July 8, 2001

11:41 AM

Exec-worker gap in pay gets widerExecutives make 442% more than they did in 1990. Blue collar workers 2.7%. 1/3 of all Americans spent most of the 1990's working for $8 an hour or less.
posted by crasspastor (88 comments total)

So?
posted by aaron at 12:21 PM on July 8, 2001

Economic equality was at its greatest level in the United States from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The Post WWII boom (with negligible foreign competition), strong unions, and broad government regulation of business concerns were all contributing factors. This period also represents the single largest (including the 1990s boom) period of economic expansion in the United States.

What is really amazing is that this complete reversal of economic equality has occurred with little significant protest. The shock with which the press, business, and government greeted the WTO demonstrations of Seattle speaks to how completely the American mindset has changed since the middle of the last century. Anger towards the protesters came later, the first reaction seemed to have been simple incredulity that so many people were not just tickled pink with things the way they are.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s a person or business that sought to maximize profit at the expense of workers, customers, and the local community was considered to be engaged in "profiteering." Now maximization of profit - at all costs - is argued as the only moral imperative to which business should be expected to comply.

Its a shame that the term fell out of favor. If for no other reason than the sake of long term social stability, the idea that there is an upper limit to the amount of profit a company, landlord, or individual can morally retain would seem to be greatly needed in the modern business environment.
posted by edlark at 12:22 PM on July 8, 2001

Submitted without comment:

"Corporate leaders have not seen a large rise in salaries. Rather, most of their earnings came from stock options awarded by their own companies... [These incentives were] originally were designed to motivate CEOs to lead their companies toward higher earnings and higher returns for shareholders."
posted by gd779 at 12:25 PM on July 8, 2001

This may also say something about the higher demand for competent executives, especially over the last few years where many were being lured by dot-com startups, which were seemingly en fuego at the time. Of course, now that bubble has burst, so perhaps there will be fewer young companies luring executives with ridiculous compensation packages.
posted by kindall at 12:36 PM on July 8, 2001

Clearly executives are working 442% harder than they were in 1990. And they are contributing 442% more to the companies they work for, and society in general.

Aaron: Couldn't that question be asked of pretty much every thread? Why so rude?
posted by Doug at 1:12 PM on July 8, 2001

of that 1/3 how many were teenagers working part-time for beer money?

Lies, damn lies, and statistics
posted by Mick at 1:13 PM on July 8, 2001

This kind of tripe is nothing more than a shameful attempt at class-warfare. Excuse me, but a company is free to pay employees, including CEOs and other executives, whatever it deems appropriate. Don't like it? Don't buy their product/s and/or service/s. NO ONE has the right to tell a company that they can only pay their executive/s a certain amount, except, of course, the shareholders via their voting rights. And at the other end - well, the feds & states mandate minimum wage levels, but this is wrong and should be abolished. Let the free market rule!
posted by davidmsc at 1:56 PM on July 8, 2001

Aaron: Couldn't that question be asked of pretty much every thread? Why so rude?

He's rude because he's right (correct). In fact, all conservatives are right (correct). Only problem is, being right (correct) like he is, deserves no explanation. Much why a person, or system or anything that dominates others needn't feel as if they were wrong and musn't excuse why they are the way they are. Dominating and subjugating is natural and possible. I only happen to disagree. Liberals are kinda the enablers here, because what they believe is correct is less aggressive than what conservatives believe is correct.

So does aaron have to be nice? Absolutely not. Should a CEO be making 442% more than in 1990 while laborers wages have remained stagnant? Sure. Is it fair? Do I agree with it? No. Therefore, I am right too! You either care about the plight of other's or you don't. Aaron and millions of others like him happen to not. Stuart Smalley: And that's okay.

Also:

"Corporate leaders have not seen a large rise in salaries. Rather, most of their earnings came from stock options awarded by their own companies... [These incentives were] originally were designed to motivate CEOs to lead their companies toward higher earnings and higher returns for shareholders."

It's still income. And it's too bad that shareholders are now more important than the employee.
posted by crasspastor at 2:08 PM on July 8, 2001

Nominal amount of money one receives for his/her work is not significant: buying power is.

So you could have 4000% nominal wage increase but little or no buying power increase , in economies that are experiencing great inflation.

Davidmsc point out correctly that nobody, xcept shareholders should dictate the maximum amount one CEO/employee should receive for his/her work ; but unfortunately he doesn't seem to understand that minimun wage levels were not done to harm free market ; we've already seen that free market model is efficient, but far from being optimal. Minimum wage serves at least two purposes

1) protect workers from being totally exploited or paid with goods instead of money
2) setting a minimun in money circulation

2nd point needs a little explanation : if, for example, ALL workers in USA were paid the minimun wage, assuming that working population is 100 million and minimum wage is $1 hour , 10 hours/week work ...we have

$1*7hour*100 million people = U$700 million wages

Now we know that at least U$700M were distributed to consumers and at least half of it (if not more) is going to be consumed. So we have a hint that minimun internal market could be worth U$350M and we plan our production accordingly.

Now before you jump over me saying "this is not true USA is worth trillions of dollars" stop and think this is a MODEL, a description of reality, not REALITY itself. Models are used to study reality and try to understand how it works.
posted by elpapacito at 2:10 PM on July 8, 2001

aaron, the people making the decisions to give the richest people more money ...

... are the richest people.

Aaron, your post argues a political point. You are falsely attributing your assumption of bias to crasspastor, when he merely posted a link and factual information. If links and factual information are now verboten on Metafilter because someone might assume they were posted "for blatantly political purposes", well, what a sad day this is.

You want a political argument? Try this: the 401(k) plan is the worst class thievery system ever implemented by one class against another. Individual investors have been encouraged, for the last two decades, to place their savings in corporate-controlled mutual funds, most of them without a background in investing or any sort of training or direction. This money has been used to fuel a boom, a boom which succeeded in making a very few knowledgeable people very rich, while most investors lost their shirts. Now we're in a recession, and many of the jobs that were created are disappearing as well, because even sane investment dollars are not there to be had: most of that capital evaporated as the knowledgeable cashed out and crashed the stock prices. Today, foxes such as Karl Rove and Paul O'Neill rule the henhouse, controlling vast sectors of the economy and fearlessly enhancing their own investments, and the "liberal media" seems to care not a whit.

When the Republicans trot out their strategically-chosen rhetoric about "class envy", somebody should ask them just exactly how they got to be in the envied class.
posted by dhartung at 2:13 PM on July 8, 2001

This kind of tripe is nothing more than a shameful attempt at class-warfare

Heaven forbid, the lower classes speaking up!

. . .thus asked that some sort of actual argument be made.

Hey it's me! Don't think I want to argue? I posted a link (metafilter style), people discuss it. You're hostile because it annoys you that the story is that of a progressive slant. How many other links are made here that have "no argument", then you click on the link and you bonk yourself on the forehead and say, "O jeez that's what the point of it was."?
posted by crasspastor at 2:15 PM on July 8, 2001

I have difficulty following what seems so obvious. Wage earners are getting less and less and the difference between incomes (the gap)results, in large mesure, because unions are going down in membership.
In passing: note that only in S. Africa and in America , among all industrialized nations, can a striking sorker be PERMANENTLY replaced by a scab. This means that stirkers are usually afraid to stay out too long for fear they will be replaced. It works over and over. I know. It happened to me. In European countries, when the strike is settled, the workers return to their jobs and the scabs lose their work.
Thus, workers get what they get and do not have the guts or the incentive to fight back for a decent riase when things go well enough in the economy and their company.
Look at how many CEOs make crazy raises when their companies are going under. What does that tell you?
posted by Postroad at 3:00 PM on July 8, 2001

(takes deep breath)

My first web jobs were essentially brochureware: translating annual reports into HTML. (Oh, how I loved the arrival of TABLE.) Anyway, when it came to the list of directors and their "remuneration", the same names kept turning up: execs on one board were non-execs on five others. In short, among the top companies in the UK, a few dozen people voted on each others' wage packets.

And it's this nepotism among remuneration committees that has grown completely out of hand over the past couple of decades. There's no shareholder accountability, since the institutional investors that hold the block vote partake in this merry-go-round; there's no governmental response, because ministers are petrified at the threats made by corpulent felines such as Sir Richard Sykes to divert their manufacturing jpbs to some deregulated export zone in Asia.

But I thought I'd contribute this comment from one of my favourite critic of capitalism:

Though options, if properly structured, can be an appropriate, and even ideal, way to compensate and motivate top managers, they are more often wildly capricious in their distribution of rewards, inefficient as motivators, and inordinately expensive for shareholders. Whatever the merits of options may be, their accounting treatment is outrageous.

I do like Warren Buffett.
posted by holgate at 3:01 PM on July 8, 2001

Class warfare is alive and well...goes on every day...just not in the direction that aaron would like to think it does.

Those who have the most to gain from the system as it now stands are the very same people who are in charge of the system. One does not have to be some paranoid, conspiracy theorist to believe that those in power will act in ways to secure, maintain, and enhance that power.

Now if those in power were really smart, they would be instituting more socialistic remedies to current socio-economic problems, not less. Measures like Social Security, health care, welfare, employment insurance, public schools, etc. are salve for an exploited workforce. The New Deal came about because those in power - who had been virtually unregulated prior to the 1930s - were desparate to quell the rising tide of discontent and anger that was directed against their class. Such measures have done a wonderful job of keeping those in the middle relatively content and, therefore, in control.

Over the last several decades, however, greed has gotten the best of those in power and, instead of being satisfied with just getting the lion's share of the wealth, they want it all. The worker who calls for a living wage is vilified, while the CEO who initiates massive layoffs to stimulate a short-term rise in the company stock is celebrated.

Perhaps the strategy is to skim as much of the wealth off the bubble economy while it lasts before any long-term reversal sets in. However, this will be disasterous for social and economic stabilty in the long-term. If the population at large is primarily controlled by the hope and possiblity of the payoff, removal of that possiblity will be like slamming shut the pressure release valve on a pressure cooker.

Boom.
posted by edlark at 3:10 PM on July 8, 2001

1) protect workers from being totally exploited or paid with goods instead of money
2) setting a minimun in money circulation



I'm not sure how significant item #2 was in passing minimum wage legislation. But it does make sense. You need to make sure there's some base of money in the economy. If everybody was paid in bread, wrenches, bicycles, or for that matter stock options, there would be some incredible problems with the money supply.

I think #1 is still important, too. There must be some minimum, to insure that the free market does not create an army of destitutes, or as you point out, companies don't start paying for work with barter and having workers forced to accept it when the free market goes against them.

And it is still relevant today. Many companies used stock options to hold down salaries. And of course, with the hope of riches, many workers were more than willing to accept. In fact, some workers may have been tempted to forgoe the salary, and if it were legal, I'll bet you many companies would have even pushed this on employees. The minimum wage at least insured that no employees could have been foolish enough to take 'options only' -- then find their options were useless and they had no other money to call on. Minimum wage laws at least ensure some form of compensation in real dollars for work.
posted by brucec at 3:25 PM on July 8, 2001

I don't get the "class warfare" objection. Are we supposed to think that class doesn't play a role in American society/politics? Or that the working class's interests are the same as those of the rich?

If there is a relatively fixed pie and a policy at issue tends to favor the interests of one over the other, then competition between classes is a real thing. The Republican rhetoricians who first raised the class warfare boogeyman are asking us to believe that we are all served by furthering the interests of the richest, always. If I were rich, I'd be pleased as punch if I could get everyone to believe that.
posted by rodii at 3:27 PM on July 8, 2001

We were left merely to accept that it is somehow morally wrong.

442% of an increase vs. 2.7%? I think the argument was made. It may be moral, or
it may just be practical (i.e. This Free Market System Isn't Doing What It Was Supposed To)
You may disagree, but don't say an argument wasn't made.
posted by brucec at 3:29 PM on July 8, 2001

I don't get the "class warfare" objection.

Don't spend too much time trying to get it. The people who make the objection make it knowing it has no merit (do they really think that everyone who makes a criticism of absolute capitalism wants to start a war with armed hordes of the underclass on the streets? - I don't think so.) I really think its just a quick, two word answer to a many word question. And its getting overused and will soon lose its effectiveness.
posted by brucec at 3:35 PM on July 8, 2001

brucec:

Excellent you understood my point completely and correctly pointed out the stock options problem.

Stock options is more an heated argument then a problem because those who accepted stock option as partial compensation knew stock market is volatile ; should I say extremely volatile. Of course what motivated them was greed , which is a powerful motivator.

And I smile...I smile..I smile :D Nah I'm not mad..not completely maybe

I'm smiling because the first "victims" of the stock crash are the "free market" pro-active supporters who tought they could earn big amounts of money with little work. They learned the HARD way capitalism only allows a certain number of winners and infinite amounts of losers.

Now capitalism isn't so cool is it ? :)

I also learned by media I don't trust that a lot of americans involved in the New Economy are now in deep financial problems because they can no longer honor their debts.
I feel sorry for them because they're fools, but I hope they learned that free economy is more likely to kill them then to make them rich.
posted by elpapacito at 3:46 PM on July 8, 2001

1/3 of all Americans spent most of the 1990's working for $8 an hour or less

Failed education system. Blame Democrats. Abolish public education.
posted by stbalbach at 3:53 PM on July 8, 2001

It comes to pass that statements of fact aligning itself with conservative dogma are the only ones worth discussion. If you do make an opinion in your topic post, you will be noted for your blatant patrisanship, and derided for being obtuse regarding political discussions.

Let it be known: You cannot make statements of fact or opinion, lest your ideas shock the sensibilities of others.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 3:56 PM on July 8, 2001

Okay, I've been reading over some of the more liberal-seeming posts, like brucec's post, edlark's post, etc. My question for you guys is this: all of your arguments seem to have an underlying flavor of entitlement. ie, inequality is automatically bad. How do you respond to the concept of a meritocracy?

Let me pose a more specific question. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that certain members of society generate more economic value for society than others. Should they receive higher pay? Follow-up question: Let's assume, again for the sake of argument, that certain members of society generate FAR MORE value than others... much, much, much more value. (I know this is not necessarily true, I'm trying to elicit a principal.) Should they then be paid much, much, much more?

Finally, let me pose a related question: which should we value most highly in our society:
1) Equality (ie, the equal distribution of income)
2) Justice (in this context: those who generate the greatest economic value receive the greatest reward)
3) Freedom (the right of workers/owners to negotiate whatever wage they can get) or
4) Value Maximization (ie, the greatest total value, regardless of who gets it. In other words, the greatest good for the greatest number of people).

This post is probably elementary for most of you, but I'm not exactly used to discussing such things. I'm interested in your thoughts.
posted by gd779 at 3:58 PM on July 8, 2001

gd779:

The problem is : WHO generates value ? And WHAT is value ?

Let's make an example:

1) You're the farmer who produces an apple. This apples has a market value and nutritional value. If you don't place the apple on the market (u don't sell it) it loses a market value and only the nutritional one remains.

2) Now let's suppose you want to sell your apple. You bring it to market..you do a quick evaluation of all the costs included in your farming. This is another BIG problem. But for the shake of simplicty let's say you spent $10.

3) You want to sell your apple for $20, because you want $10 profit. Market demand isn't enough, so you drop the sale price to $15. You sell at $15. Your net profit is $5.

NOW you see that you have generated a GOOD that had some value in it (nutritional) but market forced you to accept a lower profit...FORCED you.

Keep on reading it's just a few more lines :D

Now let's suppose your apple is SUPER ! Super nutritional, no adverse effects on health, without pesticides and so on.
Then your nutritional value is higher, but market fails to understand your apple is superior. Market kills innovation it doesn't understand (or which is against the combined will of apple producers who set the market price of apples).

Now..what is fair ? You should receive money because you created a BETTER product because you created a TECHNICALLY (nutritional) superior product. You didn't create economic value because your apple market value is 0 , because you can't sell it at current prices.

So the answer to your question is : the one who brings the better innovation should be paid (in theory) an amount of money proportional to the INNOVATION he brings.

About the 4 values: you can't really compare them..because it would be trying to compare apple to oranges. You should prove me that equality has a bigger value, for example , then freedom ; but you must also find a method to compare two different things which is extremely difficult.
posted by elpapacito at 4:25 PM on July 8, 2001

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that certain members of society generate more economic value for society than others. Should they receive higher pay?

Of course, but the sense of proportionality has gone completely out of sync: particularly when market cap becomes the primary index of executive remuneration (but only on an upward scale) and productivity the index of employee remuneration. Once the share value starts to waver, the board inevitably blames "market conditions", lays off staff, and if that doesn't bump up the share price the remuneration committee is brought in to rubber-stamp alternative payment. It's shamefully short-termist: but that's because most execs don't spend more than a few years at a particular job.

Let's compare, say, German industrial corporations, which include (by law) direct employee representation on supervisory boards: 50/50 shareholder/employee committees that don't make management decisions, but scrutinise them and hold them to account. That creates a worthwhile feedback loop between the shop floor, the shareholder community, and the board-room: after all, if executives are tangibly increasing productivity and profitability, no sensible workforce is going to begrudge performance-related rewards. (vide goose, golden eggs and laying thereof.) The result?

[In the US in 1998] average CEO compensation is 326 times that of the average worker, up from 206 times just two years ago. This kind of wage inequity is considered extreme and unjust in other industrialized nations. For example, the wage ratio is 16 to one in Japan, and 22 to one in Germany.

So I value fairness: meaning a combination of equity, proportionality, accountability and clarity. And corporate governance currently fails on all four counts.
posted by holgate at 4:30 PM on July 8, 2001

Okay, first gd779, objecting to a wildly biased system of economic inequality in no way is a suggestion that everything must be distributed in accordance with strict equality. This is a false dichotomy that is often tossed out in discussions such as these in an attempt to discredit those who dare to question the status quo.

If our current system was a meritocracy, there would be much less to object to, but it is not. Wealth and success has much more to do with a person's socio-economic background than it does with any individual merit that person may or may not have. By all accounts, even his own, our current president is a highly mediocre man - in regards to his business savvy as well as intellectually - yet not only has he been granted the highest office in the land, but has been the recipient over and over again of business opportunities that came to him through his familial connections rather than his own business acumen. (Much the same could be said, of course, for Al Gore.)

I would have no problem with moving towards a true Meritocracy, but there would have to be large structural changes in the fabric of the U.S. society before it could even be attempted. For starters, for a Meritocracy to work, those involved would have to have equal access to a high-quality educational system. The current state of education in the U.S. is far from this. Other factors also stand in the way of implementing a Meritocracy under current conditions. Among these are irrational bias (based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, class distinction, etc.), lack of broad access to basic health and human services by those of lower economic status (such as prenatal care), and institutionalized inequality (such as the generational accumulation of wealth and status - something that flies in the face of a true merit-based social system and was an anathema to many of the founders of the U.S.).

Needless to say, such changes could not be instituted over night. So, for now, I would be happy with a system that mitigates the worst of the excesses of those who are already undeservedly privileged, protects those who are most at risk within the current system, and works progressively toward a better and more equitable (if not equal) system altogether.
posted by edlark at 4:32 PM on July 8, 2001

Failed education system. Blame Democrats. Abolish public education.

So you would go from having a not-as-good-as-we-would-like system to no system at all?
posted by LAM at 4:40 PM on July 8, 2001

briefly: merit is a vector.
posted by holgate at 4:42 PM on July 8, 2001

LAM: "Failed education system. Blame Democrats. Abolish public education." So you would go from having a not-as-good-as-we-would-like system to no system at all?

This is exactly what the "entitlement" society has come to...the belief (implied by LAM's comment) that if the government does not provide education for the masses, then it will not be provided at all. That attitude is truly chilling.

To use a well-known analogy, suppose that the government realized that shoes were a necessary component of everyday life - they provide safety, comfort, and a degree of fashion. So the government decides that it will provide shoes to everyone - free ("free")! After many decades of the government providing shoes to all citizens, and controlling the entire supply of shoe supplies, and organizing a very strong pro-shoemaker union, someone has the gall to suggest that maybe, just maybe, private industry would do a better job of production & distribution of the shoes...and that person is promptly labeled a "rebel" who does not "conform" to accepted societal norms. After all, the citizenry cries, the government has always provided us with shoes! How can we trust private citizens to manufacture shoes? They don't know how to make them! They will gouge us! The quality will be inferior!

And yet...we all seem to have shoes, don't we? And we all have many choices in what style we wear, what color we want, the price we're willing to pay...

Now, for those who missed the point...substitute "education" for "shoes" in that story.
posted by davidmsc at 4:59 PM on July 8, 2001

So you would go from having a not-as-good-as-we-would-like system to no system at all?

Privatize.
posted by stbalbach at 5:02 PM on July 8, 2001

Now, for those who missed the point...substitute "education" for "shoes" in that story.

If we're playing with analogies, how about substituting "defence" or "policing" instead? After all, if the government didn't provide policing, you'd get private organisations taking its place, and -- oh, what time is The Sopranos on?
posted by holgate at 5:03 PM on July 8, 2001

[sarcasm] Yes, let's privatize everything. Corporations always look out for the needs of their customers. [/sarcasm]
posted by owillis at 5:27 PM on July 8, 2001

holgate: National defense is one of the few legitimate & moral functions of the federal government, as it is concerned with national borders & national interests (yes, education is, too, but please tell me you recognize the difference). Policing is done largely at the local level and is also appropriately done by governmental entities. FBI...debatable.

But education? Why on earth should we have a bloated, unionized, entrenched bureaucracy to teach our children? Privatization (FULL privatization - not half-hearted efforts) would solve many of the ills of our educational system.
posted by davidmsc at 5:41 PM on July 8, 2001

all of your arguments seem to have an underlying flavor of entitlement. ie, inequality is
automatically bad. How do you respond to the concept of a meritocracy?

Just a flavor of entitlement, perhaps. I do argue against the dismantaling of the safety net. I don't believe that everyone should be paid the same, and I have argued on the other side when I've heard admin assistants complaining about a CEO's salary vis a vis their own. Obviously a CEO is out there hustling the business and he or she does work that a worker doesn't do. But remember, the post is talking about a percentage increase in pay, not necessarily a difference in pay. So the question is: did CEO's work over 200% harder than workers in the last decade. And that's where I believe posters like myself are coming from.

Maybe what this original post is arguing is that this isn't a meritocracy. If you see that one group has increased 442% and the other just 2.7, perhaps the system as is isn't working.

Also, although I'd like to believe that every CEO is working that hard, the reality is there are many who don't provide a lot of value for their companies, but still make a lot of salary. Underpricing options, for instance, is an easy way to completely disable the incentive 'free market' effect of stock options, as Warren Buffet grumble about.
posted by brucec at 5:53 PM on July 8, 2001

the government does not provide education for the masses, then it will not be provided at all. That attitude is truly chilling.

I'm not as chilled, given the state of education a hundred years ago when it was not provided on a large scale. A more correct statement is: if the government does not provide education for the masses, then it will only be provided for some.
posted by brucec at 5:58 PM on July 8, 2001

Yeah sure let's compare shoes to public school ..again comparing apple to oranges, they're both fruits aren't they ?! Too bad they're deeply different.

Plus education is one of the nightmares of "some kitchen capitalists" we have here...

..why ? Education is extremely expensive, an high risk venture. One could study for 12212 years and yet not learn anything. And all the value created by this investment is not readily avaiable beacuse it remains in one person head.

Naturally, any company wishing to invest in some people education will try to find the persons who SEEM to be more talented ; that's done by using some kind of evaluation scheme that may be faulty. Now any private company can do that and take the risks associated with this investment, but it wouldn't work on a national basis because too many people would be cutted out from any form of education other then writing checks.

We should leave the biggest wealth of all mankind in the hands of profit-seekers ? No way, no f**king way.
posted by elpapacito at 6:00 PM on July 8, 2001

But most workers in the US aren't employed by large corporations with overcompensated CEOs. They're employed by small businesses.

For the most part the only thing separating these workers from their bosses is an idea and a willingness to take some risk. Granted, there are a few other barriers to entry like sufficient capital, but that's offset by the fact that a substantial number of the US poor sabotage their ability to save by wasting money on lottery tickets and excessive credit card debt.

The best thing from that article is the last paragraph that suggests that Plain fatigue partly explains why there is little social unrest among low-wage workers

Well, OK, but I suspect it has more to do with the fact that even the very poor in the US lead lives of luxury compared to the middle class or wealthy in other parts of the world and in other times in history. And TV of course. TV is the real opiate of the masses.
posted by willnot at 6:34 PM on July 8, 2001

1) protect workers from being totally exploited or paid with goods instead of money
2) setting a minimun in money circulation

Your first point absurd as workers enter into employment contracts voluntarily, not through coersion, so suggesting that an employer can simply pay nothing and still get workers is not realistic. And the minimum wage has nothing to do with money in circulation.

The true cost of the minimum wage is the increased unemployment due to the government demanding wages that are higher than the job in question is worth, causing the jobs not to be filled at all. And besides, most on mimimum wage are only there briefly and tend to be the sort of people who aren't full time workers anyway (i.e., summer jobs for teens).

Try this: the 401(k) plan is the worst class thievery system ever implemented by one class against another. Individual investors have been encouraged, for the last two decades, to place their savings in corporate-controlled mutual funds, most of them without a background in investing or any sort of training or direction. This money has been used to fuel a boom, a boom which succeeded in making a very few knowledgeable people very rich, while most investors lost their shirts. Now we're in a recession

What a load. If one has held a 401k for the last two decades, you haven't lost your shirt. And the fact that we're in a bear market at the moment has nothing to do with 401k's. Anyone heavily invested in Nasdaq has likely taken a loss over the past 18 months - 401k or otherwise. This is not some corporate class conspiracy. And we're not in a recession, either.

They learned the HARD way capitalism only allows a certain number of winners and infinite amounts of losers.

I hope they learned that free economy is more likely to kill them then to make them rich.

More utter nonsense. There isn't an infinite number of people in the economy, but there can be an infinite number of losers. That's completely illogical. And how exactly does the economy kill them? Ridiculous empty rhetoric.

You want to sell your apple for $20, because you want $10 profit. Market demand isn't enough, so you drop the sale price to $15. You sell at $15. Your net profit is $5.

NOW you see that you have generated a GOOD that had some value in it (nutritional) but market forced you to accept a lower profit...FORCED you.

The market forced you to do nothing. Selling at $15 is a voluntary choice. The farmer could have chosen to keep his price at $20 and run the risk of never finding a buyer. There is no force in your example.

but market fails to understand your apple is superior. Market kills innovation it doesn't understand (or which is against the combined will of apple producers who set the market price of apples).

Not all innovations are valuable. I could make a computer monitor with a telephone built into it. That would be an innovation, but a valuable one? Possibly, but I doubt it. If an innovation has value to the consumer the product will sell.

And your suggestion that producers 'set' the market price contradicts your earlier example of a producer who can't set his market price. You can't have it both ways.

Wealth and success has much more to do with a person's socio-economic background than it does with any individual merit that person may or may not have

This is for the most part completely false, as most wealthy people are first generation wealth, and earned their money through many years of hard work and good decisions, not their 'background'.

If we're playing with analogies, how about substituting "defence" or "policing" instead? After all, if the government didn't provide policing, you'd get private organisations taking its place, and -- oh, what time is The Sopranos on?

Of course the only private police force must be the Mafia style, right? I guess you've never been to anywhere that has hired its own security, i.e., private police.
posted by ljromanoff at 6:45 PM on July 8, 2001

ljromanoff :

Your first point absurd as workers enter into employment contracts voluntarily, not through coersion

You're looking at only one side of demand. During hi unemployment period work is a scarce good so whoever is offering a job can command lower wages. Plus people are required to work if they don't have savings , so you're missing the financial problem entirely. Plus i never mentioned they were coerced by employer to work , but they're coerced to work by facts of life, because there is no such thing as a free meal. You call that unrealistic ?

The true cost of the minimum wage is the increased unemployment due to the government demanding wages that are higher than the job in question is worth, causing the jobs not to be filled at al

Nonsense. When people need food or other things they believe they need they'll work for any amount of money even if it's barely enough to buy the food they need. It's called desperation and it's not a 3rd world only thing. Minimum wage should allow them to have money for MORE then their every day vital needs. Why ? They'll spend the extra money in utile/futile things, so fueling the consumer market and the savings market.

More utter nonsense. There isn't an infinite number of people in the economy, but there can be an infinite number of losers. That's completely illogical. And how exactly does the economy kill them? Ridiculous empty rhetoric.

Yeah it's rethoric but good one ; remember people that can not afford AIDS drugs only because they're too expensive ? Or that kid that died because the ONLY farmaceutical company that produced the drug decided IT WAS NOT WORTH PRODUCING IT because of scarce demand ?

Yeah sure "some other company could have produced it, you can't blame the company" Sure I blame them they could have handed over permission to produce it to some other company. It happens more often then we realize.
Now that doesn't make capitalism the root of all evils, but it surely f**king doesn't help resolving these situation if profit is more important then life.

And the minimum wage has nothing to do with money in circulation

Yeah sure like consumer money isn't important for any kind of demand. Hey dude realize that if somebody is supposed to buy consumer good, then the money in circulation is expressed by the amount spent by consumers on consumer good. Other money spent by companies for buying good isn't consumer spending, it's company spending. And money in bank savings are invested by banks, not by consumers, even if consumers own the money.

The market forced you to do nothing. Selling at $15 is a voluntary choice. The farmer could have chosen to keep his price at $20 and run the risk of never finding a buyer. There is no force in your example

There is. What if I need to sell to survive ? OK if i want to sell at higher prices just for the heck of it or because I want a Ferrari then market is not forcing me , but what when I need ? Plus the farmer would be a bloody fool to try selling at $20 when he knew he had little chances to cover his expenses. "Fixed costs", sounds news to you ?
posted by elpapacito at 7:24 PM on July 8, 2001

"substantial number of the US poor sabotage their ability to save by wasting money on lottery tickets and excessive credit card debt."

I was actually going to start a lucrative logging business the other day, but then I ended up buying some scratch-off tickets and that idea went out the window. It's kind of like the time I was going to open a chain of department stores throughout the midwest, but I couldn't 'cause I piled up credit card debt buying Hummell figurines.
posted by Doug at 7:41 PM on July 8, 2001

The true cost of the minimum wage is the increased unemployment due to the government demanding wages that are higher than the job in question is worth, causing the jobs not to be filled at all

Nonsense. When people need food or other things they believe they need they'll work for any amount of money even if it's barely enough to buy the food they need.

What ljr is talking about is what happens on the demand side of the labor equation. If I am an employer, and I have a job that is worth $5 an hour to me to have done, but the law says I must pay $7 an hour, that fact does not magically make the work worth $7 an hour to me. For example: I run a restaurant. I do a little experimenting and discover that when my restaurant is absolutely sparkling clean I take in $20 per day more than I do when it's only middlin' clean. It takes 3 hours a day to whip it into tip-top shape. Thus if I can hire someone to do it at $5/hr I still come out $5 per day ahead, so it's worth it to me. If I have to hire them at $7 per hour, I come out a dollar a day behind. This is a contrived and simplified example, but it's no different in principle from real hiring decisions, so let's run with it.

If I cannot hire someone at $5 an hour, perhaps I will not hire anyone. Perhaps I will do the job myself -- or have one of my children do it and call it a "family-run business." Or I might hire someone at $7 and use their desperation to induce them work harder than they normally would, so it takes them only two hours, and I don't spend any more money than I would if I'd just paid $5 an hour, in which case they make no more money than they would have had I been able to pay them $5 an hour and they are miserable and I've become a jerk. Since I'm a decent person I hate to do that, but at least they have a job, right, even if it sucks and they can't get as many hours as they'd like.

Besides, the "minimum wage" law is so full of loopholes it's easy to get around them for a job requiring even a slight amount of skill. This is why wait staff works for tips. I can put my sales job on straight commission. I can put my manufacturing jobs on piece rate. These are all better for me because they more directly compensate my workers for doing what I want them to do, and in practice they may cost me less than minimum wage on an hourly basis depending on what the labor market's like.

I'm personally ambivalent about minimum wage laws these days, although I used to be a quite vociferous libertarian, but even if you're in favor of them, it should be easy to see that their unintended effects may not be entirely rosy.
posted by kindall at 8:06 PM on July 8, 2001

Wow, kindall! You've actually changed my opionion on a social issue. Really! Well put. The usual conservative tone heard here is to try and win on points, like ljromanoff above, rather than persuade. Thanks!
posted by stevis at 8:17 PM on July 8, 2001

If you enjoyed that, you might enjoy Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. It's all about unintended consequences of well-meaning economic policies.
posted by kindall at 8:25 PM on July 8, 2001

But education? Why on earth should we have a bloated, unionized, entrenched bureaucracy to teach our children? Privatization (FULL privatization - not half-hearted efforts) would solve many of the ills of our educational system.

Oh, that's just not borne out by experience around the world. Education not only is the state's investment in its future; when done well, it provides one of the few vital shared social experiences. Look at any of the best education systems in the world -- Japan, France, Germany again -- and they're overwhelmingly public-sector. (I've talked about the mess of the state/private divide in the UK elsewhere.) When you're not riding a bubble economy, it's easier to think of education as the best long-term investment a country can make. "Leave no child behind", yes?

And compared to the bloated, entrenched world of corporate boardrooms, teaching is a model of efficiency. But of course, all teachers are doctrinaire liberals, aren't they? Well, they must be to be teaching, rather than making real money. And isn't that really what kids need? Good conservative teachers, plucked straight from the finest corporations, wanting nothing more than the chance to earn their market value and instill it in their charges. Sorry, customers.

There's conservative, and there's retrograde.

Of course the only private police force must be the Mafia style, right? I guess you've never been to anywhere that has hired its own security, i.e., private police.

Um, yes. Let me think of those places: the streets where "agencies" clamp your car and charge you an arbitrary amount of money to get it back? Or nightclubs with over-zealous bouncers? Or pugilistic mall security? All private-sector. Unaccountable, unregulated, and not particularly healthy. (A bit like corporate boardrooms.) We're already subject to the privatisation of public space, and this is how it's enforced.

Really, ljr, trying to defend private security based upon its workings in the real world isn't going to win you any friends.

Actually, willnot makes a very valid point: the boardroom world has very little in common with the real economy. And yet it grabs all the headlines, and sets the business agenda. It makes CEOs appear a million times more important than the millions of people working exceptionally hard for themselves and their families, in employment that doesn't happen to have that great a profit margin. Which makes the disconnect between Wall Street capitalism and small-scale entrepreneurship even more obvious, and is pretty galling for people who aren't fortunate enough to be part of that executive circle-jerk.
posted by holgate at 8:38 PM on July 8, 2001

As I said, hincandenza, I'm ambivalent about it these days myself, precisely because of arguments like the one you just made. ;) In reality, there are very few jobs that pay only the minimum wage. Even burger-flipping pays more.

The reason that lousy CEOs get nice golden parachutes and non-merit-based bonuses is that a panicky board of directors will promise almost anything to the person they think can salvage their troubled company. (See, for example, Kodak right now.) Especially if only a handful are even willing to make the attempt. There are very few truly good corporate leaders, and a lot of corporations who want them. More than there have ever been, in fact. Thus, the CEOs have the upper hand. It's a seller's market for executive labor. Simple as that.

Give it another five or ten years, after all the kids who went to b-school in order to make a killing being a CEO have entered the market and started to prove their mettle, and you might see demand rise to meet the supply, and executive compensation come back down. High executive compensation is a signal to the economy to make more executives. And this will happen.
posted by kindall at 11:24 PM on July 8, 2001

I sprained my wrist today, but I'm gonna try and one-hand type this for you guys anyway.

Maybe I'm the only one that noticed, but blue-collar workers make 2.7% more than they did in 1990. It's not like salaries are going down.

An interesting point, too: I'm not sure who did this survey, but I don't know a single person who makes less now than they did 10 years ago. Let's take an informal survey and find out if *anyone* here does.

As far as minimum wage goes, I'm a bit libertarian and I feel it should be *raised*. I think the Phillips unemployment-Inflation curve is a lot flatter than people think. I believe many companies would hire just as many people at 8$/hr as they do at $6.50/hr, but don't pay 8 an hour now because it's a competitive disadvantage. If *all* fast food restaurants had to pay $8/hr, they'd still hire just as many people (with a small raise in prices), because they know that they're prices are no worse for wear when compared to the competition.

(On a side note, I think that the "living wage of 16 bucks" is garbage. A LIVING minimum wage should buy a 1-room apartment, enough food to live and work without fatigue and no non-public entertainment when a 40-hour week is worked.)
posted by Kevs at 11:40 PM on July 8, 2001

kevs: On a side note, I think that the "living wage of 16 bucks" is garbage. A LIVING minimum wage should buy a 1-room apartment, enough food to live and work without fatigue and no non-public entertainment when a 40-hour week is worked.

is that the living wage for a single person, or a married person with two children? and if you base your wage for the married couple with two children on the premise that both parents should work, be sure to factor in the costs of childcare.
posted by rebeccablood at 1:03 AM on July 9, 2001

You jack up the minimum wage and then those same consumers are stuck footing the bill with higher prices for goods. Why should this be? Couldn't it just as easily come out of the margins of cashflow of the company? I guess intrinsically, does a single person need to have as much as the richest have? If anything this is the de facto failing of capitalism.

Success is simply gauged differently by the differing schools of thought. Personal accumulation of wealth, in full knowledge that others are starving is that of the conservative. Whereas the progressive sees people are starving and has full knowledge that the very few control the very most. I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

You either care or you don't. . .

Why should it anger conservatives so much, that there are those who seek to level and equalize the system? I surmise it's because it is they who have honed the current system so that it benefits only them (WTO for example). Money talks. But it is they who created the plights and toil of so many. They know full well why it is--because they have more than they could ever possibly need. Which perhaps, is why the demonizing of the lower class by rightist ideaolgues as lazy, obnoxiously believing themselves to be entitled, careless, pinko, utopian morons (lessening their worth through language). Which incidentally is exactly how they view themselves. As who goes running to the skirts of bankruptcy protection after lawsuits from the people they've fucked threaten to decimate their wealth?

Breaking people's legs would be so much simpler.
posted by crasspastor at 2:26 AM on July 9, 2001

Which incidentally is exactly how they view themselves.

READ: How they SHOULD view themselves.
posted by crasspastor at 2:27 AM on July 9, 2001

I am an employer, and I have a job that is worth $5 an hour to me to have done, but the law says I must pay $7 an hour, that fact does not magically make the work worth $7 an hour to me

Absolutely

If I cannot hire someone at $5 an hour, perhaps I will not hire anyone

Probably. But you could also find other solutions around the problem. Let's say you hire the guy at $7 for 2 hours.
You need one more hour of work. You could

1) Ask the dude to work one addictional hour for $5 because you need one extra hour but you don't find anybody willing to work for only an hour. You retain a miserable $1 of profit, but $1 is better then nothing.

2) You could also pay him $6 and give up profit. Yes no profit may be acceptable to have your restaurant sparking clean while you look for some other solution.


As you see you're contracting the addictional hour directly with the employee. Assuming he/she is reasonable he'll see that 2/3 of is work is payed at full rate and the remaining 1/3 is paid only $2 less..but at least he has a job.

Yeah that's going around the law but you're fighting what is called a "technical rigidity" because the nature of the work you're giving doesn't allow you to find somebody willing to work for just one hour or doesn't allow you to respect the law completely.

The obvious solution to the problem is to remove the minimum wage. But then nothing would prevent you from doing a "cartel" with other companies in your business to push the wage to a lower level, literally bringing it to surviving level at which the worker is extremely weak because he needs every dime of his wage to survive.

Oppositors say that this will not happen because workers will refuse to work at survival wage : that's not going to happen because they need to survive and IF there is a cartel (which is likely, competition isn't good for companies) they'll have to accept the imposed wage.

Ok i know this is only an example , even an academic one but it's not far from reality ; in fact many workers are already doing extra-hour that are not completely (if at all) compensated because they want to save their work position.
posted by elpapacito at 5:48 AM on July 9, 2001

is that the living wage for a single person, or a married person with two children?

If we're talking about the minimum needed to live I would foolishly assume that the person earning that would have put off the responsibility for raising kids until they were better able to support them. Or do you want to suggest that society should support people's bad decisions?
posted by willnot at 8:40 AM on July 9, 2001

I have to agree with willnot here - minimum wage should be enough to support yourself at a basic level. Having children is a luxury, not a basic entitlement.

What the government should be in the business of providing birth control (and requiring it as a condition for aid), both because it's much cheaper than paying for the aid programs for a child and because it will help people get out of poverty - one of the reasons why people stay poor is that they have to support a child before they're financially capable.
posted by adamsc at 10:20 AM on July 9, 2001

Um, yes. Let me think of those places: the streets where "agencies" clamp your car and charge you an arbitrary amount of money to get it back? Or nightclubs with over-zealous bouncers? Or pugilistic mall security? All private-sector. Unaccountable, unregulated, and not particularly healthy.

Again, stack up the offenses of private police versus the government's police and see who looks better then. Your backpedaling doesn't excuse your tainting all private security as Mafia.
posted by ljromanoff at 9:45 PM on July 9, 2001

willnot: If we're talking about the minimum needed to live I would foolishly assume that the person earning that would have put off the responsibility for raising kids until they were better able to support them

what about those people who are using birth control, and who get pregnant anyway? what about those people who aren't? would you force them to get an abortion, or just force them to raise their children in poverty?

what about a woman whose spouse dies, leaving her as the breadwinner, who now has to go get a job?
---
in any case, it seems clear that you regard the minimum wage as a temporary wage. the fact is, that's what some people make, it doesn't really get better than that for them. you just won't allow them to have children?

I call a living wage the amount of money that would support a family of four.
posted by rebeccablood at 9:57 PM on July 9, 2001

Why is abortion the only alternative to having kids? There's always adoption. People are waiting in line for kids. You could probably even sell them and get a little extra income since you have such a small skill set that you're never ever going to be able to do anything but bus tables or wash dishes. I'm not going to allow or disallow you to have kids. Sadly, it's not my place, but I'm not going to support your poor decisions, and if you can barely support yourself then choosing to have kids has got to be one of the most selfish short-sighted actions you could take. If anything should ever disqualify somebody as a parent that should.

If I'm the only breadwinner with a family depending on me then I'd be inclined to get more life insurance. Considering the kids are so young, I assume we're talking about young parents as well. You can get insurance for like nothing when your young - at least enough to support a family through a horrible tragedy, and then provide childcare while the mother develops the skill sets to do something society values enough to support her and her family.
posted by willnot at 10:11 PM on July 9, 2001

I'm flabbergasted.

Free Market="natural"

Poor having children=natural but something must be done about it.

Forget about livable, dignified wages, lower class adults having sex, bearing children are irresponsible leeches. Could we say that some "natural" things aren't neccessarily always beneficial?
posted by crasspastor at 11:56 PM on July 9, 2001

Again, stack up the offenses of private police versus the government's police and see who looks better then. Your backpedaling doesn't excuse your tainting all private security as Mafia.

If you think I'm backpedalling, then your head must be screwed on the wrong way. Private security doesn't need anyone else to taint it. Same principles apply as corporate execs: equity, proportionality, accountability, clarity. You may curse the cop who gives you a $30 parking ticket, but you're not likely to be forced into the civil courts to reclaim extortionate towing fees, or recover damages when a bouncer roughs you up.

And, since when is the alternative "the government's police"? It's your police: there's a whole "to serve and protect" deal going on here. Unless you're so dyed-in-the-wool that you flick through the Yellow Pages when you're in need of assistance, just to avoid the indignity of calling 911.
posted by holgate at 4:24 AM on July 10, 2001

Or do you want to suggest that society should support people's bad decisions?

This kind of misunderstanding of poverty is what really worries me. As the gap between the wealthy and poor widens, people have less chance of humanizing "the other half." (And tell me you'll bust your ass over something that appears hopeless.) In many cases, increased privatisation (think, schools) increases the segregation and further exacerbates the problem.

In Canada, there has been a recent shift right and an increase in "poor-bashing" in media. Mr. Black's control of Canadian media is likely a factor, as are cries for a need to be increasingly competitive and attractive to investors internationally.

Perhaps what some of us suffer from is a narrow view of quality of life and success. (btw, that link will address some of your questions re. comparing WA and BC, dhartung.)
posted by spandex at 7:00 AM on July 10, 2001

it's also important to remember that "the poor" are not a static group of people. people tend to cycle into and out of poverty. while there, they need a hand.
posted by rebeccablood at 7:03 AM on July 10, 2001

George Sheehan of Webvan: The reason that there is nothing wrong with this is that Webvan was a corporation - not a government agency - and NO ONE was forced at gunpoint to give him money, or to purchase goods/services from Webvan. It was private investors & private customers who created Webvan of their own free will. Unless you were a shareholder or employee, or perhaps even a customer and are upset that his actions caused the closure, you have/had no voice in whether or not he *should* have done what he did.

A LIVING minimum wage should buy a 1-room apartment, enough food to live and work without fatigue and no non-public entertainment when a 40-hour week is worked. Fine. Should it buy an apartment with 500 square feet? 1000 square feet? Hell, how about a seaside condo? An oven and a microwave? How about a security system? How about a doorman? Will this "LIVING minimum wage" allow me to buy a nice apartment in what I consider a "nice" part of town? And enough food to live? Hey - I enjoy premium coffee that costs $15.00 per pound. I also enjoy eating prime rib every night for dinner. Should I be guaranteed enough to live in this manner? What about furnishing my apartment? Should my "LIVING minimum wage" include a leather sofa so I can relax to my heart's content? How about a king-size bed? And non-public entertainment - gosh, I like to see movies. New movies. Every new movie that is released, in fact. I also enjoy buying several new CDs to listen to each week...should my "LIVING minimum wage" afford me the opportunity to buy all the CDs and movie tickets I want? Should it allow me to buy a DVD player? At least a TiVo, right? How about a computer? Not just any computer - a PIII, 1 ghz, with cable-modem access, natch.

No? You call many of the things that I consider "necessities" to be nothing more than frivolous luxuries? Sorry - I want them, I'm entitled to them...right? Why shouldn't my "LIVING minimum wage" guarantee me these things? Oh, you mean that the "LIVING minimum wage" should only allow for "the basics?" Pray tell - who are YOU to determine what is "basic" in my life? Hamburger meat & mac-n-cheese on a cheap hotplate in a run-down apartment in a seedy neighborhood with enough left over to see a movie at the dollar theatre occasionally? According to the requirements of the "LIVING minimum wage," that should be all I need. It meets the requirements that you spelled out, doesn't it?

I hope this illustrates my point. And please don't label it as "extreme" -- it is completely accurate. If we try to mandate a "LIVING minimum wage" for all, the amount of discord in trying to determine WHO is entitled to WHAT (quantity & quality) according to "NEED" will quickly degenerate into a public policy crisis that will leave NO ONE getting what they deserve and everyone feeling screwed and left out. And ruin the economy, for good measure.
posted by davidmsc at 8:07 AM on July 10, 2001

Davidmsc:

You're quite right. Nobody can really say what is needed and what is not, but science can help a lot.

Wouldn't you agree every human being needs a certain amount of nutrition every day to remain alive and well fed ? And wouldn't you agree that hospital care for people that's suffering from de-nutrition is more expensive then feeding them regularly ?

Then consider that people usually like to be happy ; it's a matter or likes and dislikes and nothing makes everybody equally happy (as you correctly point out, there is no such thing as standard happines). If people is not happy they will look for something that makes them happy ( so unless you want a revolution, the system must provide something to make them happy; Revolutions can be violent and out of control and extremenly expensive, like wars)

And entertainment industries cover this need, and they usually charge you because they must work to make you happy. So people need money to buy some different entertaiment because once people know there's a new entertainment method, some of them will try to access it.
But if you give entertainment for free (impossible) you ruin the entire entertaiment industry. Oh and I forgot mentioning that many innovations need money to be researched and produced.

Then people want to have a good health, they actively search for methods to have a good health (well most of them not everybody). Then you can make them pay for health coverage by insurance. So they need money.

Now, at the end.. they NEED to have money (and probably a minimum wage). Otherwise capitalism as we know it couldn't simply run. Find me a substitute for money would you please ? Good luck.

Now, if you don't set a mimimun wage (amount of money) companies will try to do that anyway, but in a more flexible fashion so that they can remain competitive. That requires A LOT of coordination between companies.

Please explain me

1) how would they coordinate their effort
2) how will they determine how much money goes to workers.

The method should be

1) flexible enough to let the companies have "acceptable" profits (consider it depens on shareholders will)
2) allow the largest number possible of consumer to have enough money to buy what they need (healthcare,food,shelter)
3) optionally, let people have entertainment so that you don't ruin the immenesely profiteable entertainment industry.

Consider that if you don't provide the basic needs you're not allowed to use police or military to control riots, because you wouldn't have any "justification" to kill people that fight for their freedom to live.

I'm sure you'll not hide behind a curtain of useless words.
posted by elpapacito at 12:17 PM on July 10, 2001

elpapacito: You have completely confused me. I do not understand:

a) your arguments
b) your question/s to me

I'd love to engage in a mini-debate, but I do not know how to interpret your post. Help!

Dave
posted by davidmsc at 4:42 PM on July 10, 2001

If you think I'm backpedalling, then your head must be screwed on the wrong way.

So you ARE saying that you believe EVERYONE employed in some security fashion is the equivalent of organized crime, and you're sticking by that? Typical.
posted by ljromanoff at 5:40 PM on July 10, 2001

No, I'm saying what I said. Anything else you care to derive is a product of your imagination, which is equally typical.
posted by holgate at 8:48 PM on July 10, 2001

No, I'm saying what I said. Anything else you care to derive is a product of your imagination, which is equally typical.

The comparison is right there in text for everyone to read.
posted by ljromanoff at 9:35 PM on July 10, 2001

Why don't you try reading it yourself first?
posted by holgate at 9:49 PM on July 10, 2001

Why don't you try reading it yourself first?

Yeah, thanks, I did. Private policing = The Sopranos. The implication is pretty clear, and pretty ridiculous.
posted by ljromanoff at 11:38 PM on July 10, 2001

Neuter the Poor!
Math is Hard!
Long live the Corporation!
posted by sudama at 12:47 AM on July 11, 2001

Any implications you draw from a twisted reading are your own problem, ljr. Or can you just not follow an argument?
posted by holgate at 5:33 AM on July 11, 2001

Any implications you draw from a twisted reading are your own problem, ljr. Or can you just not follow an argument?

Your continued cheap shots (that continue to miss) are becoming your calling card, holgate.

Oh, and nice hypocrisy in not chastising hincandenza for doing the same thing aaron did (cheerleading) in an earlier thread. I guess it's OK if he's cheering you, huh?
posted by ljromanoff at 7:04 AM on July 11, 2001

davidmsc:

Oh too bad. Please point out the parts you didn't understand and I'll do my best to explain you.
posted by elpapacito at 7:25 AM on July 11, 2001

I guess it's OK if he's cheering you, huh?

I actually find the cheerleading a little embarrassing, which is why I didn't acknowledge it at all. Though it's nice to see that some people are actually reading: something you've patently failed to demonstrate.
posted by holgate at 7:30 AM on July 11, 2001

I actually find the cheerleading a little embarrassing, which is why I didn't acknowledge it at all. Though it's nice to see that some people are actually reading: something you've patently failed to demonstrate.

Is calling me illiterate really the best you can come up with? I'm sorely disappointed. At least try to be a little creative.
posted by ljromanoff at 7:38 AM on July 11, 2001

Well, you can obviously read selectively, where it suits your preconceptions. Just not sequentially, or in context.
posted by holgate at 7:44 AM on July 11, 2001

Well, you can obviously read selectively, where it suits your preconceptions. Just not sequentially, or in context.

Right. And you're oh so open minded. Thanks for amusing me.
posted by ljromanoff at 7:46 AM on July 11, 2001

And you're oh so open minded.

And there was a creaking of gears as ljr changed the subject to spare his blushes.
posted by holgate at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2001

And there was a creaking of gears as ljr changed the subject to spare his blushes.

Cheap, dull, and unimpressive. Everyone, meet holgate.
posted by ljromanoff at 7:48 AM on July 11, 2001

Cheap, dull, and unimpressive. Everyone, meet holgate.

And thus spake MeFi's master of unsubstantiated opinion.
posted by holgate at 8:07 AM on July 11, 2001

And thus spake MeFi's master of unsubstantiated opinion.

My opinions are based on more information than what I get from my dog eared copy of "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung", which is more than some people named Sweeney in this thread can claim.
posted by ljromanoff at 8:15 AM on July 11, 2001

Holgate? Ljr? Is there any chance that the now-content-free snipes be taken to email? Or anywhere else?
posted by Skot at 8:19 AM on July 11, 2001

Holgate? Ljr? Is there any chance that the now-content-free snipes be taken to email? Or anywhere else?

Oh, alright. As a gesture of goodwill, I will point out something that we all can agree on: pancakes are good.

Goodnight, everybody.
posted by ljromanoff at 8:27 AM on July 11, 2001

Wow, this is fun. You two crack me up.
posted by Mars Saxman at 8:28 AM on July 11, 2001

My opinions are based on more information than what I get from my dog eared copy of "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung", which is more than some people named Sweeney in this thread can claim.

A variation on a rather worn theme. And yet you never provide any supporting evidence for your "information". Cute.

(In fact, the only little red book in my possession is that of R. U. Sirius, which I received as a gift. It isn't as rewarding a read as Adam Smith, but has more jokes.)

This need to stereotype people with alternative opinions to yours: are you harbouring some deep-seated resentment over what the Bolsheviks did to your distant relatives?

But yes, pancakes are good: could I have mine with lemon and sugar, please?
posted by holgate at 8:41 AM on July 11, 2001

But yes, pancakes are good: could I have mine with lemon and sugar, please?

Lemon and sugar? That's disgusting!
posted by ljromanoff at 9:02 AM on July 11, 2001

And yet you never provide any supporting evidence for your "information

I would hardly call a link to a publication that has a murderer of a police officer on its writing staff a really valuable bit of supporting evidence, but apparently your mileage may vary.

This need to stereotype people with alternative opinions to yours

Again, this is something you're not doing? Please.
posted by ljromanoff at 9:07 AM on July 11, 2001

pancakes are good (esp. with syrup on applesauce) but when's Ice Cream Day, I want my ice cream! (butter pecan)
posted by Octaviuz at 10:36 AM on July 11, 2001