Can we have a civil, thoughtful discussion on this?

Ok. You said the number on the left was the inflation rate for the year and for 1939 that number is 0.986, so I understood it to mean it was 0.986% and therefore positive, when it was really negative. I see it now.

 

That's an excellent point

The cost of living can vary quite a bit even within a State.

I agree, the Federal government should not micro manage the States, and neither should the State government micro manage the local governments.

 

I came up with a good index for local cost of living by taking all the rents and averaging them.

People subject to the min wage normally rent.

This index can then be computed by the state legislatures and applied to counties to obtain a local min wage.

 

Excellent.

 

If the citizens of a State would agree to that method, why not?

 

States do not have citizens.

States have residents.

Nations have citizens.

Grammar/syntax check.

Vocabulary check too.

 

States have both citizens and non-citizens living within them.
The citizens of ALL States are citizens of the United States, and free to move where they please, taking up residency.
The State in which a citizen lives entitles those citizens to vote and participate in local/State elections which have effect on the governance they live under.

Nothing wrong with grammar, syntax or vocabulary.

cit·i·zen
noun
a legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth, either native or naturalized.
an inhabitant of a particular town or city.

 

I see ... you did not get very good grades in school.

 

Although I'm not religious, Proverbs 26:4 appears to apply if I were to continue to engage with you.
Good luck to you.

 

Did you go to Protestant bible study or Catholic catechism ??

 

Supra nationalism has always failed.

Keynes general theory was completely discredited when the Phillips Curve failed to work in the late 70's.

I stated that Democratic Blue Model governance destroyed Detroit.

The 4% growth resulted in high employment and high standard of living rates of increase as shown by the increasing real median household income. Supply side produced 4% growth (3% corrected for inflation and population growth) - Obama command control democratic socialism produced 2% growth (3% corrected for inflation and population growth). That's triple the supply side growth compared to command control growth. And clearly most of the benefits under Obamanomics went to those invested in the stock market. The real median household income was stagnant under Obama. Trump was elected by Democrats who voted for him because the Democrats had failed to represent the blue collar working class.

Commanding Heights is not a bible - it is a historical description country by country showing the benefits of transitioning from command control to free market capitalism. I suggest that you actually read it instead of finding some criticism on the internet.

 

Once upon a time there was no concept of international law. Times change. Supra-nationalism will evolve, as required for prosperous survival on this planet.

I repeat, I'm not talking about Keynes' general theory. The Bretton Woods idea was his vision - 2 years before his death - for a new post-war, global financial system (BTW, some economists consider that Friedman, who died a couple of years before the GFC would have had to adjust his supply-side theory to describe what happened during that event).

As for rising median wages, can you explain why a typical, single, middle-class wage earner (usually male) was able to support a family including 3 or 4 children in the 60's, an impossibility now?

 

Once upon a time the Soviet Union was considered the paradigm of planned economy of very high efficiency and growth.

Keyne's Bretton Woods idea is Keynesianism. Doesn't work.

The real median household income could support a family through 2007. Obamanomics has resulted in a stagnation of that metric which is now just approaching what it was 10 years ago.

 

Some additional data on gradually raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024: a report/study -

* The average age of affected workers is 36 years old. A larger share of workers age 55 and older would receive a raise (16.1 percent) than teens (9.8 percent). More than half of all affected workers are prime-age workers between the ages of 25 and 54.

* Although men are a larger share of the overall U.S. workforce, the majority of workers affected by raising the minimum wage (55.6 percent) are women.

* The minimum wage increase would disproportionately raise wages for people of color—for example, blacks make up 12.2 percent of the workforce but 16.7 percent of affected workers. This disproportionate impact means large shares of black and Hispanic workers would be affected: 40.1 percent of black workers and 33.5 percent of Hispanic workers would directly or indirectly get a raise.

* Of workers who would receive a raise, nearly two-thirds (63.0 percent) work full time, nearly half (46.6 percent) have some college experience, and more than a quarter (28.0 percent) have children.

* Four out of every 10 single parents who work (40.8 percent) would receive higher pay, including 44.6 percent of working single mothers. In all, 4.5 million single parents would benefit, accounting for 10.8 percent of those who would be affected by raising the minimum wage


* The workers with families—defined as a worker with a spouse or a child in the home—who would benefit are, on average, the primary breadwinners for their family, earning an average of 63.8 percent of their family’s total income.

http://www.epi.org/publication/15-b...-58269329&mc_cid=e06e27184f&mc_eid=46efaab3c5

 

And how many would lose jobs ?? Millions.

 

There's no precedent for that, -not over a 7 year time period. And besides, the right is doing nothing to solve the problem. They're only taking steps to make it worse, like austerity. You can't cut your way to prosperity. So raising the MW is something that should have been done years ago.

 

Agreed. But your arguing we should increase the mw AND taxes, which contradicts and cancels eachother out, right? No point to any of it. Just pass a law making MW relative to the cost of living in the region city whatever. Federal minimum wage kills smaller towns, none kills cities. So compromise

 

You fail Econ 101 - gov imposed price fixing by raising the minimum wage will reduce employment regardless of the time frame. There are mountains of data which show this.

The only way to raise the the real median household income is to grow the economy. Obama failed to do that. The purpose of supply side economics is to grow the economy and history shows that to be true.

 

Poverty should never exist for anyone. In a world of plenty, the necessities should be a given. It's the achievement of more than the basics that is the incentive for the individual to add value to society (the carrot). Using the stick (poverty) only increases criminality, low morale, and destructive lifestyle choices.

 

You've got that all backwards. And supply side generates the economic growth and resultant tax revenues which will provide for social safety nets for those who need it. That is why it is so incredible that those who profess to 'give the necessities' do not support supply side economic policies.

But charity is corrupting as I'm sure you know.

 

A federal minimum wage law, if there needs to be one, should simply state that each State must create a minimum wage to be applied State wide or locally as they find most proper and necessary. AND, most important of all it should also state that NO Federal funds can/or will be applied to providing welfare benefits which ultimately compete with the minimum wage. If welfare programs are to be continued they too should be stated under Federal law that each State must provide some welfare assistance as they find most proper and necessary, to assist those who are temporarily unemployed or underemployed with more permanent assistance being provided those who are determined to be permanently physically/mentally incapable of being employed.
Work should be the ONLY means by which each of us escapes from a life of poverty.

 

I disagree totally, if you're implying that government should be where the necessities are being provided from.
I would see the great variety of products available today as the carrot, with productive labour being the stick. The more productive you are the greater the access to both needs and wants.
Criminality can be reduced by making the punishment exceed the possible reward.
What should/could government do to improve ones morale?
Destructive lifestyle choices should not be collectivized, and should provide a learning experience for those who make them. Perhaps our schools should make a great effort in teaching our young the consequences of making bad/poor choices, instead of presenting government as the ultimate equalizer of outcome, as it appears to be teaching today.

 

By increasing minimum wage to reflect real inflation you automatically increase taxes by default, like SS and Fica, and Medicare; in fact you would be able to cut those back to the percentages paid in 1970 or so if the mw adjustments were equal to inflation since then.

 

Here we're being confused by terms. Let me help.

People don't demand products, they demand solutions to problems/ desires (I'm just going to write "problem" from here on) and it's the product created that (hopefully) solves the problem and meets the demand for a solution to a given problem.

The genius of the entrepreneur isn't simply creating a product that people want, it's in identifying a problem, and creating an innovate solution within the fiscal constraints imposed by the economy the entrepreneur is in.

Having said that we know that the capacity for problem-solving by the entrepreneur is limited by the fiscal capacity of who need solutions to consume the solution created via production. One need only look no further than 3rd world countries where people walk 10 miles a day for water. Clearly, there are problems AND solutions to those problems that exist but no one is creating the kinds of solutions that we know exists (water delivery via pipes) because the fiscal resources are lacking. However, there is a clear problem, people having to walk extreme distances for water like this:



But even in places like this, the genius of the entrepreneur can be felt....



What came first, the need for a solution or the product?

The problem and the demand it created came long before the productivity to create the product. Without it, there would be no need for products. In this example (people needing to move water) the entrepreneur is limited by severe fiscal constraints but his/ her genius was to identify a solution within fiscal constraints and unite suppliers, distributers and so on.

So, of course, productivity comes before consumption, but demand for solutions to problems comes before productivity and without the fiscal resources to consume productivity, productivity won't happen.

 

I agree with your sentiment with respect to taxes and scaling minimum wage based on the cost of living, however, since the top 10% owns 75% of all the wealth, if taxes were increased on this group, would it have an effect that offsets?