He's referring to the impact of monopsony, where companies gain the upper hand in setting market wages because they essentially dominate those markets. In underemployment (high unemployment) periods, its impact can worsen. This explains the topic a little better if you care to read it. It's a bit long. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.go...e/files/20161025_labor_mrkt_monopsony_cea.pdf
I asked the same thing multiple times. It's great in theory, but much tougher to put pen to paper and quantify it. I should clarify. Textbooks describe tiny mining towns where the mine company is pretty much the only employer, with the exception of small support businesses and local restaurants, banks, bars, etc. That mining company really controls wages in the town because where else will people work? It works well in the textbook, but not so well on main street.
“If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.” - W.C. Fields When neither work, I usually place them on my ignore list.
under-payment: Being paid less than what was agreed upon. over-payment: Being paid more than what was agreed upon. Price fixing is illegal. Is NOT a minimum wage price fixing?
So if he's failing to dazzle you with brilliance, how's he doing on the alternate technique? After looking at what you and @Longshot have been responding to, note the use of the word 'cunning'. cunning 1. having or showing skill in achieving one's ends by deceit or evasion. 2. skill in achieving one's ends by deceit.
That would seem to imply labour as being a product, but the difference in types of labour being performed varies greatly. Have we today become more easily dazzled by bullshit, and baffled by brilliance?
Richer, eh? Just an example of what a crock that is.... "Two facts debunk the myth of a US economic recovery after the 2008 crash: (1) net worth of households (assets minus debts) is far lower today than in 2007; (2) 30.4% of families (more than ever) have zero or negative non-home net worth." https://www.axios.com/americans-owe...277-9a755b0c-edd1-4abe-a9e9-1f7d1b632978.html
Tell me, just what do you call being supported by tax revenue? Are you saying the food stamp recipient is not on "welfare"? Long ago there was a person running for Sec't. of Ag. in the State in Iowa. He received an annual subsidy from the State as a soybean farmer, and was seeking to be the Sec't. of Ag. because the current Sec't. would not use State funds to test farm, land for Soybean Mites. When I asked him about the subsidy as a form of "welfare" he said I should be glad he got the money since he used it to pay his property taxes. So, in the long run the taxpayer was paying his taxes for him. When I mentioned that he hung up on me. Then too, you have the same attitude as he did. In your feeble attempt to dissuade the argument you seem to think the working poor do not earn the assistance they get. In the general sense, any form of payment from the government derived from taxation is a form of "welfare". And the idea that those who receive such payments pay taxes is pure fantasy since their entire income is based on tax revenue, and to return a part of that revenue is not paying taxes. BTW, I used to be a government "worker". USDA Loan Officer.
The difference is earned vs unearned. Surely you understand the difference. Subsidy is unearned. What do you call the portion of my taxes from the small business I own? Earned income tax? Just like my other taxes? Hmmm...twist it how you like, but it's earned income regardless if the payer is also the tax collector or not. If your pay at USDA was welfare, perhaps you should have worked for it instead.
If you are a tax collector, tax pays you and not the other way round. If I give you £10 and you return £1, you have not paid me £1, I have paid you £9. I too have worked in both public and private sectors and public sector = overpaid underworked..... and moaning like a good un about how exploited they all are. I was simply ashamed of myself every day I had the job. Living in shame.
Would you feel the same way if the payer were legally recognized as a thief as opposed to a legitimate taker?
Is that really the difference you would hinge your answer on? I'm not trying to corner you here, just to invite you to entertain an exercise similar to that of Hart's critique of Austin's command theory(by which law is a command backed by a threat), where he likens government to a gunman in a bank and tries to elucidate the differences.
I asked because I wanted to understand the angle you're coming from before really answering. If we had an alternative, I'd be all for it, but I understand your point. No way out of taxation at the federal level because of our debt-based monetary system. I'm not a fan, but I also don't see it going away.
Just as the power structure hoped for and designed. 130 million smart phone super computer toys in their pockets makes them the commodities, feverish mass consumption tools and under surveillance subjects the empire requires.
Yes. Don Corleone subsidies good causes locally. As does ISIS, the Taliban and my own government. There is a way out of taxation. But you might not like it. Might not be willing to pay that price. Two or three ways really. No.1 The outlaw life. Live in the black economy. No.2 The good life. Drop out. Become self sufficient. Live on a farm and don't trade with others. As an individual or as a commune. Hippy style or like the Ammish. No.3 The War of Independence. Open revolt. 1&2 are in my play book. 3? I'd rather pay taxes.
You're repeating the error. I haven't referred to, for example, 'company towns'. I've referred directly to modern monopsony theory which shows how, despite competition and no notion of a 'single buyer', wage making power is still derived. There are numerous explanations behind that, but the most obvious is arguably job search. This dynamic form of monopsony, where we simply drop the ludicrous assumption of perfect knowledge in supply and demand, derives an upward sloping labour supply curve through the impact of job search frictions. The end result is what I've already mentioned: all labour markets will exhibit monopsony effects and, unlike the 'company town' approach, we actually expect it to be more severe in markets characterised by higher competition and lower concentration rates. This goes back to the likes of Burdett and Mortensen, who confirm that dynamic monopsony can partially explain the positive relationship between firm size and wage rates. Wrong again! Modern monopsony theory is actually the result of labour economics failure to understand empirical phenomena. They couldn't, for example, explain why wage differentials existed for workers with the same human capital characteristics. Using other forms of market failure, such as discrimination, failed to explain the magnitude of those differentials. The likes of dynamic monopsony provides a means to understand why the market wage does not exist. As mentioned a couple of times already, you didn't factor in how monopsony impacts on all markets. You're making time series comment without understanding the starting point. Thus, when we approach full employment, we don't see underpayment disappear. Instead we see greater bargaining power (and therefore, at best, reductions in the size of underpayment). I also demonstrated, however, that those time series effects are not automatic. British workers have instead seen greater underpayment (plus increases in phenomena such as working poverty) despite relatively low unemployment rates. Perfect competition is neither achievable or desirable. Using it to gauge, for example, the negative effect of monopoly isn't necessarily cunning. Its completely different here. We just need to know whether firms are wage takers or wage makers. Market analysis informs us its the latter. That will ensure wages are paid below the worker's productivity. That is simply supply & demand! Quantifying underpayment is not particularly difficult. For discrimination you could use Oaxaca decomposition. For general labour market analysis into underpayment, stochastic frontier approaches have been preferred. Hofler and Murphy, if my memory serves, used it to calculate reservation wage levels. Its not binary and therefore my point holds: as unemployment falls, we can expect greater bargaining power which, in some circumstances, leads to limited wage gains. We just have to be careful in acknowledging 'in some circumstances'. We can easily have a situation where macroeconomic improvements simply increase underpayment levels. Back in the 90s Hofler and Muphy had average underpayment at approximately 10 percent. Bit out of date mind you. I'd expect it to be much higher now, given the growth in the productivity gap.
So after all this, you've said monopsony exists and you haven't quantified it. I agreed it exists so all you had left was to quantify its impact in the US as we continue toward full employment since, after all, that's what I was discussing when you interjected with all this. Please stop trying to teach me topics I already know and instead form an answer that is quantifiable. If you cannot, we don't need to keep pretending your point about monopsony matters because it's irrelevant here if we can neither fix it, change it in some way, or even point to its impact as related to the discussion.
Why would we be continuing to full employment when so many of us don't wish to work? The reason I go to work, so that I can afford not to.
probably none of us or most us don't want to work but that has noting to do with the employment stats which are about those working or looking for work or will be looking for work in future. those who will retire when they can afford too don't get counted. Sorry
