How can we protect people's social class?

[Julia_Mae]

At the end of the day my money buys less value. Period. And the overall economy has less, because we have inflated the value of someone’s work.

Edward, no proof. Again. Keep in mind that the economy is not a closed system. There are not X total of dollars to be distributed amongst Y number of workers.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Maybe you’re operating under an assumption that increase will be eaten by the employer? Not so. It will get passed on, across the board, faster than an air from a bubble in a lake gets absorbed into the atmosphere.

So…name a product or service that we buy more of when the price gets jacked up? Apart from trendy products it doesn’t happen.

And you also need to consider what is no longer bought in that store because the grocery bill seems to be creeping higher. Few absolute goods bought, less demand for those products, and the employer supplying those no longer bought items, produces less, trims up his or her labor schedule. Etc.

Edward, this is an incredibly simplistic view of economic reality in our country. None of these scary ideas you have are based in reality. You know why food generally is so expensive now? Because oil is so expensive, mainly. Raising the minimum wage in a country the size of ours isn’t going to make anyone do anything except create a mild and generalized economic stimulus.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I find the language of this thread wrong-headed.

As Catholics we don’t have any obligation to protect anyone’s ‘class’. Sure, we need to work and promote human dignity, general welfare, hygiene, food, etc. But not “class”. Class is something not even one step removed from vanity…

I agree, I found the OP sort of disturbing and don’t understand it exactly. But I read the Cath Encyc reference and it seems quite benign.

 

[Julia_Mae]

And yet, the median income in the U.S. is higher than that of Australia.

.

2011: Median income in Australia was about 64k a year.

Median income at the end of 2011 for US: 51K a year.

 

[Julia_Mae]

Glass Steagall was only part of it and it was a bi-partisan repeal.

The ultimate blame rests on the federal reserve, but federal government policies of creating moral hazard are also a big part. Blaming deregulation is short sighted. Blaming greed is infantile.

Those’re good sound bites, but greed is the foundation all pretty much all economic sin that leads to human misery and the deregulation allowed pretty much every financial disaster that occurred. Along with withdrawing 30% of our money from circulation.

 

[Edward_H]

Edward, this is an incredibly simplistic view of economic reality in our country. None of these scary ideas you have are based in reality. You know why food generally is so expensive now? Because oil is so expensive, mainly. Raising the minimum wage in a country the size of ours isn’t going to make anyone do anything except create a mild and generalized economic stimulus.

You’re all over the map, and you contine to boil things up to the country level. For 3rd or 4th time I ask you to examine what goes on right at the margin. Employers compensate. And so do consumers. They cut someone’s hours back…fewer 40-person hours doing the same work.

Consumers buy 3 less items.

Raising the wages artificially inflates value.

 

[JIB]

Those’re good sound bites, but greed is the foundation all pretty much all economic sin that leads to human misery and the deregulation allowed pretty much every financial disaster that occurred. Along with withdrawing 30% of our money from circulation.

Blaming greed for our current economic mess is akin to blaming gravity for a plane crash. It’s always there.

If you dont think Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the federal reserve, and the federal government creating a moral hazard were the proximate causes of the recession… well, I guess there’s no reason to continue here because you’re a hopeless cause.

Why do you think banks were being reckless with people’s money after Glass was repealed? Maybe because they knew if they were politically connected they’d get a bail out. Which they did.

 

[Edward_H]

Milton Friedman on the minimum wage

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk

 

[fakename]

The first one assumes there is a just price. There is no such thing. Cardinal Juan de Lugo wrote " ‘Just price’ depends on so many factors that it can be known only to God."

The second quote is correct. Of course, “productivity” doesn’t seem to be well understood by most people. A guy flipping burgers is not very productive and thus cannot earn very much money. Forcing a business to pay him above his marginal revenue productivity is unjust.

The just price certainly exists or else the numerous maxims that people should keep the just price are in vain. But the social encyclicals are not in vain.

I’ll have to find more evidence for my claims -though I am perfectly fine with the amount already given. After all, if the second quote comes from the CCC and the first from the Catholic Encyclopedia (and in such a way that it seems to be at least a tolerable position) then I think there is sufficient favorable authority.

 

[Edward_H]

The ‘deniers’ who doubt that artificially raising wages for some jobs soon leads to fewer of those jobs, are often the same people who demand that taxes be added to certain products to discourage use of them.

 

[JIB]

The just price certainly exists or else the numerous maxims that people should keep the just price are in vain. But the social encyclicals are not in vain.

I’ll have to find more evidence for my claims -though I am perfectly fine with the amount already given. After all, if the second quote comes from the CCC and the first from the Catholic Encyclopedia (and in such a way that it seems to be at least a tolerable position) then I think there is sufficient favorable authority.

There’s no such thing as just price.

Saying it’s so doesn’t make it so.

 

[fakename]

There’s no such thing as just price.

Saying it’s so doesn’t make it so.

I’m just saying that it is highly improbable that moral philosophers like the popes, whose job it is to be trained in ethics, would make such a basic mistake as saying that there is a just price when in practice there is none.

 

[GEddie]

I’m just saying that it is highly improbable that moral philosophers like the popes, whose job it is to be trained in ethics, would make such a basic mistake as saying that there is a just price when in practice there is none.

I am a non-philosopher and have not studied economics, however, I can see where just price comes in. It really appears more in absence; I.e, if prices are suppressed by exploitive practices, one could say that they have gone below the just price. It would depend upon the justice or lack thereof in the practices used to depress the price. (One could also factor natural/environmental issues into the determination of the just price.)

ISTM that just price is more a range than a value, as normal value fluctuations do not become moral issues. But just price can be a ceiling as well as a floor. Gouging would be an example of exceeding the just price.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Bill_7154]

For instance, how can we have a system where wages and employment are allowed to fluctuate if morality dictates that we should try to maintain a level of “becomingness” to every social class? That is, how can free markets exist in this manner if we need to protect everyone’s proper station in life?

I happened to catch a few minutes of news (avid news avoider here) the other day as I have been home sick. There were results of a survey regarding what constitutes being ‘in the middle class’. There were a series of about 5-6 different catagories/labels such as ‘having health insurance’, ‘owning your own home’, ‘affording college educations for your children’,etc and the percent of people who agreed that it was necessary to fit into each of the catagories in order to qualify for being in the middle class. (We are talking about in the USA here, not third world countries).

I was quite surprised that only 45% of those polled felt that one would need to own their own home (rather than rent an apartment) in order to be in the middle class. I would guess that 50 years ago a much higher % of people would assume that those in the middle class owned their own home. I was suprised by all of the answers.

So I think that people are thinking differently about what it means to be in a certain social class, and the standards are lessening. I do not know why. But to think that the majority of people in the country think that you are in the middle class (rather than working class, or working poor, or whatever) if you can’t even own your own home is surpising to me.

If people think you are in the middle class in the USA if you can’t afford health insurance, can’t own your own home, can’t afford college for your children, etc it saddens me. To me, in order to be ‘middle class’ in the USA and not working class or working poor people own their own homes, have their own health insurance, have 2 cars, can afford regular vacations, have sufficient funds to retire comfortably, can pay for their childrens education, etc.

It really seems to me that public views of what qualifies as upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class, working class, working poor, are all changing in that the expectations of what qualifies is lessening.

And I don’t think we can protect everyone’s proper station in life, or even agree on what that means. If the majority of peple think that people living in their own apartments, living paycheck to paycheck are ‘middle class’ to me that is pretty crazy.

I am for true free markets because I think (and know in my case) that government takes a massive chunk of my earnings and feel they do a terrible job with it. Inflation alone, the biggest tax of all (conveniently hidden) is hitting everyone except upper class and above, and hitting them HARD. I can’t really do much of anything without being taxed somehow. Taxes are killing me and my family. I am in the working poor class. And each and every year it is hurting me more and more. Meanwhile I hear politicians talking about how they are or plan to help me/others yet I do not see it. What I did see a few years back was government giving out billions of dollars to rich people (the bailouts). Why didn’t they just send all of that money to everyone, each citizen, divideded up evenly, or based on how much they contribute, or whatever?

I think the best we can do is try to help our neighbors if we can (financially or any other way such as being nice, doing a favor for them, etc).

 

[Bill_7154]

Gas is currently about $5.60 Australian per US gallon - I think the dollar is about $1.03 US , which would make it about $5.85 US per gallon?

Can’t really speak to the other things too much, cept that the cheapest bread I can find is about $1.85 US a loaf and the cheapest milk about $1.03 US a litre. A Big Mac where I am is about $4 US.

The average full time wage, by the way, which must be factored in, is $71,239 US. Tax rates are roughly the same, best I can reckon, allowing for us having no state income taxes.

Then of course there’s the little fact that we only have 5% unemployment. If you got fewer folks working it kinda cancels out the advantage of having cheaper food, gas etc - a lot of them still won’t be able to afford sufficient.

I’'m curious about something. Here in the US, depending on where you live, your cost of living will vary greatly. Living in some cities/states is probably 3-4 times more expensive than living in other cities/states. It may vary even more than that in some low cost states in rural area’s. Is this the same in your country? For example, you may be able to live very well on $70K in certain parts of the country, but in other area’s you will be living in an apartment and living paycheck to paycheck.

 

[Bill_7154]

Yup, that’s the party line. Of every party. Of course, raising the minimum wage has never actually* had* any of these consequences. But people do keep repeating the arguments as if they were backed up by hard data.

Funny how Australia seem to not be going broke paying double what we do.

So let’s just raise the minimum wage to $100/hr, everyone can be wealthy and no one will ever have to worrry about paying their bills anymore. Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of doing that before? It would certainly solve many of my problems.

 

[Bill_7154]

Certainly it does mean that you can’t act as if having a low minimum wage will save you - for one it hasn’t worked very well for you so far.

If there was a lower min wage/ no min wage, millions and millions of jobs would be created overnight. Even though I am a working poor person I would have lots of jobs available. Of course the people who collect welfare (in one or more of it’s various forms) would probably not be interested in taking any of the jobs that I would offer since their income is a lot HIGHER than the current minimum wage already. Why work when you get a free living for spending your days whatever way you want, on a 52 week a year permanent paid vacation? Virtually none of those people are going to search for or accept a minium wage job when their standard of living is already higher than that of minimum wage workers. And since they are getting the money from ‘entitlement’ programs, they are not encouraged or incentivised to do so either.

 

[Bill_7154]

But the market, let us assume, by allowing people to be fired and hired at any price essentially destroys the whole concept of dignity because the market assumes that there is no price at which a person would not accept work because it is beneath him. Hence dignity is sacrificed for trifling amounts of money. From this POV we must ask how we can theoretically square the market with the concept of social honor.

I disagree. People have free will and it is dignified to use one’s own judgement to make decisions as to where you will work and how much money you will accept (or turn down the job).

There is a phrase I have heard before, one I am fond of. It is: “The dignity of work”. People who collect welfare (in one or more of it’s various forms), and do so where they collect much more in cash and other goods and services, are missing out on the dignity of work. They are not feeling that dignity, and are disconnected from those in society who do work and experience the dignity of work. The government is the culprit denying these people the dignity of work by having ‘entitlement’ programs where people get money and or goods/services and are ‘entitled’ to them. There is no incentive for them to work towards achieving the dignity of work. Quite the contrary, there are DIS-incentives, working to steer them clear of seeking and finding employment.

I have a question: If one is capable of working, but is living off of other people’s money via taxes, are they living with dignity? What if they go around with an attitude of entitlement, complaining they don’t get enough and should get more? I wonder if they would experience more dignity if they did some sort of volunteer work for the community as a condition of receiving a free living from taxpayers? I wonder if more people would think of them as poeple with dignity than the way that people think of them now.

 

[LilyM]

I’'m curious about something. Here in the US, depending on where you live, your cost of living will vary greatly. Living in some cities/states is probably 3-4 times more expensive than living in other cities/states. It may vary even more than that in some low cost states in rural area’s. Is this the same in your country? For example, you may be able to live very well on $70K in certain parts of the country, but in other area’s you will be living in an apartment and living paycheck to paycheck.

Hmm. Not sure about 3-4 times more expensive unless you’re talking about a fairly ritzy part of the major cities rather than your average burb. You can certainly say double.

 

[LilyM]

If there was a lower min wage/ no min wage, millions and millions of jobs would be created overnight. Even though I am a working poor person I would have lots of jobs available. Of course the people who collect welfare (in one or more of it’s various forms) would probably not be interested in taking any of the jobs that I would offer since their income is a lot HIGHER than the current minimum wage already. Why work when you get a free living for spending your days whatever way you want, on a 52 week a year permanent paid vacation? Virtually none of those people are going to search for or accept a minium wage job when their standard of living is already higher than that of minimum wage workers. And since they are getting the money from ‘entitlement’ programs, they are not encouraged or incentivised to do so either.

An excellent point. Almost no-one here would rather be on welfare, because welfare is so miserable compared to even the minimum wage. At a rough guess unemployment is probably half of the minimum wage in real terms (ie allowing for the travel concessions, health concessions etc that welfare recepients get) if not less.

So why exactly do you think it’s a good and healthy thing to make minimum wage jobs so completely unattractive by comparison to welfare? All you’re doing by going that route is forcing people (including plenty who actually do want to work) onto welfare, since some who want to work still will not be able to reasonably live on the average minimum wage if they did?