Post #28,655
2/16/02 1:15:45 PM
|
Supply side economics does not work. We are being lied to!
Rather than keep the topic on the politics where it gets ruin into the ground in fact-less flamewars, I thought I'd present a few facts here with links to "proof" as my esteemed opponents in the debate claim that I am not using?
[link|http://home.clara.net/robmorton/tli/chap10/trickle.htm|Trickle down economics, the fundamental reason why it cannot work]
[link|http://pl.net/~keithr/rf98_TrickleEconomics.html|Trickle Economics]
[link|http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/23More.htm|The rise of supply-side economics]
[link|http://www.wpi.edu/News/TechNews/010410/taxcut.shtml|Tax cuts reminisent of Reaganomics]
[link|http://www.dickinson.edu/~barr/conquestion5.html|Did trickle-down economics really trickle down?]
[link|http://www.ncpa.org/pi/taxes/pd121500c.html|Total Federal Tax Burden Remarkably Flat]
Now then, my opponents would must likely state some BS reason why these are invalid, like they are not found on CNN.COM, or PBS.ORG, or some other major news source. Even so, there has been a lot of research done on these reports, and they are based on federal and/or state income taxes, and the way the economy has gone for the past 30 or so years. Has supply-side aka trickle-down bka Reaganomics or as George H. W. Bush called it "Voodoo economics" really work? According to these sources, no, in fact it did not. It only made things worse for the poor and middle-class and there was no trickling down of wealth to the other 90% of the population. What can I saw to those who believe in supply side economics? Just two words: "Think Again!"
Face it, we have been lied to, we have been cheated, and there has been a coverup of these facts from most of the media that supply-side economics does not work and have been making it worse for the consumer.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
|
Post #28,717
2/17/02 2:11:11 AM
|
Ermm, Norm? The words came out of politician's mouths.
Ergo.......
With this much manure around, there must be a pony somewhere.
|
Post #28,721
2/17/02 3:17:01 AM
2/17/02 3:22:21 AM
|
I don't see it that way
>> "It is the demand for a labourer's skill which drives his wage level: not the profit which the application of his skill generates for his employer. High demand for a skill occurs only during the birth and initial fast growth of the new market or technology to which it applies. Once that new market or technology is established, profits rise, the required skills become abundant, wages fall, bonus employment packages disappear. The profit of the favoured few does not therefore trickle down to the wage packets of those who generate it. There is simply no force or mechanism within the capitalist system to cause it to do so." <<
That is kind of sloppy reasoning IMO. Even if things stayed the same, there is still maintenance on all the stuff. *Most* of the cost of anything that Joseph Billionare owns is *labor*. His mansion? Mostly labor. His Jaguar? Mostly labor. His fancy garden? Mostly labor.
Most countries that try to "flatten" the wealth seem to not really fix anything. They simply make it harder to find wealth because the wealthy find new ways to hide it from the gov. Or, they simply use social currency instead of material currency. The upper-class soviets did not have to wait in line not because they had more money, but because they had more political pull. It is really hard to tax that. You would have to do Volcan mind-melds to extract a Schmooze Tax.
If there was any easy way to flatten the wealth without dragging everybody down, I am all for it. Until then, don't turn is into the Philipeans or India.
________________
oop.ismad.com
Edited by tablizer
Feb. 17, 2002, 03:22:21 AM EST
|
Post #28,729
2/17/02 10:00:51 AM
|
Erm
While there is a lot of sloppy reasoning in some of those links, that wasn't a good example.
Wages, like anything else in a capitalistic system, tend to be governed by supply and demand. No matter how much money you make for your employer, if you are easily replaced then your labour is not worth much. It doesn't matter how much you make for your employer, if there is a fixed demand and a larger supply, then wages are going to suck. Ask Bill Oxley about wages for IT workers in Alaska for a concrete demonstration of this.
There are exceptions to this rule however. For instance the value of unions is that they can force companies to close the gap between what you make from them and they make from you.
Cheers,
Ben
|
Post #28,742
2/17/02 2:40:58 PM
|
As I have experienced
they want to replace IT workers with cheaper labor. So they move the helpdesk phone answering service to India or Pakistan and train the people there to speak English and use an US nickname like John, Mary, Phil, Bob, Sue, etc. They also set up IT coding shops there as well. Which means fewer native US IT workers get jobs or get those salaries they are looking for. There of course is no law that I know of that says an employer cannot move jobs overseas, or get rid of current employees and replace them with minimum wage replacements just out of college. Sure supply and demand can create the salaries, but also can management when they decide to pay a DBA $20,000USD a year when the average scale is $80,000USD a year. I've seen that in Saint Louis very much because we are not a large IT shop here. People actually work those lower paying jobs. Why? Because they have to put food on the table and they hope to get enough experience to get a better paying job later on. Management is, right now, at most companies, planning layoffs or already planned the layoffs and the big companies have laid off in the thousands. More heads will roll. Will any of them be managers that made the stupid decisions that cost the company millions? Nope! They take care of their own, so they lay off the engineers, the IT workers, the secretaries, the mailroom clerks, etc. The peons are the ones that get the boot, then just replace them with lower salaried college graduates or people willing to work for far below the average pay for the job.
If the firms and the rich are not allowing the money to trickle down, then the trickle down theory does not work!
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
|
Post #28,757
2/17/02 5:17:00 PM
|
Nice conundrum clearly stated. Unions?
That may be the simplest 'bottom' line re the question for IT or any other group:
A Y2k-version of 'Union' (or by some catchy new name) or no ???
Who Else but an org. of peers, is apt to attain the power to question, lobby such matters as the wholesale importation of serfs? Or question the unlimited-hours work-week with beeper? Or the sometimes not even 2-weeks! 'vacation' - often expected to be taken.. a couple days at a time, at employer's convenience. Many more examples available.
Given such a smart bunch and the necessary nodding acquaintance with 'logic' - I remain mystified at the general attitude seen in now many threads re 'union' or other. And the thought.. "I'm so smart I don't need no stinkin help from Anyone" - doesn't even merit lampooning. Anyone who isn't yet aware of the net decline in workers' share of the pie, over last 20ish years - has been asleep. No other civilized country provides as little vacation, demands as many unpaid hours - as in the US. (Of course that leads into the most expen$ive med. care in history of world too - YAN thread re the Q. "why must med. care + employment be conjoined"? Insurance Cos. and the lottery..)
I suspect (merely) that a large factor in clouding mens' minds re the idea of 'representation' - is related to the massive scam and FUD exemplified by the WTO. Every action since passage of related treaties has been to further cement the rule of Int'l Corps, and their evident aim to drive down all worker reimbursement everywhere and especially within the US - regardless of any local governments and their social legislation. That last is the scary part - it's working so Well.
This goes to the heart of the conundrum you put so succinctly, if you are easily replaced then your labour is not worth much. Where is the new mechanism which demands that companies close the gap between what you make from them and they make from you. ??? Economists / MBAs appear thus far - unable to think in any new ways, as they pray for 'market corrections' and other holy relics of a more naive era.
Our Maquiladores - just across the border - ought to be evidence enough of the trend and the ease with which environmental and human rights considerations are easily laterally arabesqued, often via overt bribery.
So.. do you guys still think in 2002, you can escape the epithet, if we don't all hang together, assuredly we shall all hang. Separately. ?
Just Wondering (still)
Ashton
|
Post #28,764
2/17/02 6:04:25 PM
|
Union! Right f*cking now!
But something a bit different from a Union, more like a group of workers fed up with management without all those corruption factors that a Union has.
I say we form a picket line, and get a list of Megacorps that abuse their employees and make working conditions unfair or hazardous to our health. They we send people who are uninstalled to march out in front of those Megacorps with picket signs. Signs that say "X Corp is trying to work its IT workers to death!" or "Downsize managers too!", etc. get some web sites created, get a few stories full of facts to send to the media and hope that they print it, and are not completely taken over by the Billionares Boys Club. Get the truth out there the same way that [link|http://www.infect-truth.com|Infect Truth] does about cigarette smoking. You know a Consumer Group or something that gets people to boycott the products and or services of the Megacorps that abuse its workers.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
|
Post #28,789
2/18/02 2:16:12 AM
|
Alternatives?
>> Wages, like anything else in a capitalistic system, tend to be governed by supply and demand. No matter how much money you make for your employer, if you are easily replaced then your labour is not worth much. It doesn't matter how much you make for your employer, if there is a fixed demand and a larger supply, then wages are going to suck. Ask Bill Oxley about wages for IT workers in Alaska for a concrete demonstration of this. <<
So? What is the side-effect-free solution? Recessions wouldn't be as bad if people, companies, and the gov learned to save for rough times.
Unions? Well, they are great for the people in them, but they suck for users of the unionized service. There is the joke that "Work Union" is an oxymoron.
It would be great if I.T. could be unionized, at least for the people in it. (On second thot, it is sometimes said that unionization makes work boring because risk and change is reduced. OO would be locked-in forever :-O
________________
oop.ismad.com
|
Post #28,805
2/18/02 10:28:30 AM
|
Saving up for rough times?
That is a luagh, most peons live paycheck to paycheck paying off their bills, and employers, well if they actually end up making more money then the management gets bonus checks and payraises.
A local ISP, one of my coworkers who used to work for it told me about the owner of it. The owner would pay his techs $6.50/hr and pay them $100 if they found a bug or error or problem in the system and fixed it. But when the ISP starts making money, the owner would keep writing himself a bigger check instead of sharing the wealth or using the money to expand the business or put the extra money in the bank in case the economy tanked. This is just one example about how trickle-down does not work.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
|
Post #29,017
2/20/02 12:26:17 AM
|
think thru the entire thing
(* But when the ISP starts making money, the owner would keep writing himself a bigger check instead of sharing the wealth or using the money to expand the business.... *)
That is his perrogative. He did not even have to *start* the business to begin with. What if he did not even start the biz? Think about that potential time-space path?
(* This is just one example about how trickle-down does not work. *)
It is less than perfect. But socialism generally does not seem to work very well either. If you don't like the system here, there are plenty of European countries with governments who work pretty hard to try to even things out: Everybody is equally poor and equally unemployed. There are 200+ companies. ONE of them is bound to be fairly close to your preferred level of forced equality. If not, then perhaps your expectations are not realistic.
(* That is a luagh, most peons live paycheck to paycheck paying off their bills *)
So they can pay for their cable TV, Mustangs, hotdogs, and lottery tickets. It is fairly easy to live cheap if you do things like buy bulk grain instead of processed food, shop for used clothes, take the bus, don't subscribe to cable TV, etc., and keep the phone calls down. Buying bulk grains, each meal can be around 50 cents per person! You DON'T have to pay $5 per meal to eat well (healthy).
You *don't* need cable TV to survive and only minimal phone. I am NOT saying that such a life is grand, but you can live healthy and *physically* comfortable at or below the poverty level if you simply swallow some pride, piss on local esthetics, and resist the tempations of capitalism like cell phones, rented movies, pizza delivery, etc. The biggest issues are *psychological* rather than physical.
________________
oop.ismad.com
|
Post #29,026
2/20/02 2:03:21 AM
|
No hardship at all, actually..
The only folks who have difficulty 'giving up' the logos and incessant purchase-fads are those with no {ugh} inner directedness (?) at all - others become their mirror for reflecting, "am I good enough? do I fit in properly? am I kewl-enough?" Giving in early, to child-oriented "buy me this logo" ads - guarantees an endless supply of new fodder for the machine. 4-yr.olds in Designer Jeans.
Oddly (to me) - this vast homogenization describes almost exactly.. the peer pressures of adolescence! Only here in the US of A is the same sort of conspicuous consumption as in the formatory years.. carried on unchanged, for life.
The maxed-out credit card is our symbol for: 'my right to instant gratification' (even though I get 20+% Less stuff - as each payment is due for last month's / last year's hot mall purchase.)
What I do wonder is: what will happen to our entire culture - which is based upon accelerating 'growth' of all things but especially of buying stuff as recreation and even as sustenance of what passes for 'spirit' - should enough folks discover how Well you can live! how Much of YourOwnTime (the *only* thing you actually possess..) you can reclaim and, how much freer of daily anxiety you are when -
You break the consumer habit, buy the Best of a few things you *really* enjoy (which might be Opera tickets to fishing trips). Merely for eschewing the daily flood of fad, hyped over-priced toys - now more than ever, new electronic toys.
ie. Imagine! the $3000 Tee Vee set: getting the same pabulum as your now-free 27" adequate TV - but with 5.1 channels of louder sales pitches and sit-coms. What else could $3K do? Now expand that example past the $2500 'navigation for the car', the $175 electronic shaver, the $150 tennis shoes... 50/mo for DSL?
Rest case.
Ashton
|
