Economics Thread

sturg33 said:
Why?
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Because it's a gross oversimplification.

I assume you mean income? The US ranks 2nd in the world in PPP, trailing only Luxembourg. It may surprise you that the US is substantially larger than Luxembourg. The US destroys similarly sized countries in average income earnings
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I meant, specifically, that pay was one thing notably absent from her list of things that a majority of workers were satisfied with. I mean, that seems like a pretty glaring absence.

I'm not really sure how PPP is relevant here. And, buddy, for someone who likes to denigrate others for lack of understanding of economics, you ought to know better than to use average income as a meaningful measure in this conversation.

Track worker incomes with worker productivity (and, for fun, throw in corporate profitability) for a few decades and see if you can't find something to chew on. Bottom line is--shouldn't we be doing better?

I don't think we have a capitalistic economy... and certainly, have gotten less so over the last few decades. But I will say that freer economies likes ours allow for unhealthy habits, and free markets allow for an enormous abundance of food and access to things that other countries don't enjoy.
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So why do those numbers lag against other wealthy countries? Infant mortality, particularly. That's just one tiny corner of this question. Do the wealthy in America live longer than the poor? Shouldn't the technological advances and innovation in our relatively freer system lead to better outcomes compared to peer nations? Why don't they?

Maybe a bit of a hyperbole... but it's certainly not silly and really a testament to how far we have come. There's been lots of research on this topic, if you're open to reading about it
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No, it's unequivocally silly. It's devoid of context and lacks any kind of relative grounding. And the further back you take it, the sillier it is.

I mean, it's unequivocally true that we have access to consumer goods and technologies that previous generations didn't. Sure. But try telling a debt-ridden working class person that they're better off than an aristocrat from 50 years ago because they have a supercomputer in their pocket and more than one television.
 
Because it's a gross oversimplification.
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Oh

I meant, specifically, that pay was one thing notably absent from her list of things that a majority of workers were satisfied with. I mean, that seems like a pretty glaring absence.
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In my experience in corporate america, very few folks are happy with their pay - mostly because everything thinks they deserve more. Even when their 1%ers

I'm not really sure how PPP is relevant here. And, buddy, for someone who likes to denigrate others for lack of understanding of economics, you ought to know better than to use average income as a meaningful measure in this conversation.
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Well, you brought up income being absent. And I merely pointed out that the US does pretty well in that category

Track worker incomes with worker productivity (and, for fun, throw in corporate profitability) for a few decades and see if you can't find something to chew on. Bottom line is--shouldn't we be doing better?
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Absolutely we should. We could free up markets to expand growth

So why do those numbers lag against other wealthy countries? Infant mortality, particularly. That's just one tiny corner of this question. Do the wealthy in America live longer than the poor? Shouldn't the technological advances and innovation in our relatively freer system lead to better outcomes compared to peer nations? Why don't they?
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I don't know. I posited a theory that Americans eat more than most countries... we drink a lot. We smoke. We work a lot leading to lack of exercise. I don't have any data here so it's just a guess. Happy to read a suggested study if you have one, though

No, it's unequivocally silly. It's devoid of context and lacks any kind of relative grounding. And the further back you take it, the sillier it is.
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I think the mere point is that someone who is "poor" today (I put poor in quotes because American poor are still better off than the majority of the world), has luxeries that rich people didn't 100 years ago. I mean, we can travel across the world in a day pretty cheaply. That's amazing.




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More to the point though... It's unclear to me if you are arguing that free enterprise has not been a major boon for human progress and wealth. Is that what you are saying?
 
I'm not. It's certainly been a boon for wealth and human progress as measured by technological achievement. I just don't think that means what you think it means.

But I am still curious as to why the US has worse outcomes in so many areas relating to health than do peer nations who have a less, er, free (as you'd have it) situation. You seem to chalk it up to our freedom to make unhealthy lifestyle choices, but that doesn't really seem to get there.

And, to be clear, you think that "freeing up markets to expand growth" will change the existing dynamic between worker productivity, wages, and corporate profitability? Do you mind showing your work there?
 
I'm not. It's certainly been a boon for wealth and human progress as measured by technological achievement. I just don't think that means what you think it means.
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Well, what does it mean then? And if it's been a boon for wealth and human progress, why on earth do we want to curb it?

But I am still curious as to why the US has worse outcomes in so many areas relating to health than do peer nations who have a less, er, free (as you'd have it) situation. You seem to chalk it up to our freedom to make unhealthy lifestyle choices, but that doesn't really seem to get there.
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I thought I was pretty transparent with "I don't know." Haven't spent much time looking into it, but if you have some data to look at, I'd be willing to. It seems you want to narrow your focus to this one point, though.

I don't think it's unreasonable to guess that Americans living unhealthy lifestyles lead to worse health. Other governments spend more money and incentivize more healthy behavior. But I don't have data here so don't want to make any declarations

And, to be clear, you think that "freeing up markets to expand growth" will change the existing dynamic between worker productivity, wages, and corporate profitability? Do you mind showing your work there?
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I think your point you are saying is that wages have failed to rise despite productivity increasing and corporate profits raising (correct me if I'm wrong).

But the rise in productivity is almost all due to increase in technology - not workers suddenly working harder, so workers shouldn't necessarily be compensated due to email being more efficient than fax machines. But corporate profits rising leads to corporate investments, more jobs, higher wages (even if not perfectly correlated), higher equity prices, and even more government revenue.

So yea, I think productivity will continue to increase which increases GDP, which vastly improves the lives of everyone. Economic growth is the lifeblood of well being in a country. I saw a chart today that blew me away, actually:

[tw]1016754292202573824[/tw]

This is why the US not achieving 3% in over a decade is a big deal, and why we should be celebrating if we see it this year (which we should, assuming tariffs don't torpedo the progress)
 
Along those lines, why are we (you) talking about job growth outstripping available workers, but wages aren't rising significantly...even as big employers are flush with cash?
 
Julio3000 said:
Yeah, it ain't perfectly correlated. Far from it. That's kinda what I wanted to see addressed.
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I don't know how familiar you are with the 80/20 rule... but it's not a theory, it's a universal observation, and won't change just because we'd like it to
 
Julio3000 said:
So why have productivity gains essentially been decoupled from median wage growth?
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I'm pretty sure I answered that. Productivity gains are due to technology advancements... and unless you want to give your video skype app a salary, the windfall of that productivity is going to wind up in better products, cheaper prices, and more business profits
 
Julio3000 said:
Along those lines, why are we (you) talking about job growth outstripping available workers, but wages aren't rising significantly...even as big employers are flush with cash?
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Because the laws of supply and demand don't disappear simply because we want them to. Job growth is happening, which is good. But the replacement cost of most jobs is low, and thus doesn't require businesses to pay up for it.

But in technology fields, where there is an outsized return on output, wage growth is substantially outpacing the nation. You can see high growth in wages in STEM fields (and remember that data the next time you whine about women making less than men).

Corporate profits are high. That results in higher wages, more investment, more jobs, cheaper products, more government revenue, more retirement savings, etc. You want to see this perfect correlation of benefits hitting each consumer equally, and you will always be disappointed.

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I'm STILL unclear on what you're arguing. You've seem to indicate that yes - free markets have resulted in unimaginable wealth growth... but that we should try redistributionism because wages are perfectly correlated?
 
sturg33 said:
Because the laws of supply and demand don't disappear simply because we want them to. Job growth is happening, which is good. But the replacement cost of most jobs is low, and thus doesn't require businesses to pay up for it.

But in technology fields, where there is an outsized return on output, wage growth is substantially outpacing the nation. You can see high growth in wages in STEM fields (and remember that data the next time you whine about women making less than men).

Corporate profits are high. That results in higher wages, more investment, more jobs, cheaper products, more government revenue, more retirement savings, etc. You want to see this perfect correlation of benefits hitting each consumer equally, and you will always be disappointed.

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I'm STILL unclear on what you're arguing. You've seem to indicate that yes - free markets have resulted in unimaginable wealth growth... but that we should try redistributionism because wages are perfectly correlated?
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I'm simply trying to find out why, according to you, the mantra for decades was that stagnation in productivity was causing stagnant wages, but now we're 2-3 decades into steep productivity increases, without anything approaching commensurate increases in wages. Higher GDP, more investment, more jobs, more tax revenues...all good. Some things get cheaper. Some things--in fact, the things Americans spend the most on--do not. Housing, child care, education, transportation, etc...that stuff isn't getting cheaper.

So STEM wages are up. Awesome. You know why there's an outcry for more public investment in STEM education? For one reason, because those companies want to depress those wages.

You don't need to explain to me why economic growth is good. You need to explain why, if redistribution of wealth (per you) is not an option, why increased productivity is gonna lift all boats, when it's pretty obviously not doing so.

You're making a pretty good argument for an economy that works for the upper-middle and investor classes. Not so much for everyone else.

As for your question, I already implied my answer, but I guess I wasn't explicit enough. Increased wealth is not a desirable end unto itself, if so narrowly confined.
 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4112220/#!po=16.7808

That's a pretty comprehensive look at the public health picture in America versus peer nations. It touches on lifespan and infant mortality and pretty much everything else we'be alluded to: smoking, diet, and (the elephant in the room) government interventions in neonatal care, postnatal care and family leave, food assistance, homicide rates (guns!), and transportation deaths.

It's hard to read this and not come to the conclusion that the differences mostly boil down to public policy. Wealthy Americans, for the most part, have a lifespan and infant mortality rate that is on par with developed European and Asian countries. So the problem is not one of freedom and affluence, as you've suggested, but of poverty and public neglect.

So, big picture. You propose spending fewer resources on social safety net programs. I maintain that these programs have a direct and measurable effect on mortality rates, etc. Your point in this conversation is that "more freedom" will lead to better outcomes. I challenge you to prove this with hard data, because this pretty much says the opposite. We're richer and more productive. Why aren't we healthier and longer-lived?
 
So let's get to one of your favorite topics, the accusation of racism against people who support conservative or libertarian approaches to public health policy, etc. Your contention is that if one is not a vocal, vehement racist, that such accusations are out of bounds. The opposite contention is that enactment of conservative and libertarian social and economic policy has real-world consequences on the most economically vulnerable segments of the population, which are disproportionally comprised of people of color.

Again, there are measurable, real world consequences to these policy decisions. Less access to social safety-net programs directly correlates to a harder, shorter life. But we're not allowed to say that's racist in intent, even if it's real-world consequences are provably racialized. Your contention is that the impingement on freedom (through taxation, regulation, and social safety net spending) is worse than the actual, measurable harm of its absence. So let's please hear the positive case for why this is correct. Context-free claims that "poor people are richer than they used to be" don't really cut it here.
 
That corresponds really nicely with the adoption of racialized and hereditary slavery in North America.
 
Julio3000 said:
That corresponds really nicely with the adoption of racialized and hereditary slavery in North America.
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Or with the reduction of piracy. Or the rise of global warming -
piratestats.jpg
 
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