Frederick Bastiat on Government Creating Jobs/Growth
"If employment's the goal, let's cut off everybody's left hand. Think of it as having to hire twice as many workers." Yes, yet another vivid illustration of his "broken window fallacy".
Only the private sector can create wealth generating jobs. Public sector jobs steal money from workers in the private sector. As a small government conservative I believe public sector jobs should be kept to an absolute minimum.
BB, I'm guessing that you're right.......Barlowe, I hear you. I tend to be more of a free market fellow myself (probably more of a centrist than you but the sentiment and philosophy, yes).
The sequestration vs airline delays is interesting. Since I do not fly and do not intend to, I am all in favor of privatization; charge the passenger-not the taxpayer.
First off, they aren't all service jobs and second off, not all service jobs are low paying. And I'm surprised at you, Jerry. You almost seem to be touting the military industrial complex here. Please don't tell me that you're turning into a neoliberal.
Yeah, I guess that I would disagree with Barlowe, too, on that. I would just add that you could also pay people $50 an hour to dig ditches and fill them up and that that ditto would create some wealth but the money would have to come from somewhere and that would inevitably be you and me. Just like Mr. Bastiat said, you also have to look at the unseen.
You pay people $50 per hour to build bridges, road, and repair infrastructure. That builds wealth for people and the country. For example, where would our businesses be now without the interstate highway system?
There are certain things that the government has to do (although there have been private roads and bridges through history that have also seemingly done pretty well) and I don't mind funding those. I do mind funding bridges to nowhere, all of those superhighways in rural West Virginia that Senator Byrd was able to fleece us on, and high-speed rail in a nation that essentially hates riding trains.......As for the $50 an hour, I don't mind paying that, either. All I ask is that the person do $50 an hour worth of work (his marginal revenue product).
That brings up an interesting question. Does the CEO whose salary is 400 times the salary of his workers provide 400 times the value of his workers? Which one is overpaid?
I would personally say that the CEO is probably overpaid (though some probably do bring value) but in a private arrangement such as that my opinion here doesn't amount to a pile of beans, now does it?
Jerry: the competitive environment and the free market discourage overpaying anyone. So in situations where the company is not a government fostered monopoly and it is not getting billions like Obama's beloved TARP banksters, the ceo is getting paid for his/her worth.
Here's the way that I see it, gents. If the company makes a ton of money for its shareholders, then the CEO was worth it. If it doesn't, then he wasn't.......Either way, though, it is a private, voluntary arrangement that doesn't involve my tax dollars and so it really shouldn't bother what some idiot makes.
It does involve your tax dollars when the company does not pay a living wage so that employees need government assistance. It does involve your tax dollars when the company employs an army of lawyers to avoid paying taxes. It does involve your tax dollars when the company employs an army of lobbyists to gain tax breaks and subsides for their business.
I'm against crony capitalism and so I actually agree with some of what you're saying (G.E. paying squat in taxes while the lesser connected U.P.S. is paying 35%). But your numbers simply don't add up. The S&P CEOs make an an average of $10 million a year. In the larger scope of this that is a drop in the bucket. These guys could work for nothing and it would have but a negligible effect on what the other workers make. That's first off and second off most of the new jobs in America (65-70%) are being created by smaller businesses, not by corporation. And what is your solution here, Jerry, having the government determine what everybody makes? If a person isn't making a "livable wage", then maybe that person needs to deveiop a better skill-set and stop whing about what another human being makes.
There are 500 S&P companies. Average CEO salary is $10 million per year. Total S&P CEO salary is $5 billion dollars. Lets apply this money to the workers.
First of all, since this $5 billion is "a drop in the bucket' ( your words, not mine), let's double it to $10 billion...now only two drops in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.
Say the companies increase wages of the lowest paid workers by $10 per hour or about $20,000 per year. This will raise virtually all of them out of poverty and off the government dole. How many people will it help?
Five hundred thousand people for two drops in the bucket!
It we make that salary increase only $5 per hour or about $10,000 per year, then the number of people helped increases to
One million people helped for two drops in the bucket.
This is NOT a "negligible effect" (your words, not mine) on these people.
Jerry, say a CEO makes $10 million a year and decides to work for nothing and he gives all of his 100,000 employees the money instead. That comes out to about $100 a year a piece. That IS negligible.......And what about the guy making $16 an hour? With your little Machiavellian intervention into the free market, that poor bastard would be making less than the guy who had been making the minimum wage (probably a teenager or a retiree)!!! .......Plus, when you give people more that the market says that they're worth that is little more than welfare.
Who decides who gets the the $5 billion (there are millions of people out there who could probably use the money)? You? What DO you pay the CEOs? Minimum wage or mandate that they simply work for nothing? What do you do if they refuse those conditions? Put a government bureaucrat in charge of the company? This is absolutely the most ridiculous idea that I have ever heard......And how 'bout you address my scenario? What do you do about the person who gets passed out in the monetary pecking order as a result of your little Robin Hood initiative? Surely you would have to fork over a little extra for him, too (and, yes, where would THAT money come from?). I mean, he probably went to college and garnered his salary legitimately.......And what Koolaid are you specifically talking about here? Free markets? The law of supply and demand? Individual responsibility? I mean, my God.
Your questions are irrelevant. I choose not to address them.
I was merely refuting your statement,
"The S&P CEOs make an an average of $10 million a year. In the larger scope of this that is a drop in the bucket. These guys could work for nothing and it would have but a negligible effect on what the other workers make."
by showing that their salary could indeed have a significant effect on what other workers make. I showed the non-trivial effect on 500,000 workers and the effect on 1,000,000 workers.
I suggest you untwist your tail and have another sip of koolaid.
500,000 workers (and you still don't define who they are or who decides who gets what) out of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of workers IS a drop in the bucket. And your assertions are cartoonish in their idiocy. You assume that NO CEO making $10 million a year is worth it and that every corporation treats its employees like garbage. It's ludicrous. Whole Foods, Costco, Starbucks, and Home Depot are great places to work and I suggest that you untwist your collectivist tail and take another sip of whatever it is that you're guzzling.
And if you really wanted to limit the power of corporations, you'd probably start by limiting the size of government. Corporations get the vast amount of their power via intertwining themselves with government and they actually go as far as to help write a lot of the legislation. Philip Morris for Christ sakes practically wrote that tobacco bill and Fortune 500 companies were literally crawling all over Washington when that idiotic stimulus bill was being cobbled together.............And how much ARE you going to pay the CEOs, Jerry? That is NOT an immaterial question. I mean, you're going to have to pay them more than minimum wage, you do know that, right, and that whatever you DO pay them will come out of that $5 billion that you're aiming to dole out to others. And don't you also realize that a lot of the people at the lower rung of income ladder are fucking teenagers!. You're going to give teenagers a $10,000 a year raise and this is fair how exactly? I'm sorry, Jerry, but this is the most idiotic (even for the progressives) suggestion that I have ever heard.
Wow! Talk about mission creep. You take a simple repudiation of one if your statements and build a whole proposal for the upheaval of our corporate structure.
You are really funny, Will. I must have hit a nerve. Also, I think that this is the first time I have ever heard that 500,000 workers are a drop in the bucket.
31 comments:
That would eliminate 33% of major league baseball pitchers...
Some pretty decent quarterbacks, too; Kenny "the snake" Stabler, Boomer Esiason, Steve Young, Mark Brunell, etc..
And 4-time grand slam tennis champion (62 other tournaments as well), Guillermo Vilas.
Interesting- there are so many southpaws , famous and infamous. I'm guessing Bastiat was right-handed?
Only the private sector can create wealth generating jobs. Public sector jobs steal money from workers in the private sector. As a small government conservative I believe public sector jobs should be kept to an absolute minimum.
BB, I'm guessing that you're right.......Barlowe, I hear you. I tend to be more of a free market fellow myself (probably more of a centrist than you but the sentiment and philosophy, yes).
Bernie Sanders might like this one, as he is more fond than most any political leader of making unreasonable demands upon both workers and employers.
The sequestration vs airline delays is interesting. Since I do not fly and do not intend to, I am all in favor of privatization; charge the passenger-not the taxpayer.
"Only the private sector can create wealth generating jobs"
Tell that to the defense industry. Where would they be without government money?
It creates jobs, Jerry, but at the expense of how many other jobs (I think that you and I agree that the Pentagon is way out of control)?
Creating many more low paying service jobs instead high paying defense jobs with those defense dollars?
First off, they aren't all service jobs and second off, not all service jobs are low paying. And I'm surprised at you, Jerry. You almost seem to be touting the military industrial complex here. Please don't tell me that you're turning into a neoliberal.
Not at all, but my comments dealt with the quote,
"Only the private sector can create wealth generating jobs",
which is patently false.
I happen to agree with you. Our "spending problem" centers in the defense budget, not the social safety net.
Yeah, I guess that I would disagree with Barlowe, too, on that. I would just add that you could also pay people $50 an hour to dig ditches and fill them up and that that ditto would create some wealth but the money would have to come from somewhere and that would inevitably be you and me. Just like Mr. Bastiat said, you also have to look at the unseen.
You pay people $50 per hour to build bridges, road, and repair infrastructure. That builds wealth for people and the country. For example, where would our businesses be now without the interstate highway system?
There are certain things that the government has to do (although there have been private roads and bridges through history that have also seemingly done pretty well) and I don't mind funding those. I do mind funding bridges to nowhere, all of those superhighways in rural West Virginia that Senator Byrd was able to fleece us on, and high-speed rail in a nation that essentially hates riding trains.......As for the $50 an hour, I don't mind paying that, either. All I ask is that the person do $50 an hour worth of work (his marginal revenue product).
That brings up an interesting question. Does the CEO whose salary is 400 times the salary of his workers provide 400 times the value of his workers? Which one is overpaid?
I would personally say that the CEO is probably overpaid (though some probably do bring value) but in a private arrangement such as that my opinion here doesn't amount to a pile of beans, now does it?
Exactly, Will.
Jerry: the competitive environment and the free market discourage overpaying anyone. So in situations where the company is not a government fostered monopoly and it is not getting billions like Obama's beloved TARP banksters, the ceo is getting paid for his/her worth.
LOL, dmarks. You have drank the koolaid.
Here's the way that I see it, gents. If the company makes a ton of money for its shareholders, then the CEO was worth it. If it doesn't, then he wasn't.......Either way, though, it is a private, voluntary arrangement that doesn't involve my tax dollars and so it really shouldn't bother what some idiot makes.
It does involve your tax dollars when the company does not pay a living wage so that employees need government assistance. It does involve your tax dollars when the company employs an army of lawyers to avoid paying taxes. It does involve your tax dollars when the company employs an army of lobbyists to gain tax breaks and subsides for their business.
You are drinking the koolaid too.
I'm against crony capitalism and so I actually agree with some of what you're saying (G.E. paying squat in taxes while the lesser connected U.P.S. is paying 35%). But your numbers simply don't add up. The S&P CEOs make an an average of $10 million a year. In the larger scope of this that is a drop in the bucket. These guys could work for nothing and it would have but a negligible effect on what the other workers make. That's first off and second off most of the new jobs in America (65-70%) are being created by smaller businesses, not by corporation. And what is your solution here, Jerry, having the government determine what everybody makes? If a person isn't making a "livable wage", then maybe that person needs to deveiop a better skill-set and stop whing about what another human being makes.
Let's take a look at some numbers...your numbers.
There are 500 S&P companies. Average CEO salary is $10 million per year. Total S&P CEO salary is $5 billion dollars. Lets apply this money to the workers.
First of all, since this $5 billion is "a drop in the bucket' ( your words, not mine), let's double it to $10 billion...now only two drops in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.
Say the companies increase wages of the lowest paid workers by $10 per hour or about $20,000 per year. This will raise virtually all of them out of poverty and off the government dole. How many people will it help?
Five hundred thousand people for two drops in the bucket!
It we make that salary increase only $5 per hour or about $10,000 per year, then the number of people helped increases to
One million people helped for two drops in the bucket.
This is NOT a "negligible effect" (your words, not mine) on these people.
Jerry, say a CEO makes $10 million a year and decides to work for nothing and he gives all of his 100,000 employees the money instead. That comes out to about $100 a year a piece. That IS negligible.......And what about the guy making $16 an hour? With your little Machiavellian intervention into the free market, that poor bastard would be making less than the guy who had been making the minimum wage (probably a teenager or a retiree)!!! .......Plus, when you give people more that the market says that they're worth that is little more than welfare.
Just more koolaid, Will, and you did not address what I said. You presented a different scenario. Nice try.
Who decides who gets the the $5 billion (there are millions of people out there who could probably use the money)? You? What DO you pay the CEOs? Minimum wage or mandate that they simply work for nothing? What do you do if they refuse those conditions? Put a government bureaucrat in charge of the company? This is absolutely the most ridiculous idea that I have ever heard......And how 'bout you address my scenario? What do you do about the person who gets passed out in the monetary pecking order as a result of your little Robin Hood initiative? Surely you would have to fork over a little extra for him, too (and, yes, where would THAT money come from?). I mean, he probably went to college and garnered his salary legitimately.......And what Koolaid are you specifically talking about here? Free markets? The law of supply and demand? Individual responsibility? I mean, my God.
Your questions are irrelevant. I choose not to address them.
I was merely refuting your statement,
"The S&P CEOs make an an average of $10 million a year. In the larger scope of this that is a drop in the bucket. These guys could work for nothing and it would have but a negligible effect on what the other workers make."
by showing that their salary could indeed have a significant effect on what other workers make. I showed the non-trivial effect on 500,000 workers and the effect on 1,000,000 workers.
I suggest you untwist your tail and have another sip of koolaid.
500,000 workers (and you still don't define who they are or who decides who gets what) out of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of workers IS a drop in the bucket. And your assertions are cartoonish in their idiocy. You assume that NO CEO making $10 million a year is worth it and that every corporation treats its employees like garbage. It's ludicrous. Whole Foods, Costco, Starbucks, and Home Depot are great places to work and I suggest that you untwist your collectivist tail and take another sip of whatever it is that you're guzzling.
And if you really wanted to limit the power of corporations, you'd probably start by limiting the size of government. Corporations get the vast amount of their power via intertwining themselves with government and they actually go as far as to help write a lot of the legislation. Philip Morris for Christ sakes practically wrote that tobacco bill and Fortune 500 companies were literally crawling all over Washington when that idiotic stimulus bill was being cobbled together.............And how much ARE you going to pay the CEOs, Jerry? That is NOT an immaterial question. I mean, you're going to have to pay them more than minimum wage, you do know that, right, and that whatever you DO pay them will come out of that $5 billion that you're aiming to dole out to others. And don't you also realize that a lot of the people at the lower rung of income ladder are fucking teenagers!. You're going to give teenagers a $10,000 a year raise and this is fair how exactly? I'm sorry, Jerry, but this is the most idiotic (even for the progressives) suggestion that I have ever heard.
Wow! Talk about mission creep. You take a simple repudiation of one if your statements and build a whole proposal for the upheaval of our corporate structure.
You are really funny, Will. I must have hit a nerve. Also, I think that this is the first time I have ever heard that 500,000 workers are a drop in the bucket.
Post a Comment