Economy

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

gypsy — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:56:54 GMT

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.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

Mike Hignite — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:25:24 GMT

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,

We need more regulation to prevent ....
We need more taxes to help pay for .....
I have the only solution to the problem of ..... and you must give me more power to implement it.
Rinse. Repeat.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

gypsy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:26:20 GMT

shearwater:
The minimun wage is simply a ruse to get the entire unionized work force a salary increase. It does very little to raise the standards of living for employees but does a lot at preventing business from expanding and offering new hires a decent job.

Economists' new research shows positive effects of minimum-wage increases

By Andrea Buffa, UC Berkeley Labor Center | 23 July 2008

BERKELEY — As various states consider minimum wage increases, and with Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama proposing that the minimum wage be increased and indexed to adjust for cost-of-living increases, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) have found that such increases do benefit the lowest-paid workers and do not have negative effects on their employment.

Institute director Michael Reich, a UC Berkeley economist, has authored two new reports on the topic.

"Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment?," a study completed last month by Reich and campus labor economists Sylvia Allegretto and Arindrajit Dube, used data from the government's Current Population Survey from 1990 through 2007 to analyze minimum-wage impacts on teenagers, who represent about one-fourth of all minimum-wage workers. The study controlled for state, regional, and local economic conditions, as well as for individual characteristics. It found no significant teen employment loss due to minimum-wage increases. While it revealed a very small loss of work hours among teens, the loss of hours was offset by the minimum-wage pay increase.

The other study, "Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties," by Dube, T. William Lester and Reich, compared all neighboring U.S. counties across state borders with different minimum-wage levels between 1990 and 2006. The exhaustive study carefully controlled for local economic conditions, an important advance over previous studies. It also controlled for county size, population, and geographic region. The study found no adverse employment effects in counties with a higher minimum wage.

The researchers say their findings may be due to the fact that a higher minimum wage attracts more workers and reduces a firm 's vacancy rate; in addition, decreased turnover increases productivity and reduces the cost of expanding employment, they say.

"It appears that minimum-wage increases are not job killers — they are job-vacancy killers," Reich says.

The full text of the new studies, as well as other minimum-wage research from the institute, can be found on the IRLE website.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

gypsy — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:23:26 GMT

shearwater:
I had a class at Michigan State University and one of our adjunct priofessors told us about his work with GM.

Second hand anecdotes are hardly the basis for an intelligent discussion.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

shearwater — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:17:18 GMT

The minimun wage is simply a ruse to get the entire unionized work force a salary increase. It does very little to raise the standards of living for employees but does a lot at preventing business from expanding and offering new hires a decent job. The Companies who have the businesses are the ones who laid the "Golden Egg," and unions do nothing but kill the kind of opportunity those companies could create. Around 1988, Michigan had a high school graduation rate of that was figured at 48th among all States in the United States. Guess what. Michigan teachers are among the highest paid in secondary education in the United States. Don't get me wrong, I am all for teachers getting a decent wage. But there is a proviso. They should also be able to educate students so that the students can do well on all the standardized tests of educational development. The MEA is the union that regulates teacher policies with regard to collective bargaining.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

shearwater — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:07:29 GMT

I had a class at Michigan State University and one of our adjunct priofessors told us about his work with GM. If you didn't drive an American car, you couldn't park in the company parking lot. Also, management in cosort with the unions had a dragline that searched your background for any cases where you might have crossed a picket line as a scab. If you had any possible history of crossing a picket line, you were automatically disqualified for work. That is the kind of games the unions play and the reason unionization isn't a firned of freedom of choice in the workplace. Funny Michiganians don't get it!

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

FreeSpeaker — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:24:49 GMT

changeagent:

FreeSpeaker:

Note that this rant, like yours does absolutely nothing to advance the discussion of this particular bill.

Actually, Shearwater's post does advance the discussion because it is true. You just don't like it.

Actually, my above rants, which are based directly on those posted by you and shearwater with a few key words changed, are just as valid and true as yours and shearwater's. You just don't like that truth.

But the fact is, none of those rants advances discussion of this bill. All they amount to is broad-brush, hare-brained idelogical raving that contains small grains of underlying truth. Raving of that sort goes nowhere and gets in the way of honest discourse.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

changeagent — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:12:58 GMT

FreeSpeaker:

Note that this rant, like yours does absolutely nothing to advance the discussion of this particular bill.

Actually, Shearwater's post does advance the discussion because it is true. You just don't like it.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

changeagent — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:03:01 GMT

gypsy:
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act clearly states the rights of American workers:

It's not like there has never been any bad laws passed. This is one of them.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

FreeSpeaker — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:41:22 GMT

Dear Shearwater:

Let’s just change a few words in your rant, and see how it reads (with equal validity, I might add):

You can cite all the laws you want. The fact is that when capotal/management has a hammer lock on industry, we all suffer, especially the workers, whose costs for everything rise in an inflationary spiral. Opposition to Card Check is big businesses attempt to perevent anyone from unionizing, whether or not they want to be. The right of individuals top chose their own system is subjugated to the force of capital/management. Most of management does not understand basic economics 101, and we see by the meltdown of the banking industry, and major automakers. When capital/management has this tight fisted control workers seek a better environment by unionizing.

Note that this rant, like yours does absolutely nothing to advance the discussion of this particular bill.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

shearwater — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:28:23 GMT

You can cite all the laws you want. The fact is that when labor has a hammer lock on industry, we all suffer, including the workers, whose costs for everything rise in an inflationary spiral. Card Check is big labor's attempt to make everyone unionized, whether or not they want to be. The right of individuals top chose their own system is subjugated to the pressure to unionize. Most of the labor force does not understand basic economics 101. When labor has this tight fisted control business seeks a better environment which includes China, Mexico, and other areas of the world.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

gypsy — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:08:04 GMT

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act clearly states the rights of American workers:
Employees shall have the right to self-organization; to form, join, or assist labor organizations; to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing; and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection....
Section 7 also protects workers' rights to join labor unions which will best represent their interests and/or to take other collective action to defend their rights in the workplace. Taft-Hartley amended this section by adding that employees "shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities."
The act officially recognizes that under modern economic conditions "an individual unorganized worker is commonly helpless to exercise actual liberty," so that a worker must be free to organize collectively. As a declared national policy, the NLRA encourages collective bargaining, defines the rights of employees and employers in this process, and seeks "to eliminate certain practices on the part of labor and management that are harmful to the general welfare."

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

shearwater — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:26:27 GMT

Collective bargaining is a big stick all biased toward the union side. It is an adversarial prossess not at all ending in the general good.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

gypsy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:03:45 GMT

The wages they exact has controls, collective bargaining.

Re: 2009 House Bill 4968 (Exempt schools and roads from “prevailing wage” )

shearwater — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:59:56 GMT

The amount of money paid to an individual or group has nothing to do with their qualifications or quality of work. I know that you believe that a journeyman union guy must do the work in order to get quality. But that is the mind set of most Michiganians and one reason why Michigan is in trouble finanancially. I agree that a gopod apprenticeship program with trade sanctions on who is qualified and who is not is required. But the wages they exact need some controls.