Wages TANK After Trump's Wealthy Tax Cut

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: schuyler
Fake News. Actually, Annual US Worker Pay Gains Rose at Fastest Pace Since 2008. Although the ATS motto is "Deny Ignorance," you really can't trust anything that is posted here.

This is great news, so the average American is now benefiting from all these gains, this is fantastic news , everyone deserves to benefit right ?

It's not a good measurement because it's measuring absolute changes. Rising a few cents when wages are low means high percentage changes. In fact, if you read the article it specifically points out that the previous high was the second quarter of 2008. We all remember what was going on then right?

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
Do you think that it is right that American citizens have to compete for wages with illegal immigrants that shouldn’t even be in the United States in the first place?

Yes. If we're supposed to be a country made up of the best and brightest (which American Exceptionalism claims we are), then every single person should be challenged for their spot at all times so that we constantly maintain the best people.

It's not their fault that our citizens are incapable of competing.

You see that’s where you are wrong. It’s not that we can’t compete. The Americans may be actually better at doing the same job (and in most cases they are because for one they can speak English which is a big plus in a lot of cases). But sense the market is flooded with people that can do the job just fine or maybe with a little less quality but for far less, the employer is going to hire the cut throat guy to save a buck. It’s basic economics 101 supply and demand. If there is an over supply of labor then logically the price of labor goes down.

However if we took the illegal immigrants out of the equation then it would bring back up the demand for labor thus driving wages back up.

I don’t know why you are having such a hard time with basic economics.

I’ll put it in simple terms for you. Let’s say you have 100 labor jobs on the market and 125 equally qualified and equally competitive workers to fill those positions. The price of labor is going to be low because there is an over supply of labor compared to available jobs. So you will have the labor workers competing with each other to get the job and so they will be willing to work for less in order to get the job and feed their families.

However let’s say that 50 of those workers weren’t supposed to be in there competing so they got removed from the lobor pool and sent back to their country where they belong.

Now we have 100 lobor jobs but only 75 Americans to fill the positions. Now it’s the employers who have to compete with each other and raise the wage in order to attract the workers.

Get it?

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
You see that’s where you are wrong. It’s not that we can’t compete.

Yes it is. If you could compete, you would have the job and the illegal wouldn't. They're at political, social, legal, and cultural disadvantages and remain more competitive.

Also, competition doesn't mean the best product survives. It means the most cost effective product survives. Sometimes that means 90% of the quality at 10% of the cost. Either you need to provide value commensurate with the wage you're asking, or accept a lower wage. That's how markets work.

However if we took the illegal immigrants out of the equation then it would bring back up the demand for labor thus driving wages back up.

That's a very non market based approach. It's literally just barring others from entering the market in order to maintain a competitive advantage. When you do that, the consumer loses.

To take your example, what do you do when some of those jobs get automated and there's now work for 50 people but you've got 75 in the labor pool? Do you find some other reason to kick a bunch of people out and maintain your clique?

a reply to: Aazadan

Never mind. It appears that not only do you not understand basic economics, you also have poor reading comprehension.

And on top of that you don’t care if there are illegals in our country lowering the wages. Are you here illegally too? Do you even live in the United States?

Sad. SMH

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
Do you think that it is right that American citizens have to compete for wages with illegal immigrants that shouldn’t even be in the United States in the first place?

Yes. If we're supposed to be a country made up of the best and brightest (which American Exceptionalism claims we are), then every single person should be challenged for their spot at all times so that we constantly maintain the best people.

It's not their fault that our citizens are incapable of competing.

The trouble is that in "unskilled" professions. (I say that in quotes because they are really "least skilled". If everyone had 20 phd's, then 25 phd's would be "skilled")

With "unskilled" professions, there often is no reliable way to measure competitive success. Employers will simply hire whoever offers to work for the lowest price, taking little or nothing else into consideration.

And in a bidding war, the lowest price is always going to be bare subsistence. Making the dream of a living wage for all impossible absent a deliberate manipulation to the market. (Like a minimum wage law, or unionization, or etc...)

The reason here is because market economic theory only works if we can assume "perfect information". And well...... we can't.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

You’re wasting your time with Aazadan

See the part where he said. “If you could compete then you would have the job and the illegal wouldn’t.” ?

He doesn’t understand that it’s not about having the job as being the most important thing. What’s the point in having the job if it only pays $3 an hour?

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
And on top of that you don’t care if there are illegals in our country lowering the wages. Are you here illegally too? Do you even live in the United States?

I'm for open borders, illegals do not bother me one bit. They're people who just want to make their lives better, who are we to deny that?

No, I'm not here illegally. Neither is anyone in my family.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

Those people could retrain into something that has a higher barrier to entry though.

If we give that advice to fast food workers in order for them to improve their lives, then why can the same advice not be given to a construction worker?

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
He doesn’t understand that it’s not about having the job as being the most important thing. What’s the point in having the job if it only pays $3 an hour?

Why do you want to fight for a job that pays $3/hour? Why not move into another field that pays better?

Uber pays $250 a day if you work 8 hours and requires nothing more than knowing how to use the GPS on your phone.
Truck driving can pay upwards of $100k/year.
A union grocery store will pay $15/hour for someone to bag groceries.

You have options, even without an education or any desire to get one.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
And on top of that you don’t care if there are illegals in our country lowering the wages. Are you here illegally too? Do you even live in the United States?

I'm for open borders, illegals do not bother me one bit. They're people who just want to make their lives better, who are we to deny that?

No, I'm not here illegally. Neither is anyone in my family.

And when America's population skyrockets from 325 million to 6 billion, you think we'll still be able to find jobs for all those people?

Think America will still be a net exporter of food when it has to supply 18 times as much food to its own people as it does now? You know of a place where we can find 18 times more farm land to farm than what we are already farming?

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: bloodymarvelous

Those people could retrain into something that has a higher barrier to entry though.

If we give that advice to fast food workers in order for them to improve their lives, then why can the same advice not be given to a construction worker?

Retrain with what money?

That is actually the biggest problem with low wages. A person who doesn't start will skills can't ever get any.

When you reach the bare subsistence wage, that's not for a 40 hour work week. More like 60 hours. Unless you are still in your 20's you're coming home physically exhausted every day.

If the most you can reasonably save every month is say... 50 bucks. (And only assuming that you are lucky and no emergencies come up) And tuition is 2000, then we're talking 40 months to get enough money for one semester of whatever training you are after.

A trucking CDL (which really isn't a very high paid profession unless you work 70 hours a week) , costs closer to 4,000 and you need to be able to take a whole month off of work.

Hand waving economics always falls apart when you try to put actual numbers to it.

It's amazing how many "math illiterate" people think they will be at the top of the food chain. Math literacy is the scarcest of all scarce skill sets. The ones feeding you the bull that you believe, with fancy sounding statistic charts..... they're the ones who will be on top.

But if you mix EQ and IQ together, then you realize that being on top actually sucks in a lot of ways. Your kid can't attend public schools, because all those other kids who can't do well on the standardized tests, who know they are destined to be proles, they will resent your smart kid.

It doesn't go well. Elon Musk, for example, got thrown down a flight of stairs at school when he was young.

upriser.com...

If you are smart, why would you want to live in a world like that? What amount of money could make that a good idea?

a reply to: Aazadan

I understand your point about moving around to find a better paying job that’s understandable and doable in a lot of cases but even that will get us so far, we have to trickle the people coming in to give the economy time to absorb them.

If we opened our border how could this country possibly supply everyone with jobs? for the most part, the people coming across that border are low skilled. That’s going to make the poor people even poorer and that’s going to strain the safety nets and in turn strain everything else. How would open borders not be a disaster?

I agree with Alien Abduct.

But not only that... we gotta think about normalization...

If the USA floods it's market with low-wage jobs that are gobbled up by illegal immigrants (because honestly the inconvenient truth is that they'll take anything, even work under-the-table at even lower wages) then we see a normalization of that job with that wage. It's reverse-competitiveness in a way.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
And when America's population skyrockets from 325 million to 6 billion, you think we'll still be able to find jobs for all those people?

First of all, that won't happen. Second of all, even if it did, that's now 6 billion people demanding services and creating jobs with their wants and needs.

[quoteT]hink America will still be a net exporter of food when it has to supply 18 times as much food to its own people as it does now? You know of a place where we can find 18 times more farm land to farm than what we are already farming?

With vertical farming, yields per acre are nearly unlimited (and much more water efficient). If we had a reason to do it, we could easily do it.

Retrain with what money?

That's where government needs to step in. They already provide some retraining programs, but not enough.

If the most you can reasonably save every month is say... 50 bucks. (And only assuming that you are lucky and no emergencies come up) And tuition is 2000, then we're talking 40 months to get enough money for one semester of whatever training you are after.

I'm aware, that's why I'm also in favor of funding to make retraining viable. There shouldn't be a financial barrier to entry on any job.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
If you are smart, why would you want to live in a world like that? What amount of money could make that a good idea?

Ignorance is bliss, but the human condition is to suffer. Removing ignorance is therefore the most human action there is.

originally posted by: Alien Abduct
If we opened our border how could this country possibly supply everyone with jobs? for the most part, the people coming across that border are low skilled. That’s going to make the poor people even poorer and that’s going to strain the safety nets and in turn strain everything else. How would open borders not be a disaster?

I'm going to use a proof by contradiction.

If we were to remove the poorest person from society, what happens? Lets continue on down the chain until we've eliminated the bottom 50% of society. What happens to all of those businesses that relied on lower paid people? How many demands for jobs go unfilled?

Most of our economy buzzes along, simply because each person demands work from others. More so than any actual economic output, a demand for services creates work to be done and there is a certain minimum amount of labor each person creates merely by existing. This means that every person adds more potential labor to be completed than they provide, and that results in a net gain in jobs for every additional person. Society could easily absorb a wave of immigrants, as evidenced by every previous time it has happened in history. It always works to the nations benefit.

originally posted by: mindpurge
I agree with Alien Abduct.

But not only that... we gotta think about normalization...

If the USA floods it's market with low-wage jobs that are gobbled up by illegal immigrants (because honestly the inconvenient truth is that they'll take anything, even work under-the-table at even lower wages) then we see a normalization of that job with that wage. It's reverse-competitiveness in a way.

We already have that. Look at the pushback against a $15/hour minimum wage from people who say "that job shouldn't pay that much".

Here's actual data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Real Earnings

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

originally posted by: schuyler
Fake News. Actually, Annual US Worker Pay Gains Rose at Fastest Pace Since 2008. Although the ATS motto is "Deny Ignorance," you really can't trust anything that is posted here.

This is great news, so the average American is now benefiting from all these gains, this is fantastic news , everyone deserves to benefit right ?

It's not a good measurement because it's measuring absolute changes. Rising a few cents when wages are low means high percentage changes. In fact, if you read the article it specifically points out that the previous high was the second quarter of 2008. We all remember what was going on then right?

I was being sarcastic.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
And when America's population skyrockets from 325 million to 6 billion, you think we'll still be able to find jobs for all those people?

First of all, that won't happen. Second of all, even if it did, that's now 6 billion people demanding services and creating jobs with their wants and needs.

Wants and needs don't create jobs.

Resources do.

With vertical farming, yields per acre are nearly unlimited (and much more water efficient). If we had a reason to do it, we could easily do it.

You still run into a shortage of fresh water, which can only be solved by using a lot more energy/electricity than we already do.

Ultimately energy is what limits our carrying capacity. Nearly anything would be possible with unlimited energy. Plants could grow under sunlamps deep underground if we had unlimited energy.

Also energy is where we get the fertilizer. Via the "haber process" those little yellow pellets can actually be made from water and nitrogen from the air. Basically air and water. Well.... air, water, and quite a lot of electricity.


So I'd be better off asking where you think we'll get unlimited electricity. But I'm sure you'll just say to build more solar PV cells and windmills.