6 ms·

Rent-seeking might not be the only problem. Worker exploitation is also a serious issue on my list. How on earth can someone defend not paying a living salary f

by esarbe 5y ago

Rent-seeking might not be the only problem. Worker exploitation is also a serious issue on my list. How on earth can someone defend not paying a living salary for a full time job? Add to that that the legal framework (talking about the USA) is seriously skewed to favor employers and disadvantages workers and any attempts to unionize. This has to stop.

cousin_it 5y ago
> How on earth can someone defend not paying a living salary for a full time job? Putting the employer on the hook for more aspects of the employee's well-being (healthcare, living wage) only increases the gap between employed and unemployed, therefore increasing the bargaining power of employers. I think it's better to have society provide a basic standard of living (most importantly housing and healthcare) to all poor people, employed or not.
refurb 5y ago
What is a "living salary"? If I'm a single mom with 3 kids, is the "living salary" the same as a single 20 year old who lives at home?
- bmn__ 5y ago
  Short introduction to definitions in the field of applied economics, see OECD and WHO publications for details. A living salary is a colloquial phrase, more precisely we should talk about the net equivalised household income. Gender and marital status is irrelevant for the calculation. Let us assume both household's single earner brings in 15382 €/a (EU-27/28 average net income for 2013). Household 1 with two juveniles and one child is 6688 €/a, poverty. Household 2 remains 15382 €/a.
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  Pretty low quality question. Of course the salary will not adapt according to individuals expenses and neither will it here in Scandinavia. However, the father will of course be obliged to pay child support. The mother will also receive a monthly allowance for each child. She will also likely be eligible to rent support. So children is a special case, but a living wage doesn't involve that. How did you think this would actually work?
  - refurb 5y ago
    So the govt subsidizes the businesses low wages? Corporate welfare?
    - cloudfifty 5y ago
      No. I've already written that obviously the amount of children of each individual can't determine what a living wage is supposed to be, but then you still twist this to be a question of subsidy to the business in bad faith?
      - refurb 5y ago
        It’s not bad faith. Plenty of arguments in the US have been around wages where the govt has to provide additional support. It’s called “corporate welfare”. The argument is the company should pay enough on its own. Why can’t you have a conversation in good faith?
        cloudfifty 5y ago
        I'm not repeating myself again. But given your comment history I'm sure that you're just here in bad faith in general.
        refurb 5y ago
        Avoiding the question just makes me think you don’t have an answer.
        cloudfifty 5y ago
        For the last time. The concept of a living wage is not adapted on an individual basis. The problem of the US wrt a living wage is certainly not that single mothers of 3 children are the standard model, and you know that, hence bad faith. You can't change the subject to your own trolly question if it constitutes "corporate welfare" and expect an answer.
imtringued 5y ago
Money is a public good as well. Money taken out of circulation is bad for the economy and drives a big chunk of economic problems in society. It's easy to tax so the valuation argument doesn't even make sense. There are companies with $100 billion or more in their bank accounts. That's a million paychecks that didn't happen. Isn't it weird how it is possible to prevent other people from working by simply withholding money? Meanwhile we expect the people who couldn't work as a result of this withholding of money to keep working, we consider them lazy and not worthy of sympathy.
- sooheon 5y ago
  This is a total misconception. Anyone's $100B in a bank account has no bearing on money supply. In the short term, yes, money is taken out of circulation. But if that causes increased demand for liquidity, and banks are willing to meet that demand at the interest rate set by the central bank, money will be created by the loan that is initiated. What dries up money circulation is not any one company's hoarding, but the banks' willingness to lend as a whole, and the economy's desire to borrow and spend as a whole. Recommended reading: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf?la=en&hash=9A8788FD44A62D8BB927123544205CE476E01654 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...
sooheon 5y ago
Great point, but worker exploitation (like so many other problems) flow out of perverse rentier structures. In fact this is one of the first principles discovered about how rent works, termed the "law of rent" by David Ricardo over 200 years ago. I.e. that the rent collected from productivity will always be such that the remaining wages are only exactly as good as the "margin of production", a.k.a. the next best alternative to engaging with the labor economy, subsistence living. This is why you can have exploding productivity and still subsistence standard of living for labor, where the entirety of the excess is captured by rentiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent

by esarbe 5y ago

cousin_it 5y ago

> How on earth can someone defend not paying a living salary for a full time job? Putting the employer on the hook for more aspects of the employee's well-being (healthcare, living wage) only increases the gap between employed and unemployed, therefore increasing the bargaining power of employers. I think it's better to have society provide a basic standard of living (most importantly housing and healthcare) to all poor people, employed or not.

refurb 5y ago

What is a "living salary"? If I'm a single mom with 3 kids, is the "living salary" the same as a single 20 year old who lives at home?

bmn__ 5y ago
Short introduction to definitions in the field of applied economics, see OECD and WHO publications for details. A living salary is a colloquial phrase, more precisely we should talk about the net equivalised household income. Gender and marital status is irrelevant for the calculation. Let us assume both household's single earner brings in 15382 €/a (EU-27/28 average net income for 2013). Household 1 with two juveniles and one child is 6688 €/a, poverty. Household 2 remains 15382 €/a.
cloudfifty 5y ago
Pretty low quality question. Of course the salary will not adapt according to individuals expenses and neither will it here in Scandinavia. However, the father will of course be obliged to pay child support. The mother will also receive a monthly allowance for each child. She will also likely be eligible to rent support. So children is a special case, but a living wage doesn't involve that. How did you think this would actually work?
- refurb 5y ago
  So the govt subsidizes the businesses low wages? Corporate welfare?
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    No. I've already written that obviously the amount of children of each individual can't determine what a living wage is supposed to be, but then you still twist this to be a question of subsidy to the business in bad faith?
    - refurb 5y ago
      It’s not bad faith. Plenty of arguments in the US have been around wages where the govt has to provide additional support. It’s called “corporate welfare”. The argument is the company should pay enough on its own. Why can’t you have a conversation in good faith?
      - cloudfifty 5y ago
        I'm not repeating myself again. But given your comment history I'm sure that you're just here in bad faith in general.
        refurb 5y ago
        Avoiding the question just makes me think you don’t have an answer.
        cloudfifty 5y ago
        For the last time. The concept of a living wage is not adapted on an individual basis. The problem of the US wrt a living wage is certainly not that single mothers of 3 children are the standard model, and you know that, hence bad faith. You can't change the subject to your own trolly question if it constitutes "corporate welfare" and expect an answer.

imtringued 5y ago

Money is a public good as well. Money taken out of circulation is bad for the economy and drives a big chunk of economic problems in society. It's easy to tax so the valuation argument doesn't even make sense. There are companies with $100 billion or more in their bank accounts. That's a million paychecks that didn't happen. Isn't it weird how it is possible to prevent other people from working by simply withholding money? Meanwhile we expect the people who couldn't work as a result of this withholding of money to keep working, we consider them lazy and not worthy of sympathy.

sooheon 5y ago
This is a total misconception. Anyone's $100B in a bank account has no bearing on money supply. In the short term, yes, money is taken out of circulation. But if that causes increased demand for liquidity, and banks are willing to meet that demand at the interest rate set by the central bank, money will be created by the loan that is initiated. What dries up money circulation is not any one company's hoarding, but the banks' willingness to lend as a whole, and the economy's desire to borrow and spend as a whole. Recommended reading: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf?la=en&hash=9A8788FD44A62D8BB927123544205CE476E01654 https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...

sooheon 5y ago

Great point, but worker exploitation (like so many other problems) flow out of perverse rentier structures. In fact this is one of the first principles discovered about how rent works, termed the "law of rent" by David Ricardo over 200 years ago. I.e. that the rent collected from productivity will always be such that the remaining wages are only exactly as good as the "margin of production", a.k.a. the next best alternative to engaging with the labor economy, subsistence living. This is why you can have exploding productivity and still subsistence standard of living for labor, where the entirety of the excess is captured by rentiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent