Minimum wage and unions

There is no way determine objectively and equitably what's "best" for the "society". You are just using the same nebulous justification that all totalitarians have relied on for violating individual sovereignty throughout history.

"Free choice" is used in a specific context here, that is, the context of "market economics". In that context, "free choice" is understood to be limited by the equal right of others to engage equally in "free choice". I understand if you were unaware of this fact, but now that you know better, you must understand why your hypothetical choice to sleep with a twelve-year-old is complicated by issues of consent, something that is very important within the context of "natural law" and "market economics". So, when I ask, why are you against "free choice", I am asking why one is opposed to mutually voluntary exchange and association engaged in by consenting individuals within the broader marketplace. Your response, that it's not "best" for the "society", is fluff.

 

The NLRA does not balance things out it plays favorites and skews things, like the government always does. If violence erupts the guilty party should be thrown in jail for their crimes, thats the amount of government intervention that should happen.

And that law should be changed, look at New York's padded room for teachers, those who have done terminating offenses but get paid and sit in a room instead because unions protect them. Unnecessary costs to both the union members and the tax payers. Unions would benefit by doing things like not protecting employees who show up to work drunk or stoned.

Isn't the government the entity we put in charge of protecting us? How could it possibly violate the rights of its employees to requires the use of a union? What I do love is that there is a union that represents union members against unions. Thats fun!

 

I never said he was perfect, only that he opposed public sector unions. As an economic and political darling of the contemporary leftist movement, his opinion on the matter should be entirely relevant. If you wish to point out the numerous shortcomings of FDR, whether it was his dictatorial tendencies, or his utter ignorance of basic market economics, then I will not stop you, but I must point out how relevant his shortcomings are to my argument for practical purposes.

That's because FDR was a buffoon who knew very little about private enterprise. Of course, FDR was a trust-fund baby who married a wealthy woman, so it's no surprise that he was clueless about basic business mechanics.

Yes, maybe he fantasized about having sex with black men, too. Isn't speculation fun?

 

Sure there is. What do you think the Stimulus Bill was based on? Something tangible; the economy tanking such that we expect negative growth in the GDP being in the range of X, and thus to fill the gap, government spends X +. And indeed it's good for the society, since it builds confidence and gets thing going north again, which it did and is measurable in terms of increased employment and investment.

Ditto on minimum wage, which can be done mathematically: From $7.25 to $9 effects about 13 million workers, combining workers from $7.25 to $8.99, all of whom are directly affected, not to mention, some will be bumped up who need to be at higher than minimum wage, to retain them, since leaving them at a wage they can get anywhere esle in town, at a minimum, will not retain them. So the extent to which that will happen is anyone's guess (wait and see). But the direct impact, the amount of additional spending, the expected hiring to meet the increased demand, are all predictable to a pretty accurate to a degree, however, other ebbs and flows are at play too, so the net affect is something we can watch and course-correct if need be, if we could merely act in the best interest of the country (raise consumption to a level where we reach full employment) and not have to deal with the political aspect (consumers fearing $15 Big Mac, which is abjectly retarded) and of course the GOP being in mental-lockdown in opposition of anything of the sort.

But to suggest it's something nebulous is patently absurd, and merely exposes the depth of your ignorance on matters of political economics.

 

If there was, then no one would disagree on what is "best" for "society", would they? The very fact that billions of individuals throughout history have been arguing over just that demonstrates there is no "objective" or "equitable" way to ascertain what is "best" (a subjective value judgment) for "society" (an abstract concept).

This is all speculative nonsense. You have no way to test any of these claims.

Speculation based upon assumptions. Please say something substantive for once!

 

Some might choose to be ignorant. But indeed, we'll always have a degree of disagreement, even on things which are a concensus and widely accepted: we need more and better-paying jobs, which few question, and even some understand, as I do, the effect of consumer spending on employment and investor/lender confidence (risk-taking).

The GOP, which seems controlled by a single mind (that of Grover Norquist) is convinced, and even Obama seems to support for some stupid reason, at least publicly, however he's coming around at last to the problem (+FMW), is that people need to lift themselves up. Create loan programs for colleges and private companies selling worthless "degrees." Tell kids they need to be more interested in math and science, while the only growing prospects in our economy are heavily in retail services. So I can only imagine how helpful advanced calculous will be when working the aisles in Walmart or Home Depot. But what that ignores is jobs are what they are, for the society. The only affect is on individuals, such as me working at Walmart and you at JPL, or vice versa. In such a comparison, it could be great for you or me, but its a zero net effect for the country. In short, go to college and get a better job and you merely displace someone else getting the job. It's worker musical chairs, and nothing else.

So what we need to do, desperately is making the jobs we have better-paying, which worked wonders following the Great Depression. Bear in mind, these were poverty wage workers who via the minimum wage and union negotiation merely demanded better pay, for the same work. No other justification was made, other than, workers demanded a better wage and way of life. Same worker, same job, and more money, and we created the envy of the friggin world: The Great American Middle Class, which has been allowed to wither on the vine, in service of stupid dogma in economics drag (Supply Side, etc.)

 

It's not a matter of "ignorance" but of variation in individual perception. A term like "best" is itself a subjective measurement, so your statement defies objectivity on its face. There is no universal or conventional "best" that we can refer to, and the observational unit in this case, i.e., society, is nothing more than a nebulous abstraction, so to say something is "best for society" is to assert one's subjective opinion as superior to everyone else's, which is, of course, ridiculously arrogant.

An incoherent blob of self-serving assertions and tangential ranting. Nothing to do with anything we're discussing, really.

 

Hardly (subjective). Take the highest and lowest points in unemployment. You now know best and worst.

So you aim for best and thus do better by default.

 

In your opinion, perhaps. I guess you just don't know that your opinion is an opinion, and that asserting it as correct does not actually mean it is correct. Anyone can assert their opinion as fact. For instance, I could disagree with your assertion and say, no, you should take the highest and lowest points in the personal savings rates, and that those constitute the "best" and "worst" measurements. My opinion is just as valid as yours is. I guess as you become wiser and humbler, if indeed you do, you'll realize that opinions are subjective and cannot be "correct" in a technical sense unless we share certain assumptions which clearly we do not. So you can keep repeating your opinions and pretending that they are superior to everyone else's in the world, but that will not make it true.

You "aim" for the "best"? Who is doing this "aiming"? Central planners? Politicians?

 

Yes. Our elected representatives.

Did they teach civics where you went to school?

 

Why do you oppose anyones right to own their collective labor?

Do you think no one has the right to own collective labor?

 

The first mistake you make is assuming that politicians know what is in your best interest, everyone has different wants and needs. It is up to individuals to decide what is in our own interest. It may not really be, but thats for them to decide, not you.

Second mistake is you assume politicians really care for you at all.
If this is true why do they write bills behind close doors, pass them without giving people enough time to read them, including other politicians like themselves before voting on them. We can also look at countless examples of them doing something that is against the best interest of US citizens. Like passing laws that allows the government "them" to detain US citizens indefinitely without trial? Then we can also look at historical examples of politicians around the world... even elected ones doing horrible things to the citizens they are supposed to represent.

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People in this country already own their labor, they choose who to work for and agree to the amount the employer is willing to pay. If not they can take their labor elsewhere or use it for themselves, and make their own business.

 

That wasn't my question was it?

You just told me who owns individual labor, who owns collective labor?

If workers must negotiate on their own, then why is any store or business allowed to be more then 1 store?

Why do they get the advantages of leverage gained through centralization, but not workers?

 

Agreed; until the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1948 which tipped the scales in favor of management. Until then it was fair and balanced.

Outside of the teachers unions I don't know of any "padded rooms"; in most unionized shops, if you come into work drunk or high, its recognized that you'll suffer the loss of your job. The union only has to represent you, not defend your actions. In most cases, the employee is terminated immediately and if the union feels it has a case otherwise, it has the right to challenge it in front of an arbitrator. You'll never have that option in a non-union shop.

 

What in the world makes you think politicians are better than markets at pricing goods and services?

 

I don't. I oppose using government force to arbitrarily set prices for labor because of some perceived imbalance between public and private sector workers. I favor letting the free market decide prices, not some central planner or crooked politician. You pay lip service to liberty, but you advocate using government force to set artificial prices for public sector unions. You are a walking contradiction!

 

No you are one of these people who believe the government gives unions some special rights, beyond the ability to enter into a contract.

The only problem with public unions is that the person they are negotiating the contract with, has no skin in the game. Where as with private unions the person negotiating the contract gets paid based on profits which labor costs effect.

But go ahead and keep selling the lie, that unions do anything other then enter into a binding contract for their collective labor!

 

So you deny the government has been kowtowing to unions. Must be nice living in a fantasy world...

 

This is not what you just claimed. You claimed the act of being a union gave the union, through government intervention, the ability to set unfair labor compensation.

If you have a problem with lobbying and campaign finance, I 100% agree.

If you want to pretend unions are the only ones using campaign fiance, and lobbying to corrupt our country, then I call you a turn coat traitor that roots for his party over his country!

 

And, of course, that is true. The government, at both the state and federal level, has written plenty of legislation favorable to unions. Many of these labor laws give unions leverage they would otherwise lack in a free, competition-based market. Nobody has a "right" to FORCE a potential or current employer into "good faith" bargaining, or to prevent an employer from moving their operations elsewhere (Boeing being violated by the NLRB). If you think the government hasn't been intervening in favor of unions then you are just living in denial!

 

Boeing and the NLRB ruling is a prime example of you not knowing what you are talking about. Boeing was on record in a verbal contract stating all 787 production would remain in the Puget Sound. Notice how this didn't stand up in court and their is a production facility in SC.

Name me the rules that give the union special rights in negotiating a contract, or S T F U!

 

Just popping in for a quick second...

In at least 4 states, Pennsylvania being one of them, the state governments forbid employers from preventing unionization of their employees and must allow union access to their business.

Moreover, unions are also exempt in many states from racketeering charges.

Okay...carry on.

 

Any language in any piece of legislation that compels employers to enter into negotiations of any sort with labor unions. For instance, language compelling "good faith" bargaining is a classic privilege bestowed on unionized labor. It places preconditions and limits on the ability of employers to create specific compensation packages. Anytime the employer does something the union doesn't like, the union can just drag them into "labor court" (another state-granted privilege to labor unions) and basically jam up the basic operations of government; we have seen unions take whole swaths of infrastructure hostage when their petulant demands are not met. Essentially, it is a violation of the employer's right to enter into voluntary exchange and association. Of course, you probably benefit from unions in some way, so that is probably why you are so blind to the favors they receive!

 

To the first point companies should be prevented from stopping people from owning their collective labor.

As to the racketeering thing, that is interesting. Would like to read up more on that if you have some sources.

Being that you have a law background, can you tell me if legal actions by a union could be considered racketeering by certain definitions?

 

If workers for a private company want to bargain collectively for wages i have no problem for them doing such, but companies should be allowed to say no thanks we will find other workers if you don't like our offer. Government should not be involved in this.