FuckyWucky [none/use name]

Pro-stealing art without attribution

  • 659 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: March 21st, 2023
  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.nettoSlop.@hexbear.net•White people having shit takes on Greenland again (CW: implied racism)English
    26·
    1 day ago

    Denmark giving transfers to Greenland increases demand for Danish goods themselves. It’s similar to Germans whining about them subsidising “lazy” Greeks. That’s not how capitalism works, under it spending of any kind can create employment, and imports by Greeks were financing Germany’s low fiscal deficit, since current surpluses were high while maintaining employment.

    So under capitalism purely looking from “selfish” economic perspective :

    1. Denmark gains demand for its goods form Greenland increasing its own output and employment.

    2. Greenland gets access to more goods and services than it would be able to if it were independent.

    This isn’t anti-independence, just that Greenland losing out on transfers will likely reduce its imports. But at the same time, Greenland having its own currency may also allow it to spend in ways it can’t currently ie improve productivity, employment so the loss of transfers may be somewhat offset.

    Quite different from say, USSR giving transfers to Cuba. Since USSR operated under a centrally planned full employment economy, any transfer meant loss of resources but no higher employment (since it was already at full employment). Very different from capitalism.

    In this case:

    1. The USSR lost access to oil and other goods which it could’ve sold to other countries for foreign exchange or real goods/services while not gaining additional employment.

    2. Cuba gained acesss to real goods from the USSR allowing it to have higher standard of living.

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.nettoSlop.@hexbear.net•Someone added all the liberal talking points against high-speed rail in China to NATOpediaEnglish
    12·
    12 days ago

    It really should be sovereign spending tbf. Like, America’s bloated healthcare and military is Federal spending (ofc, no one cares about ‘losses’ for military since you know, it’s the military). When you use non-sovereign entities, you are borrowing from commercial banks (even if state owned), commercial banks give out loans which are supposed to be paid back so the sovereign (central bank + ministry of finance) don’t have to recapitalize it (which raises fiscal deficits which the central gov don’t like due to ‘sound’ finance). Obviously, HSR has a lot of utility however the financing debt should be transferred to the Central Govt, I don’t care about profitability in money terms, many of the good parts of HSR don’t show up on balance sheets. i think they should stop using accounting trickery and have it be an item on Central Govt budget, although the reason they do it this way is to make national debt and fiscal deficit appear lower (for silly reasons).

  • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.nettoSlop.@hexbear.net•Aggressive increases 🤣English
    15·
    13 days ago
    spoiler

    It is easy to see why politicians like raising the minimum wage. Short of cash yet keen to fight inequality, they have seized on a tool of redistribution that costs governments little and wins votes. In its budget on November 26th Britain is likely to raise the minimum wage, which sits at 61% of median income, up from 48% a decade ago. Germany introduced a minimum wage only in 2015; by 2023 it had crossed 50%. And although America’s federal rate of $7.25 an hour has not changed since 2009, many states and cities controlled by Democrats have raised their pay floors far higher. The average effective minimum wage is around $12 per hour; the highest is over $21. Chart: The Economist

    In one respect the surging minimum wage is a triumph for economists. Having originally been sceptics, they embraced the policy around the turn of the millennium, arguing that wage floors did not eliminate jobs as they once feared—a finding that the experience of the past two decades seemed to confirm. Yet as we report this week, just as governments are championing the consensus, scholars are getting cold feet. A growing body of research suggests that minimum wages distort economies in ways that do not immediately appear in jobs numbers.

    One worry is that it takes time for minimum wages to kill jobs. Evidence from a big hike to Seattle’s pay floor in 2015 and 2016 suggests hiring at the bottom end of the labour market slowed by 10%, even though existing workers were typically not laid off. Another is that higher minimums degrade jobs rather than destroy them. When employers must pay more, but can still hire easily, they may cut corners elsewhere. New research finds that big increases in the minimum wage are associated with shorter or less predictable working hours, more workplace accidents and fewer perks such as health insurance.

    A final risk is that early success breeds overconfidence. Moderate minimum wages can, counterintuitively, make jobs more abundant, by offsetting the bargaining power of big employers, who would otherwise restrain hiring to suppress pay. But the more governments embrace big hikes, the more likely they are to eliminate jobs—just as a big enough tax rise will reduce revenue. One recent peer-reviewed estimate puts the average American minimum wage that corrects for employer market power at under $8.

    Beyond that, the minimum wage is a crude and wasteful tool for redistribution. Many minimum-wage workers are not poor, but live with higher earners. And when firms raise prices to offset their steeper costs, it is the poor who suffer most—more so than from sales taxes, according to one paper.

    Politicians should beware these effects. Although raising minimum wages invariably polls well, electorates everywhere are also angry about soaring prices and a crisis of affordability. There is a danger of a doom loop in which employers’ higher costs are passed on to consumers, making life still less affordable, including for the very workers governments are trying to help. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York, has promised to raise the minimum wage from $16.50 today to $30 by 2030. Prices would rise significantly as a result, making an already expensive place to live even dearer.

    There are better ways to help low earners. In-work tax credits are better targeted towards the poor and, if paid for with growth-friendly taxes, less harmful to the economy. They may lack the appeal of minimum wages, the costs of which are well hidden. But after a decade of aggressive increases, the responsible option is not to go higher still. It is to stop. ■

    Tldr: Quantity Theory of Money bullshit, that capitalists will pass through 100% of wage rises as prices, there is no room for output for expand, no room for higher productivity, no room for profits from greater sales, no room for higher employment.

    A final risk is that early success breeds overconfidence. Moderate minimum wages can, counterintuitively, make jobs more abundant, by offsetting the bargaining power of big employers, who would otherwise restrain hiring to suppress pay.

    Yes which is why there needs to be a job guarantee at the said wage. And direct public sector hiring so wages all along the scale.

    But the more governments embrace big hikes, the more likely they are to eliminate jobs—just as a big enough tax rise will reduce revenue.

    Laffer Curve crap.