4 ms·

> So you're saying only rich people should get taxi rides? I do agree with that, best if middle class people use public transport (or worse, their own car). >

by js8 10y ago

> So you're saying only rich people should get taxi rides? I do agree with that, best if middle class people use public transport (or worse, their own car). > I thought Sweden supported the poor more. It has nothing to do with support of the poor. In India, taxis are incredibly cheap, and there is no shortage of poor people. Poor people can drive buses and trams, too, you know. > Also, you're aware that when the minimum wage is too high, it just means there will be more unemployment No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. (You are simplifying the whole economy to the labor market, but there is also demand side.)

patrickaljord 10y ago
That's amazing, you're basically saying better services should be for the rich only while the poor should use lower public services while saying at the same time that you support the poor. Incredible. That's what socialism always does, pretends to help the poor but in the end only the elite benefits from it. > No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. When it comes to low skill jobs, yes, increasing the minimum wage does create more unemployment as the middle class is not able to pay for them anymore, only the super rich. That's a well no fact, you can look it up.
- jamesblonde 10y ago
  That's not a fact. It's nonsense you believe to be a fact. Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany all have low unemployment rates (and higher total employment rates than the US) and have higher minimum wages. Economies adapt to higher minimum wages, they may lose jobs in the short term, then adapt and total employment can return to former levels if the correct policies are in place. Btw, when you say socialism pretends to help the poor, but helps the elite, that doesn't help your case. By all objective measures, the poor are better off in western european social democratic countries than in a free-for-all capitalist society, like the US. There are other models, like Singapore that also work well, FYI.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany all have low unemployment rates (and higher total employment rates than the US) and have higher minimum wages. France, Belgium and Ireland all have a higher minimum wage and higher unemployment rates than the US. Clearly the unemployment rate is affected by multiple factors. The issue is whether a higher minimum wage increases unemployment, not whether you can counteract it with other policies -- applying the other policies without raising the minimum wage could result in even less unemployment. > Btw, when you say socialism pretends to help the poor, but helps the elite, that doesn't help your case. There are a huge number of nominally socialist policies in the US that really exist at the behest of large corporations. Mortgage interest tax deduction -- "help people own a home", really makes home ownership more expensive and transfers tax dollars to mortgage banks. Ditto student loan interest subsidies. Affordable housing subsidies -- placate political demand for lower housing costs without actually lowering market rate housing costs for low-middle income working people, transfers tax dollars to landlords, encourages low income people to rent rather than own. Social security -- no progressive rate structure, tax cutoff for millionaires, benefits based on lifespan and historical income which both disadvantage lower income people. Tax deductions for employer-provided health insurance -- implicit subsidy to large insurance companies. Affordable Care Act -- huge tax dollar subsidy to large insurance companies, effectively prohibits people from saving money with high deductible insurance plans that are less profitable to same insurance companies, and discourage overconsumption and overpayment to medical companies. Skepticism is warranted.
  - patrickaljord 10y ago
    US is not free for all capitalism, it has one of the biggest welfare and government job program on the whole planet (the industrial-military complex), so not sure what you're talking about here. Western European countries are still pretty much capitalist countries with a pretty free market. And they are still doing not as good as freer countries such as Switzerland or Luxembourg and as you mention Hong Kong and Singapore. The only countries that are going socialists are Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and friends and we know how they're doing.
- js8 10y ago
  > you're basically saying better services should be for the rich only while the poor should use lower public services while saying at the same time that you support the poor No, what I am saying that taxi driver's job should be paid well enough. If you want a personal driver, it will cost you. The interpretation that taxi is better than public transport is yours only.. Many people in Europe don't need taxis, because we have excellent public transport, which, by the way, also employs people. I am not sure how you can twist the logic to think that my position supports the elites more than poor. :-)
  - patrickaljord 10y ago
    > No, what I am saying that taxi driver's job should be paid well enough. How about letting taxis decide how much they want to charge, crazy thought, huh? Turns out many of them are happy to drive for Uber. How about we let them be? Or do you know better than they do what's good for them? > Many people in Europe don't need taxis, because we have excellent public transport No we don't. Public transport are still dependent on where you live, unless you live close to a station, it's not that great cause you still need to drive to the station. Not to mention the strikes (I live in France), the delays etc. Having a personal private driver on demand is a way better experience than riding a public bus (gosh do I hate this every single time I have to use it). > I am not sure how you can twist the logic to think that my position supports the elites more than poor. :-) Well simply put, your policies make it unaffordable for the poor to get access to the best services and only the elites can. So, there you go :)
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. (You are simplifying the whole economy to the labor market, but there is also demand side.) Nobody can prove something like that because it depends on dynamic characteristics of the economy. If everyone who makes minimum wage worked for the government and the government did nothing but pay them more money by taking on more public debt then the current-year employment rate obviously wouldn't go down, but our current economy doesn't look like that. Only ~1% of workers in the US make minimum wage, and they represent an even smaller percentage of total consumption than that. Increasing their wages is not going to create a large increase in local consumption, especially when some of the money goes to things that don't create new local unskilled jobs, like increasing salaries for existing CEOs, or leaving the local economy and going to workers in China or India, or creating demand for skilled jobs that the newly unemployed minimum wage workers aren't qualified for. And the entire wage increase comes out of the employer's pocket, which for middle class employers means that much less consumption by the employer -- the "increased demand" from higher minimum wage is the broken window fallacy. Meanwhile there are existing jobs that can justify the lower wage but not the higher wage, so those people become unemployed, which reduces local demand, not only due to the lost amount to the employee but also the profit that employee had previously generated for the employer and the surplus for the employer's customers and suppliers and so on.
- hnbroseph 10y ago
  > Only ~1% of workers in the US make minimum wage does this statistic limit to literal minimum wage? so if someone is hired at +5 cents, do they not count?
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    > does this statistic limit to literal minimum wage? so if someone is hired at +5 cents, do they not count? Including minimum wage +5 cents is still ~1%.
    - hnbroseph 10y ago

by js8 10y ago

patrickaljord 10y ago

That's amazing, you're basically saying better services should be for the rich only while the poor should use lower public services while saying at the same time that you support the poor. Incredible. That's what socialism always does, pretends to help the poor but in the end only the elite benefits from it. > No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. When it comes to low skill jobs, yes, increasing the minimum wage does create more unemployment as the middle class is not able to pay for them anymore, only the super rich. That's a well no fact, you can look it up.

jamesblonde 10y ago
That's not a fact. It's nonsense you believe to be a fact. Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany all have low unemployment rates (and higher total employment rates than the US) and have higher minimum wages. Economies adapt to higher minimum wages, they may lose jobs in the short term, then adapt and total employment can return to former levels if the correct policies are in place. Btw, when you say socialism pretends to help the poor, but helps the elite, that doesn't help your case. By all objective measures, the poor are better off in western european social democratic countries than in a free-for-all capitalist society, like the US. There are other models, like Singapore that also work well, FYI.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Germany all have low unemployment rates (and higher total employment rates than the US) and have higher minimum wages. France, Belgium and Ireland all have a higher minimum wage and higher unemployment rates than the US. Clearly the unemployment rate is affected by multiple factors. The issue is whether a higher minimum wage increases unemployment, not whether you can counteract it with other policies -- applying the other policies without raising the minimum wage could result in even less unemployment. > Btw, when you say socialism pretends to help the poor, but helps the elite, that doesn't help your case. There are a huge number of nominally socialist policies in the US that really exist at the behest of large corporations. Mortgage interest tax deduction -- "help people own a home", really makes home ownership more expensive and transfers tax dollars to mortgage banks. Ditto student loan interest subsidies. Affordable housing subsidies -- placate political demand for lower housing costs without actually lowering market rate housing costs for low-middle income working people, transfers tax dollars to landlords, encourages low income people to rent rather than own. Social security -- no progressive rate structure, tax cutoff for millionaires, benefits based on lifespan and historical income which both disadvantage lower income people. Tax deductions for employer-provided health insurance -- implicit subsidy to large insurance companies. Affordable Care Act -- huge tax dollar subsidy to large insurance companies, effectively prohibits people from saving money with high deductible insurance plans that are less profitable to same insurance companies, and discourage overconsumption and overpayment to medical companies. Skepticism is warranted.
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  US is not free for all capitalism, it has one of the biggest welfare and government job program on the whole planet (the industrial-military complex), so not sure what you're talking about here. Western European countries are still pretty much capitalist countries with a pretty free market. And they are still doing not as good as freer countries such as Switzerland or Luxembourg and as you mention Hong Kong and Singapore. The only countries that are going socialists are Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and friends and we know how they're doing.
js8 10y ago
> you're basically saying better services should be for the rich only while the poor should use lower public services while saying at the same time that you support the poor No, what I am saying that taxi driver's job should be paid well enough. If you want a personal driver, it will cost you. The interpretation that taxi is better than public transport is yours only.. Many people in Europe don't need taxis, because we have excellent public transport, which, by the way, also employs people. I am not sure how you can twist the logic to think that my position supports the elites more than poor. :-)
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  > No, what I am saying that taxi driver's job should be paid well enough. How about letting taxis decide how much they want to charge, crazy thought, huh? Turns out many of them are happy to drive for Uber. How about we let them be? Or do you know better than they do what's good for them? > Many people in Europe don't need taxis, because we have excellent public transport No we don't. Public transport are still dependent on where you live, unless you live close to a station, it's not that great cause you still need to drive to the station. Not to mention the strikes (I live in France), the delays etc. Having a personal private driver on demand is a way better experience than riding a public bus (gosh do I hate this every single time I have to use it). > I am not sure how you can twist the logic to think that my position supports the elites more than poor. :-) Well simply put, your policies make it unaffordable for the poor to get access to the best services and only the elites can. So, there you go :)

AnthonyMouse 10y ago

> No, it doesn't. It was never empirically proven that there is a connection between minimum wage and unemployment. (You are simplifying the whole economy to the labor market, but there is also demand side.) Nobody can prove something like that because it depends on dynamic characteristics of the economy. If everyone who makes minimum wage worked for the government and the government did nothing but pay them more money by taking on more public debt then the current-year employment rate obviously wouldn't go down, but our current economy doesn't look like that. Only ~1% of workers in the US make minimum wage, and they represent an even smaller percentage of total consumption than that. Increasing their wages is not going to create a large increase in local consumption, especially when some of the money goes to things that don't create new local unskilled jobs, like increasing salaries for existing CEOs, or leaving the local economy and going to workers in China or India, or creating demand for skilled jobs that the newly unemployed minimum wage workers aren't qualified for. And the entire wage increase comes out of the employer's pocket, which for middle class employers means that much less consumption by the employer -- the "increased demand" from higher minimum wage is the broken window fallacy. Meanwhile there are existing jobs that can justify the lower wage but not the higher wage, so those people become unemployed, which reduces local demand, not only due to the lost amount to the employee but also the profit that employee had previously generated for the employer and the surplus for the employer's customers and suppliers and so on.

hnbroseph 10y ago
> Only ~1% of workers in the US make minimum wage does this statistic limit to literal minimum wage? so if someone is hired at +5 cents, do they not count?
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > does this statistic limit to literal minimum wage? so if someone is hired at +5 cents, do they not count? Including minimum wage +5 cents is still ~1%.
  - hnbroseph 10y ago