From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Aug 09 2003 - 16:53:37 MDT
Randy writes
> Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> said:
>
> > The only bad thing that can happen is for the lazy Americans
> > ---who *refuse* to take jobs at lower pay or at *whatever*
> > the market will offer---will be abetted by all the stupid
> > and awful unemployment "insurance" socialist schemes to
> > weaken the U.S. No one should ever receive *any* incentive
> > to remain unemployed, if what you want is the good of a
> > particular nation, or, if what you want is the good of the
> > whole world.
>
> "Working" per se should not be our goal. Instead, getting the
> maximum wage per hour worked should be the goal.
Agreed. So long as it's *WORK* and not welfare/unemployment.
And your country will be best off if the people want to work,
and at whatever wages they can get.
> Imagine if I applied for a job at bakery, and the employer
> offers me $10/hr, and I counter with an offer of $5/hr, saying
> that since I buy bread, I will benefit from the lower prices!
Please try harder to be sensible. I am old and cantankerous
and am interested only in serious progress towards the truth.
No one in your silly scenario has any incentive to say what
he did.
If you do study the process of wealth creation, I maintain,
then you'll see that if under-developed countries send us
scads of goods at low prices, then this *must* be wealth
producing for us if our people are flexible. This means
flipping burgers for a while, if necessary, but continuing,
*as always* to look out for the best opportunity.
One thing that would help in the U.S. is to have less
government regulation, so that hiring and firing were
easier, and no one had to worry about Big Brother
looking over their shoulder. It would help also if
the character of the American people was more resilient,
and they weren't so damned obsessed with *security*.
Security should come from one's savings and from one's
relatives, not from stupid anti-production guarantees
from one's employer. It would mean than fewer people
would get fired. Like in 1830, the boss might come in
one day and say, "You are not working out. Either leave
or take a $15 per hour pay cut." Presumably the boss
also goes over to the next worker and says, "you *are*
working out here, I don't want to lose you, here is a
$10 pay hike".
Wouldn't *my* scenario be what you would expect in
a Darwinian economy? Do you *really* understand how
competition makes my scenario plausible? And can you
think of a more productive, wealth-creating environment?
Lee
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