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I refer you to Question A [0], where in 2013 a few dozen practicing economists were asked this question: > Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour woul

• mangeletti 11y ago
  First off, I gave a concrete example and said you're an idiot if you can't see the difference between that example and prosperity. I don't see a rebuttal from you. All I see is a genetic fallacy, namely appeal to authority. The reason nobody agrees whether minimum wage is good or bad is because we have Austrian and Keynesian economics at battle in America. Only one of those two can be better than the other, and if we define "better" as the ability for an individual to work hard and prosper as a result, there is no question about which it is. The debates are not about things like the validity of the technical aspects of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The debates are about whether the individual should be allowed to prosper any longer. The debates are about whether equality means everyone should have an equal chance and also be allowed to fail, or whether they should get everything free.
  • drewcrawford 11y ago
    > All I see is a genetic fallacy, namely appeal to authority. Appeal to relevant authority is not a fallacy. > because we have Austrian and Keynesian economics at battle in America. This is a common misconception among "armchair economists". There is no battle betwen Austrian and Keynesian economics in America today any more than there is a battle between Confederates and the Union. There was a battle, years ago, but it has been over along time, although there still are a small number of weirdos still carrying on. Now many of the conclusions of Keynesian and Austrian economics are still alive and well, but the reasoning behind them is completely different, and the war today is between camps with names like Monetarism, Lukasian Rationalist, Chicago School, and so on. The people in that poll are not citing Human Action, anymore than working programmers today are citing the 8088 specification. It is a thing that happened, it was important at the time, but we've moved on. > The debates are not about things like the validity of the technical aspects of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The debates are about whether the individual should be allowed to prosper any longer. Have you read an economics paper? They are so technical many programmers cannot get through one. For example, here's some random abstract from the SSRN [0]: > We provide a formula for the tax rate at the top of the Laffer curve as a function of three elasticities. Our formula applies to static models and to steady states of dynamic models. One of the elasticities that enters our formula has been estimated in the elasticity of taxable income literature. We apply standard empirical methods from this literature to data produced by reforming the tax system in a model economy. We find that these standard methods underestimate the relevant elasticity in models with endogenous human capital accumulation. There is no debate among working economists about "whether the individual should be allowed to prosper any longer". It is like suggesting mathematicians are debating whether imaginary numbers exist. [0] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2688947 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2688947
    • mangeletti 11y ago
      > Appeal to relevant authority is not a fallacy. Yeah, because nothing says "relevant" like failing to see a global economic catastrophe, like the one in 2008 (or any other in the history of the human race). To suggest that economists are, aggregate, any more relevant than you or I is literally the quintessential example of a genetic fallacy. Such ignorance. > There is no battle betwen Austrian and Keynesian economics in America today any more than there is a battle between Confederates and the Union. You really need to turn off the TV... I can't even finish the rest of your comment, it's so full of ignorance. Ron Paul v establishment