2013 is coming to an end and it is Christmas eve as I write this. I find myself pondering Christmases and New Years past and thinking about the many to come. While I did not remark on this yet in the blog, I passed the 1 year anniversary of this blog's existence a month or two ago. I started the blog as a way to discuss things that were on my mind and were not really appropriate for other forms of social media for reasons of length and complexity. 140 character limits and places to post pictures of pets and babies seemed to me to be uniquely poor places for political, philosophical and economic discussions. So now I have an anonymous way to put my opinions about things out into the void and see if they resonate with anybody (if you are curious, the gun control and the why teachers matters posts are the most popular by page views). And for those of you who have read anything I have written on this blog, thank you.
Christmas, as I get older, increasingly is a time for me to reflect on the holidays of my youth. It is hard for the current holiday season to compare to my memories of Christmases past. You always view such memories with rose tinted glasses to begin with and it is hard for holidays in an apartment to have the same luster as holidays in your childhood home. It is also hard to have the true spirit of giving when you have spent a year unemployed. And while yes, being unemployed has allowed me to indulge my creative urges by writing for this blog, it doesn't help the bank account. And a small bank account can only buy so many presents and still pay the bills. Still, despite all the time I have on my hands, I have been unable for reasons outside of my control to go home for Christmas. I can't help but feel my holidays are diminished as a result.
New Years is a time for people to celebrate the passing of the year and make resolutions for the coming year. However, long ago I resolved to not make any resolutions; and I have kept this promise, more or less, every year since then. This doesn't stop me from having goals, just that these goals are not New Years related. As such, I will not burden this space with my petty wants and desires. Besides, New Years is as much about partying with friends and family as it is about resolving to do things differently in the future. So instead I will simply say this, I hope you all have the chance this holiday season to go out and have fun with friends and family. Friends and family are what make life worth living. When people say money can't buy happiness, to me at least this is what they mean. I wish you all find happiness in the new year.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
The Minimum Wage Debate
First, let me state this strait out: I am not in favor of the minimum wage, just as I am not in favor of the government interfering with the rights of any two people to form contracts freely with each other. The few areas where I am in favor of government intervention in the economy at all, is in providing safety nets for the population. My reasons for being in favor of some safety nets are not economic, but prudential. Societies where the poor and disenfranchised are looked after and not allowed to starve tend to be safer and more stable societies. More over a just and moral society should not be allowing large swathes of its populations to starve.
Secondly, the minimum wage debate, like all highly political debates, is one that is fraught with cherry picked and heavily massaged statistics as well as outright falsehoods. Both sides of the debate have ample numbers to throw around, and neither side is particularly interested in listening to the other. The reality is then, that the criterion that decides peoples' views on this subject is their political view of the proper role of government in society, and not the prudential one of what the actual effects of minimum wage laws.
Thirdly, even acknowledging all this, the minimum wage remains an area that journalists, economists and even philosophers like to debate. The political left likes to point to statistics that show little immediate change in employment after minimum wages are increased, while the political right likes to point to statistics that show states with higher minimum wages tend to have higher youth and minority unemployment rates and that increases in the minimum wage do not yield improvements in the poverty rate. Why is there no consensus? Again, politics.
So, with that said, I recently became aware of a decent article, recommended by Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw here: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2013/12/minimum-wage-redux.html , by Steven Landsburg, himself an economics professor at University of Rochester, here: http://www.thebigquestions.com/2013/12/02/minimum-insight/ and in more depth here: http://www.thebigquestions.com/2013/02/18/thoughts-on-the-minimum-wage/ . And while I don't necessarily agree with all of his arguments, I think they are both thought provoking and should help inform readers on the economic and political debate over this particular public policy problem.
Secondly, the minimum wage debate, like all highly political debates, is one that is fraught with cherry picked and heavily massaged statistics as well as outright falsehoods. Both sides of the debate have ample numbers to throw around, and neither side is particularly interested in listening to the other. The reality is then, that the criterion that decides peoples' views on this subject is their political view of the proper role of government in society, and not the prudential one of what the actual effects of minimum wage laws.
Thirdly, even acknowledging all this, the minimum wage remains an area that journalists, economists and even philosophers like to debate. The political left likes to point to statistics that show little immediate change in employment after minimum wages are increased, while the political right likes to point to statistics that show states with higher minimum wages tend to have higher youth and minority unemployment rates and that increases in the minimum wage do not yield improvements in the poverty rate. Why is there no consensus? Again, politics.
So, with that said, I recently became aware of a decent article, recommended by Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw here: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2013/12/minimum-wage-redux.html , by Steven Landsburg, himself an economics professor at University of Rochester, here: http://www.thebigquestions.com/2013/12/02/minimum-insight/ and in more depth here: http://www.thebigquestions.com/2013/02/18/thoughts-on-the-minimum-wage/ . And while I don't necessarily agree with all of his arguments, I think they are both thought provoking and should help inform readers on the economic and political debate over this particular public policy problem.
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