Is the Liberal Political Mind one dimensional?

woiyo, so far this thread is working beautifully. It is proving the principle as stated, by the opinions posted. The liberals so far posting are proving themselves one dimensional, for example they evidently see no relationship whatsoever between minimum wage and employment, and tax rates to economic activity.

Well for starters, what about the economic expansion in the 80's after top marginal tax rates were lowered.

I am not an economist so I will leave the official empirical studies up to those that are.

Beyond that, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence going back to childhood.

Pay a man per bale of hay and you get alot more hay in the barn than if you pay by the hour.

Whether it is the employer or the government preventing rewards for harder work make little difference. Over the past few years, I recall many conversations with people that said, the promotion and pay raise did me no good because the tax deductions more than offset the raise. In an instance or two, I recall the person turned down the promotion and raise, in part because of that reason.

I have also known of people very successful at a business that decided to quit or do something else, thus selling, because of higher marginal tax rates.

The answer to this debate basically relies on simple common sense. Why do capitalistic economies thrive better than state owned economies?

Using your noggin a little, Joe, what would happen to economic output if the tax rate was 100%? I think the answer should be obvious. It would plummet. Okay, what would happen to it if it was 90%? More speculation enters, but probably plummet not as completely, but very severely.

Consider the scenarios for 80%, 60%, and so forth. You end up with a curve, where the effects may be more subtle at the lower numbers, but to pretend there would be no effect is just economic ignorance. It does not take an economist to figure this out.

To argue the curve would be flat from 0 to 100% marginal tax rate would be an utterly preposterous position to take.

Ho hum, here we go. I did not create the term and characteristics of the liberal agenda, cyclops. I did not create liberal in my mind. In case you don't know it, it exists in culture and in politics in a very big way. I am simply commenting on it here.

Valid point, but Bush has in fact recently changed y while maintaining the sum of x and y remains the same or equivalent to staying the course for the desired result. By the way, cyclops, I have voiced more than once that Bush is not a true conservative in all points, and most recently I have voiced an opinion of perhaps opposing addditional troops in Iraq.

Surely you can understand this equation? If the man pays 30% in taxes, it will likely affect profits and motivation to work as hard, since he reaps less of the final benefit, so the result may be 30% of perhaps $85,000.

I disagree. Liberals apparently do assume this, because the political pundits harp constantly on tax breaks for the rich, and that such breaks do not benefit the common man. Such tax breaks obviously do affect the common man.

True, you have no sympathy for oil companies, and apparently see no impact on their shareholders and on their oil production, some of which may be marginal. As I asserted at the beginning of this thread, such an attitude is blind to the realities of economics. Liberals see oil companies as an entity unto themselves with no impact or connection to the common man, which is ignorance personafied.

Here again, the relationship of minimum wage to unemployment and the economy is self evident. The only reason it appears to not make a large impact is because the federally set minimum wage level is likely not much above or not at all above what it would be otherwise through the existing economic forces. It is a sliding scale. If the minimum wage was $30.00 per hour, you would surely agree it would make a large impact? Common sense would tell us that the impact is roughly directly proportional to the divergence of the minimum wage above what market forces already dictates, and if there is little divergence, then not much impact, but then, why bother with a mandated minimum wage?

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If they decrease the interest rates for college loans, they assume there will be the same number of loans given by banks and that tuition costs charged by colleges and universities will not be affected.

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Here again, you don't look deep enough into the scenario. Ease of obtaining loans will increase the ability of students to pay more for tuition, which probably will place upward pressure on the ability of colleges and universities to charge higher rates.

Probably being the operative word here. You don't really know what the effect will be, do you?

You seem to assume that there are college students out there who aren't taking loans b/c they can't afford the interest rates. This is flat-out untrue and I doubt you could provide any evidence that it is. So, the proposed bill doesn't actually add to more people applying to college at all - it just eases the payments for them after college.

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We will have to see how this plays out, but that is my prediction. As to the number of loans, I am not familiar with that end of it, but I heard that possibility being mentioned on the radio news, apparently from some authority, I did not catch know it was.

You seem to rely upon a lot of the 'authorities' you hear on talk radio. THis is a very dangerous thing to do, Okie, for what you heard from some 'authority' is completely false. There is no existing evidence that a great pool of prospective students out there are just waiting for the interest rates to drop; there is no evidence that the amount of loans given out will be effected; tell me, what evidence is there to support your argument?

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Liberal politicians never have mentioned ever to my recollection that locking up public lands has caused higher energy prices. I've never heard even one admit it in years, cyclops. If you have a quote, I'd like to hear it.

Who cares what they've said? I don't think locking up every piece of land leads to higher energy prices. I haven't seen evidence from you or anyone that it actually does this, and even if it does, as I said before, the lowest possible energy prices are not worth sacrificing your environment for. A reasonable person would see that a balance is neccessary.

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Not lately, but Clinton was drug kicking and screaming to sign welfare reform in the 90's, and I remember predictions of suffering and doom at that time. LBJ's Great Society never predicted the result of giving more benefits to unwed mothers, which is more unwed mothers with more children. It was supposed to wipe out poverty by increasing x, but never considered the fact that y would increase exponentially as a result.

I agree with you that mistakes have been made with welfare. Personally, I would like to see a WPA-style organization that would employ anyone who can't get a job doing something else and put them to a good use.

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You haven't that I recall, but I've not heard any liberals lay much blame at the feet of the people, the governor, and the mayor. Its all Bush's fault, and the Democrats in Congress are still to this day trying to investigate it. I haven't heard anything about investigating the local governments. In fact, wasn't the mayor re-elected?

The gov' ain't going to be. Blanco is down by 25 points as an incumbent. Ouch.

I don't think that Katrina was 'all Bush's fault,' but it represented another example of a situation in which the nation needed strong and effective and inspiring leadership, and Bush didn't step up and provide that leadership. He just kind of fumbled around and then started blaming other people for what happened. Not good. And it came at a point in which he was already facing sliding popularity thanks to his failed SS reform and problems in Iraq... just not a good situaiton for the Prez. to be in.

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I will agree that we need to be doing more. I don't know exactly how the Iraq war and our operations in Afghanistan are affecting things, but I think at least some because the organizations are having to watch their backsides there, and they also believe that front is worth much of their efforts at present, rather than being able to sit back and leisurely and patiently plan the next attack here.

I agree that pressing the enemy is important, but let's not make the mistake of assuming that they aren't able to attack here because of things happening elsewhere. That is how we treat traditional armies and armed forces, and AQ is anything but.

If AQ has only a couple of hundred million dollars at any time to play with, and our operations in the ME are tying up 150 million at a time, it still leaves ample money to carry out an attack, and we've seen that it doesn't take more than a handful of operatives to carry out an attack.

Don't confuse offense with defense! They are two seperate things, and we've been very lax on our defenses! That's why I'm a Liberal who wants the borders closed.

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Having a judge look over every incident renders the type of surveillance impractical and unworkable on the scale necessary to intercept all suspicious overseas communciations, in my opinion.

Then the Bush crew has the responsibility and ability to change the laws. They even had a Republican-controlled congress who would have done it in a flash. This doesn't give them the right to ignore the laws, which is exactly what they have been doing.

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Nobody's hyperventilating, just pointing out the one dimensional thinking of the Left.

But, you didn't. You didn't show how Gitmo has an effect of lowering international terrorism, as you claimed. You didn't show that people aren't being held there for reasons other than terrorism, which is evidenced by the fact that we have released a large number of the detainees. It doesn't point out one-dimensional thinking to invent a bunch of attacks against liberals that show they are correct in their thinking - it shows one-dimensional thinking on your part, unfortunately, when it comes to your opinion of Liberals.

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Well, I think the bias is very rational. By the way, its the belief system, not the people. I think you for example are probably a nice guy. You just need to see the error of your political philosophy. By the way, I've got more examples if you are interested?

Of course you think the bias you have is rational; it's your accepted and approved internal bias. But I've shown above how your criticisms are either incorrect, or have nothing to do with Liberals.

Cheers

Cycloptichorn

okie wrote:

woiyo, so far this thread is working beautifully. It is proving the principle as stated, by the opinions posted. The liberals so far posting are proving themselves one dimensional, for example they evidently see no relationship whatsoever between minimum wage and employment, and tax rates to economic activity.

Well, you haven't shown any evidence that this is true. That's all I want to see. Evidence.

I can show you evidence that when the minimum wage was raised in Florida, the opposite of what you claim happened.

I will go back and address the longer post point-by-point... after my coffee.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

okie wrote:

woiyo, so far this thread is working beautifully. It is proving the principle as stated, by the opinions posted. The liberals so far posting are proving themselves one dimensional, for example they evidently see no relationship whatsoever between minimum wage and employment, and tax rates to economic activity.

Well, you haven't shown any evidence that this is true. That's all I want to see. Evidence.

I can show you evidence that when the minimum wage was raised in Florida, the opposite of what you claim happened.

I will go back and address the longer post point-by-point... after my coffee.

Cycloptichorn

To enlarge the equation, it is also obvious that the government mandated minimum wage is not the only factor affecting employment. We must look at all other policies and economic driving forces that affect the total picture, so as Joe resorted to the term, "empirical," you will have a tough time coming up with it in the case of Florida. I would appreciate a link or something showing what you are claiming, however. Also, as I've pointed out more than once, where the artificially set minimum wage is not significantly above or even not at all above what market forces would otherwise dictate, the effects are quite minimal. The point I am simply reminding everyone of is the simple fact that the minimum wage law does affect employment, whether the effect is minimal or significant is not the point of the discussion. Liberals apparently claim there is no link whatsoever, which I think is wrong.

To pin you down on this point, cyclops, would you agree that if the minimum wage was set at $50 per hour, would it affect employment, and if it was set at $25 per hour, would it affect employment, and if it was set $12.50 per hour, would it?

The Florida Retail Federation claimed that "Jobs will be lost - devastating our strong economy." Rick McAllister of the Retail Federation claimed a state minimum wage "could have a billion-dollar inflationary effect on the state of Florida." The Orlando Chamber of Commerce predicted that the new minimum wage would lead to outsourcing, "many good Florida jobs will be shipped over seas", and even cautioned that more "lawsuits will result. The amendment will create new opportunities for trial lawyers to make money by suing businesses."

Some public officials actively opposed the measure. Senator Mel Martinez claimed the law would cause job loss, and Governor Jeb Bush also opposed it. Darrell Kelley, president of Enterprise Florida, claimed the raise could result in a decline in health benefits coverage. Finally, national opponents chimed in. Grover Norquist claimed that "Florida cannot afford the economic pain of job losses compounded with the inevitable increases in the costs of essential goods and services."

[snip]…One year after the Florida state minimum wage took effect, there is no evidence to support the dire predictions levied by critics of the measure. Far from having a devastated economy, Florida continues to experience record job growth. Instead of businesses leaving the state, the number of private employers in Florida has grown substantially in the past year, and the state is a national leader in the insourcing of jobs from overseas. Far from workers losing their jobs and being worse off, more of them are working and wages across the state have risen. However, far from wages rising sharply across the pay scale, Florida continues to be a low-wage state, and many workers have a hard time supporting their families on what they earn, even with the new state minimum wage. All available data suggest that the critics of the state minimum wage were wrong about the law's effects.

I challenge you: without resorting to your 'theories' of economics, find me some real-world evidence that raising the minimum wage hurts employment, jobs, and the poor in general.

okie wrote:

I challenge you: without resorting to your 'theories' of economics, find me some real-world evidence that raising the minimum wage hurts employment, jobs, and the poor in general.

I'm afraid that would be a futile effort on okie's part, although there is such evidence. But when I pointed you to it in your "Minimum Wage" thread, you never bothered to dignify it with a response. What's the point of asking for evidence if you'll ignore the answers anyway?

I submit that I should have researched it better... But is there any evidence that the economic effects are negative?

But the picture changes if you measure it by some kind of utilitarian calculus that assumes an extra dollar brings more happiness to a poor person than to a rich person. Then, the initial gain to the (presumably poorer) workers will outweigh the initial loss to the (presumably richer) employer. But the higher you raise the minimum wage, the faster the disemployment effect catches up with the wage rise. Eventually, the net gain shrinks and even turns into a net loss.

That's why, depending on your own values, a modest minimum wage hike may well bring a net benefit to society, but raising it to $50 won't.

It seems to be pretty well established econometrically that the minimum wage in France (about $10) contributes to the high unemployment rate in this country.

Thomas wrote:

It seems to be pretty well established econometrically that the minimum wage in France (about $10) contributes to the high unemployment rate in this country.

And what is the reason/are the reasons that it seems to be different in Ireland and the UK - with nearly exactly the same minimum wage? (Ireland about $11, UK about $10)

but doesn't provide evidence that the economy as a whole is effected in a negative manner.

On the question of minimum wage, I will admit I am somewhat torn.

Some fundemental questions to me are:
1. Why should a govt control wages on a private company? I understand arguments concerning potential "misplay" by employers, employees are free to leave, etc...

2. The min wage will be raised about 25%. Now considering it has been at the present level for many years, is 25% too much? Can "McDonalds" afford a 25% increase in expenses? How about a landscaper, grocer, farmer...can they afford a 25% increase in expenses?

Thomas wrote:

It seems to be pretty well established econometrically that the minimum wage in France (about $10) contributes to the high unemployment rate in this country.

And what is the reason/are the reasons that it seems to be different in Ireland and the UK - with nearly exactly the same minimum wage? (Ireland about $11, UK about $10)

I don't know. My bet would be that it prevents their low unemployment from being even lower. Many influences affect a country's level of employment. The minimum wage rate is only one of them and as I said, it affects a small percentage of a nation's workers. Distinguishing these effects from each other isn't easy. It requires some pretty fancy statistics. That's why most of the simple empirical arguments about the minimum wage are wrong -- on both sides of the issue.