You're trying to play a game of semantics that has no academic economists, policy makers, or business people agreeing with you. If you don't want to discuss the causes of the last bubble, then why bother responding to those discussing it?
That's not supported by the evidence, as it was a lack of regulation that caused it, as ShivaTD said very well.
You're using the fact that bubbles were caused by regulated banks in order to prove that bubbles would occur in unregulated banks?
We have experts that understand personal finances and they are certainly capable of calculating the "costs" of the basic necessities and it doesn't require accounting for individual items that a person might choose over other items. For example whether a person eats and apple or an orange is pretty irrelevant in calculation how much fruit a person needs in their diet. The expert would take the median cost of both to use in the equation. The "tree" is a part of nature regardless of who plants it just like the water and sun it requires to grow fruit. If we place those 10 people on an island then all 10 of them have an equal right to the 10 pieces of fruit that the tree produces because the "right of property" establishes that a person only has a "right of property" based upon "enough, and as good as" remaining for all other individuals. The one person cannot deny any fruit if there is no other fruit for the rest of the people living on the island. Of course we don't live on an island and there is more than enough "fruit" for everyone and, in fact, we can grow more fruit than the ten people require. Of course the 9 people don't get the "fruit for free" because, with their labour, they're producing other things that the fruit grower requires. The fruit grower needs salt to survive and one of those nine is producing salt. The fruit grower needs a ditch dug to channel water to his orchard and one of those nine digs the ditch. The fruit grower needs a hamburger and one of those nine is flipping burgers and the local McDonalds. The basic labor or each all contributes to the whole and every one of those that labour has a "right" to "support and comfort" based upon their labor. If we only produced enough to provide for "support and comfort" then all that is produced would be shared equally but we produce far more than that which allows the excess to be distributed for "luxury" between some but that is above the amount required for basic "support and comfort" that is the right of the person based upon their labor. The use of technology allows us to produce far more than what we, as individuals, require for our basic "support and comfort" but it does not create a "right" to that which is above that which each of us require. It provides us with the "privilege" of consuming more than what we require. This is why the wealthy are often referred to as the "privileged class" in society. We actually have two definitions of an "Inalienable (natural) Right" where the first is true but the second reflects statutory law. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inalienable+right http://definitions.uslegal.com/i/inalienable-right/ The first definition addresses "natural law" alone while the second sentence of the second definition addresses the legal transfer of property established by "statutory title" under the "divine right of kings" that is not based upon natural law. My argument is based upon the Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 5, that provides the arguments for the "natural right of property" and you are incapable of addressing that argument because you apparently lack the ability to understand what John Locke states. Here's a link to it and I suggest you spend the next six months trying to understand it. Pay attention to the arguments of labour providing for "support and comfort" and more importantly to the caveat that "enough, and as good as" must remain for all others in society. Locke's arguments hinge on the fact that all property (i.e. natural resources) belong to mankind in total and that we can only have a personal property right to that which is above and beyond what everyone else requires. http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm
I'm thinking that you're missing out on the commonly used lexicon in business/economics and politics, and hoping this isn't a complete inability for you to use logic and critical thinking. When you have bank regulations, and some of those regulations are repealed or rescinded, that's commonly known as deregulation. No one said it was a complete deregulation of all rules concerning banking/finance. And as ShivaTD pointed out, there were aspects of the finance industry that weren't ever regulated, that helped to cause the bubble. There were relatively new ways of getting investors to buy into securities based in mortgages, that had not been regulated yet. Had they been, with a solid regulatory infrastructure, we could have avoided a bubble/financial crisis, and avoided the deep recession we had. Of course, the recession was exacerbated by conservatives in congress blocking economic and job growth, just to obstruct the President and keep the public from seeing their ideology doesn't make for a working economy. Again, if you're not going to discuss it, we can part ways here. If you're going to continue with the fallacy that no deregulation happened, then you have nothing to discuss, unless you can show there was no deregulation.
I think you're missing my point. My point is that the banking industry should not be regulated at all. Banks should simply be subject to standard business and contract law. My proposal is no regulation, not less regulation. No regulation. Because the evidence shows that it is the regulation (in any degree) that will have the unintended consequence of causing bubbles.
the regulation did not cause the bubble. That's already been established. It was the deregulation, as the two links in above posts help to discuss, that caused the bubbles. The period of no recession causing bubbles during the time from the New Deal until the deregulation that caused the bubbles to return as occurrences in the economy, prove the point that strict regs in banking/finance and stock/securities markets, work to keep bubbles from happening. Banking, before regulations, in Europe, before the U.S. was a nation, still saw economic bubbles. No regulation is a proven way to create huge bubble and bust cycles. There's no getting around the history of it.
OK... Getting back on track, the point was that the GOP's housing bubble, as banking deregulation has been an abject failure, has caused wage stagnation. Part of that is the way the U.S. labor laws are weak, and companies are allowed to ride roughshod over workers, and destroy any attempts for those workers to organize so they can bargain for wages, instead of beg. Higher wages would allow for more consumer dollars to come into the consumer markets, and thus increasing employment as companies chase the demand to make profits. To me, it would be preferable to see workers allowed to bargain for wages, instead of setting a higher minimum wage. But, so long as the wing nuts use government to thwart organizing, then raising the minimum wage is a partial response. The best way, would be to have both happen in conjunction.
That completely misses the point, because what is a basic necessity is entirely subjective. The bolded portion is your underlying assumption, and it is completely unsupported and unjustified. What if there are 10 people and only 5 apples? What if half an apple is not enough for "support"? How do you divide them up? As to the last portion, you are just describing a market. But that people produce things other people want and exchange them for what they want in no ways means that people have any right to any quantity of what others produce. They have a right to engage in trade. You keep restating the same point over and over, but that does not change the fact that support, comfort, and luxury are all totally arbitrary and subjective terms. They are meaningless. One person's idea of support is another's idea of luxury. Ahh, and now you resort to ad hominem since your position is not logically sound. You have failed to address my critiques. Your alleged right to support and comfort simply does not exist. The words support and comfort are subjective and arbitrary, devoid of all merit as meaningful terms. Furthermore, just because Locke said something does not mean it is right. The problem is not my comprehension of the argument. The problem is the argument is simply unsound. In nature, nothing is owned. If there is a seed on the ground, that is owned by nobody. People are free to act so long as they do not contravene a right (claim) of another in doing so. If I take that seed, nobody has any right to validly object. For who could object, if not a prior owner? The right to exclude is an incident of ownership, yet the seed is currently unowned. Therefore nobody has the right to object and exclude me from taking full ownership of the seed, for the seed was previously unowned. By extension, the fruits produced by the seed I own are my property as well, and just as I have the full right to offer the fruit in exchange for something else, I have the full right to exclude anyone else from having the fruit if I so choose.
No, basic necessities are not subjective and we can quantify them. If we couldn't then we have a problem that I address at the end of this post. We all require food, water, shelter, clothing, energy, heath care and numerous other basic necessities to survive and they defined and quantified. As I have noted what we require as "basic necessities" has expanded over time (e.g. we used to depend on herbs found in nature to cure illness but today we relay on drug companies to provide them beause much of nature has been destroyed and we have better drugs today, derived from nature, than the herbs of the past) but there are still identifiable. According to Locke then no one gets an apple because there must be "enough, and as good as" remaining for everyone before a person can take the apple from nature and transform it into personal property by their labor. You discribe a situation where there isn't "enough, and as good as" left for others so no one can claim a "right of property" related to the five apples. Of course I happen to I live in WA and I know all about apples. Between 1/4th and 1/3rd of the apple crop rots on the trees because nature (i.e. apple trees) produce far more apples than the people require. When it comes to apples there is "enough, and as good as" so the problem discribed doesn't exist. This thread is on labor and the minimum wage and no one, according to Locke, has any "right" to the labor of another person. Above I mentioned that a person can only take from nature, and make it their own property, based upon their labour so long as there is "enough, and as good" as left for the rest of mankind's needs but for clarity I omitted that citiation so I'll add it here. All "property" is based upon that which is removed from nature and converted into the goods and products we use and only if there is "enough, and as good, left in the common for others" can we claim any "right of property" related to it. Once agian your statements reflect a general lack of knowledge related to the "natural (inalienable) rights of property" and it really becomes irrelevant except for the fact that no one has any "right" to the labor of another person. Arguably anyone that employes another person must provide the same basic "support and comfort" that the person is entitled to based upon their labour that the employer has no right to. Now, if you want to claim that basic "support and comfort" cannot be quantified then the argument has to be that we must prohibit all employment as we cannot protect the Right of the Person relative to the "Labour" they expend that entitles them to basic "support and comfort" because no one else has a "right" to the labour of another person. Would you like to put forward that proposition that we must, in order to protect the Right of Property of the Person, prohibit all employment because we can't quantify the "support and comfort" the person is entitled to based upon their labour? http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm
What food? How much? How much shelter is "basic"? A mansion? A hut? Anything in between? Again, the term is entirely arbitrary and subjective. You even admit such when you say that what is "basic" changes over time. The fact that what is considered basic changes overtime invalidates the usefulness of such an idea. Nobody gets an apple because not everyone can have one? That is absurd. That conclusion alone demonstrates the unsoundness of your position. What if there are 3 seeds and 10 people? According to you, nobody would get the seeds. But what if those three seeds may have produced more than 10 apples? You don't know that for a fact, but they might. That would be enough to feed everyone. Yet since there were not enough seeds for everyone to begin with, that prevents people from growing food, and you would say they should just starve. What does that have to do with the right to engage in trade? Your response is totally irrelevant to that. Again, you just restate the same arguments I already refuted, and did not quote or respond to those refutations. You are taking for granted that Locke's theory is the theory of property rights, period. You are acting as if quoting Locke means therefore you are right. When it comes to this, you are wrong and Locke was wrong. Nobody has a right to the labor of another person, but a person does have the absolute right to agree to provide labor for someone else. They have the right to contract and say "I will provide 5 hours of labor if you provide me an apple." In nature, nothing is owned. If there is a seed on the ground, that is owned by nobody. People are free to act so long as they do not contravene a right (claim) of another in doing so. If I take that seed, nobody has any right to validly object. For who could object, if not a prior owner? The right to exclude is an incident of ownership, yet the seed is currently unowned. Therefore nobody has the right to object and exclude me from taking full ownership of the seed, for the seed was previously unowned. By extension, the fruits produced by the seed I own are my property as well, and just as I have the full right to offer the fruit in exchange for something else, I have the full right to exclude anyone else from having the fruit if I so choose.
I'm struggling to understand the opposition to raising the minimum wage aside from ideologues who are genuinely not interested in the evidence and those who oppose it on moral grounds. The drum that I keep hearing beat is that hikes in the MW would lead to higher unemployment. That premise however hasn't been supported by the research on the topic. For example, Dube, Lester and Reich work that expanded upon Card and Krueger. Rather than taking the single NJ vs. Pennsylvania, they expanded the comparison 1,381 counties bordering counties in the US where the minimum wage differed between the two counties. The results: "...find strong earnings effects and no employment effects of minimum wage increases."http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf Moreover, these results have been replicated. So again, with the plurality of the data pointing to no or very small negative effects on employment, what's the argument against it?
No, it merely means that the basic costs of necessities have to be re-evalutated predominately due to government inflation that changes the costs of basic necessities without changing their value. None of the people would own the three seeds but any of the people could plant them so that the seeds became trees and provided apples for everyone. The seeds, trees and apples belong to all of mankind but a person can, through their labor, harvest those apples and make them personal property so long as there is "enough, and as good" as left for all other people. The thread is on the "minimum wage" which relates to the person expending labor to provide for their support and comfort based upon the Right of Property. I merely addressed the fact that no one has any "right" to the labour of another person. You present the claim that someone other than Locke presented arguments that are different in establishing the "Natural Right of Property" but I've never read those. I've read others that restated in part the arguments presented but I've never read of anyone putting forward to total argument that Locke does in Chapter 5 of the Second Treatise of Civil Government. Of course there are those like Hayek and Friedman that put forward arguments of property based upon the "Divine Right of Kings" but that is completely juxtaposed to the "Natural Right of Property" established by Locke's arguments that opposed the Divine Right of Kings. So if you have some unknown scholar that addressed the "Natural Right of Property" then please present a link to their dissertation on the matter because I've never know of any other scholar to address it. To my knowledge every scholar argees that Locke is the definitative authority on the Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property. Of course if there is any force or coercion that causes the person to exchange 5 hours of labor for a single apple then it violates even contract law. The problem is that our entire economy is based upon coercion were a person must work for someone else or starve. Even the self-employed today are working for their customers in our economy. No one can just go out into nature, select a piece of land, and begin farming as well has hunting and foraging in the wilderness to provide for all their basic support and comfort. It's against the law for a person to do that because we live under the "statutory ownership established by title (written or implied) based upon the Divine Right of Kings" as opposed the the "Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property" in the United States. Even the legal term "Title To Land" refers to land granted to the nobility by the king that owned all land and natural resources under the Divine Right of Kings. Our statutory laws of property have created coercion forcing millions of people to "work five hours for a single apple" and that violates both the "Right of Property of the Person" as well as then intent of contract law that prohibits coercion in a contract. Wrong. If there is not "enough, and as good" as remaining for the "common" (i.e. everyone else) then no one can take possession of anything in nature. This is true of land, natural resources, and all that nature provides (i.e. all "property"). Once again I'm going to point out that you have an apparent lack of knowledge related to the "Natural (Inalienable) Right of Property" and I seriously doubt that you can argue with Locke or provide any source other than Locke that presents the compelling arguments for the Natural Right of Property because I tend to believe you confuse the Divine Right of Kings with the Natural Right of Property. It is the most common mistake I find with most people because our education system also makes that mistake.
If the labor market worked the way the market for cookies did, I'd agree but it doesn't. The scenario you describe will almost certainly end with exploitation since the two parties aren't in similar bargaining positions amongst other problems.
Because of the impact it has on the labor market more broadly. If low-skill employees had no floor on wages you'd see them plummet and create a race to the bottom, further increasing the demand on public assistance and given how closely poverty ties to crime, you'd also need greater numbers of officers on the streets both of these factors impact the paychecks of everyone else. You act as if an employee can just up and move to any other job available, he can't for at least two reasons. First, he's not aware of every job and even less aware of what those jobs might pay. Second, people are reluctant to uproot themselves for a whole variety of reasons. These two features relate to my original response to you. People ain't like cookies.
You keep saying the same thing over. Yes, you can say what necessities cost, but what qualifies as a necessity is totally arbitrary and subjective. If something is a necessity, it is so regardless of cost. If I plant the seed, there are not "enough, and as good" seeds left for all other people. You say I can plant the seed anyway. Yet if I pick the apples, there are also not "enough, and as good" apples left for all the other people, therefore you say I cannot pick the apples. You contradict yourself. Restating the same refuted premise is not a counter argument. Are you serious? That is absolutely false. Numerous scholars have critiqued Locke on his theory of where the right to property comes from. Your entire argument is an appeal to authority to John Locke, amounting to "John Locke said so, therefore it is true." That is a complete fallacy. For your own benefit, here are a few worth mentioning: Tibor Machan, Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Anthony de Jasay. There is another piece by Helga Varden in the Journal of Moral Philosophy that shows how the Lockean proviso is inherently contradictory to other aspects of Locke's theory. Keep in mind, however, that even if everyone agreed with Locke, that does not mean his theories on property rights are sound, nor does it mean criticism of those theories can be ignored for that reason. Then the seeds cannot be planted in my example, because in order to do so that requires taking possession of them and removing them from their natural state. I have refuted this nonsensical claim multiple times, and you respond only by restating the claim over and over. That is not an argument. The fact that I refute the Lockean Proviso does not mean that I lack knowledge about what it entails. It is almost humorous that you are so shocked someone could possibly be disagreeing with Locke, that instead of accept that disagreement you assume I am confused. It is you who entirely lacks knowledge, by your own admission, of the numerous critiques of the Lockean Proviso. You hold it as gospel, and think quoting Locke means proving you right. It doesn't.
Nope. Those people who are currently employed create enough value for their employer to merit being paid at or above the minimum wage. Lowering the minimum wage would not affect these people, since they are already producing at a level at or above minimum wage. Which would not happen, since, per above, employed people are currently producing enough value justify their current wage, thus their wages would continue to reflect the value they create. I don't know what this has to do with the minimum wage. All current employees found a job at which they could create enough value for their employer to merit at least minimum wage. They obviously were aware of how to find this job and what it paid, otherwise they wouldn't be working there.
So what do you tell those workers who are unable to produce $9.00/hour's worth of value to an employer when they lose their jobs?
There's a flaw in this logic because it's predominately the business plan establishes the value of the employee's labor moreso than any other single factor. Many seem to believe that it's the "market" that establishes compensation levels and to a limited degree they're correct but the market doesn't establish value. The market is an economic force that drives down compensation to the lowest possible level and it's based upon the least possible compensation an enterprise can pay and that's unrelated to the value of the labor. Let me provide an analogy. I person could own an ounce of gold and gold could be trading at $1,200/oz but if the person is desperate for money they could take it to a pawn shop and perhaps get $1,100 for it. The pawn shop can purchase the ounce of gold below it's "value" because the person is in a "must sell at any price" situation. If the person could financially afford to wait for 30 days then they could get the full $1.200 for the ounce of gold but they can't afford to not sell it. If they pawn shop only offered them $1,000 they'd be forced to accept it. Employment works in virtually the same way. If the person must work to provide income for their household then they're forced to take whatever employment is offered regardless of the value they provide with their labor. Only a person that is independently wealthy can truly negotiate compensation based upon the value of what they contribute to the enterprise with their labor but few can afford to do that and employers typically have so many others that don't have "negotiating" power that they can ignore the independently wealthy in most cases. The "market" doesn't establish compensation based upon the "value" the employee brings to the enterprise but instead it's based upon "how much can we screw the employee" by paying the least amount of compensation. Because the "market" is broad-based downward force on compensation involving all enterprises the individual does not represent enough upward force to overcome it. This is where unions play a role because a union represents a broad-based group of employees and as a group the employees it had enough force to offset the market forces. The "market" and the "union" were opposing forces that could bring about a negotiated compromise where the market wants to pay the least compensation for the value while the union wants pay to equal the the most compensation for the value. Unfortunately "union busting" is the name of the game for the enterprise and for many politicians that seek to provide favoratism for the enterprise at the expense of the employees. When we actually look back historically it was when unions were strong that we find the greatest economic benefit to the nation but there are those that oppose the unions. Not to say there hasn't been corruption in many unions but instead of the politicians addressing the corruption they opposed the unions for the benefit of the owners of enterprise. Instead of embracing the two opposing forces that lead to a compromise in compensation between the employer and the employees that results in compensation being based upon "value" they've done all that is possible to destroy the negotiating capabilities of the employees. Of course the "business plan" can ignore the "market" and actually establish compensation based upon the "value" the employee brings to the enterprise but must don't because most owners of enterprised don't have much of a clue when it comes to creating a viable business plan. This is evidenced by the percentage of new enterprise start-ups that fail because they never had a viable business plan to begin with. There are exceptions of course. We can witness the exceptions where one enterprise offers considerably more compensation than the "market" and is a very successful enterprise because of that. We witness that here in the Seattle area where we have McDonalds franchises where compensation is based upon the "market" and we also have Dicks Drive-in that is a small chain of burger stands. Dicks provides about 50% more in total compensation than McDonalds and is far more successful as an enterprise from all indications I can find and produces a better product than McDonalds at about 2/3rds of the cost. Bottom line Dicks "pays more" and "sells for less" because it has a superior business plan when compared to the McDonalds franchises.
