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1) Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )  by madvoter on February 19, 2010 

 Well, Mr./Ms. Politicians, look at it this way. Prevailing wage jobs promote higher paying jobs, which in turn provides more tax dollars paid to the states via the income taxes. It gives the working class more money to pay bills with and allows them to purchase goods. This produces more taxes via the sales tax. More products purchased promotes expansion of businesses, thus more jobs. It's a cycle that feeds on itself and actually stimulates the economic growth of our country. We could use a little bit of that right now! Look back to the 60's to see how this works. Many people slam the unions, but they have raised the standard of living in this country. If you were to monitor the trends in our economy, you would see economic prosperity when the unions are growing, and economic decline when the unions are on the decline. Improving the lot of the working class improves economic growth. EVERYBODY BENEFITS!

now, what do you think about prevailing wage jobs?

 

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2) Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )  by gypsy on June 16, 2009 

Brilliant.

Ignore scientific studies.

Austrian economics is better than Keynsian, because you believe it is.

We should listen to you, even though you provide no basis in fact, other than your opinion.

Sounds like the foundation for a dictatorship to be built on. We have no control, you provide us with the answers and keep us safe.

Brilliiant.

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3) Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )  by Mike Hignite on June 16, 2009 

 I enjoy these studies.  I like the rigorous, detailed analysis, complete with statistical formulas. 

My summary after reading the paper is: the study says that other people's research showing job loss when minimum wages are increased is wrong because they didn't consider differences do to different regions.  Also, that their study, which shows that minimum wage laws have no effect on NUMBER OF JOBS, is a better measure.  Oh, by the way, we weren't able to measure whether there was a decrease in hours worked for those jobs, but we don't think that made much of a difference.  Also, we mainly looked at restaurant workers, and extrapolated to other workers, which shouldn't be very different.  Also, we didn't look at whether jobs were displaced with other workers, for example, hiring older workers rather than minority teens, who presumably have more skills to offer for the extra wages paid, but we don't think that should be significant. 

The problem with these kinds of studies is similar to policy makers using Keynesian economics.  Keynsian economics is flawed, but because it gives them  an excuse to do what they want to do, they won't look at anything else.  Austrian economics makes total sense.  It explains business cycles, which no other economic theory does.  Austrian economics is qualitatively different form Keysian.  Austrian economics recognizes that there are too many unknown variables in economics to ever predict the future.  It only shows logically what kind of effect a policy will have.  A tax increase on something will lead to less of that thing than it would have without a tax increase.  It is impossible to predict exactly what the outcome will be, only that it will be less. 

Correspondingly, an increase in costs, such as minimum wages imposed by government, will lead a lesser demand for labor than without a minimum wage.  No one can predict what employment will actually be.  It may go up.  It may go down.  All due to the myriad of variables that a scientific study cannot control for.  So whether you are union or management, it does no good to point to these kinds of studies.  This study showed no effect of minimum wages.  The next one will show job loss all due to minimum wages.  The nature of economics does not lend itself to the scientific method.  We cannot control the variables to do a valid experiment. 

We have to remember this when some politician sites a study that "proves" anything,  and therefore,

1. We need more regulation to prevent ....


2. We need more taxes to help pay for .....


3. I have the only solution to the problem of ..... and you must give me more power to implement it.


4. Rinse.  Repeat.

 

 

 

 

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