[lprent: Bullshit. I think that you're fantasising. ]

Because they are the experts.

You use the analogy of being ill. In this case you don’t get people to vote on what is ailing you, you seek expert opinion.

I think your experts have feet of clay and are more motivated by self interest than the interest of the rest of the community.

I am still convince that in setting public policy, democracy is far fairer than letting self appointed autocrats call the shots.

In my opinion these sorts of people are not experts, they are self centred snake oil salesmen. In a word “quacks” not doctors, and if they didn’t have vast amounts of money, and undeserved power, nobody would listen to them.

Every new headline confirms it.

Big Banks avoid paying tax, despite record profits.

Wealthy financier builds palace on Paratai Drive while stiffing his share holders.

Big business seek tax cuts for themselves, yet want to limit wage rises at the bottom of society.

Growth returns to business while unemployment rises.

Price gouging,
Tax ripoffs,
Ponzie schemes,
Speculative trading,
Bailoouts,
Record bonuses,
Huge profits
Leaky housing
Reckless investment
Reckless pollution of the environment
High interest rates,
Extortionate bank charges,
Lockouts of working people for spurious reasons,
Mass layoffs
Forced mortgagee sales

All these things, and more, have been undemocratically inflicted on the public by unregulated private sector business leaders.

Do you still think that it is all right that we let these sorts of people, who have so much power in the private sector, to be able to use their influence to set public policy as well.

I can only say if you still maintain this point of view, you are either one of them, either that, or getting some sort of financial or other material reward for supporting this form of dictatorship.

I’d be interested to hear your reaction to the passage Marty quoted above, presumably from Neumark and Wascher:

“We review the burgeoning literature on the employment effects of minimum wages in the United States and in other countries that was spurred by the new minimum wage research beginning in the early 1990s. Our review indicates that there is a wide range of existing estimates and, accordingly, a lack of consensus about the overall effects on low-wage employment of an increase in the minimum wage.’

Well I think I have found the paper Marty G is quoting, and let me quote the sentence that come directly after the quote that Marty G gives,

“However, the oft-stated assertion that recent research fails to support the traditional view that the minimum wage reduces the employment of low-wage workers is clearly incorrect.”

and Neumark and Wascher go on to say,

“A sizable majority of the studies surveyed in this monograph give a relatively consistent (although not always statistically significant) indication of negative employment effects of minimum wages. In addition, among the papers we view as providing the most credible evidence, almost all point to negative employment effects, both for the United States as well as for many other countries. Two other important conclusions emerge from our review. First, we see very few if any studies that provide convincing evidence of positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on the broader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model predicts disemployment effects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups.”

Actually, google scholar is ridiculously useful for finding freely available pdf copies, not always, it there’s still a decent amount lurking about. That and the citation records can point towards papers covering the same ground that have a pdf copy available.

But, yes even then often key papers are stuck behind pay walls unfortunately, and coupled with general scepticism towards economics it isn’t going to makes things easy.

You will fine the response of Neumark and Wascher themselves on the employment effects of the minimum wage in other comments. But basically,

“Minimum wages reduce employment of low-skilled workers; adverse effects even more apparent when research focuses on those directly affected by minimum wages.’

In Chapter 9 “Summary and Conclusions’ Neumark and Wascher write,

“Three conclusions, in particular, stand out. First, as indicated in chapter 3, the literature that has emerged since the early 1990s on the employment effects of minimum wages points quite clearly despite a few prominent outliers to a reduction in employment opportunities for the low-skilled and directly affected workers’.”

There a a number of other effects of the minimum wage that I haven’t discussed and you do see variation in these results.

That statement is the point. In the book they give a survey of the economics literature as it sands. Are there problems with this literature, yes, but there are problems in all empirical work. But they outline what is known from the empirical literature on this subject. It is the literature that we have. As I have also noted before, Greg Mankiw has a list of things that economists agree on in chapter 2 of his first year textbook. Number 12 on this list is “A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers’ and 79% of economists agree. So the basic results that Neumark and Wascheroutline are widely accepted by economists.

Their results don’t confirm your prejudices, fine reject them, but be truthful as to why you are reject them, don’t claim that there is no evidence for views you don’t happen to like.

“We review the burgeoning literature on the employment effects of minimum wages in the United States and in other countries that was spurred by the new minimum wage research beginning in the early 1990s. Our review indicates that there is a wide range of existing estimates and, accordingly, a lack of consensus about the overall effects on low-wage employment of an increase in the minimum wage.’

While I take your point, most of the material is published in either books or journals which are available mostly in academic libraries and/or online behind behind pay-walls. And I don’t have a way around that.

Try a library. And no my case is not overstated, it reflects the standard position that most economists would take on this issue.

You can’t have your cake and eat it to on that one I’m afraid, I grow tired of this argument, like shooting fish in a barrell but the fish are invulnerable.

You said (and sorry in advance for the long quote, but I don’t want to be accused of taking things out of context):

“Your idea suggested that a fair society without a minimum wage could be achieved by people studying and getting better jobs.

I pointed out that there would, then, be no one to do unattractive jobs.

You seem to have responded that in fact *not* everyone would get a decent wage by studying and getting a better job.

So, we seem to agree that for everyone to get a decent income we need a minimum wage.”

Do we agree? That’s honestly difficult for me to answer. Ideally, I would have NO minimum wage; in reality I think the case can be made for one but I disagree that it needs to be so high.

In my ideal, there would be no minimum wage, period. Rather, people would simply work for a wage that seemed fair to them. Employer “A” offers a cleaning job at $5 an hour, while employer “B” offers a cleaning job at $10 an hour – who will people choose to work for?

“Ah”, you say, “but no employer will pay more than he or she has to, so they will ALL offer $5 an hour, and people will HAVE to take those low paid jobs or starve”. Well no, because in NZ we have a relatively generous welfare state, so people will simply refuse to take any of the cleaning jobs and go on welfare. Employer “A” and all the other cleaning contractors will then realise that in order to attract any staff, they might just have to offer a wage that is slightly more attractive than welfare benefits. OR, there will be some people who don’t need to make a wage to live on but just want some extra money (eg they’re not the primary earner for their household), and those people may choose to do the jobs. (And at this point could come a digression, namely: what IS a “decent income”? Maybe that’s the real problem: define a “decent income” that EVERYBODY can agree on. Won’t ever happen.) Or again, everyone could turn around and laugh at those employers and say, “You must be joking!”

Now that’s my ideal, but it won’t work in this country. Several reasons, but one reason, I’m sad to say, is that often people in these jobs are convinced that they have no choice, no power, that they have to work in these jobs with bastards for managers, and their only hope is to join the union (I won’t get started, but no obviously I no longer belong to a union although I did for several years, probably 7 or 8).

But people DO have a choice. They can choose to better themselves (and I believe EVERYONE is capable of doing this if they want to – they don’t necessarily all have to become brain surgeons), they can choose to work for crap wages and conditions or they can choose to go on a benefit. They can choose to belong to a union and allow the union to negotiate on their behalf, or they can do what I do – negotiate with my employer for wages and conditions that seem fair to me. When my employer refuses to meet my conditions, I can choose to swallow my pride and accept what’s on offer, or go somewhere else in the belief that I’m worth more.

The crappy managers already do all of those things. To me it is the mark of the useless employer – the petty rule maker. If they’d spent as much time looking at the work flows in their workplaces as they do chasing non-critical arbitrary ‘rules’ than they’d be able to kick the efficiencies up massively and make the work easier.

In the example you’re describing, I can’t believe that cafes are as poorly organized as the ones I see when I go into them. Many seem to be designed to make excess work for the employees. They also run appalling slowly in serving coffee and food.

In some cases the building itself is at fault with weird skinny rooms and strange corners. But usually even those seem to be made worse because of the positioning of the work spaces and corridors.

I have to say that it becomes a pleasure with the few I’ve come across that are well designed for workflows. I get my food and coffee nice and fast, and the cleanup is as fast. Anyone who is in for food and coffee and not too much conversation frees a table reasonably rapidly. Those who are talking tend to keep sampling the food. Either way increases the profit because there are effectively dollars per table per hour. They get a lot more repeat customers. As a place to go they also seem to be really long-lived as well.

One of the ones I’m thinking of has now been around for a little under 20 years and has moved from being a hole in the wall breakfast joint to a up-market restaurant. Mind you, the food helped a lot as well. But then the owners didn’t have to spend as much time on stressing, and had more time to concentrate on the food and the customers.

Another one at the lower end of the cafes has been around for at least 15 years, had at least 3 change of owners, and essentially hasn’t changed the work flow during that time. The food is still gorgeous and very fast.

Both have picked up clientele because I tend to drag people along to them. Both have relatively slow turnovers of staff. At least in comparison to some of the others that I go to.