I worked my way through both the last couple of years of high school and through university, working as a casual sales assistant, a part-time legal typist, and a waitress for several catering companies. I didn’t drive back then so had to rely on public transport, which was pretty unreliable after midnight. Believe me, even with the fancy catering jobs, it was hardly worth the clouds of cigarette smoke, the crushed toes as people adjusted chairs on your feet, the awful messes of prawn shells and sloshed beer and cigarette butts for the few $$ you’d get in tips at the end of a night (and they’d be sodden too). But you knew your wage, and your tax, and other entitlements and could easily check if something didn’t look right. (I think I was paid 3/4 of an adult wage until I turned 18, then full adult female)
I really don’t think people realise just how broad the lower levels of the pay scales are, in most countries. As an editor/proofreader I was meant to be earning over $27/hr back in the late ‘80s, and yet lucky to negotiate contracts up to $22. Look at what they get now, if they can find work. And trainers/teachers? My D should be getting well over $30/hr, but there’s been no work for over a year thanks to covid (no students, so colleges downsizing), so everything finishes up as poorly paid short-term trials in projects that don’t last. It’s the unsustainability of employment as well as poor pay that grinds on morale and performance, and traps families in debt and despair.
As someone who used waiting tables to help me get through about 1.5-2 years of secondary school, I would not dismiss that payment structure. There were definitely some down times, but the fact that if you did a good job, were attentive & friendly, you usually did pretty well.
My father did that work all of his adult life and it provided a decent living and ability to support a family for a man who never finished High School. So I'm not sure what he would have thought about a fixed pay schedule.
I had a course in Economics in High School, when such courses were very rare. I took a couple of Economics courses in College. I even read Milton Friedman but it was for a Poli-Sci Theory Course. Years later I attended a weekend long Economics Seminar run by Marxist Economists from the University of Mass. I asked the lead instructor why if his theories were as obviously true as he contended why all Economists did not agree. His response was "Class bias" or something to that effect. It seems other Economists, like some cited on this thread, might respond that those who disagreed with them were just stupid.
In any event despite the courses I took and my attempts to understand Economics I never really understood. For a while I thought it was my fault. Now I think it's because a lot of Economics is just speculation or theories that cannot be proven empirically. The "Laws" of Economics are not like the Laws of Physics with which all Physicists agree. And sometimes they seem more like Dogma.
I may be the only participant on MOL who was told by a poster to "Go f*** yourself".
You have a minority opinion. Others are going to strongly disagree. Some are going to be snarky. It goes with the territory. However I suggest you practice what you preach and refrain from saying that someone who disagrees with you just is not smart or "doesn't understand".
Personally I have a more negative reaction to someone who says to me "You don't understand" than someone who says "**** yourself".
min wage in nj is now $12 ( going up a $1 a year reaching $15 in 2024)
for bus with less than 6 employees it is now $11.10
Actual facts! Wow!
I had no idea that the NJ minimum wage is that close to $15 already.
A question that does come to mind is whether the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in a locality? $15 bucks goes a lot further in say, Arkansas, than it does in Manhattan. Seems that is a legitimate argument to be made, and I guess Terp has made it.
min wage in nj is now $12 ( going up a $1 a year reaching $15 in 2024)
for bus with less than 6 employees it is now $11.10
Actual facts! Wow!
I had no idea that the NJ minimum wage is that close to $15 already.
A question that does come to mind is whether the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in a locality? $15 bucks goes a lot further in say, Arkansas, than it does in Manhattan. Seems that is a legitimate argument to be made, and I guess Terp has made it.
OTOH, going back to the stimulus questions you raised -- the increase to $15/hour will have a much greater stimulative effect in Arkansas than in Manhattan. If the problem with one-time $1400 checks is that they aren't sufficiently targeted, the minimum wage increase seems the opposite of that policy in some way.
Will the wage increase lead to too much inflation in AR? Or are low-wage economies under performing, and economic gains will outpace any inflation that ends up happening?
min wage in nj is now $12 ( going up a $1 a year reaching $15 in 2024)
for bus with less than 6 employees it is now $11.10
Actual facts! Wow!
I had no idea that the NJ minimum wage is that close to $15 already.
A question that does come to mind is whether the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in a locality? $15 bucks goes a lot further in say, Arkansas, than it does in Manhattan. Seems that is a legitimate argument to be made, and I guess Terp has made it.
OTOH, going back to the stimulus questions you raised -- the increase to $15/hour will have a much greater stimulative effect in Arkansas than in Manhattan. If the problem with one-time $1400 checks is that they aren't sufficiently targeted, the minimum wage increase seems the opposite of that policy in some way.
Will the wage increase lead to too much inflation in AR? Or are low-wage economies under performing, and economic gains will outpace any inflation that ends up happening?
Why do you assume the mandated wage increase will lead to inflation?
Why do you assume the mandated wage increase will lead to inflation?
There’s that snark again...
We’re obviously not going to agree on a minimum wage, and I agree with many of your market-based arguments.
I do think that a minimum that is phased-in, indexed to both inflation and cost-of-living, and considers different rates for smaller companies addresses many of the arguments. Lots of qualifiers? Sure, but I think that's OK.
min wage in nj is now $12 ( going up a $1 a year reaching $15 in 2024)
for bus with less than 6 employees it is now $11.10
Actual facts! Wow!
I had no idea that the NJ minimum wage is that close to $15 already.
A question that does come to mind is whether the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in a locality? $15 bucks goes a lot further in say, Arkansas, than it does in Manhattan. Seems that is a legitimate argument to be made, and I guess Terp has made it.
OTOH, going back to the stimulus questions you raised -- the increase to $15/hour will have a much greater stimulative effect in Arkansas than in Manhattan. If the problem with one-time $1400 checks is that they aren't sufficiently targeted, the minimum wage increase seems the opposite of that policy in some way.
Will the wage increase lead to too much inflation in AR? Or are low-wage economies under performing, and economic gains will outpace any inflation that ends up happening?
Why do you assume the mandated wage increase will lead to inflation?
PVW did NOT assume inflation. PVW actually asked a question, which you could have analytically answered. Shocking, though, that you responded both blindly and nastily.
Terp, i guess that’s because the usual ‘causes’ of inflation are attributed to the most obvious unusual ‘new’ feature. What would probably happen with a pay rise as minimal as this, however, is that households will lose it in rising costs (but find it a little easier to meet those costs), as the world settles around them. We’ve pegged our wages to cost-of-living but for too long postponed the adjustments. It’s created havoc.
min wage in nj is now $12 ( going up a $1 a year reaching $15 in 2024)
for bus with less than 6 employees it is now $11.10
Actual facts! Wow!
I had no idea that the NJ minimum wage is that close to $15 already.
A question that does come to mind is whether the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in a locality? $15 bucks goes a lot further in say, Arkansas, than it does in Manhattan. Seems that is a legitimate argument to be made, and I guess Terp has made it.
OTOH, going back to the stimulus questions you raised -- the increase to $15/hour will have a much greater stimulative effect in Arkansas than in Manhattan. If the problem with one-time $1400 checks is that they aren't sufficiently targeted, the minimum wage increase seems the opposite of that policy in some way.
Will the wage increase lead to too much inflation in AR? Or are low-wage economies under performing, and economic gains will outpace any inflation that ends up happening?
Why do you assume the mandated wage increase will lead to inflation?
Well, I imagine that's one of the arguments a good-faith opponent of the minimum wage might raise would be inflation. Since People at the low end of the economic scale are much more likely to spend money than save it (mostly because they have to spend the money; there's not as much "give" where extra money can just be stashed away for later), and people often argue that increased spending can trigger inflation, my imaginary interlocutor might be worried about this.
Having an imaginary interlocutor arguing against your own points can be helpful in trying to see the weaknesses and oversights in your own thoughts, but it does of course raise the danger of arguing against a strawman. So sometimes I float the questions out loud and see if a real person will pick them up, and turn them into actual arguments (hopefully with perspective and insight I missed).
But, at the risk of arguing against a strawman, and since you somewhat raise the issue here, I'll respond that I don't think there's a great danger of inflation. Minimum wage jobs are not enough to actually make a living off of, and unfortunately a great many more people are at this pay rate than ought to be -- it's not just teenagers working their way through school. What that suggests to me is that the cost of living is not accurately reflecting spending capacity; that spending is in fact suppressed. I expect that as more people actually make enough money to increase their spending on things they need, the ability of the local economy to supply that need should rise as well. If there is price inflation (and I think the last few years should have made us all a bit more humble about our assumptions on what triggers inflation), I'd expect that it would at a rate less than the growth in wages.
I was not being snarky at all. I was asking a question, because it seemed like that post was opreating on that assumption.
If you study the Great Depression you will find that businesses were pressured not to cut wages. This created issues where people were fired/laid off and may have thus contibuted to deflation.
I think it is likely that a move to $15 an hour will have some affects that these studies may not be taking into account. I think it could cause much more business failures than in urban environments(but think that will be the result in both), less business formation, and very likely a bigger black market in labor than we currently see today(people wanting to enter work agreements that are against the law).
min wage in nj is now $12 ( going up a $1 a year reaching $15 in 2024)
for bus with less than 6 employees it is now $11.10
Actual facts! Wow!
I had no idea that the NJ minimum wage is that close to $15 already.
A question that does come to mind is whether the minimum wage should be indexed to the cost of living in a locality? $15 bucks goes a lot further in say, Arkansas, than it does in Manhattan. Seems that is a legitimate argument to be made, and I guess Terp has made it.
OTOH, going back to the stimulus questions you raised -- the increase to $15/hour will have a much greater stimulative effect in Arkansas than in Manhattan. If the problem with one-time $1400 checks is that they aren't sufficiently targeted, the minimum wage increase seems the opposite of that policy in some way.
Will the wage increase lead to too much inflation in AR? Or are low-wage economies under performing, and economic gains will outpace any inflation that ends up happening?
Why do you assume the mandated wage increase will lead to inflation?
PVW did NOT assume inflation. PVW actually asked a question, which you could have analytically answered. Shocking, though, that you responded both blindly and nastily.
I really don't understand why people think I was being nasty. I literally asked a question.
Now, if you go click on that thread you will see that I have added to it. And there are studies that question the lockdown policies. There is even a study in the American Medical Journal that says that Hydrochloroquine should be used to treat Covid, and the Lancet study saying it had no efficacy has been retracted.
When I read something like this I am very surprised but I give you enough credit to check it out. So I Googled Hydrochloroquine and found:
I am treated pretty poorly here. You don't see it because I'm not in your tribe. Your tribe is always right. Those outside your tribe are always wrong and are probably a white supremecist and thus probably have whatever treatment they get coming.
Here's an example. I started a thread where some scientists started to question the orthodoy of locking down. This isn't that dissimilar to the economists questioning how the orthodoxy used to view the effects of the minimum wage. The big difference is that now the orthodoxy wants to increase the minimum wage quite a bit. So, the 2 things are treated differently.
So, in this thread I posted what these scientist and everybody goes crazy attacking the scientists being political, lacking substance, calling them a death cult. I was censored on that thread and had the thread title changed for me. Finally, the thread was sunk.
Now, if you go click on that thread you will see that I have added to it. And there are studies that question the lockdown policies. There is even a study in the American Medical Journal that says that Hydrochloroquine should be used to treat Covid, and the Lancet study saying it had no efficacy has been retracted. But, in his infinite wisdom the admin decided to "sink"the thread. He says because it wasn't about science. It is really because I questioning an obviously simple man's religion.
poor you.
I'm not responsible for any of that. So why not respond to me without regard for how badly you think others are treating you?
Because you brought it up. And the next go around you are going to say I brought it up w/ the even handed comment. I was not referring to the way I'm treated. I was more referring to how you treat issues in general.
Another thought on the minimum wage, triggered by DB's observation that "almost 40 million workers make less than $15" -- why are so many workers making so little?
A plausible theory here, with proposals that propose alternatives to the minimum wage to address the proposed causes, is one I'd find pretty compelling. When I try to think through why workers are paid so little, I have a hard time coming up with theories that lend themselves to a solution other than "pay workers more."
For instance, one theory is increased automation. Ok, but we're hardly going to abandon all the technologies that have made automation possible. I fully expect automation will continue, and at a greater rate. Possibly raising worker's wages will speed this up somewhat, but that'd just be a speeding up of the inevitable. So if we're not going to actually stop or reverse automation, I have a hard time seeing what policy besides "require workers to be paid more" would actually result in workers being paid more.
But maybe I'm just being unimaginative. Perhaps others have come across proposed alternative to the minimum wage (ie something that's not just "don't do anything and the invisible hand will work it out") that were interesting, even if not ultimately convincing to them?
Interesting twitter thread on this. George Selgin is a pretty smart economist. And futher down even Bob Murphy chimes in.
“If wages go up, then consumption can go up.” Um, no: not if “wages” means the minimum wage _rate_, as it does here. Increasing that doesn’t generally increase total wage payments or aggregate demand. To confuse the two is a serious error. 1/5 https://t.co/9HquciK877
Another thought on the minimum wage, triggered by DB's observation that "almost 40 million workers make less than $15" -- why are so many workers making so little?
A plausible theory here, with proposals that propose alternatives to the minimum wage to address the proposed causes, is one I'd find pretty compelling. When I try to think through why workers are paid so little, I have a hard time coming up with theories that lend themselves to a solution other than "pay workers more."
For instance, one theory is increased automation. Ok, but we're hardly going to abandon all the technologies that have made automation possible. I fully expect automation will continue, and at a greater rate. Possibly raising worker's wages will speed this up somewhat, but that'd just be a speeding up of the inevitable. So if we're not going to actually stop or reverse automation, I have a hard time seeing what policy besides "require workers to be paid more" would actually result in workers being paid more.
But maybe I'm just being unimaginative. Perhaps others have come across proposed alternative to the minimum wage (ie something that's not just "don't do anything and the invisible hand will work it out") that were interesting, even if not ultimately convincing to them?
It is an interesting question. At the end of the day its because they do not offer $15 an hour to their employer. But, then the question is why is that?
There are probably numerous forces at play. First, I would say is globalization. Unless you are talking about highly skilled jobs(and really even there) the wage pool has widened. And I would point out that workers in many of these other countries have much lower wages(that's why its worth having the goods shipped, pay tariffs, etc). Another force is automation.
Now the question I ask myself is: "Well great. We're getting cheaper goods from overseas. This should bring prices down." Then, even if you are making a low wage, that wage is going to buy more. This would be a real raise, but a nominally, you are not getting a raise.
However, we don't see that phenomenon either. By all rights, we should be in a highly deflationary environment. We have lower cost structures, why aren't we seeing the pay off in lower prices.
And the reason, as far as I can tell, is that we have been printing $$ this whole time. And most of the advantages of this go to the wealthy and connected. And we have seen rampant inflation in assets. But, the little guy can't save. The prices for things she wants to buy do not go down. In fact they are going up. Some of this is statistcally understated. So, the little guy falls further behind.
Because you brought it up. And the next go around you are going to say I brought it up w/ the even handed comment. I was not referring to the way I'm treated. I was more referring to how you treat issues in general.
I still don't know what that means except that it was almost certainly sarcasm.
Because you brought it up. And the next go around you are going to say I brought it up w/ the even handed comment. I was not referring to the way I'm treated. I was more referring to how you treat issues in general.
I still don't know what that means except that it was almost certainly sarcasm.
I know this is completely off the topic of the minimum wage but I wanted to check it out
(The foregoing was written before the last two posts and was not a response)
it's actually not the case that scientists are saying HCQ should be used as a COVID-19 treatment.
Here's a more accurate account from the editor in chief of the AJM.
"This article does not mean the journal recommended this therapy," he said. "The authors recommended it just as others recommend other interventions. We just publish their findings and recommendations." Alpert said the journal often presents multiple sides of a scientific argument.
"We have also published articles from other authorities that said don't use it [HCQ treatment]," he said.
"This is still controversial with two sides saying different things. Often we have editorials that dispute the article's recommendations. We are a scientific journal and do not push or recommend any specific thing. The authors do that."
Another thought on the minimum wage, triggered by DB's observation that "almost 40 million workers make less than $15" -- why are so many workers making so little?
A plausible theory here, with proposals that propose alternatives to the minimum wage to address the proposed causes, is one I'd find pretty compelling. When I try to think through why workers are paid so little, I have a hard time coming up with theories that lend themselves to a solution other than "pay workers more."
For instance, one theory is increased automation. Ok, but we're hardly going to abandon all the technologies that have made automation possible. I fully expect automation will continue, and at a greater rate. Possibly raising worker's wages will speed this up somewhat, but that'd just be a speeding up of the inevitable. So if we're not going to actually stop or reverse automation, I have a hard time seeing what policy besides "require workers to be paid more" would actually result in workers being paid more.
But maybe I'm just being unimaginative. Perhaps others have come across proposed alternative to the minimum wage (ie something that's not just "don't do anything and the invisible hand will work it out") that were interesting, even if not ultimately convincing to them?
It is an interesting question. At the end of the day its because they do not offer $15 an hour to their employer. But, then the question is why is that?
There are probably numerous forces at play. First, I would say is globalization. Unless you are talking about highly skilled jobs(and really even there) the wage pool has widened. And I would point out that workers in many of these other countries have much lower wages(that's why its worth having the goods shipped, pay tariffs, etc). Another force is automation.
Now the question I ask myself is: "Well great. We're getting cheaper goods from overseas. This should bring prices down." Then, even if you are making a low wage, that wage is going to buy more. This would be a real raise, but a nominally, you are not getting a raise.
However, we don't see that phenomenon either. By all rights, we should be in a highly deflationary environment. We have lower cost structures, why aren't we seeing the pay off in lower prices.
And the reason, as far as I can tell, is that we have been printing $$ this whole time. And most of the advantages of this go to the wealthy and connected. And we have seen rampant inflation in assets. But, the little guy can't save. The prices for things she wants to buy do not go down. In fact they are going up. Some of this is statistcally understated. So, the little guy falls further behind.
I'd agree that globalization is a huge factor, but, as with my point on automation, I don't see that reversing. Sure, there's been a bit of a step back from that as we've seen a mini-revival of some protectionism, but we're never going fully back to a world that doesn't have a heavy reliance on global supply chains.
As for being in a deflationary environment, IIRC one of the great fears in the 2008 crisis was that we were headed toward one, and all the money printing was meant to stave that off. Putting aside our potential disagreements on whether that's what actually happened, I don't think you're saying it would be good to be in a deflationary environment, are you? As I understand it, that would be pretty awful.
To your point on asset inflation -- wouldn't a policy of raising taxes on the wealthy (thereby removing the excess money they're sticking into assets) while raising wages for the underpaid (who aren't going to be using that money betting on the stock market) address that? It seems that it's less the "printing money" and where that money's been going that's the problem, no?
I know this is completely off the topic of the minimum wage but I wanted to check it out
(The foregoing was written before the last two posts and was not a response)
it's actually not the case that scientists are saying HCQ should be used as a COVID-19 treatment.
Here's a more accurate account from the editor in chief of the AJM.
"This article does not mean the journal recommended this therapy," he said. "The authors recommended it just as others recommend other interventions. We just publish their findings and recommendations." Alpert said the journal often presents multiple sides of a scientific argument.
"We have also published articles from other authorities that said don't use it [HCQ treatment]," he said.
"This is still controversial with two sides saying different things. Often we have editorials that dispute the article's recommendations. We are a scientific journal and do not push or recommend any specific thing. The authors do that."
I know this is completely off the topic of the minimum wage but I wanted to check it out
(The foregoing was written before the last two posts and was not a response)
it's actually not the case that scientists are saying HCQ should be used as a COVID-19 treatment.
Here's a more accurate account from the editor in chief of the AJM.
"This article does not mean the journal recommended this therapy," he said. "The authors recommended it just as others recommend other interventions. We just publish their findings and recommendations." Alpert said the journal often presents multiple sides of a scientific argument.
"We have also published articles from other authorities that said don't use it [HCQ treatment]," he said.
"This is still controversial with two sides saying different things. Often we have editorials that dispute the article's recommendations. We are a scientific journal and do not push or recommend any specific thing. The authors do that."
I know this is completely off the topic of the minimum wage but I wanted to check it out
(The foregoing was written before the last two posts and was not a response)
it's actually not the case that scientists are saying HCQ should be used as a COVID-19 treatment.
Here's a more accurate account from the editor in chief of the AJM.
"This article does not mean the journal recommended this therapy," he said. "The authors recommended it just as others recommend other interventions. We just publish their findings and recommendations." Alpert said the journal often presents multiple sides of a scientific argument.
"We have also published articles from other authorities that said don't use it [HCQ treatment]," he said.
"This is still controversial with two sides saying different things. Often we have editorials that dispute the article's recommendations. We are a scientific journal and do not push or recommend any specific thing. The authors do that."
Another thought on the minimum wage, triggered by DB's observation that "almost 40 million workers make less than $15" -- why are so many workers making so little?
A plausible theory here, with proposals that propose alternatives to the minimum wage to address the proposed causes, is one I'd find pretty compelling. When I try to think through why workers are paid so little, I have a hard time coming up with theories that lend themselves to a solution other than "pay workers more."
For instance, one theory is increased automation. Ok, but we're hardly going to abandon all the technologies that have made automation possible. I fully expect automation will continue, and at a greater rate. Possibly raising worker's wages will speed this up somewhat, but that'd just be a speeding up of the inevitable. So if we're not going to actually stop or reverse automation, I have a hard time seeing what policy besides "require workers to be paid more" would actually result in workers being paid more.
But maybe I'm just being unimaginative. Perhaps others have come across proposed alternative to the minimum wage (ie something that's not just "don't do anything and the invisible hand will work it out") that were interesting, even if not ultimately convincing to them?
It is an interesting question. At the end of the day its because they do not offer $15 an hour to their employer. But, then the question is why is that?
There are probably numerous forces at play. First, I would say is globalization. Unless you are talking about highly skilled jobs(and really even there) the wage pool has widened. And I would point out that workers in many of these other countries have much lower wages(that's why its worth having the goods shipped, pay tariffs, etc). Another force is automation.
Now the question I ask myself is: "Well great. We're getting cheaper goods from overseas. This should bring prices down." Then, even if you are making a low wage, that wage is going to buy more. This would be a real raise, but a nominally, you are not getting a raise.
However, we don't see that phenomenon either. By all rights, we should be in a highly deflationary environment. We have lower cost structures, why aren't we seeing the pay off in lower prices.
And the reason, as far as I can tell, is that we have been printing $$ this whole time. And most of the advantages of this go to the wealthy and connected. And we have seen rampant inflation in assets. But, the little guy can't save. The prices for things she wants to buy do not go down. In fact they are going up. Some of this is statistcally understated. So, the little guy falls further behind.
I'd agree that globalization is a huge factor, but, as with my point on automation, I don't see that reversing. Sure, there's been a bit of a step back from that as we've seen a mini-revival of some protectionism, but we're never going fully back to a world that doesn't have a heavy reliance on global supply chains.
As for being in a deflationary environment, IIRC one of the great fears in the 2008 crisis was that we were headed toward one, and all the money printing was meant to stave that off. Putting aside our potential disagreements on whether that's what actually happened, I don't think you're saying it would be good to be in a deflationary environment, are you? As I understand it, that would be pretty awful.
To your point on asset inflation -- wouldn't a policy of raising taxes on the wealthy (thereby removing the excess money they're sticking into assets) while raising wages for the underpaid (who aren't going to be using that money betting on the stock market) address that? It seems that it's less the "printing money" and where that money's been going that's the problem, no?
On the deflation. Is deflation itself bad? In and of itself, the answer is no. In fact, we've had periods of growth in this country during deflation. Think about a situation where the money supply is stable. Now assume we have periods of growth in productivity. That is going to push prices down, because we will increase supply at a greater rate than demand is increasing. That would be a very good thing as everyone is getting richer.
Now if the government printed money enough to devalue the currency at the same rate that supply is increasing over demand, you would have stable prices. But that would simply take that benefit from all society and place it in the hands of the wealthy(asset holders, those connected to the governement, etc)
The issue with this is the way our economy is structured today. Essentially, our monetary system is a debt based system. Historically, money has been a medium of exchange. That is: it is something that has inherent value(i.e. gold, silver). Our money today is actually based on credit.
That means it is debt. If you increase debt you increase the money supply. If you decrease debt by either paying back debt or by defaulting on debt, you decrease the money supply. When you decrease the money supply debts are more difficult to pay back as the value of your debt increases.
So, the reason why deflation is so scary is because of the structure of our modern monetary system and thus the structure of our economy. The fear is that we start paying down debt. This then causes deflation. The value of money increase, and the value of debt increases. The debt gets more difficult to pay back & you start to see defaults increasing. This could cause a pretty significant economic dislocation.
That is the fear. The problem is to avoid that fate, you need to keep increasing the money supply or the system collapses on itself. But in doing this, you have to keep adding leverage to the system. This growing leverage makes the potential for dislocation even greater. Thus, the system over time gets increasingly brittle and the potential resulting disaster keeps growing.
To put this all in perspective, 42% of all the dollars ever printed were printed in 2020. Each crisis or risk of crisis will require greater and greater monetary growth. While these situations can certainly last longer than someone like myself may anticipate(I was calling the housing bubble for years), you can see that the system may have its limits.
As you can see, efforts to slow down speculation just inhibits the monetary growth. The issue with that is that runs completely counter to what this system needs. And thus, is not very likely to occur in any real way. Basically, the people running monetary policy are not very likely to get behind such a plan.
Because while the editors of the journal don't necessarily think HCQ should be used as a Covid treatment, the scientists who authored the study clearly do.
Because while the editors of the journal don't necessarily think HCQ should be used as a Covid treatment, the scientists who authored the study clearly do.
I didn't see the word "should." That's a really important word in your claim.
I worked my way through both the last couple of years of high school and through university, working as a casual sales assistant, a part-time legal typist, and a waitress for several catering companies. I didn’t drive back then so had to rely on public transport, which was pretty unreliable after midnight.
Believe me, even with the fancy catering jobs, it was hardly worth the clouds of cigarette smoke, the crushed toes as people adjusted chairs on your feet, the awful messes of prawn shells and sloshed beer and cigarette butts for the few $$ you’d get in tips at the end of a night (and they’d be sodden too). But you knew your wage, and your tax, and other entitlements and could easily check if something didn’t look right. (I think I was paid 3/4 of an adult wage until I turned 18, then full adult female)
I really don’t think people realise just how broad the lower levels of the pay scales are, in most countries. As an editor/proofreader I was meant to be earning over $27/hr back in the late ‘80s, and yet lucky to negotiate contracts up to $22. Look at what they get now, if they can find work. And trainers/teachers? My D should be getting well over $30/hr, but there’s been no work for over a year thanks to covid (no students, so colleges downsizing), so everything finishes up as poorly paid short-term trials in projects that don’t last.
It’s the unsustainability of employment as well as poor pay that grinds on morale and performance, and traps families in debt and despair.