Re: OT: This is why there are "denialists"...

On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:00:17 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:32:01 +0100, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

large numbers of people willing to work for a pitance because the
alternative was starving. And the Irish potato famine caused an influx
of Irish workers prepared to work for even less.

The hard line free market behaviour that you so enthusiastically endorse
was exactly what made the Irish potato famine so very bad. Ireland was
*exporting* food at the time because they could get a better price.

Why do you think I endorse "hard line free market behaviour?" That's
absurd.

Hard line free market is the American way.

Which means that all Americans universally endorse it? 300 million
people thinking as one? Ever hear of the Sherman Antitrust Act?
Consumer protection agencies?



If you can get someone to
work for less than a living wage then there is more profit for the
business owner. No sense of fairness - exploit every advantage to the
maximum for immediate short term profit no matter who gets hurt or what
the long term damage (same lack of ethics apply to city traders).

Now you're raving.

If a society is not overall productive enough to provide adequately
for everyone, it's impossible to pay everyone a "living wage" because
there's not enough food and stuff to go around. Money is paper and you
can't eat it. Any employer who pays double for equivalent labor will
soon be out of business. If technology raises productivity enough that
everyone can be well off, employers will have to compete for skilled
labor, and they will. Your moralizing can't change the law of
conservation of stuff. I'm sort of shocked that you don't seem to
understand anything this simple.

Things like minimum wage laws and labor protections have usually come
*after* big increases in productivity and wages. They are more of an
equalizer for the least skilled workers than a means to lift the
entire workforce... which indeed they can't do. Ditto lecture on
simplicity.





This also brings us back to the theme of AGW "denialists" and the
banking crisis.

What I "endorse" is doing what works best for everyone,
especially the poorest.

That isn't clear from what you write. But here we are in agreement.

Then the discussion should be about what works best, not who is good
and who is evil. My company spends a good chunk of its profit (and a
good chunk of money this year, when we have no profit) on Doctors
Without Borders and sending girls to school in Africa and housing and
training homeless single mothers. But those are short-term acts. Only
education and productivity and economic freedom can produce widespread
wealth.


One thing that doesn't work is government
policy that discourages job creation...

And here too.

and we have a lot of such
policies, many based on jealousy

An example would be helpful. I can think of plenty of bad UK legislation
but not caused by jealousy. It is inevitable as I see it that the
poorest and disabled have to be helped by the rest of the population.

Inheritance taxes that destroy family businesses. Corporate income
tax, which exports jobs. Obama's suggestion to eliminate tax
deductions for charitable giving. High income tax rates that make tax
avoidance more profitable than creating new wealth.

On a global goodness basis, exporting jobs may be the best form of
charity, so whether it's good or bad depends on how nationalistic you
are. One unemployed US steelworker or British coal miner may lift
three Chinese families out of poverty.

The poor and disabled should have jobs, not just support, so that can
feel productive, even if they actually aren't. Once they are working,
some will look for better jobs.



How you arrange taxation is a matter for debate. It is crucial that you
get a monotonically increasing return on working harder. UK tax system
has in the past created poverty traps for the poorest where it made
sense not to earn too much or you would be working for nothing. Clear
madness.

Everyone should have an upward differential incentive to be
productive, be happy, and take care of their family, and not damage
others. And that incentive should add to social good, especially as
applies to the richest and most productive people, who can do the most
good. Tax policy is rarely this enlightened. It is usually "fair"
which is often as not destructive.


The main problem at the moment is that for multinationals looking to
downsize in Europe it is very much easier to fire British workers than
German or French ones. At the moment the exchange rate is preventing the
worst but in a febrile market cash rich giants are buying up steel
plants with the intention of mothballing them until the market picks up.
And making all the workers redundant in the meantime.

California appears to be a bit of a basket case at the moment issuing
IOUs since it is effectively bankrupt. And that is with a GOP in power.

The budget is written and passed by the legislature, which is majority
Democratic. The 2/3 rule for passing a budget, and the threat of
Arnie's veto, keeps the dems from simply hiking taxes to balance the
budget. Good. The real problem is the number of and the salaries of
direct and indirect State employees, driven by the power of the
various labor unions and advocacy groups.

Once government gets big enough, its employees can wield enormous
political power, and they act in their own interests.


and some bizarre concepte of
fairness.

The concept of fairness was what set the Quaker family businesses apart
from the rest of the Victorian industrialists. They made excellent
sustainable profits *and* paid their workers enough to live on. They
also built what were for the time spectacularly good living environments
for their loyal and talented workforce. They recruited only the best.

Sure. "Only the best" employees can be enormously productive so can be
paid well. What you describe as moral enlightenment is, to me, just a
shrewd niche business strategy, just the way I run my business. That's
easy; cherry-pick the best workers and pay them competitive salaries.
But what happens to the less intelligent, less "loyal and talented",
less healthy and energetic workers? They are the real problem.

That model doesn't scale.



Bournville for example built by the Cadburys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville


I'd have a few more employees except that government regs discourage
it.

There is always a tension between the rights of the employer and the
rights of the employee. Without some government regulation the Golden
Rule applies - the guy with the gold makes the rules.

My limited experience of US employment practice was that you could
pretty much hire and fire on a whim. Has that changed?

In California, an employer can hire and fire at will, unless there's a
union or other contract to the contrary, or some specific
discrimination law or such involved. That seems fair to me, since an
employee can quit at will, without notice, no matter how much it hurts
the employer.

If an employee is laid off, he gets unemployment payments, through
insurance funded by the employer... a good reason to keep the head
count down. If he is fired "for cause", he doesn't. Mere incompetence
is not "cause."


John


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