First Annual Keeping the Poor Man Down Meeting - Part 2

[kurtilein3]

1 star, unsubscribed.

[SuperAtheistBrothers]

Good job Motionfur, it was a very well made video!

Didn't know you watched Stefbot?

lol- at the Ragnarok characters :p

[MotionFur]

Stefbot is one of the guys who first opened up my mind to anti-statist ideas, before him there were still some emotional hurdles to get over.

Stef has some really good stuff, and some really crappy stuff. But, that pretty much applies to everyone, no?

But yeah, I played assassin cross back when I played Ragnarok, and I just gave nick the blacksmith sprite. :3

[SuperAtheistBrothers]

Actually, same here. I originally thought Stefbot was crazy until I watched more of his videos. I mean, trying to sell you that Anarchy is better than Statism is quite a leap. My problem with Stefbot is... I never have time to listen to him fully, and if I do, I generally cannot take all the information in. Bite-sized chunks would do him well.

Yea I was a crusader and a blacksmith most of the time :D

Good times...

[horny4bears]

heh, nice emotional appeal at the end. Seems we forget theirs two halves that need convincing in each head.one that needs convincing 1+1=10, an the other to feel good their doing the right thing

[MotionFur]

Thanks :3

[Rybot9000]

So it might seem the rational outcome that employers will not try to exploit labour, and labourers will not allow themselves to be exploited, but history has shown us that is patently false. People are not that rational, purely rational economics is failure.

[MotionFur]

"but history has shown us that is patently false"

History shows us a bunch of governments fooling around in the economy and creating most, if not all of those situations.

[Rybot9000]

Nope

[Rybot9000]

So, if you get into the human psychology of it, in Ariely's case, behavioural economics. You see that the ideal, rational approach doesn't work either, because people are irrational. People will drive 15 blocks to save $7 on a $15 item, bu tthey won't drive 15 blocks to save $7 on a $1,000 item. The savings and the efforts are the same in either case, but people don't think that way, they irrationally compare the percent saved of the total purchase price. That's just one example of irrationality

[Rybot9000]

I can see how the arguments seem rational, and this assumes that human beings are rationl. I submit to you however that humans make irrational economic decisions which is the cause of the current recession. Those are even the more rational among us, there are a multitude even more irrational than wall-street bankers. Check out Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational.

[jatherobot]

Interesting video(s), although I do have a small point, possibly an emotional blockage?

There is clearly a limit to how low a wage can be before you can no longer support yourself or family, even if you live in the worst house on barely any food. Maybe the assumption here is that this cutoff doesn't exist and any money is good enough but if you cant get a job above this cutoff it's effectively useless since you would be financially unstable. Maybe min.wage avoids people forced into such jobs?

[MotionFur]

"a limit to how low a wage can be" Yeah, essentially there will be a minimum cost for rent+food+transportation that will change with each area. For instance, in my current area I live in, I could make 3.75$ an hour [40hour work weeks] and be able to put away maybe 25dollars per month. Now, many places probably would require more, but also if we were to reduce/remove minimum wage, we'd see taxes go down, and more productive members of society would help bring down prices/increase competition.

[MotionFur]

Jobs that are below minimum wage, but still above that minimum cost-of-living are currently being replaced with Capital instead of actual workers [self check-out at the supermarket,] and Peter Schiff talks about that a bit in his video.

[MotionFur]

But jobs that can't actually sustain a person who is being cautious with their money will not actually be undertaken by people, the same way people are violently prevented from taking jobs that they could live off of but are below minimum wage right now. And then the companies will find a way to replace that job with labor, the same way we're replacing even higher paying jobs right now.

[MotionFur]

This is only a partial solution of course, licensing costs are a huge inhibitor of people trying to start new companies that would create jobs. If licensing costs were eliminated as well, we'd see drastically low unemployment numbers, and the quality of life in the poorest parts of America climbing their way out of that hole.

[MotionFur]

There was a story just a couple weeks back of a Chinese man who invented some sort of printing business. He tried to take it to America, but the barriers to entry were too high. Turns out china has a lot more economic freedom then us, and that we'll never get to enjoy the jobs that the man ~could~ have brought here.

[jatherobot]

Thank you for your quick but detailed reply

I agree with you that an ill concieved minimum wage level would be detrimental. I was just interested in the implications for those living near the CostofLiving boundary, since the removal of the minimum wage may leave the unskilled workers open to abuse i.e. that they might be forced to work excessive hours or have 2+jobs to make end meet due to the unttenable nature of the job(s) wage. I guess it maybe a balance betweeen protection and restriction?

[MotionFur]

Well, with our current system, anyone who is put into a position where they can only get by with 2+ jobs and crazy hours is simply going to get on welfare instead. Those jobs just wont really be filled, and will be replaced by capital and wont be around anymore [besides maybe for the spare teenager with hopes of saving up a bit of money over the summer months, depending on the position.]

[MotionFur]

If you did want to attempt some sort of minimum wage law [i'd be against it] you'd need to tailor it to each area, states or counties, making it a national minimum wage is just terribly inefficient.

[jatherobot]

Well in the face of monopsony, (pos. valid in the case of unskilled workers) exploitation is expected and minimum wage has a possibly different effects than suggested, however i'm clearly no expert so you'd have to verify that yourself, assuming you haven't already.

However if welfare can sustain people(?) then it might be that the cutoff above isn't truely real since the state stops you reaching it?. The fate of those near the value is still poverty (e.g. $3.75/hr) but other things can be used