Obamacare and Jobs
Feb. 9th, 2014 09:16 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
hardblue.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
politicartoons
You can find some background discussion at Talk Politics. Essentially, there was a report that some people may work less because they would not be bound to their jobs for health insurance, leaving more people free to pursue other ends. The Republicans declared that this is an example of Obamacare costing Americans jobs. Others see it as a benefit - more freedom for workers.
ETA: Ross Douthat has a good column on the issues.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:00 pm (UTC)So wait. Our heavily regulated market is considered "unfettered capitalism" in your mind?
This is what I don't get. Every regulation, every attempt to steer the economy? Those benefit the top. The "pharoah class" exists not because the capitalism is "unfettered," but because the "fettering," as it were, is inevitably something that only the pharoahs can handle. The result you want to avoid is caused by the rules you prefer.
Capitalism is good, as you say, at determining "economic winners and losers"; it is not good, though, at determining the most stable and sustainable distribution of resources. That's where that bugaboo socialism must enter the picture, to prevent an unchecked race to the top from becoming the event that topples a top-heavy economy.
Wow. That's pretty much the exact opposite of everything we know about economics.
Tell me, when there's a natural disaster and price controls are put on water, what do we find? Do we find fair distribution, or do we find shortages? Were the gas panics of the 1970s solved by rationing?
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:27 pm (UTC)stop your fucking lying."
Minimum fucking wage. Child labor laws. Safe water laws.
regulations AGAINST hydrofracking.
these are somehow benefits to the top?
You yourself decry minimum wage laws as they tamper with the unfettered free market. You WISH people could take a job for $2/hour, cause, ya know, it's fun money or some-shit that your middle class white privileged ass fantasizes someone might want.
There are regulations that benefit the top, but there are regulations that benefit the bottom (min wage, OSHA, mandatory overtime, that kinda stuff)
And you and your ilk, lump them all together, when it fits their purposes and then you defend whichever loopholes defend your purposes as being important to the integrity of the free market.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:29 pm (UTC)Indeed. Why? A large company can better distribute the costs of those laws. Paying some register jockey $10/hr can be handled better by a large firm than the mom and pop down the street. Larger firms can invest to mitigate safe water laws, fracking rules, and so on. It's a barrier to entry.
It's absolutely there to reduce competition. It's why you see large companies in favor of these regulations.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:34 pm (UTC)Mom-and-Pop stores are the ones that already pay over the minimum wage for the most part. Some don't, sure, but ya know what, if your store can only make a profit BY PAYING PEOPLE POVERTY WAGES, then you need to go the fuck out of business.
And I'm sorry, Wal-Mart and other BIG COMPANIES are not in favor of raising the MW for fucks sake you make up any sort of shit at all, won't you?
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:39 pm (UTC)It's old news (http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/25/news/fortune500/walmart_wage/) for Wal-Mart, at least.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:56 pm (UTC)And if you weren't such a bought-and-paid-for-shill, you'd saying something and doing something are rather different.
Wal-Mart could pay their employees more. It does not.
Sam's Club and Costco are using the same business model, right?
How much does Costco pay it's employees? How much does Sam's Club?
For fucks sake you are a blind partisan hack.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 09:14 pm (UTC)Oh.
Sam's Club and Costco are using the same business model, right?
How much does Costco pay it's employees? How much does Sam's Club?
Kudos for understanding that Sam's and Costco, and not Wal-Mart and Costco, are in competition.
To answer the question, though, they have different business models. They're both membership-based warehouse wholesale retailers, but Costco has roughly 10% of the SKUs of its competitors (http://investorplace.com/2012/10/costco-is-more-than-low-prices/), thus offering an entirely different experience. They also target higher income customers and workers, so the combination of all these things means very low profit margins (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=COST+Key+Statistics) as much of their profit is eaten up by labor costs and minimal selection. So Costco pays an average of $20/hr (http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/123856-costco-ceo-craig-jelinek-leads-the-cheapest-happiest-company-in-the-world) with Sam's paying much less than that on average. Costco sacrifices sales for a different experience for a different clientele, so the ability to compare the two are somewhat limited.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-10 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-10 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-10 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 09:04 pm (UTC)What "heavily regulated market"? Yes, we have some regulations here and there; but the important ones got ignored and gutted starting in 1980 (for banking, at least). The 1933 Banking Act was 38 pages; today's banking regs are over 7,000 and counting upward, yet they still don't prohibit the most dangerous banking practices as the 1933 Act did.
Why? Profit. Short-term, enormous, and destabilizing profit. Allow the regulated to write the rules pertaining to their actions, and allow them to obfuscate enough to dissuade any research into the actual policies written, and allow them to fund the campaigns of those passing the regs into law, and you have today.
(Your second paragraph appears to be complete blathering nonsense. I have no idea what point you were trying to make, and won't bother to impose an interpretation. Moving on.)
Wow. That's pretty much the exact opposite of everything we know about economics.
"We?" No, maybe "you," but I can assure you I've heard and read some excellent economists that can confirm what I've said. Just as it's useless to have no rules in a game, it's dangerous to have no checks on excess. Life should not be Calvinball.
Were the gas panics of the 1970s solved by rationing?
The gas panics were largely caused by the wrong regs. There were price controls on gasoline at the time; price controls that limited what sellers could charge. Since the country's crude supply had peaked in 1970, once the OPEC nations turned down the taps, the shortage was immediate, but worse, the gas companies couldn't charge enough to slow consumption.
Maximum pricing might work in a world with unlimited crude, but in 1973 all the rules changed. Thus, rationing was needed as a temporary means of preventing outright supply shocks to many parts of the country. The maximum prices (and other silly regs) were repealed later.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 09:18 pm (UTC)The one here in the United States.
(Your second paragraph appears to be complete blathering nonsense. I have no idea what point you were trying to make, and won't bother to impose an interpretation. Moving on.)
You went on and on about unfettered capitalism and a "pharoah class." Regulations benefit that pharoah class, not unfettered capitalism.
"We?" No, maybe "you," but I can assure you I've heard and read some excellent economists that can confirm what I've said.
I'm sure you have, but it's still the opposite of everything we know.
The gas panics were largely caused by the wrong regs...Since the country's crude supply had peaked in 1970
This is just 1200% false. It's so false, I made a typo there when I tried to say 100%, but it's actually more accurate to keep it where it is. We're not at peak now, and we certainly weren't then, but we've done this before.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-09 10:05 pm (UTC)Since that pharaoh class currently writes its own regs, thus unfettering capitalism for itself in each niche capitalism has provided, this is no contradiction. Since you continue to deny corporate capture, though, we have nothing new to discuss here.
I'm sure you have, but it's still the opposite of everything
we knowI insist is true despite ample evidence that it is not.FTFY.
We're not at peak now, and we certainly weren't then, but we've done this before.
We were then and probably are now; but yes, why repeat the back and forth? My point in mentioning it hear was to note how misguided your example was as a market phenomenon. If water were regulated to prevent selling at a market price, as gas was in the '70s, that example would apply as well.