should minimum wage be mandated?

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Yeah, and if Diuretic's pet butterfly flaps it's wings in Australia my balls itch.

That doesn't seem relevant.

 

[Polk]

Yeah, if only they had spent more! Then any recovery could have been delayed another 10 years.

If they had stuck with it the first time, they would have rebounded much more quickly.

The fact that when the government "stimulates" the downturns last longer have been proven over and over. The Great Depression, Japan's "Lost Decade," and our current recession are perfect examples. It was not for a lack of spending that they lasted so long, that's ridiculous.

I love how you guys feel that if you assert things, they magically become true. The Great Depression is the strongest argument against your position. Hoover increases spending slightly, but not nearly enough, the economy continues to tailspin. FDR vastly increases spending and the economy rallies. Industrial and farm production shoot up. FDR then decides, on the advice of people like you, to cut spending. This sets off another recession.

 

[manifold]

Yeah, and if Diuretic's pet butterfly flaps it's wings in Australia my balls itch.

That doesn't seem relevant.

So that means it's about as worthy as your obviously uneducated, completely ignorant ramblings.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

If they had stuck with it the first time, they would have rebounded much more quickly.

The fact that when the government "stimulates" the downturns last longer have been proven over and over. The Great Depression, Japan's "Lost Decade," and our current recession are perfect examples. It was not for a lack of spending that they lasted so long, that's ridiculous.

I love how you guys feel that if you assert things, they magically become true. The Great Depression is the strongest argument against your position. Hoover increases spending slightly, but not nearly enough, the economy continues to tailspin. FDR vastly increases spending and the economy rallies. Industrial and farm production shoot up. FDR then decides, on the advice of people like you, to cut spending. This sets off another recession.

Yet haven't you simply asserted that you were correct? Whereas I've at least explained how government "stimulus" actually hurts the economy.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Yeah, and if Diuretic's pet butterfly flaps it's wings in Australia my balls itch.

That doesn't seem relevant.

So that means it's about as worthy as your obviously uneducated, completely ignorant ramblings.

Sure. Yet you who've "studied" this for years can't accurately define a free market, and thought that even the most "extreme" free market economists bought into the Keynesian nonsense that government spending stimulates the economy.

 

[manifold]

They do.

 

[auditor0007]

Yes, I know that wealth is only created in the private sector. Do you not understand that government spending finds it's way into the private sector where it can be used to create wealth? I agree that the Keynsian model is neither efficient nor sustainable long-term, but to deny that government spending stimulates the economy is, like I said, wholly ignorant.

It finds its way to the private sector via the government, which does not efficiently allocate resources. Only the market can efficiently allocate resources, and the government doing so is doomed to failure. If you'd bother to read Hazlitt or Bastiat you would understand why this doesn't stimulate the economy. But as Bastiat said, "Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen and also of those which it is necessary to foresee."

Not to take this too far off of subject, but we have seen how efficient the private market has been when it comes to healthcare. Nearly 50% of our healthcare dollars in the private sector goes to things other than actual healthcare. Not exactly what I would call great efficiency. For the most part, I agree that government is not the best way to allocate resources, but there are times when the goverenment does need to play a significant role.

 

[Polk]

The fact that when the government "stimulates" the downturns last longer have been proven over and over. The Great Depression, Japan's "Lost Decade," and our current recession are perfect examples. It was not for a lack of spending that they lasted so long, that's ridiculous.

I love how you guys feel that if you assert things, they magically become true. The Great Depression is the strongest argument against your position. Hoover increases spending slightly, but not nearly enough, the economy continues to tailspin. FDR vastly increases spending and the economy rallies. Industrial and farm production shoot up. FDR then decides, on the advice of people like you, to cut spending. This sets off another recession.

Yet haven't you simply asserted that you were correct? Whereas I've at least explained how government "stimulus" actually hurts the economy.

You haven't explained anything. Stimulus helps the economy in the short-run because it fills the gap in private spending.

 

[auditor0007]

Yeah, if only they had spent more! Then any recovery could have been delayed another 10 years.

If they had stuck with it the first time, they would have rebounded much more quickly.

The fact that when the government "stimulates" the downturns last longer have been proven over and over. The Great Depression, Japan's "Lost Decade," and our current recession are perfect examples. It was not for a lack of spending that they lasted so long, that's ridiculous.

This recession is nowhere near being over. And let's be clear, the housing market and credit bust is the cause. From what I am reading, there are still another 7 million homes that will go through foreclosure before the housing market bottoms out. And until that happens, this economy is going nowhere fast. While the stimulus package may not be bringing about an immediate turnaround, it is keeping things from getting much worse, which is something that could well have happened.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

They do.

Clearly.

Ludwig von Mises Institute - Homepage

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Yes, I know that wealth is only created in the private sector. Do you not understand that government spending finds it's way into the private sector where it can be used to create wealth? I agree that the Keynsian model is neither efficient nor sustainable long-term, but to deny that government spending stimulates the economy is, like I said, wholly ignorant.

It finds its way to the private sector via the government, which does not efficiently allocate resources. Only the market can efficiently allocate resources, and the government doing so is doomed to failure. If you'd bother to read Hazlitt or Bastiat you would understand why this doesn't stimulate the economy. But as Bastiat said, "Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference--the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen and also of those which it is necessary to foresee."

Not to take this too far off of subject, but we have seen how efficient the private market has been when it comes to healthcare. Nearly 50% of our healthcare dollars in the private sector goes to things other than actual healthcare. Not exactly what I would call great efficiency. For the most part, I agree that government is not the best way to allocate resources, but there are times when the goverenment does need to play a significant role.

Except we don't have a free market in healthcare. Not even close.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I love how you guys feel that if you assert things, they magically become true. The Great Depression is the strongest argument against your position. Hoover increases spending slightly, but not nearly enough, the economy continues to tailspin. FDR vastly increases spending and the economy rallies. Industrial and farm production shoot up. FDR then decides, on the advice of people like you, to cut spending. This sets off another recession.

Yet haven't you simply asserted that you were correct? Whereas I've at least explained how government "stimulus" actually hurts the economy.

You haven't explained anything. Stimulus helps the economy in the short-run because it fills the gap in private spending.

Actually I have. After manifold refused to read Bastiat or Hazlitt, and I assume you haven't either, I explained the gist of what they were saying, though I still highly recommend reading both.

 

[manifold]

I said extreme supply-side, free market economists. I said nothing about extreme retards.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

If they had stuck with it the first time, they would have rebounded much more quickly.

The fact that when the government "stimulates" the downturns last longer have been proven over and over. The Great Depression, Japan's "Lost Decade," and our current recession are perfect examples. It was not for a lack of spending that they lasted so long, that's ridiculous.

This recession is nowhere near being over. And let's be clear, the housing market and credit bust is the cause. From what I am reading, there are still another 7 million homes that will go through foreclosure before the housing market bottoms out. And until that happens, this economy is going nowhere fast. While the stimulus package may not be bringing about an immediate turnaround, it is keeping things from getting much worse, which is something that could well have happened.

It needs to get worse. The recession, or bust, is the period where the market tries to reallocate resources from where they shouldn't be to where they need to go. The longer we try to hold off this correction the longer we're going to remain stagnant. You may not like the medicine but you still need to take it.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I said extreme supply-side, free market economists. I said nothing about extreme retards.

Well you're proving you're in a class all on your own in that regard.

 

[manifold]

Relative to you that's for damn sure.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Relative to you that's for damn sure.

You've clearly demonstrated your absolute breadth of knowledge in this thread and have successfully and completely defeated me intellectually. Good work.

 

[manifold]

At least you understand sarcasm more than you do economics.

 

[ihopehefails]

I personally am against the min wage for many reasons (and its not because I hate poor people) but when you raise the price of anything above what people want to pay for it then it kills all demand. Whenever min wage has been raised there has always been an uptick in umemployment.

 

[The Rabbi]

PLEASE NOTE!

February 15, 1995
50 Years of Research on the Minimum Wage
Introduction

For many years it has been a matter of conventional wisdom among economists that the minimum wage causes fewer jobs to exist than would be the case without it. This is simply a matter of price theory, taught in every economics textbook, requiring no elaborate analysis to justify. Were this not the case, there would be no logical reason why the minimum wage could not be set at $10, $100, or $1 million per hour.

Historically, defenders of the minimum wage have not disputed the disemployment effects of the minimum wage, but argued that on balance the working poor were better off. In other words, the higher incomes of those with jobs offset the lower incomes of those without jobs, as a result of the minimum wage [See, for example, Levitan and Belous, (1979)].

Now, the Clinton Administration is advancing the novel economic theory that modest increases in the minimum wage will have no impact whatsoever on employment. This proposition is based entirely on the work of three economists: David Card and Alan Krueger of Princeton, and Lawrence Katz of Harvard. Their studies of increases in the minimum wage in California, Texas and New Jersey apparently found no loss of jobs among fast food restaurants that were surveyed before and after the increase [See Card (1992b), Card and Krueger (1994), and Katz and Krueger (1992)].

While it is not yet clear why Card, Katz and Krueger got the results that they did, it is clear that their findings are directly contrary to virtually every empirical study ever done on the minimum wage. These studies were exhaustively surveyed by the Minimum Wage Study Commission, which concluded that a 10% increase in the minimum wage reduced teenage employment by 1% to 3%.

The following survey of the academic research on the minimum wage is designed to give nonspecialists a sense of just how isolated the Card, Krueger and Katz studies are. It will also indicate that the minimum wage has wide-ranging negative effects that go beyond unemployment. For example, higher minimum wages encourage employers to cut back on training, thus depriving low wage workers of an important means of long-term advancement, in return for a small increase in current income. For many workers this is a very bad trade-off, but one for which the law provides no alternative.

50 Years of Research on the Minimum Wage

Did you actually read this post? It completely destroys your argument.
And the reason why the studies did not find a loss is because they surveyed businesses "before and after" the min wage hike.
The did not, and could not, survey businesses that had closed after the hike. And that is the killer right there. Businesses that are only marginally profitable become unprofitable and close with increases in labor costs.