Native Americans
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Warrior
Member # 5483
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 12:51
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I think it's hilarious how far off-topic this has become. :D Anyway, I think Kelandon is right, that progressive taxation is neccesary, that low-income families can't afford to pay as much. The real problem though is all the crap that the government is investing in, such as research to give mice partially human brains. Plus the government spends a lot more money than it takes in, now how f***ing stupid is that? -------------------- Ignorance Is bliss -Cypher (Matrix) Don't think you can; know you can -Morpheus (Matrix) sanity is overrated :) Posts: 130 | Registered: Monday, February 7 2005 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 13:02
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quote:Well, now we agree at least in part: if plumber's wages go up, there will be a few more plumbers. However, that doesn't mean that there will be enough plumbers (or carpenters or whatever), so there probably will still be a problem, and "reducing ignorance and folly" — getting more recruitment and publicity for the trades, perhaps, I don't know — is indeed a good idea, too. This is what I've been saying all along: the market won't completely solve the problem by itself. It may help, but we can (and therefore probably should) take further actions ourselves. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 13:19
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Maybe the problem is with the example. "Shortage of plumbers" isn't a very serious problem, unless the shortage is very extreme (five plumbers left), the need for plumbers becomes several orders of magnitude greater, or the ability to pass on the secrets of the plumbing trade is affected. I don't see any of those things happening any time soon. A moderate shortage of plumbers just means plumbing problems will take longer to get fixed. That may be a real enough problem for it to get corrected, either by the market or by some intelligent entity; but it's not a critical problem. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 13:22
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Keep in mind that when you try to resort to game theory like arguments, you assume that people always behave in their best interests. Real humans are not like that at all. People often do what's best for them in the short-term without looking at the long-term consequences. For an example let's look at the scenario choices: 1) Get a decent paying job and make 25k per year ($12.50/hr). 2) Invest 10k per year for 4 years and get a higher education to get a job that makes 50k per year. To keep things simple, let's factor out taxes, investing, raises, etc. After about 40 years, the total gross income of scenario 1 is 1.0 million dollars. For scenario 2, it's about 1.75 million dollars or an additional 75%. The obvious choice from a game theory perspective is to pick scenario 2. The aforementioned real-life things like investing and pay raises typically further benefit option 2. Of course, not everyone will pick option 2, but you assume most will. Unfortunately, this assumption is false in a lot of cases. There are shortfalls on a lot of high paying jobs, specifically in technology related fields. Back to plumbers/artisans, we have a similar situation of people not choosing these fields in favor of lower paying ones, even though it is not in their best interest (or society's for that matter) to do so. Higher wages may help, but it will not solve the problem by itself. EDIT: For a more severe example, replace plumber (an important but ultimately insignificant occupation) with artisan, technician, or engineer. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 13:24: Message edited by: *i ] -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 14:03
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Who says rising plumbing wages will only produce a few more plumbers? What mechanism limits the effect so severely? Just why won't this mechanism solve the problem by itself? Suppose current numbers in X profession are below optimal, leaving aside any doubts about the numbers or the optimal levels. Suppose further, again ignoring doubts, that this situation would be improved if everyone were ideal, intelligent agents. Not even the combination of these two assumptions invalidates the claim that the free market will bring the required numbers of professionals. People don't have to be ideal agents; they just have to be less than totally blind to the advantages of earning more money. Or so it seems to me at the moment. I'd be perfectly happy to learn otherwise. I'm just getting a bit impatient with blanket disbelief in what seems to be very robust mechanism, without any serious explanation of why the mechanism should fail. [ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 14:22: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 14:24
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quote:Just because you don't understand why that's a good idea doesn't mean it isn't. How the hell do you expect scientists to research what goes on in the human brain without having access to human brain cells? It's not as if we can go around cutting up the brains of actual living humans to see how they tick, so we do the next best thing. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 14:29
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quote:The question isn't what low-income families can afford to pay, it's whether anyone needs to pay more than low-income families. I agree that the answer is yes. There's a matter of degree. Increasing taxes on the wealthy may affect their lifestyles to some extent, but it will not subject them to anything but an affuent or at least comfortable lifestyle. The Native Americans were dumped into abject poverty. There's also a question of results. Nobody seriously claimed that the Native Americans would be better off for being forced off their land (although cultural assimilation is another story). In the long run, it's quite possible that the money taken from the rich can create a society that is better for everyone including the rich. Thuryl beat me too it when I was distracted while writing this post, but the rejection of basic research is crippling to scientific progress. Growing human brains is mice is not obviously something with practical applications. Growing human brains for study is, though. Being able to regenerate damaged human brains in humans is too. Understanding how to manipulate genetics to produce effects like human brains in mice could lead to important breakthroughs. —Alorael, who will mention here that the absurd amount of money dumped on biodefense is criminal. It has been largely unable to produce results and no results have been required. In the meantime, clear and present pathological dangers go underfunded. Then again, cancer is probably just a sign that God hates you. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 17:27
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quote:I'm going to pull away from plumbers a bit and just say technical fields as it is more general and pressing. Wages have been increasing in technical fields relative to others as demand and yet enrollments in such programs continue to decline. I don't know what mechanism is causing this, I have a few ideas: 1) Young people, especially in poorer areas, are generally not aware of the benefits of a technical career. 2) Young people, particularly in wealthier areas, see certain technical careers as "dirty" and would rather do something "cleaner" and less strenuous despite the rewards. In other words, they don't want to do them despite the pay. 3) The preparation for such careers is difficult requiring a lot of studying, practice, and hard work. Today's generation, unlike earlier generations, is a "now-centric" generation demanding immediate rewards. 4) Personal gratification is valued a lot higher now than it used to be. The problem with your model, I suspect, is that it neglects such intangibles and focuses too much on the bottom line dollar. People are aware of the benefit of money, it's just that other things have a higher priority that classic game theory leaves out. As to your final question, that's your burden of proof. All I can say is that your conclusions contradict observations. Either observations are wrong (not likely) or your model is not considering things. The problem is not showing signs of fixing itself, I'm afraid. This is where theory meets reality and when the two conflict, the former must adjust. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 18:36
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quote:This is what I said last page. Let's see if it has any impact this time. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7128
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 21:22
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quote:Ack, did I forget to post it? Weird. Here's the main page. Two very good contrasting quotes, and some interesting links, but... ... all the most relevant stuff, the actual history of the school, is here. Posts: 5 | Registered: Sunday, May 14 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Tuesday, May 16 2006 21:29
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For a real world example, the front page of The Arizona Republic for May 15, 2006, had on two trends. First a shortage of repairmen was leading to an increase in wait time for plumbers to unclog drains from a few hours to a week. Second because of a shortage of trained construction workers, home builders were funding a program to train prisoners for hiring upon release. There was talk of having them doing prefabrication work in prison to deal with the shortages. I guess they are taking a page from China. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 13:15
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The utility of a discussion in which none of us are willing to dig for real data, never very great, has probably been exhausted by now. But I seem to be invested in the project of getting a certain point across. Perhaps it will help if, after trying one more time to explain my point, I give two examples of the kind of counter-argument I can see. I repeat that the assertions about present conditions, which we are accepting as data for the sake of argument, may contradict a naive straw man, but do not contradict my actual hypothesis (which I believe is the actual free market theory). The point was never that plumber income should be the only relevant factor, either now or in future, but that plumber income would be the only relevant factor that would change dramatically if we experienced a severe shortage of plumbers. Nothing anyone can say about current numbers of plumbers says anything, in itself, about how those numbers would respond to such a change. All that such numbers can establish is the balance of forces among the various factors as they now stand. No matter what these factors are or where their balance leaves us now, if the only change among them is a great rise in plumber income, we should see lots more plumbers coming along. I can see two general kinds of ways for this market correction mechanism to fail. The first is that other (negative) factors might in fact change along with plumber income, and change comparably much. No fixed level of irrationality among economic agents, for instance, would be enough; but if people in general were to increase their pigheadedness rapidly, perhaps because long waits for pipe repairs were driving them mad, then rising pigheadedness might keep pace with rising plumbing wages. That would scupper the market correction mechanism. The second is that people might be, not just influenced by other factors, but extremely insensitive to earning potential when choosing careers, at least within the time frame of acceptable response to a plumber crisis. Since we do in fact have some new plumbers at present, this would mean that the population of high school graduates fell into two sharply different groups (with a negligible population of stragglers between them): those few who are already willing to become plumbers under current conditions, and the rest who would not become plumbers within four years even for all the tea in China, other relevant conditions remaining as at present. I agree that the free market mechanism would not work in the latter scenario, either. This was what I meant by people being totally blind to the advantages of wealth. I don't find it plausible, either. I mean, if I were trying to recruit plumbers by offering licorice all-sorts, and people pointed out to me that I was already offering lifetime supplies and getting no takers, I guess I could accept that maybe I had already gotten everyone who liked licorice all-sorts, so increasing my licorice offers in future would have no effect. But with money? I don't see it; but perhaps I am missing something here. What I am not missing is the contention that people are passing up plumbing today despite current high rewards. That simply doesn't address the issue of response to dramatically increased rewards, which is what the free market correction hypothesis is about. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 15:08
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The counter to your argument, SoT, would be that if we experience a severe shortage of plumbers, the system has already failed, regardless of whether that shortage is later corrected by an increase in wages encouraging more people to become plumbers. It would be very much better to prevent labour shortages from happening in the first place. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 15:51
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SoT, your analysis is missing an important real world problem: People need to eat now, rather than in the long run. The people who are working as hard as they can just to make ends meet, can't afford to take the time off to train for a new career even if their future earning potential is much higher. So once people are stuck in minimum wage service-sector jobs, they are unlikely to get training to become mechanics, technisians, or even plumbers. As for the general idea of people making the right decisions based on financial insentives, the best counter-example is credit card use. There are very few situations in which it makes sence to borrow money on a credit card. However, millions of Americans get into massive credit card debt. Where is the "individual financial wisdom that drives the market" in this case? And the classic example of free market being self-destructive is the presence of monopolies. Completely free market inevitably results in a monopoly or oligopoly, which condition is as far from a free market as you can get. -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 19:09
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For what it's worth, I know a lot of kids graduating high school and looking to study engineering, precisely becuase the shortage of American engineers is common knowledge and they figure they can milk it all the way to the bank. While I basically agree with SoT (I don't think he was trying to make his point to me, though), one of the biggest obstacles, and it's analogous to what Zeviz said about credit cards, is that people will mortgage their long-term earning potential for four years of partying, carefree as possible. That's why the shortage of plumbers, no "college experience" at all if that's your career, and of engineers and other technical specialties, which generally give less free time on the undergraduate level (as opposed to law and medicine, which both save the hard work for later, allowing people to find themselves and/or party like it's 1999 while undergraduates). The question then becomes whether earning potential need to rise beyond what it's feasible to pay plumbers to counter that tendency. EDIT: Zeviz, SoT isn't assuming that starving people will become plumbers, just people. There are plenty of lower middle-class people who could ride a shortage to the next level up. Plenty of people train in computers with various fly-by-night organizations. The same will presumably happen with plumbing. EDIT 2: Yes, I'm done with my earlier devil's-advocate position. participating seriously now. [ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 19:11: Message edited by: PoD person ] Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Wednesday, May 17 2006 20:00
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Thuryl's point is probably the best one to make here. Also, as probably a lesser point: if the wages of tradesmen really do go up enough to encourage as many people to become tradesmen as are needed to meet demand, I'm inclined to think that the economic damage will be rather a lot. Think about what would happen if the per-hour price of hiring an carpenter (now at a median price of $16.78, according to the Bureau of Labor website) matched that of hiring a software engineer (now more than double that, and it's much, much higher for specialized ones) — just for the sake of argument, let's say that such an increase would be enough incentive. I'm not an economist, but I'm guessing that doubling the labor cost of tradesmen would do crazy things to the cost of building and repairing homes, maintaining roads and general infrastructure, and a wide variety of other things. [ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 20:01: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, May 18 2006 12:14
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I agree with Thuryl's point. I assumed that Kelandon and *i were already making it. Whatever shortage exists now is not, by any standards I consider reasonable, severe: I lived in Boston until last fall, and the idea that the US might be short of technicians was news to me when I read this thread. That's no proof it wasn't short of them then, but I think it is proof it wasn't severely short. I called plumbers once or twice in Boston, and they came quickly and worked well, for a shocking fee. This is where real data is needed (which is where I came into this discussion, after all, a page or two back). But I'd say that if anyone needs to dig for data to assess the problem, it isn't severe now. As to how bad it will be for technicians' wages to rise as high as they perhaps will: I did try to acknowledge this issue a few posts back. And this is why I used the vague 'all the tea in China' phrase in my last post: there is indeed an issue in just how high plumbing wages might rise. To repeat what I said above, I write off a certain level of economic grief as inevitable, and if we're still arguing I pretty much assume we're talking about catastrophes on the scale of the Great Depression. I think that the market will protect us from that, over this issue. Yeah, it could be that life in the US will be significantly different in future, in that plumbing and other technical service costs will be something Americans worry about the way they currently worry about health care costs. I wouldn't count that a catastrophe. I'd probably count it as social progress. Until my shower needed fixing again. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Thursday, May 18 2006 12:33
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It's not severe now because there are still people who came into the profession in the 1980's and earlier. The number of apprentices has been absurdly low for some time now, though, which means that there will be a labor shortage when the next generation starts retiring, which is not far off. All I'm saying is that there will be a problem and that it is possible to take actions now that would reduce it. Do you disagree? [ Thursday, May 18, 2006 12:34: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7128
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written Friday, May 19 2006 05:39
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The same thing applies to the Native American situation we've been talking about. Sure, things are better than they once were, but they got that way because people did something. I'm not trying to refute the idea of a natural cycle that tends to bring things back to equilibrium, but I must stress that people taking conscious action to affect the direction of things when they see a problem is not only part of that cycle but in fact the entire mechanism on which it works. Knowledge of such a cycle is in no way justification for complacency. Take the Roman Empire, for example. They lasted a long time and left even more enduring legacies. One great reason for their success was the fact that they did not try to suppress the culture of the people they conquered: they built some buildings, imported some people and some gods, appropriated whatever they liked from the culture, charged their taxes and otherwise left it alone. They never took the assimilation or "digestion" approach that was behind the Indian Boarding School system. The major reason the Romans fell was complacency. I'm neither an economist nor economic historian, but it seems arguable to me that the Roman Empire became, in its later years, essentially a service economy. The Roman Army as it was in the height of the Empire would have been basically undefeatable against any possible threat extant in Europe until the later Middle Ages, at least. However, complacency became so great that the discipline which was once their defining characteristic was no longer there. To say nothing of all the lead they ingested. And as to the charge that "Cultural Genocide" is a misappropriation of a very politically and emotionally charged term, I will say two things. First of all, they aren't my own words. Second, what would you call the systematic, government-sanctioned imprisonment, torture, and brainwashing of several successive entire generations of a people? [ Friday, May 19, 2006 05:42: Message edited by: C. P. ] Posts: 5 | Registered: Sunday, May 14 2006 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, May 19 2006 06:32
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You and *i extrapolated from current conditions to future labor shortages, which I assumed were to be severe (or else there would be no point in talking about them in purely qualitative terms). I suggested that it wouldn't actually be nearly as bad as such extrapolation might indicate, because there is a robust self-correction mechanism for such things in a free market economy. It seemed an important point to make, since without it the discussion certainly left open the possibility of some kind of economic apocalypse. I was then quite surprised when, instead of saying, "Well, of course, but we're just worried about having to pay more for getting things repaired in a few years," people started poo-pooing the idea of market self-correction, and thus apparently defending the doomsday scenario. I tried twice to straighten out whether we were only speaking about different degrees of severity of the purported problem, but no-one picked this up; from the responses I got, it seemed that people were really expecting the country to go to the dogs because money could no more buy plumbing than love. If we agree that, barring some unforeseen disaster, the free market should keep the American economy running despite current indications of technician undersupply, then I don't really have any views on how big an inconvenience the undersupply might be, or what might be done to ease it. Economics is a very messy subject. To compare with physics, I'd be willing to shoot the breeze qualitatively about the Greenhouse Effect, but if we're asking about whether shutting down some coal plants would make cooler summers in the next few years, I'm going to either lay out masses of figures and formulas, or bow right out. So if the free market versus doomsday debate wraps up, I'm going to just plead ignorance and skepticism about whatever remains. When I graduated from high school in the mid 1980s, lots of people were going into engineering because we were being told about this coming dearth of engineers. Then when we graduated from college, the news was all about the engineering glut. Either the rumors from four years before had been wrong, or my cohort had overcorrected the problem, or there had been an unforeseen fall in demand for engineers, or something. Anyway, it made for a very tough job market. So I think I understand some big and basic economic issues, but below this level I take everything with a big grain of salt. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Friday, May 19 2006 07:55
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Would the economy still run? Yes. It'd run distinctly poorer, but it'd still run. When you brought up market self-correction, it sounded like an argument that we should do absolutely nothing (which I brought up several times, and you never really responded to that in a coherent manner — we've been having a failure to communicate, I think). The reason that it sounded like an argument to do nothing is that your post otherwise would have had nothing to do with my main point, which was about the actions we should take — namely, not forcing a college education down everyone's throat, as per Thuryl's post — and not about the severity of the problem. (I was at a talk on avian flu a few weeks ago, and one of the questions from the audience was, "So we're supposed to be frightened about this?" I wanted to shout at him, "No, you're supposed to do something! Being scared is totally irrelevant!") Anyway, as long as you agree that we shouldn't completely avoid taking action in order to prevent a future problem — not a catastrophic one, but still a significant problem — then we're in agreement on enough here. [ Friday, May 19, 2006 07:57: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 3441
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written Friday, May 19 2006 08:57
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[quote] And as to the charge that "Cultural Genocide" is a misappropriation of a very politically and emotionally charged term, I will say two things. First of all, they aren't my own words. Second, what would you call the systematic, government-sanctioned imprisonment, torture, and brainwashing of several successive entire generations of a people? quote:The most popular term I know for the decline of the Native American civilization is democide. Brainwashing is also a very loaded word, in my opinion. A better term would be assimilation, or even forcible assimilation. This is nothing new, by a long shot. Throughout history, the more powerful and technologically robust civilization has assimilated its less sophisticated neighbors. I'm all for the preservation of culture, but is it truly wrong to introduce people to a more sophisticated society? -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Friday, May 19 2006 09:50
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quote:No, but I think what happened to the native americans in the 19th century was a little more than an "introduction". -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 3441
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written Friday, May 19 2006 09:55
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Curiously enough, the government of Brazil forbids people to make contact with certain tribes in the amazon, so as not to "spoil" their culture. -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 7128
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written Friday, May 19 2006 11:48
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Brainwashing is a loaded term? Well, what would you prefer I called the process of abducting children from their homes and families, placing them in an insular location they are not allowed to leave, forbidding them to practice any of the customs of their own people or speak their own language (one common punishment was a sewing needle pushed through the tongue for anyone who spoke in a language other than english), and constantly drilled with various slogans and propaganda, with the explicit goal of making them hate everything that used to be their culture? Posts: 5 | Registered: Sunday, May 14 2006 07:00 |