Originally Posted by
Shek 
The problem here is that claim to want to use facts, and yet, when confronted with statistics, you then don’t want to use them. Since you seem fixated on the fact that real compensation had a low positive value (i.e., it expanded) during the current expansion, I went back to look at the mean average value for the long expansion in the Clinton presidency and found that when compared to Bush expansion (I tend not to assign too much responsibility to presidents over the performance of the economy, and so the naming is more for labeling purposes), the values are almost identical. In other words, it appears like this is positive growth rate for real compensation is typical. Just as with my labor share chart, despite claims by many that we’re seeing atypical growth and distribution, this really isn’t the case.
Strawman.
No, statistics are not best used closest to raw. This is like saying that doctors should biopsy and then diagnose using the naked eye instead of a microscope.
No, i am saying you have to be careful you don't just filter medical problems through a gastroenterologist because your heart attack might always be contributed to your stomach. I trust the census more than your source but I can work with it. I think once you start cherry picking variables it's east to distort. That study notes how the poverty rate of the elderly has dropped precipitously but fails to factor in their removal from the rolls when looking at the poverty of a "family" i missed it if they did factor that into figuring the number of families with children in poverty as a % now and then
You’re correct that someone in any profession can use extraneous information to dilute or confound a conclusion. However, the possibility of it happening and the actuality of it happening are not one and the same. It is necessary to argue case by case whether there is a misspecification. You haven’t done this, and instead, are relying on the possibility that it could be done. For someone who likes to use the facts, you sure aren’t applying critical thinking here.
Ok using your source: Overall poverty rates are at 22.4% in 1959, but are cut almost in half, to 12.1% by 1969. The great society programs had been in place 5 years before the date they say there was no significant decline. They run data post 1970 in their analysis not pre 1970. Did we or did we not experience a significant decline under the kennedy and johnson Administrations? how can we assume it had nothing to do with programs meant to lower the poverty rate? Then we leveled off after we stopped enacting social programs. Could i not argue teh lack of effect of the anti poverty programs of the 90s has more to do with the stagnation of the minimum wage? That the further small increase in poverty rates post 2001 curing boom times is a further by product of this? Aren't the number of two income households rising again?
Strawman. The majority of the arguments here are for enforcing existing regulation and not respond to a lack of enforcement by creating more rules that will inhibit those who were already playing by the rules. Also, what is wrong with child labor? It is a natural response by parents to subsistence living and is a pathway to growth. It may not be palatable to the Western sense of morality, but of course, who are we to judge when we can afford to send our kids to school AND put food on the table. We put our kids to work in the 1800s because we had a large segment of the populated that lived at the subsistence level. Should we deny others the opportunity to grow beyond subsistence living to assuage our sense of outrage while we discuss making the world a better place while sipping a latte in Starbucks?
i think it's still an argument against deregulation that many(not you) make here. it's what Corporations do when there are no mitigating influences from govt. They could pay more to adults in India enough to leave their kids in school couldn't they? They don't have to so they don't. Since they will pay for child labor it puts a downward pressure on all third world cheap labor market. If they refused to employ children they'd still have to pay their still cheap labor subsistence wages. It's not like the textile jobs are ever returning to western labor markets. it's the nature of a corporation. It's sole reason to exist is to generate return for stockholders. I agree they send kids to work because they have too
profit is a great thing. I own stock like most middle class Americans and want a good return on it but , i understand what a corporation exists for.understanding creates a choice. Do you force them to be better "social" citizens through regulation at the expense of some profit or do you allow them to do whatever they can to maximize it even if it includes child labor. It's not that a manager/Ceo are "bad" it's the nature of the beast. When the competition hires 15 year olds for half pay you hire 14 year olds out of necessity to maintain market share. Regulation ended child labor here not market forces. Why else would we have had sweeping laws enacted under TR? I speak in broad terms and it's an example not something I'd expect in the Aircraft Industry here where Skill> all. There would be other downward pressures though. It is a tendency of capitalism that in a regulation free environment wealth becomes very highly concentrated. Have you ever visited Newport and seen the mansions built by Capitol while labor lived in tenements working 6, 10 or 12 hr days often loosing their job when sick or hurt The it stopped here was the regulation passed under TR a GREAT Republican President. The Mine owners were FORCED to give something to the miners in that horrible strike in mmm 1903? ( forget offhand. )They would of locked them out forever w/o govt intervention to break the strike and the owners. how could anyone wish to return to a time like that is beyond me. I understand you don't advocate that. i am all for great returns on my stocks but equally wary of creating changes in our system that will destroy the golden goose that is our consuMer economy. our goose is driven by demand. Capitol creates production as needed. i think the risk of too much laissez faire capitolism is to have an excess of capitol in this country and no demand to be met. i am sure at a nuts and bolts level you get my point even if you don't on specifics
Here you are dreaming up stuff. Given your short time on the board and the fact that bios tend not to reveal too much historical information. I have both worked a private sector job (minimum wage, too, and it should be a minimum wage job) and am raising kids. Additionally, I have met your stats/analysis with more comprehensive stats and analysis, not rhetoric. So much for this strawman.
Some of the remarks here are the extremist BS of talk radio. Please if I repeat crap like i am some follower of Air America shoot me. indpenednt thought is so important. my remark was over the top though and I do apologize
Strawman and false dichotomy.
The minimum wage is a blunt instrument that may help those who work min wage jobs (mostly teenagers), but it reduces employment in these sectors and in doing so, robs younger folks with job experience and hurts their future employment and income opportunities. It also leads to less output and higher prices, and so it acts as a defacto tax. If you want to help the poor, there are much superior policies that exist that are less distortionary.
# The earnings of minimum wage workers are crucial to their families' well-being. Evidence from an analysis of the 1996-97 minimum wage increase shows that the average minimum wage worker brings home more than half (54%) of his or her family's weekly earnings.
# An estimated 1,229,000 single parents with children under 18 would benefit from a minimum wage increase to $7.25 by 2009. Single parents would benefit disproportionately from an increase — single parents are 10% of workers affected by an increase, but they make up only 7% of the overall workforce. Approximately 6.4 million children under 18 would benefit as their parents’ wages were increased.
# Adults make up the largest share of workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase: 79% of workers whose wages would be raised by a minimum wage increase to $7.25 by 2009 are adults (age 20 or older). Please elaborate on how you believe we can help the 105 plus of Americans who live in poverty
Incomplete analysis, sunk cost fallacy, and strawman all exist here. Money spent on OIF is water under the bridge. The question is one of both costs, which you focus solely on, and benefits from today forward. Also, the majority of reconstruction funding is coming from the Iraqi government today, so your projects that you speak of are probably being funded by the Iraqis. Lastly, the money in the bank stems from two things – byzantine regulations put into place by the CPA that makes it next to impossible to execute those funds, and the necessary requirement to maintain official reserves in order for the central bank to be able to execute monetary policy in support of the Iraqi economy (and specifically, for use in defending their exchange as necessary). A great book that looks at the latter topic is by John Taylor entitled “Global Financial Warriors”.
[I]For example, the U.S. has spent over $27 billion to date on major infrastructure projects, job training -- excuse me -- education and training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. On the other hand, according to the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, the Iraqi government budgeted $6.2 billion for its capital budget in 2006, but spent less than a quarter of that. And as of August 31, 2007, the Iraqi government has spent somewhere between 4.4 percent according to the GAO and 24 percent according to the White House of its $10 billion capital budget for 2007. As of last Thursday, the United States is paying the salaries of almost 100,000 Iraqis who are working on reconstruction.[/I] This is from yesterdays petraues/Crocker hearings it's there words not mine
Once again, faulty analysis as well as some falsehoods. You need to compare the PMC employees against NCO/officer scales, and so your 20x figure is overstated quite a bit. Next, you need to look at the true costs for these employees. The non-salary costs for the Army for each soldier is much greater than the PMC employees: basic training, housing, schooling, etc. Blackwater and other firms pick these individuals up when they have already been trained/have experience, and so they have little training costs. So, once you take everything into consideration, the cost differential is probably on the order of a magnitude less than what you state it to be. If you were to consider the choice between “excess” excess capacity in the military vs. the flexibility to hire PMCs for specific missions, this differential closes some more.
The reality is that the land force structure of the US Army and USMC has dictated a requirement for the use of PMCs. Thus, your question about why can’t soldiers/Marines provide the security is really a red herring. This is a result of the Bush 41/Clinton peace dividend, as well as the obstinance of SecDef Rumsfeld and the Bush 43 administration in not growing the land component as soon as it became obvious to most observers that the force structure was too thin.
Lastly, most PMC employees are patriots in every sense of the word. My neighbor that was killed two years ago as a PMC employee loved the country (he had served in uniform a decade prior and was married to an active duty soldier). He wanted to pay down his house, build the college fund and retirement nest, and feel like he was contributing to his nation’s effort in Iraq. He was too old and had a medical condition that prevented re-enlistment, so that wasn’t an option. His example is not uncommon across the contractors I met in country.
I suggest that self-reflect on your comments. When challenged with stats, you continually misread them, misinterpret them, and argue that they don’t apply. You serve up a whole host of strawman and lump all respondents into a group (based on the fact that you don’t differentiate among your respondents in this message). Who is really being dogmatic?
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With Quote
As I stated above, this was a chart from an article, not a standing chart that has been discontinued. The share that is reflected is well within historical norms (not to mention above the historical average), and so your inference that there is something sinister going on is a poor one since there is no basis for it.
Share this thread with friends: