|
Marc2b -> RE: Unemployment is Up in all 50 States! What is the solution? (1/31/2009 6:22:56 PM)
|
quote:
It's not that simple. It's not just the federal government we're talking about here. State and local government revenues are down significantly, as are their reserves. Their investments have lost money, too. They're the folks who provide most of the essential services. I'm sure there's fluff in federal spending that needs to be addressed, but at the local level there isn't so much. Here in MN we've had a "no new taxes" governor and local govts and school districts have been tightening their belts and "doing more with less" for a number of years now. The cuts they're expecting now are really going to hurt because with all of the people being laid off, getting hours cut, etc., there is an increasing demand for government services like food stamps, medical assistance, housing assistance and such, and unemployment funds are being tapped out. From what I've heard, we're not unique in any of this.
On top of that, government buys a lot of stuff and employs a lot of people. If they cut budgets and spending and lay people off, that's going to affect the bottom line for a lot of businesses. That will further depress the economy, which is not what we need right now.
I believe that I pretty much addressed this in my latest response to NorthernGent. To which I will add: this is also why we need to cut taxes, putting more wealth back into the private sector to generate more jobs and thus more taxpayers, leading to an eventual increase in government revenue. If you increase government spending to meet the greater demand for services you have to do one of two things, increase deficit spending (and we’ve all seen where that leads) or increase taxes which leads to less jobs and thus less tax payers as well as an increase in those needing such services. As I said before, there is no quick fix and there is no fix that doesn’t involve sacrifice and hardship. I wish it could be otherwise but reality doesn’t give a shit about what we want.
quote:
We can sue to overturn bad regulations, too. It's done all the time.
But not always successfully. Also, people can’t always afford to sue. The individual, stacked up against the power of government is at a severe disadvantage.
quote:
My point was that it's irrational to push for both deregulation and limits on lawsuits.
That depends on what regulations people consider necessary or unnecessary and upon what lawsuits should or should not be allowed - an endlessly debatable topic.
quote:
There's got to be some mechanism for holding people, businesses and government agencies accountable for their actions.
There already is – the courts. The only question is the same as above.
quote:
I've heard this argument before, but it really doesn't wash. What's wrong in all of the situations you're tossing out there is that these folks make up a very small portion of the workforce
They make up a small portion of the workforce because they have been locked out of the workforce by minimum wage laws. Who knows how many more would be working if such jobs were available?
quote:
and they're used as an excuse for keeping wages low for the people who work those jobs for a living. There are an awful lot of them out there. The way you're framing it, it sounds like people are jumping at the opportunity to make crap wages. I'm pretty sure that's not the case.
No I’m not saying people are jumping at the opportunity to make crap wages. I am saying is that there are people out there who would take jobs that bring in some money if such jobs existed – but such jobs don’t because they’ve been eliminated by minimum wage laws.
quote:
Minimum wage for a full time job is $13,624 a year - $1135 a month gross. That's not anywhere close to enough to live on, even before you get to stuff like health insurance and retirement savings. Anyone making that will qualify for some kind of government assistance. How will creating jobs that pay less than this allow us to subsidize less?
Let’s say that a person needs a minimum of $2000.00 a month (just to keep the numbers simple) to support themselves. If they have no job then their monthly income is $0.00 and so they need to be subsidized $2000.00 a month. If they have a job that brings in $500.00 a month then they only need to be subsidized $1500.00 a month.
quote:
That doesn't wash, either. If the people who can't afford to pay more made a living wage, they could afford to pay more.
Yes, but they are doing so at the expense of others. The government currently takes nearly eighty dollars (damn near a fourth!) from my paycheck every week. If it took only half that amount I would have an extra $160.00 every month. Money I could use to buy more things – an increase in the demand for goods and services. Now multiply that by millions of people and you’re talking a lot more jobs for people.
quote:
We're going to pay one way or the other - either in higher prices to support higher wages or in higher taxes to support higher subsidies.
No. I reject that. I don’t want to keep repeating myself but one of my points is that we can go the lower taxes route and get closer to where we want to be in time. It won’t be easy but it is the only real option we have.
quote:
There are no other options if we want a productive workforce. We can't expect people to be productive if they're worried about how they're going to pay the rent or feed their kids. I think that the whole employment thing would shake itself out pretty quickly. Folks working 2 and 3 jobs could cut back to 1 or 2, so there's a good chance that layoffs wouldn't be necessary. Teens, bored housewives and seniors are more likely to find themselves in demand than to find themselves screwed.
I dislike the notion of pushing arguments to the extreme in order to “disprove” them since any argument can be made to look absurd if you push it far enough; but perhaps this is a case where it can make a useful point. If, say, a ten dollar an hour minimum wage is good then why not twenty dollars an hour, or fifty? The answer should be obvious. Where’s the magic line that creates a perfect balance? The answer is: there is no such line because people are different. Different needs, different wants, different goals, different support systems (i.e. family), different abilities, different levels of education, different belief systems, etc. Treating people as if they were exactly the same is just one of the reasons why centrally planned economic systems fail. People will react differently to similar circumstances.
It all boils down to this: every time the minimum wage is increased jobs at the lowest end of the economics scale are lost. There’s no way to convince me that people with low paying jobs are worse off than people with no jobs. You’re looking for the perfect but the perfect is the enemy of the good.
|
|
|
|
