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Arlen don **** wit supply side Laissez-faire economics famb
I'm a econ MA. While I respect the work of Friedman and the rest of the Chicago school (I mean how could anyone not), and while their theory is rock solid, the assumptions they make to get their results are deeply flawed. IMO
Not only that, they apparent to that school of thought (no shade) love to mix together correlation to causation. Like the increase in minority unemployment might also caused by jobs being shipped overseas, and a bias criminal justice system leaving a black mark on many minorities records.
I don't think acknowledging the elephants in the room mean they disappear.
The worst is that lets be honest that entire department is was just made up on conservatives that seemed to be convince the the bottom line of a corporation was the most important thing ever.
Their research was used by conservatives to argue in favor of segregation, against affirmative action, against unions, against anti discrimination laws, all under the assumption that the market will justly punish exploitative/racist/sexist firms. And history has shown us that has never been the based.
To compound this, the same people that champion these idea is the political realm, the GOP, are also the party that indulge firms in their rent seeking behavior. Giving them monopsony power and further driving down wages.
-I don't support a $15 minimum wage, I would be for cutting corporate taxes under certain conditions, I'm a big fan of the EIC, so I'm not your run of the mill progressive.
But still, we could go back and forth about economic ideas but I believe it would be an exercises in futility. While I appreciate your ultimate deserve to help folk, I just disagreeing with how it should be done.
I just don't trust corporations to behave, and I don't point to economic model to justify that opinion, I point to history.
Thank you for responding and not just leaving the thread. I'm not formally educated in economics. I'm a layman. My goal with this thread wasn't to impose my views- but admittedly these ideas have been very appealing to me as of late, and I want to basically crowd source it and see what kind of counter arguments exist. The value of forums like this is in the potential for people with different backgrounds and different levels in education to share ideas.
About your point on correlation vs. causation- it's a valid point. And of course there are a multitude of factors. But the importance the Chicago school places on legislation I think is because it's something very tangible- it's something that we can rectify immediately if we wanted to. Contrast that to the other factors. We can't do much more than what we're already doing to discourage jobs from moving overseas. We can't do much to stifle innovation in artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning. Just to give you a sense of how quickly this field is progressing, they've successfully trained pigeons to be pathologists. They can recognize cancerous vs. benign breast tissue with 90% accuracy. If we're close to replacing pathologists with pigeons, what does that mean for low skilled labor?
And check out the second graph in post #49. The black solid line is the pre-minimum wage hike trend. The red line is post-minimum wage hike trend. I understand correlation is not causation- but after looking at this graph (sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Dept. of Labor, not Fox analysts), and considering the rationale for the position, it's very difficult for me to deny a causative relationship.
I don't think continuing this discussion must be an exercise in futility. This is a heavily politicized issue so I see where you're coming from. But I'm not heavily invested in this position- I just think it's really important to be exposed to different ideas and that's what I wanted to do here, on NT where I think the vast majority of members lean to the left. Like I said in the original post, I was a serious lefty, whereas now I'm much more centered. I couldn't see the logic in conservative fiscal policies against AA, min wage hikes, etc. beyond just "GREED!" or "RACISM!" I want to stir things up because these ideas are not appealing at first glance- but there is a coherent logic behind them. And there is evidence to support them.
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