance of either something or nothing existing. So, something and nothing decided to flip a coin to decide which of them would exist. However, in order for there to be a coin to flip, something had to have already won the toss. Therefore, you only exist because something is a cheating bastard.

gnimbley

Yet more evidence that governments can not repeal the law of supply and demand.

Yet the argument is based on ancedotal evidence and a superficial reviewing on two or two elements. Personally, I don't think an $11 wage drove companies out of San Jose (something that author admits), but more likely the amount of paperwork businesses have to fill out to self report to the business practice police.

Besides, don't people living in areas where 25 cents a day is considered a normal wage deserve better jobs, too? Or are good jobs only for Americans?

Prickly

Ah, but that's the beauty of it.
If we make job creation in the US cheaper (by repealing excess taxes and regulations that drive up the costs of job creation), job creation in the US will increase dramatically. The number of available jobs will increase to well above the current population, to the point that companies (which will now have moremoney to expand with due to getting more profit from the elimination of taxes and regulations) will begin expanding into other countries, creating jobs there. So, we'll have more jobs at home AND abroad, instead of either having protectionism and having jobs here only, or having high taxes and regulations and having jobs going overseas with none to replace them, or having both and having many fewer jobs anywhere.
Pope Prickly the Pielyamorous Porcupine of the Bent Quarter Cabal and, more recently, the Sunrise If You Dare Cabal

Before the beginning, there was a 50/50 chance of either something or nothing existing. So, something and nothing decided to flip a coin to decide which of them would exist. However, in order for there to be a coin to flip, something had to have already won the toss. Therefore, you only exist because something is a cheating bastard.

fluffy


The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: PricklyAh, but that's the beauty of it.
If we make job creation in the US cheaper (by repealing excess taxes and regulations that drive up the costs of job creation), job creation in the US will increase dramatically. The number of available jobs will increase to well above the current population, to the point that companies (which will now have moremoney to expand with due to getting more profit from the elimination of taxes and regulations) will begin expanding into other countries, creating jobs there. So, we'll have more jobs at home AND abroad, instead of either having protectionism and having jobs here only, or having high taxes and regulations and having jobs going overseas with none to replace them, or having both and having many fewer jobs anywhere.

Now, let's talk about the REAL world.

Excess taxes?  Seen the deficit, lately?  You haven't SEEN excess taxes...but they're coming.

Excess regulations?  Sure.  Let's dump dioxin in our water, and allow sweatshops.  That'll work out GREAT!

Creation of jobs in America?  Listen up, bunky...You cut taxes to the wealthy, and eliminate CG taxes, and you know what happens?  The same thing that is happening right now...the rich invest in sweatshops in Malaysia, and pay NO taxes on their gains.  ZERO revenue for the government to function on, and you and I can just fuck right off and work at WalMart for minimum wage, because our jobs are overseas.

But let me guess...it can't happen to YOU, right?  You're SPECIAL.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Mr. Normal

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger
But let me guess...it can't happen to YOU, right?  You're SPECIAL.

No, I'm the one who's special, not him. I get to live well. You get to live in shit. Nyah nyah nyah nyah!

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Mr. Normal
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger
But let me guess...it can't happen to YOU, right?  You're SPECIAL.

No, I'm the one who's special, not him. I get to live well. You get to live in shit. Nyah nyah nyah nyah!

Or bearing grease.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Prickly

Quote from: fluffyspoken like a true supply sider

Well, you try demanding something that's not being supplied, and let me know how it works out.

Quote from: The Good Reverend RogerNow, let's talk about the REAL world.

Aw, crap, and here I thought we were talking about an imaginary world, not a study based on data from the real world. Thanks for reminding me what the study I linked to was based on.

Quote from: The Good Reverend RogerExcess taxes?  Seen the deficit, lately?  You haven't SEEN excess taxes...but they're coming.

Hence the need for less government spending, fewer costly regulations, and less government intervention in the economy. Score one for me.

Quote from: The Good Reverend RogerExcess regulations?  Sure.  Let's dump dioxin in our water, and allow sweatshops.  That'll work out GREAT!

Right, because reducing regulations means no regulations. There's a comic someone on this forum always posts when people say things like that.

Besides, employee abuse is directly related to the jobs-to-workers ratio. If there are more jobs than workers, companies have to compete with each other to attract workers, meaning better working conditions, higher pay, more benefits, etc. When there are more workers than jobs, as there are right now, workers end up accepting abuse, dangerous conditions, etc. without complaining because they can't afford not to work and there aren't jobs available anywhere else. The worst period of employee abuse in this country's history happened around the turn of the century, when people in rural, agricultural communities were moving to the cities in large numbers, causing a huge increase in the number of workers in cities, much more of an increase than the increase in jobs at the time. More laws didn't help - it just caused people to try to avoid the laws, and caused employees to assist in breakng laws designed to help them because it was the only way they could find work. What the country needed was a freer economy, where job creation would be encouraged and would catch up to the increase in the size of the working class, but instead we got high levels of regulations that slowed down job creation, led to more abuses, and contributed to the economic crash that started the great depression.

Quote from: The Good Reverend RogerCreation of jobs in America?  Listen up, bunky...You cut taxes to the wealthy, and eliminate CG taxes, and you know what happens?  The same thing that is happening right now...the rich invest in sweatshops in Malaysia, and pay NO taxes on their gains.  ZERO revenue for the government to function on, and you and I can just fuck right off and work at WalMart for minimum wage, because our jobs are overseas.

When did I say we'd only cut taxes on the wealthy? Sure, the wealthiest 1% of Americans pay 30% of the taxes, so it's hard to give a tax cut that doesn't benefit the wealthy somehow, but the lower and middle classes need larger tax cuts.

Quote from: The Good Reverend RogerBut let me guess...it can't happen to YOU, right?  You're SPECIAL.

Shit, I work at a Taco Bell and made less than $15,000 last year. And guess what, I paid about 30% of that to taxes. From income tax to social security taxes to sales tax to property tax to gas tax and more, I ended up paying a huge chunk of my income to taxes.
But the problem isn't that the rich aren't paying enough in taxes - the problem is that the government wastes so much money that even after hitting the wealthy up for trillions of dollars a year, they still have to hit the poor and middle class up for a few trillion more. I dunno about you, but I could certainly use my few trillion dollars back.
Pope Prickly the Pielyamorous Porcupine of the Bent Quarter Cabal and, more recently, the Sunrise If You Dare Cabal

Before the beginning, there was a 50/50 chance of either something or nothing existing. So, something and nothing decided to flip a coin to decide which of them would exist. However, in order for there to be a coin to flip, something had to have already won the toss. Therefore, you only exist because something is a cheating bastard.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Prickly

Right, because reducing regulations means no regulations.

Okay, which regulations would you chop?

Can you give me an example or two?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Prickly
Quote from: fluffyspoken like a true supply sider

Well, you try demanding something that's not being supplied, and let me know how it works out.


Maybe you should read up on "Supply side economics".  Just saying.

Or don't.  It IS funny, this way.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Prickly
Quote from: The Good Reverend RogerExcess taxes?  Seen the deficit, lately?  You haven't SEEN excess taxes...but they're coming.

Hence the need for less government spending, fewer costly regulations, and less government intervention in the economy. Score one for me.

Score one for you?  Why?

For having poor reading comprehension skills?

Or for not being able to realize that our CURRENT debt level is crippling, and MUST be paid?
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Prickly

For realizing that the only way we're going to get out of debt is to cut spending.

As for regulations to repeal, where to begin....
Well, probably the first thing to start with is minimum wage laws, since they cause unemployment (and if you didn't know that, ask for a refund on any economics classes you've taken or books you've bought). In addition, they cause prices on things produced by low wage workers to rise, and since those things tend to be the same things being bought by low wage workers, that little bit of extra money they make ends up not going as far. So, that's a definite first thing to be repealed.

Drug laws are another obvious one. In the 65 or so years that marijuana has been illegal, marijuana use has gone up to many times what it was when marijuana was legal. In the meantime, government agencies have spent more than a trillion dollars trying to stop marijuana use, ruined millions of people's lives by throwing them in jail, and caused America to have the highest percent of its population in prison of any country in the world (higher even than Communist China). In the process, they've turned marijuana from a legal, commercial drug to an illegal, black market drug, giving organized crime a cash crop worth over twenty million dollars worth of business a day. Giving those millions of dollars worth of business to farmers and pharmacies, instead of drug dealers and crime rings, is a hell of a start.

With the environment, I'll grant you more regulations in certain areas for less in others. Before I get started explaining what changes I want to see here, it's important to know who's doing the most polluting. The nation's number one polluter, who has dumped sewage into national parks, leaked radioactive waste into drinking water, and contaminated over 60,000 sites in the US, has been getting away with it. The cost of cleaning up the pollution caused by the nation's number one polluter is about five times as high as the cost of cleaning up the pollution caused by all American corporations combined (obviously, the nation's number one polluter is not, as most environmentalists would have you believe, a corporation). In fact, government-caused pollution is so out of hand that the EPA itself is responsible for pollution - EPA laboratories were found leaking mercury into drinking water.
You can see the article by going to //www.boston.com and typing "worst polluter in the land" into their search engine (should be the only article, from 1999, if you type it right), or just type "Boston Globe, license to pollute, worst polluter in the land" into google to find a half dozen other articles that quote and expand on that one.
That said, it's obvious that the first thing we need to do is to make the government liable for its own pollution (which is kinda tricky; some of the articles that reference the Boston Globe one offer further explanation on that point).

In addition, the policies we do have to restrict pollution are extremely hypocritical. The government grants pollution "credits" to corporations, saying that all pollution up to a certain point is fine and dandy, but anything past that point is illegal. The credits are transferable, and companies regularly buy and sell credits from each other based on how much polluting they do. That they're transferable isn't the problem - in fact, since it means that companies that pollute more end up paying more money and companies that pollute less make more money, that's the best part of the plan. The problems are that a certain level of pollution is free, and that businesses can't go past a certain level if the need for production arises.
So, the answer is pretty clear: make all credits purchasable. The price should be slightly higher than the cost of cleaning up the pollution (that way, companies pay directly to clean up any pollution they cause). Companies would then be able to produce as much as they wanted, as long as they were willing to pay to clean up every ounce of pollution they cause in the process. It also encourages companies to reduce pollution levels in the first place, as preventing pollution is generally cheaper than cleaning it up afterwards.

A few other examples that I remember from a speech by Mary Ruwart (author of "Healing our World):
In New York, a sisterhood of nuns attempted to set up a homeless shelter a few years ago. After spending money on the land and building materials, government inspectors looked over their plans and forced them to abandon the project because they wouldn't include an elevator in the building (they couldn't afford to). So, rather than having one more homeless shelter where disabled people would only be able to access the first floor, that homeless shelter isn't there and isn't doing any homeless people any good, disabled or not. That type of regulation should go.
There was a case, I think it was in Chicago but I don't remember off the top of my head, where a homeless man was shining shoes for money. He couldn't afford a business license, and the police arrested him, confiscated what little money he had made shining shoes, and fined him for operating a business without a license (no, they didn't jail him, so he's still homeless, but a lot poorer). These kinds of "anti-business" restrictions hardly slow down the multinational corporations they're intended to regulate, since those companies can afford to hire lawyers to get them out of any messes they get into. Instead, they generally hurt small business, start up businesses, and people trying to work from home or on the street.

Need more examples? I can find more.
Pope Prickly the Pielyamorous Porcupine of the Bent Quarter Cabal and, more recently, the Sunrise If You Dare Cabal

Before the beginning, there was a 50/50 chance of either something or nothing existing. So, something and nothing decided to flip a coin to decide which of them would exist. However, in order for there to be a coin to flip, something had to have already won the toss. Therefore, you only exist because something is a cheating bastard.

fluffy

Quote from: PricklyWell, you try demanding something that's not being supplied, and let me know how it works out.

how about private space flight?

Quote from: PricklyBesides, employee abuse is directly related to the jobs-to-workers ratio. If there are more jobs than workers, companies have to compete with each other to attract workers, meaning better working conditions, higher pay, more benefits, etc. When there are more workers than jobs, as there are right now, workers end up accepting abuse, dangerous conditions, etc. without complaining because they can't afford not to work and there aren't jobs available anywhere else. The worst period of employee abuse in this country's history happened around the turn of the century, when people in rural, agricultural communities were moving to the cities in large numbers, causing a huge increase in the number of workers in cities, much more of an increase than the increase in jobs at the time. More laws didn't help - it just caused people to try to avoid the laws, and caused employees to assist in breakng laws designed to help them because it was the only way they could find work. What the country needed was a freer economy, where job creation would be encouraged and would catch up to the increase in the size of the working class, but instead we got high levels of regulations that slowed down job creation, led to more abuses, and contributed to the economic crash that started the great depression.


Horab Fibslager

a freer economy doesn't necessarily mean that, as coporations often try to manipulate th emarket in order to create more profitable and controllable environment in which to uh profit from...

monetary excessive profit driven economy is in the shitter, unfortunately there's no better(workable) solution available atm.

vote fascist psychonetic super computer for supreme dictator fo the earth this nov. 4th!
Hell is other people.

fluffy

Quote from: Grand Imam Horabvote fascist psychonetic super computer for supreme dictator fo the earth this nov. 4th!

traitor! you will fry in hell for this!

vote for Bella or your gonads will attack your leg!