There was talk about renaming the Krugman thread for this purpose, but that seems to be going nowhere. Besides which, I feel the Krugman thread should be left to discuss Krugman while this thread can be used for more general economic discussion.
Discuss:
- The merits of competing theories.
- The role of the government in managing the economy.
- The causes of and solutions to our current economic woes.
- Comparisons between the economic systems of different countries.
- Theoretical and existing alternatives to our current market system.
edited 17th Dec '12 10:58:52 AM by Topazan
Lost in Space
Only because of your right-wingers insisting that social programs need to be cut "for the good of the economy", by which they mean "for the good of the wealthy". There is not a good-faith debate occurring, just a bunch of pretenses that the media are treating as one and giving legitimacy to thereby.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
A nice butterfly
Cheap medicine is costly, though.
Cheap medicine is less likely to work, which will then double the cost because the person won't get cured and will have to access the same service again for the same reason, only to not be cured properly again.
That is the experience of my country, with a universal healthcare, btw. And no, they are not switching to the good medicines yet. Thanks politics.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
United Earth
Well rehire sacked ones! Ain't no shortage of those.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
HGW XX/7
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Trouble is, a lot of old soldiers are so worn out by their time in the army they are no longer fit for duty. Historically that's been why, in times of downturn, the army is always hiring - people retire much earlier and there are comparatively fewer senior management positions to fill.
Schild und Schwert der Partei
Shameful Display
China's naked emperors
Paul Krugman speaks blasphemy, that the Chinese leaders have no idea what the hell they are doing.
Lost in Space
Well, you know that China is an evil, hypercompetent, ruthless enemy that owns half our country and will destroy us if we don't completely dominate them in every way, right?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
On the other hand, some of us were rather hoping that the leaders of the largest population on Earth weren't the kind of short-sighted, narrow-minded vainglorious muddlers that their more recent actions seemed to indicate.
Lost in Space
You mean, unlike the leaders of most other nations?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
United Earth
Not all can be a Bismark, Talleyrand, Che, Mujica, Disraeli, or Lenin.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
It's basically internal party politics and stubborness.
Chinese Stocks post worst monthly losses in 6 years.
edited 1st Aug '15 2:18:51 AM by PotatoesRock
The Mod with the Migraine
Seattle CEO decides to raise his company's minimum wage to $70k/year, and draws complaints from his own employees.
Maisey Mc Master — once a big supporter of the plan — is one of the employees that quit. Mc Master, 26, joined the company five years ago, eventually working her way up to financial manager. She put in long hours that "left little time for her husband and extended family," the Times says, but she loved the "special culture" of the place.
But while she was initially on board, helping to calculate whether the company could afford to raise salaries so drastically (the plan is a minimum of $70,000 over the course of three years), Mc Master later began to have doubts.
"He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump," she told the Times. A fairer plan, she told the paper, would give newer employees smaller increases, along with the chance to earn a more substantial raise with more experience.
Without knowing the exact circumstances, we cant tell. Were I in charge, I would make the pay raises probational.
It sounds like the employees in question are bitching about everyone getting a good wage instead of "those who earned it."
The point of the wage increase makes no sense as a probationary; it sounds like a principled stand on "everyone who works for me will earn a living wage and that's final."
Lost in Space
Indeed, it can't be "probationary" to have the desired effect. That said, the ragequits do illustrate one potential social/psychological issue with "bottom-up" wage increases.
That also said, I wonder if these employees will find jobs that pay as well elsewhere. Their actions strike me as pointlessly short-sighted... which makes them just as human as anyone else, I guess.
edited 1st Aug '15 7:03:51 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
No longer a forum herald
It was kind of obvious that wages have to be tiered to generate goodwill among employees. Even if the minimum wage is a living wage, it still has to be the minimum wage, with all that comes with.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Alternatively, you can restructure things so that there isn't the "I'm better than you" tieredness at the bottom, and then just accept the resignations of anyone who doesn't like it.
No longer a forum herald
It would be nice if wage incentives worked that way, but they don't - never have, and likely never will, at least in the foreseeable future. If you, as a worker, have relatively more skills, more experience, more kissing-the-butt-of-your-boss, whatever...you expect to receive relatively more compensation in return.
If you raise the bottom tier of wages, you have to raise all the tiers, or stuff like this happens. There's no need to be specific about maintaining exact ratios or whatever, as that's just anal. But the employees do have to feel rewarded for superior work quality.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
Right, there's a difference between the underpaid paramedic (i saw one bitchy facebook post complaining that burger-flippers are going to get $15/hr while paramedics only got $11) getting mad that the gas station worker is now making the same that they are, being completely different companies and industries, and the guy who has worked in the same department of the same company for 15 years suddenly making only as much as the person who started last wednesday.
Lost in Space
"Merit increases" (in reality, seniority increases) are a thing that's built into our work culture. It may be reasonable or it may not, but you can't just do away with it and expect people to be happy.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Also, there is work that requires relatively more or relatively less skill and qualifications to do. If you pay the less educated the same as the more educated, the ones with more education, training and experience will feel ripped off.
Of course the pay raises could be probationary- why not? "Here's $70,000, now earn it" seems perfectly fair to me. Psychologically, funny things happen to motivation when you pay someone more than they think their position is worth- but one thing that doesnt happen is that they work any harder. If you think of payroll as an investment by the company in it's workers, then it makes no sense not to seek a greater return for more pay.
If, on the other hand, the problem was that certain workers were being underpaid for the skilled labor they were delivering, then I would concede that's a different set of circumstances. But I dont remember that as a claim that was being made.
The Mod with the Migraine
The other thing I think a lot of people missed is that the $70k is a three year pay increase, this isn't an instant bump. Also I'd have more sympathy if it wasn't well established that raises in almost every corporation are erratic and inconsistently granted to people.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
United Earth
Objective metrics are helpful?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Depends. The problem in measuring work performance has been that it's practically impossible to measure a particular person's contribution to the output of the entire organization. How much did the VP of IT contribute to the profit of each product sold? How do you calculate that?
The problem is that Health is probably one of the biggest political issues in the UK.
Keep Rolling On