It's as if you took econ 101, and now you're so labored by the prospect of having to change your mind that you'd rather stay willfully ignorant.

Over 600 Economists Sign Letter In Support of $10.10 Minimum Wage
http://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/

And in case you're thinking that these were forged, you can google some of the more high profile economists and their specific thoughts, notably:

Stiglitz touts the merits of an increased minimum wage
http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/18/stigl...imum-wage.html

"The CBO analysis underestimated the benefits and overestimated the costs in several respects" said Stiglitz



It doesn't even matter if somewhere down the line it's refuted and the consensus swings back around against the min wage - the fact that you're trying to paint it as being a black and white issue reveals how little time you've spent reading and thinking about it.

Trump's own appointed NSC aides are criticizing the "dysfunction" in his administration and getting fired. Sad!

I read the whole article and understood it. I know the article was trying to discredit the idea that MW increases unemployment.

In this analogy anti-MW, like myself, aren't arguing planes can't fly because of gravity. We are arguing that it is more difficult to fly because of gravity. We don't believe having a MW will mean unemployment will be 100% (or it is impossible for a plane to fly) instead we believe less people will be employed because of MW (not all vehicles can fly but the planes best designed to fly will still be able to fly).

Citing a few certain situations where unemployment doesn't go up when MW goes up isn't proof that long-term a higher MW doesn't means more unemployment. There are other factors determining unemployment. For example if one state raises MW and cuts taxes and another state doesn't make any changes you can't point to the fact that both saw unemployment stay about equal as proof the raise in MW from the first state didn't increase unemployment. The same is true when we see a nationwide increase in MW if it is done during a time most economist were predicting an economic boom.

You think I am more dependent on the government than others? Why?

Trump's frequent Mar-a-Lago vacations are crushing local businesses, going along with reporting earlier this week that Trump's Mar-a-Lago vacations have already - in just 1 month - totaled 1/10th the cost of Obama's 8 years of travel & vacations

I never said there weren't some economists who support a raise MW. It is extremely difficult to get 100% of all professionals in any field to agree one way is best to handle a problem when there isn't empirical evidence to prove what is best. MW is no different, like I said earlier, there are too many other variables to prove MW effects on unemployment.

The notion that an economy is better off giving more money to those with out than those with is also a very debatable point. Those that support the idea that giving money to the poor is good because they spend a higher % of their income almost always ignore the fact that the rich they are taking money from have less money to do things that also help the economy.

Goofy don't play into Trumps game of outrage overload. Focus on the core, major lapses, illegalities, scandals, and travesties. This is a lesson I wish more of the non-right would have learned after dealing with Rove.

Awesome that Trump brought up Sweden in his speech. Now everyone is talking about it and believe me our government does not want that. They can only bend the truth so far.

To be clear, I'm not outraged about all or even most of the things I post here. Like, the NSC aide resigning above - more just funny than anything else, how hard could it possibly be to hire people that aren't chewing you out behind your back within weeks? Given how many deluded Trumpkins there are ITT who want to ignore all evidence of what a moronic clown the president is, I think it's important to highlight the full depth of his total incompetence and buffoonery.

Lastly for now, here is a WaPo article that perfectly captures people like mongo, for any of us that wish to get a window into their minds: Trump supporters see a successful president — and are frustrated with critics who don’t

LOL yeah, that happened, the GOP totally shut their mouths when Obama won in 2012

There's a massive gulf between reality and the things they believe are true:

And why are they so uninformed?

That's an outlandish conspiracy theory. I have to assume you are joking. Do you know that people on minimum wage, because that wage is too low, are forced onto government aid to meet requirements of basic survival? That means minimum wage is not even a stand-alone subsistence wage, as in if their were no government support these workers wouldn't even be able to make it to work. The implication of that is the complete opposite of what you are saying.

Here are some candidates for basic constraints of the system which I am curious if you disagree:

1) There is a certain minimum standard of living which all people willing to work hard should have, based on the total national GDP.

2) People will have children no matter what their economic prospects are.

3) We should ensure, to some degree, that children born into any economic strata have a decent chance for mobility through economic strata based on their native potential/ability.

There are almost a dozen nobel laureates on the list. You can't get 100% consensus on anything - that doesn't mean that peoples opinions are all equally valid.

There are too many variables to accurately estimate the impact of MW on employment levels but I would think everyone can agree that using only legal jobs misrepresents the figure. Under the table economies are common and efficient enough to pick up a lot of slack. This is one of many issues raised by critics of the CBO article (suggesting 10.10 would be even more favorable for low income people than the paper concluded) - a paper that was already kind of on the fence wrt a min wage of 10.10.

The people who say min wage is good because poor people spend are as clueless as people who say that tax cuts for the rich are good because they create jobs with it.

The benefit has nothing to do with the impact it would have on GDP - it's a distributional issue.

Seems like we are in agreement. If there were a perfect market then everyone would agree that increasing the minimum wage would increase unemployment, but since we aren't, raising the minimum wage doesn't, ipso facto, raise unemployment and therefor raising the minimum wage isn't, ipso facto, a bad idea. There are, of course, other methods to increase the welbeing of the impoverished.

If someone walks on your property, who do you call? When you need a contract enforced who do you call? The state. You're not independent, your illusion of independence from the state is ironically only possible because of your dependence on the state.

The folks demolishing folks' healthcare systems and voting franchise quivering about the minimum wage moving. Why work, work for them with that kind of attitude?

I understand some people on MW still get assistance from the government. That doesn't mean we should increase MW to force companies to pay them more. It isn't the job of a corporation to make sure everyone gets a live-able wage (whatever that may be).

1. Sure, but I think everyone's definition of standard of living is different. I don't think corporations should be forced to provide this standard of living (depending on what it is).
2. Yes, some people will have kids no matter their situation. However, others won't. Btw- I want to get rid of all incentives to have kids, get married or buy a house including tax deductions but that is another story for another day.
3. Yes, to some degree but to what degree is of course the question.

LOL a liberal group, hardly surprising.


Stieglitz is pretty far out on the left too. The problem with this is that it is all hand waving at best. Perhaps Stieglitz has a model that he uses that he can compare to the CBO model outputs and we can discuss the models themselves.

Your take on the underground economy taking up the slack is completely unsubstantiated.

My view on the minimum wage issue is that it is best addressed at the state and local level. One obvious reason being that the cost of living in NYC is far different than the cost of living in Cedar Rapids, IA.


Why not just make the minimum wage $50 an hour if doesn't affect the number of jobs in the economy? I am sure you won't claim that the underground economy can pick up that slack. I am pretty sure you'll claim that there is a threshold where the minimum wage does have a significant affect on the economy. What is that threshold? Appeals to authority from liberal economists doing a bunch of hand waving at best doesn't say much. The CBO models aren't above scrutiny for sure. A more useful and meaningful criticism would be to offer some ideas about specifically where the CBO model is wrong.

The problem with your argument is that you aren't asking yourself if all else is the same is unemployment higher because of MW.

In my previous post if the first state didn't raise MW but still cut taxes they could have lower unemployment.

I never said I was independent from the government. Where the hell is this coming from?

A but too simplistic. Whether or not the MW will raise unemployment depends on a myriad of factors not just taxes and the minimum wage

I probably look at MW way to simple. If the Republicans are against, then don't complain about welfare for these individuals. We all know there are winners and losers in capitalism. If we want our stuff cheap, we should not mind those people making lower wages receiving some type of assistance from the government.

I know there are literally thousands of variables that effect unemployment. That isn't what I'm saying. That is why I said all else equal earlier.

I guess no matter how accomplished/distinguished a person may be, as long as a guy on the internet is ready to dismiss them as being liberal we might as well toss that out.

Stiglitz? Arrow? Solow? Make way for Adios.

The premise that a larger number of motivated unemployed people will lead to a larger number of them working in underground economies doesn't seem particularly controversial.

In an ideal world. Or you could set a federal min that's benchmarked at places with the lowest cost of living, and then give individual states the ability to up it in case you're concerned with some states opting out on account of corporate influence or charlatan politician who writes off anyone who disagrees with their gut intuition as left wing / right wing nuts.

I didn't claim it doesn't reduce jobs. I said that only measuring legal jobs underestimates the true impact. They had their own criticisms that you can look into on your own if you want.

Why not $50? Because the job losses grow substantially / probably not in a linear fashion, and the people who're benefiting from the higher wages already realize most of the improvement in their quality of life simply by getting a bit further away from the poverty line so they can save some of their income for the future.

The stupid part is most of the economists on the list who're in support of the federal min wage are probably against it if the issue is framed differently. I would guess that support for it mostly stems from the fact that it's the most politically expedient way to get money to poor people.

Bah bah ,

Until you understand marginal tax rates your thoughts on the minimum wage are not going to be taken seriously. Such a good thing you aren't giving financial advice anymore. Let me guess, you are against the fiduciary rule?