PA House Republican: "Voter ID Will Allow Romney to Win Pennsylvania"

[Shaudius]

But go a little further. If I own a 100 acre plantation, and have 100 slaves, I can have each one work 1 acre a day. If you can't own slaves, I might only be able to hire 10 workers, leaving 90 acres that I can't do anything with if I owned the 100. But why own 100 acres when I can do nothing with 90? What would happen is either I would never buy that land, or I would sell some off to another person who can hire workers to work those acres. So either way, that land gets worked.

The analogy is not perfectly suited to renewable situations like farm work, because there is limited farmable land that presumably is all taken, in a situation where all the farmable land is not farmed then the additional units of slave labor is advantageous. But it can explain expansion outside of farm situations, because if I have 100 slaves, I don't need those 10 non-slave workers, and they can be put to use in other parts of the economy. The slavery/low-wage worker situation does explain situations where additional units of labor are needed to make use of all resources, which, again, in your situation they are not.

Not necessarily. In your example, the wealth gap was $60 and we have 10% inflation. So when the $10 comes into the economy, if the rich get $7 and the poor get $3, the poor are better off relative to inflation, yet the wealth gap has increased by $4.

You are of course correct now that I think about, my scenario is flawed because what matters is not the nominal wealth gap but the percentage wealth gap. When the wealthy have a greater percentage of the wealth than the poor and that gap rises is when the poor become worse off, they can, you are correct the poor can gain economic advantage if their increase in wealth causes their percentage of the wealth to go up.

There were still places that were controlled by US friendly gov'ts that were close to China that didn't see that type of growth. What worked so well in Hong Kong was the free market.

Maybe, maybe not, most places close to China were dominoes to communism and fought over by the East and West, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. The two countries that I can think of that were close to China that were US friendly are Taiwan and South Korea, both of which have experienced growth at the levels of Hong Kong(and have almost the same amount of GDP)(along with Singapore a commonwealth nation). You could perhaps consider this free market, maybe free market and western friendliness go hand and hand, but its hard to separate one from the other in that region of the world.

I would agree that gov't needs to protect peoples' rights to organize, but they shouldn't be forced to only hire union members. There is an equilibrium that needs to be upheld between the shareholder, the consumer, and the worker, and trying to keep all happy. Once the gov't sides with one, the rest can get screwed.

If the company isn't forced to hire only union workers, they will not, and they won't hire any if they're allowed to do that, because union workers are more expensive than non-union ones. In order for your system to work, it can't go half way, there's no tenable way to say, "oh you have to hire 50% union" or anything like that, either you're all in or you're right to work in which case the union is weak and ineffective.

The union can also make itself weaker by protecting bad workers. I used to live in a town where the largest employer was American Airlines. I had many friends who worked there in some capacity, and they all told me story after story of employees that would never work, they would actually clock in, find a nice quiet place, and get about 7 hours of sleep, then clock out. American couldn't fire people like that because of the union. Those people also hurt the union's ability to strike, because the company no longer has to pay those salaries.

And in order for your scenario to work you have to take the good with the bad, you can't say, oh the union can negotiate but they can't negotiate hiring and firing procedure, otherwise the corporation would just be allowed to fire anyone who tried to work for more rights. I am sure that these employees could be fired though, it might have been that their supervisors didn't want to deal with the hassle of fighting the union on those people's jobs. There can be red tape, but its usually a lazy supervisor that can't get rid of a lazy worker in a union shop.

And I agree the union should be able to try to get raises for its members, it should be in line with corporate profits.

The problem with that line of thought is that you now seem to be saying that the government should side with the corporation(effectively, the union doesn't care about the corporate profits, it only is concerned with the levels of wages and benefits for the worker, so by saying in line with corporate profits the only entity that could enforce that would be the government), the corporations interest in profit outweighs the worker's interest in wages, that's a fine position to take, but its not one which would get you to your ultimate goal which is increase worker wages in the US in the face of a global marketplace for labor.

And I realize that you would have to have every gov't protect individual rights for unions to be world wide. The problem is that even if a corporation goes to a place where there are no protections like that, the workers can still try to unionize. The gov't could go after them, but the corporation will probably try to protect them because they don't want there to be a stoppage in production.

And if the workers try to unionize, they will be busted, unless they are backed by the government, which was my whole point. Unless the rights of workers to form unions are protected by the government there is no way they can get a hold on a corporation in the global economy, if the workers in one location try to unionize, even if they are successful the work will just go elsewhere. They can try but they won't succeed.

The ultimate issue that you seem to want it both ways, you want free market capitalism to work, but seem to be unwilling to accept the idea that in a full free market capitalist system the level of global wages will reach an equilibrium point, that again, is lower than the current wages of the US. You seem to think that somehow unions can solve this issue, but the only way in which unions are effective is in a way that is counter to unfettered free market capitalism.

[guitarjosh]

The analogy is not perfectly suited to renewable situations like farm work, because there is limited farmable land that presumably is all taken, in a situation where all the farmable land is not farmed then the additional units of slave labor is advantageous. But it can explain expansion outside of farm situations, because if I have 100 slaves, I don't need those 10 non-slave workers, and they can be put to use in other parts of the economy. The slavery/low-wage worker situation does explain situations where additional units of labor are needed to make use of all resources, which, again, in your situation they are not.

If farming is that valuable in a country that doesn't allow slavery, then the farmable land will be farmed. It's just supply & demand. You are right about having slaves allows workers to go into other fields, but that isn't really a positive about slavery, it is about the size of the workforce. If those 100 slaves weren't in the country, business owners would then have to raise wages to entice people to come into the labor market - which is exactly what we saw in the late 1800s and early 1900s

Maybe, maybe not, most places close to China were dominoes to communism and fought over by the East and West, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. The two countries that I can think of that were close to China that were US friendly are Taiwan and South Korea, both of which have experienced growth at the levels of Hong Kong(and have almost the same amount of GDP)(along with Singapore a commonwealth nation). You could perhaps consider this free market, maybe free market and western friendliness go hand and hand, but its hard to separate one from the other in that region of the world.

Well Viet Nam was under French control until 1954, and the US didn't leave until the 1970s. Japan was filled with our presence after WWII, and it is closer to Beijing than Hong Kong.

If the company isn't forced to hire only union workers, they will not, and they won't hire any if they're allowed to do that, because union workers are more expensive than non-union ones. In order for your system to work, it can't go half way, there's no tenable way to say, "oh you have to hire 50% union" or anything like that, either you're all in or you're right to work in which case the union is weak and ineffective.

There is nothing stopping hired workers from unionizing. Back when unions got strong in this country, it wasn't because the gov't passed laws requiring workers to join unions and made business only hire union members. Workers organized their unions.

And in order for your scenario to work you have to take the good with the bad, you can't say, oh the union can negotiate but they can't negotiate hiring and firing procedure, otherwise the corporation would just be allowed to fire anyone who tried to work for more rights. I am sure that these employees could be fired though, it might have been that their supervisors didn't want to deal with the hassle of fighting the union on those people's jobs. There can be red tape, but its usually a lazy supervisor that can't get rid of a lazy worker in a union shop.

Well I can tell you none of my friends said anything good about that union. One in particular always said that the only thing he saw that union do is keep lazy, unproductive employees employed. The reality is that the value of good workers goes down when unions put so much red tape on business. That same friend could fix anything on a plane - engine, landing gear, avionics, he could fix it. Yet, because of the union, he was only allowed to fix engines. So if his crew got a plane in that didn't have anything wrong with its engines, he would do nothing until a new plane came in, despite the fact he could be used in other places. Things like that cost companies money, and make people less valuable.

The problem with that line of thought is that you now seem to be saying that the government should side with the corporation(effectively, the union doesn't care about the corporate profits, it only is concerned with the levels of wages and benefits for the worker, so by saying in line with corporate profits the only entity that could enforce that would be the government), the corporations interest in profit outweighs the worker's interest in wages, that's a fine position to take, but its not one which would get you to your ultimate goal which is increase worker wages in the US in the face of a global marketplace for labor.

I don't think the gov't should necessarily side with either, but just protect rights.

And if the workers try to unionize, they will be busted, unless they are backed by the government, which was my whole point. Unless the rights of workers to form unions are protected by the government there is no way they can get a hold on a corporation in the global economy, if the workers in one location try to unionize, even if they are successful the work will just go elsewhere. They can try but they won't succeed.

The ultimate issue that you seem to want it both ways, you want free market capitalism to work, but seem to be unwilling to accept the idea that in a full free market capitalist system the level of global wages will reach an equilibrium point, that again, is lower than the current wages of the US. You seem to think that somehow unions can solve this issue, but the only way in which unions are effective is in a way that is counter to unfettered free market capitalism.

All the gov't has to do is back the right to unionize. Free market capitalism works great, and unions are a part of that. The problem I have is when the gov't starts taking sides, as that isn't part of the free market, and that is when things get into trouble.

[Shaudius]

If farming is that valuable in a country that doesn't allow slavery, then the farmable land will be farmed. It's just supply & demand. You are right about having slaves allows workers to go into other fields, but that isn't really a positive about slavery, it is about the size of the workforce. If those 100 slaves weren't in the country, business owners would then have to raise wages to entice people to come into the labor market - which is exactly what we saw in the late 1800s and early 1900s

No one has to be enticed into entering the labor market in a general sense. People need to eat and cloth themselves, therefore in the absence of land ownership allowing them to obtain resources without wages they will work(and if they desire more things than farming their own goods allows them)

What did happen in the 1870s and forward is that industrialization was in full swing, thus neccesitating the need for a larger workforce, which you are right about. We are seeing it in China right now. People are moving from the countryside into the cities because worker demand is increasing. This acts as a pressure causing wages to rise because there is increase demand for workers. You are right it is a supply and demand proposition. Wages increased in the 1870s and on in America because of increase worker demand in the face of increased industrialization.

But the problem is, to bring this section full circle, that there is no increased demand for labor in the US. There is instead the exact opposite, there is less demand for traditional labor because of automation. This coupled with the fact that the population is still growing will ensure that the supply and demand curve doesn't favor supply.

[QUOTE=guitarjosh;15299286]
Well Viet Nam was under French control until 1954, and the US didn't leave until the 1970s. Japan was filled with our presence after WWII, and it is closer to Beijing than Hong Kong.[/quote[

And Japan was widely successful(less so now due to lots of factors), Vietnam had potential, but that period was prior to the globalization of labor like we see today.

There is nothing stopping hired workers from unionizing. Back when unions got strong in this country, it wasn't because the gov't passed laws requiring workers to join unions and made business only hire union members. Workers organized their unions.

Unions were weak, very weak, until the government stopped allowing companies to simply break them. Hell, the US government itself was responsible for breaking up one of the most famous strikes of all time the Pullman Stirke.

During those years the unions were only successful in areas where the workers were highly skilled, such that they were harder to break and replace with other workers when they attempted to organize.

Well I can tell you none of my friends said anything good about that union. One in particular always said that the only thing he saw that union do is keep lazy, unproductive employees employed. The reality is that the value of good workers goes down when unions put so much red tape on business. That same friend could fix anything on a plane - engine, landing gear, avionics, he could fix it. Yet, because of the union, he was only allowed to fix engines. So if his crew got a plane in that didn't have anything wrong with its engines, he would do nothing until a new plane came in, despite the fact he could be used in other places. Things like that cost companies money, and make people less valuable.

Look, I'm not the one defending unionization here, you, however, seem to be(at least partially). Your argument is that unions will be the panacea to wage suppression in the US. Maybe they will be, but they certainly won't be if you don't allow them to negotiate as much as they possibly can. You take the good with the bad, you seem to only want the good, and are using anecdotes to the display the bad, the ultimate issue is you can't get all of the good without getting all of the bad, so at some point there will be a cap without unfettered negotiation ability, which you don't seem to want. The cap will be some point in between the current US wage and the global equilibrium wage.

I don't think the gov't should necessarily side with either, but just protect rights.All the gov't has to do is back the right to unionize. Free market capitalism works great, and unions are a part of that. The problem I have is when the gov't starts taking sides, as that isn't part of the free market, and that is when things get into trouble.

The government can't just back the right to unionize. Full stop. That does nothing, the right to unionize in and of itself doesn't get the union anything except out of a job unless they have something more to bring to the table. This is the reason that pre-1930s the successful unions were the ones that consisted of skilled tradesman, not unskilled or semi-skilled workers.

Unions are not a natural part of free market capitalism, they are anti-free market capitalism, free market capitalism says that a worker can only demand the wages to which he is individually worth, the supply of his work is paid at the level that the demand for his work dictates, unions turn that formula on its head and instead say that the worker is paid some value of his work that is negotiated with force(from the union controlling the supply of labor and the labor being such that the company is forced to deal with the union rather than go somewhere else for its labor).

If all the workers have is the right to unionize, that won't get them anywhere, unless they have a skill that can't be readily found or easily trained elsewhere. Most labor doesn't have those skills, and is instead unskilled or semi-skilled(at least of the type that needs to unionize), therefore your solution of, just give the workers the right to unionize and wages will increase just won't work, you need to be willing to go further, which you don't seem to want to do.

[guitarjosh]

No one has to be enticed into entering the labor market in a general sense. People need to eat and cloth themselves, therefore in the absence of land ownership allowing them to obtain resources without wages they will work(and if they desire more things than farming their own goods allows them)

What did happen in the 1870s and forward is that industrialization was in full swing, thus neccesitating the need for a larger workforce, which you are right about. We are seeing it in China right now. People are moving from the countryside into the cities because worker demand is increasing. This acts as a pressure causing wages to rise because there is increase demand for workers. You are right it is a supply and demand proposition. Wages increased in the 1870s and on in America because of increase worker demand in the face of increased industrialization.

But the problem is, to bring this section full circle, that there is no increased demand for labor in the US. There is instead the exact opposite, there is less demand for traditional labor because of automation. This coupled with the fact that the population is still growing will ensure that the supply and demand curve doesn't favor supply.

In the general sense being the main phrase. Where they live is another issue. The main reason so many people came here from around the world from 1870 on was because the income for the average person in America was so much higher than it was in the rest of the world. Just because there isn't as much demand for more labor in the US doesn't mean it won't increase at some point. As wages rise in other places you will see insourcing.

And Japan was widely successful(less so now due to lots of factors), Vietnam had potential, but that period was prior to the globalization of labor like we see today.

They both were, but not to the extent Hong Kong has succeeded in the past 50 years.

Unions were weak, very weak, until the government stopped allowing companies to simply break them. Hell, the US government itself was responsible for breaking up one of the most famous strikes of all time the Pullman Stirke.

During those years the unions were only successful in areas where the workers were highly skilled, such that they were harder to break and replace with other workers when they attempted to organize.

The Pullman strike involved over 100,000 striking workers, and it was before 1900. The unions weren't that weak. Highly skilled workers will have more clout, but that doesn't mean that less skilled can't organize. And if those unions were so weak, the common person sure did see a massive increase in their living standards before 1900 without unions.

Look, I'm not the one defending unionization here, you, however, seem to be(at least partially). Your argument is that unions will be the panacea to wage suppression in the US. Maybe they will be, but they certainly won't be if you don't allow them to negotiate as much as they possibly can. You take the good with the bad, you seem to only want the good, and are using anecdotes to the display the bad, the ultimate issue is you can't get all of the good without getting all of the bad, so at some point there will be a cap without unfettered negotiation ability, which you don't seem to want. The cap will be some point in between the current US wage and the global equilibrium wage.

I'm not defending the gov't getting involved. Again, we're seeing an increase of the standards of living of workers around the world, and at some point you will start seeing insourcing.

The government can't just back the right to unionize. Full stop. That does nothing, the right to unionize in and of itself doesn't get the union anything except out of a job unless they have something more to bring to the table. This is the reason that pre-1930s the successful unions were the ones that consisted of skilled tradesman, not unskilled or semi-skilled workers.

Unions are not a natural part of free market capitalism, they are anti-free market capitalism, free market capitalism says that a worker can only demand the wages to which he is individually worth, the supply of his work is paid at the level that the demand for his work dictates, unions turn that formula on its head and instead say that the worker is paid some value of his work that is negotiated with force(from the union controlling the supply of labor and the labor being such that the company is forced to deal with the union rather than go somewhere else for its labor).

If all the workers have is the right to unionize, that won't get them anywhere, unless they have a skill that can't be readily found or easily trained elsewhere. Most labor doesn't have those skills, and is instead unskilled or semi-skilled(at least of the type that needs to unionize), therefore your solution of, just give the workers the right to unionize and wages will increase just won't work, you need to be willing to go further, which you don't seem to want to do.

The free market system is more about keeping the gov't out of the economy as much as possible with a few exceptions. If people want to unionize, boycott, etc, it can work as long as the gov't doesn't get involved.

Do you want to keep going on with this thread? we're the only 2 posting in it anymore and it is over a week old.

[Shaudius]

In the general sense being the main phrase. Where they live is another issue. The main reason so many people came here from around the world from 1870 on was because the income for the average person in America was so much higher than it was in the rest of the world. Just because there isn't as much demand for more labor in the US doesn't mean it won't increase at some point. As wages rise in other places you will see insourcing.

I don't disagree, you will see insourcing in the future which will increase demand in the US(in the future). That's always been the point though(my last statement was more about current conditions than future conditions, although we are starting to see some insourcing today), the wages will rise other places making it advantageous to bring jobs back here. That's the whole point though, there is a global equilibrium wage. Its lower than the US current wage and higher than the current abroad wage. The only functional difference between the global wage and the US wage will be the cost of shipping whatever good is being produced here from abroad to the US.

They both were, but not to the extent Hong Kong has succeeded in the past 50 years.

Yes, but its only a matter of degree. Taiwan has the same GDP per capita as the UK and Japan. Hong Kong about the same as the US and Norway, all are in the top 25 of GDP per capita.

The Pullman strike involved over 100,000 striking workers, and it was before 1900. The unions weren't that weak. Highly skilled workers will have more clout, but that doesn't mean that less skilled can't organize. And if those unions were so weak, the common person sure did see a massive increase in their living standards before 1900 without unions.

Yes, the common person did, for the same reason the common person in China is seeing wages increase, because of increased demand for labor forcing wages upward. It didn't have to do with unions in a massive scale(as in unskilled and semi-skilled workers) until awhile after the Pullman strike.

I'm not defending the gov't getting involved. Again, we're seeing an increase of the standards of living of workers around the world, and at some point you will start seeing insourcing.

And insourcing will lead to the global equilibrium wage, that's always been my position, insourcing will bring some jobs back here, but they won't pay as much. I am sorry for the oversimplification of the issue in the present in the first part of my last response.

The free market system is more about keeping the gov't out of the economy as much as possible with a few exceptions. If people want to unionize, boycott, etc, it can work as long as the gov't doesn't get involved.

Unionization can work but only if the workers have leverage. The only ways in which workers have leverage are a) they have some sort of skill that is not easily obtained elsewhere for cheaper, the elsewhere being either a different location or a different set of bodies in the same location or b) the government forces leverage upon them. The only way in which workers have type (a) leverage is through being highly skilled, and the only way workers have (b) type leverage is through fiat. Workers can always strike, but its not about striking in and of itself as far as you're concerned, its about effective striking, which only happens with leverage.

Do you want to keep going on with this thread? we're the only 2 posting in it anymore and it is over a week old.

Either way. I can sum up my whole argument as this:

1) Labor for production is a global commodity, there is a price point of this commodity that is equal to the sum of all labor in the world divided by the demand for all that labor, there is a labor cost differential will be factored in with the cost of shipping a good from where it is produced to where it will be consumed. At some point in the future the mostly efficient market will dictate an equilibrium price for all this labor.

2) This price point for this production of labor can be pushed higher in situations where people can leverage their skills in order to demand a higher wage than the standard equilibrium point but only in situations where there is not equally skilled work elsewhere that can do it for less, if there is a group of people elsewhere that can do it for less than the global market will still demand that lower price.

3) Global unions to circumvent the second point probably practically unfeasible due to mostly cultural and language barriers breeding mistrust between workers much in the same way that poor whites and blacks were divided and conquered by rich landowners(both white and black) in the pre and post antebellum south.

4) In the event that global unions do form, they will need consent from most if not all nations of the world to thrive unless they are all made up of skilled workers who all ply a similar trade on a global scale, or are powerful enough because of the desire for their skilled craft to have coattails that include semi-skilled and unskilled labor.