Democrats have lost their minds over the minimum wage

[factfinder_77]

http://theweek.com/articles/616528/democrats-have-lost-minds-over-minimum-wage

An interesting read.

This consensus began to fray with a 1992 study by economists David Card and Alan Kreuger, who found that New Jersey's minimum wage hike — from $4.25 to $5.05 — did not lead to expected job losses in the state's fast food restaurants. This finding has been hotly contested, but even if it were true, it doesn't mean there are no other downsides to minimum wage laws. For example, sometimes employers don't respond to minimum wage hikes by laying off workers, but instead by raising prices for consumers. (Minimum wage opponents haven't helped their case by hitching it almost exclusively to job losses while ignoring the other, equally pernicious, adjustment responses by businesses.)


There is only one scenario, according to Naval Postgraduate School economist David Henderson, under which a modest legally mandated minimum wage might do more good than harm: when employers enjoy monopsony power (a monopoly on the buying side) in the labor market, either because there are very few of them or because workers can't leave for some reason. Employers then have a relatively free hand to hold wages down. A mandated minimum wage under those circumstances merely diverts the firm's "excess profits" to the worker, something that would have happened automatically in a more competitive market. But it doesn't diminish a company's productivity or its incentive for additional hiring — thereby actually boosting job growth. But genuine monopsony isn't common and would require a very finely calibrated and skillfully crafted minimum wage, which is not how blanket policies work in the real world

[Ash_F]

1. That author's list of articles is pretty impressive.

Impressively dumb.

http://theweek.com/authors/shikha-dalmia?tags=feature?page=1

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. Spot on, Ash.

Relying on the Week is like quoting breitbart or drudge.

[DanTex]

5. Here's your chance to show some intellectual consistency...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1710586

[Warren DeMontague]

8. The OP posted something from the Federalist, earlier.

Those of us who are good at spotting patterns may notice something, here.

[DanTex]

10. And it got hidden, because I alerted on it.

The question I have is why are Bernie fans OK with right-wing sources as long as they are used to bash Hillary?

AUTOMATED MESSAGE: Results of your alert
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The Federalist is a far right-wing rag.

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[Warren DeMontague]

11. Hmmm. One wonders where MIRT is.

Im not really familiar with "the week", but a cursory glance through the headlines doesnt make it look anywhere near as noxious as "the federalist"

[DanTex]

12. Yeah, I don't know about "The Week" either.

But the Hillary-bashing OP I linked to from "The Week" was sourced mainly with breitbart links. So there's that.

Of course, the breitbart links didn't stop Bernie fans from reccing it through the roof...

[Warren DeMontague]

13. And the federalist OP got recs, too, before being rightly hid... did it not?

And so forth and so on,

Round, round, robin run around.

[DanTex]

15. It got one rec. Singular. The Breitbart sourced hit-piece is at 83.

You're not seriously trying to pretend that the use of right-wing sources is equally prevalent on both sides, are you?

[Warren DeMontague]

16. I think there were more, but some people turned and ran once they saw which way the wind was

Blowing.

The "use of right wing sources"? Surely you jest. I realize you and I may have slightly different takes on what constitutes "right wing", but in the past several months only one side here has consistently put out screeds against "takers" wanting "free stuff" or parroting club for growth gibberish about single payer health care, etc.

Stuff I honestly never thought I would see put forth, at least un-ironically, here on DU.

I have to imagine the noise of the cognitive dissonance echoing in some heads is deafening, right now.

[DanTex]

17. I don't recall, but certainly not double digits. Nothing like 83.

And, yeah, right-wing sources. You know, like the weekly standard and daily caller and washington times. I hope we could, as a baseline, agree that those are right-wing sources. And they get posted daily here. Why? Because they write articles saying that Hillary is about to be indicted, and that she's a criminal, and so on, based on anonymous sources. And that's what Bernie fans want to hear, so they post them over and over.

I have yet to see anyone here cite the Club for Growth against Single Payer. If you say it happened, I believe you, since there are trolls on both sides. But it doesn't happen with anywhere near the regularity (or the enthusiasm) that Bernie fans post anti-Hillary articles from places like the Washington Times.

I can't imagine that you haven't noticed this.

[RiverLover]

19. I think its 85 recs now, and its true.

We'd cite a liberal source on it but most are too worried about Clinton backlash if they reported on it.

[DanTex]

20. So now you're justifying right-wing sources with conspiracy theories.

Stuff like this is why the Bernie campaign is losing...

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I 'notice' a lot of things.

Havent you noticed?

I agree that some shitty sources get posted because they are anti-hillary. Ppl on the sanders side make the mistake of running with anything that is anti HRC just as the HRC ppl try to claim that since there is RW criticism of Hillary (or even RW speculation about the FBI investigation) then ALL criticism of HRC is by extension "right wing".

Only times ive gotten into it about the email thing, as far as I know, it has been sources like CNN. But for all I know, I could be wrong on that.

It's a story, and unfortunately it doesnt look to go away soon, it is facile to expect people to ignore it.

I hope she's not indicted. I dont think anyone wins, there. My nightmare scenario is we end up stuck with a damaged nominee due to it. Best case would be Comey wrapping it up and putting it to rest before the convention.

[DanTex]

22. I agree, it is a story. And it's going to be around, and it's not a good story for Hillary.

But, when you look at all the articles that get posted here saying that she's about to be indicted or that she put national security at risk, what they have in common is that they are published in right-wing media, and are usually based on anonymous sources (or else they are based on right-wing legal analysts).

By the way, the cost of Bernie's healthcare plan is also a perfectly legitimate story. As is the size of the tax increase he intends to pass. About 65% of Americans like their current healthcare plans, and Bernie wants to take us into the General Election with a platform that says none of those 65% get to keep what they have, we're all going into a new government program that is so expensive, it failed in his home state of Vermont.

That's not "right-wing" rhetoric, it's political reality.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. Its a legitimate story if it includes the obvious, namely that the "tax increase"

Would be replacing the premiums Americans pay, often devastatingly bloated and/or with huge deductibles.

And the countries with single payer systems seem to be pretty happy with them.

Who would not be happy would be the for-profit insurance industry with the 20% or so overhead they tack onto our hc spending.

But a substantive conversation would be great. A real discussion of what a sphc system would mean for everyone, us as a society collectively as well as the many people who DO like their current coverage.

[DanTex]

25. That's highly debatable. As I said, in Vermont the tax increases were so big

that they had to scrap the whole thing. A lot of liberal economists and health policy experts have looked at the numbers and pointed out that they don't come close to adding up. In fact, an early version of Bernie's plan claimed that he was going to save more than 100% of drug costs. So the amount of taxes that Bernie says he's going to raise, and the amount that he would actually have to raise are two different numbers.

Also, administrative overhead is only a very small portion of why our healthcare system is more expensive than the rest of the developed world. Most of it is simply the cost of care, something that SP wouldn't fix, at least not without additional cost controls that could also be put in place without single payer.

Here's a good series of blog posts on the topic.
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/what-makes-the-us-health-care-system-so-expensive-introduction/

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Yeah, and Time had a good piece on it a cpl yrs back, too

Costs are a big factor. But having one big entity to negotiate rather than a bunch of smaller, less powerful ones- i mean, thats the principle behind organized labor, is it not?

And no one seems to want to scrap medicare, do they.

[Fumesucker]

2. Naval Postgraduate School?

So the guy advocating eliminating the minimum wage belongs to the most socialist organization in America, the military?

It doesn't get much more whack than that.

Recced for the crazy.

[PowerToThePeople]

4. Enjoy your stay

[RiverLover]

6. Said the lord to his serf.

[B Calm]

7. Cheap Labor Conservatives never stop with their race to the bottom.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. I know who John Galt is!

He's a dick.

[Depaysement]

14. Libertarian crap from Reason Mag

One piece of nonsense: "But shifting wealth around doesn't generate real economic growth."

Actually, it does under certain circumstances, by raising aggregate demand.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Yeah, that really doesnt make any sense.

I mean for one, it has been objectively shown time and again that when you give more money to the people at the base of the economic pyramid, they tend to SPEND a lot of it- either on necessities they couldnt previously afford, or luxuries they were holding off on. The economic stimulus is significant and rapid.

giving money to the ultra rich- yes, sometimes they start businesses, usually they invest it, which also can stimulate job growth etc. ... But isnt investment also a form of "shifting wealth around"?

[Depaysement]

27. In part it depends on economic conditions

If there is a scarcity of capital, then transfers of wealth to the bottom probably don't spur demand as much.

For years we have had an abundance of capital, so a transfer of wealth downward is more beneficial.

In 1968 the had a minimum wage of almost $11 per hour in 2016 dollars. We also had full employment and no economist connects subsequent increases in the minimum wage with the increases in unemployment in the 1970s.

This article is mostly bunk.

[bemildred]

23. It's amusing how they wander around intellectually in their own bullshit.

There is only one scenario, according to Naval Postgraduate School economist David Henderson, under which a modest legally mandated minimum wage might do more good than harm: when employers enjoy monopsony power (a monopoly on the buying side) in the labor market, either because there are very few of them or because workers can't leave for some reason. Employers then have a relatively free hand to hold wages down. A mandated minimum wage under those circumstances merely diverts the firm's "excess profits" to the worker, something that would have happened automatically in a more competitive market. But it doesn't diminish a company's productivity or its incentive for additional hiring — thereby actually boosting job growth. But genuine monopsony isn't common and would require a very finely calibrated and skillfully crafted minimum wage, which is not how blanket policies work in the real world.

If you can't dazzle them with briliance, baffle them with bullshit.