The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Healthcare for profit just doesn't work

Playoffs are the only true way to know who is king.

I underlined transition point between what happened and Derid imaginary world of conservative unicorns and free market lollipops.

In case you missed this first time.

As usual, refusing to address detail and lobbing BS based on misguided generalities. Its a lot easier to lob BS than it is to address complex consequences or make an effort to understand ramifications though, so I sort of dont blame you.

You need to understand how and why a particular company is profitable. Hint: " Because it just is" isnt a valid answer. You should also ask the question "are there some companies that would NOT be profitable any longer if the armed thugs that masquerade as Govt forced everyone to do X"

Your arguments have devolved to lollipops now, you should probably try harder or quit trying.

Very simple - fast food corp is profitable because most of its franchises independently operated or not make money. They make money because labor+fixed costs+materials are less than goods they sell. If you increase labor cost, you also increase cost of goods. Even if you make a suggestion that they cannot pass these costs (because they are competing with burgers from China?) to consumer, you still make one HUGE assumption that extra labor costs are significant enough that it will take it from profitable to unprofitable. There is nothing that supports such assumption - healthcare costs are not going to be significant, worst case scenario is burger going to cost 5c more so employees get coverage. All this teeth gnashing is nothing but FUD. Corps not going to go bankrupt providing health coverage or livable wage, worst case scenario is that they going to get marginally less profitable and taxpayers stop being on the hook subsidizing their labor costs via welfare.

There is plenty of evidence that it would have an effect on profitability - its called a bell curve. Some surely would be able to successfully pass on costs, the problem is you are making sweeping statements assuming all would, which is just another assumption you pulled out of nowhere because it conveniently fits your ideology. The fact is, you have no idea how many would or would not be able to pass on costs and remain competitive.

You have yet to define what a "livable wage" is as well - I have also made the assertion that the current status quo is livable, but you seem to reject that. Not sure what your basis is, you have declined to elaborate so I made an assumption of $15/hr as stated before and you have yet to correct that. Under that level of increase, many jobs would be cut any many more unemployed. I am still not sure how you would count that as a net positive. Perhaps you also do not see how destructive the end of part time and temporary work would be, but I certainly do.Making a few less dependent of govt while creating whole new swaths of people who are wholly dependent on Govt somehow strikes me as extremely bad planning.

The thing you still dont seem to comprehend, is I have lived on food service wages before. No govt, no nothing helping. I knew many many people who did the same. So your entire premise rings hollow. Something you seem to not want to address as well. If people are now living on food service and taking welfare, perhaps that reflects not a problem with wages but rather with govt.

Given the level of inflation created by increasing wages, you have also given no reason as to why relative costs across the board would not rise - putting the retail/food service class of worker right back where it started in terms of wages relative to cost of living. Though having to overpay in terms of wages ma incentivize companies in the short term to devise long term solutions to cutting labor overhead, in the long term if the rent that was $400 doubles to $800 and the loaf of bread that was $2 doubles to $4 - but far fewer people are actually employed, thats just a recipe for disaster not an intelligent scheme for a more egalitarian society.

Mostly I think in the short and medium term, all your scheme would accomplish is put the lower class closer to the middle class in terms of purchasing power as absolute wages rose for the lowest class of workers - which instead of elevating their standard of living would actually just put additional pressure on the middle class, who increasingly had to compete with the lower classes of workers for resources. Eventually wages would start catching up for certain segments of middle class workers, but I think some groups would be left behind.

Creating more "middle class" by artificially inflating wages is not really possible, though it is possible, even likely, that the reverberations of Govt action will cause even more middle class workers to fall into relatively lower tiers.

Increasing standard of living of those on the bottom can only realistically be done by either lowering the relative cost of things they consume, or increasing the relative productivity values of the workers.

In either case, its not the plutocrats who will be harmed. This type of Govt involvement always ends up taking from the middle, productive segments of society. Your advocating Govt involvement here is not in the best interests of the working retail/service classes, the only beneficiary would be chaos.

Both scenarios are obviously hypothetical.

Scenario A: Paying livable wages and healthcare would bankrupt currently profitable corporations.

Scenario B: Paying livable wages and healthcare would result in passing costs to the consumer.

You are saying, with almost certainty, that Scenario A will happen and that these corporations are so dependent on government sponsoring labor costs via welfare that they could not function without it.

In such case, isn't it the argument for getting government out of business of retail and fast food labor costs? After all, you are proponent of free market and advocate 'natural' price (of labor) equilibrium dictated by the market.

Please clarify your position so we can proceed.



I think it is well understood that take home of poverty level + $1 is a working definition of a livable wages. I realize it is not ideal definition and was shown to low-ball it in expensive metropolitan areas, but there are government agencies that calculate it based on regional costs, basket of goods and so on and try to define it as well as possible.



Actually, this is not a 'given' anymore and has been shown to not always be the case.

Have you read Ron Unz's essay discussing this? He isn't exactly bleeding heart liberal.

Scenario A will happen with almost a certainty in some cases, but certainly not all. A and B will both occur. The problem is calculating the level of both A and B is very very difficult.

I look at making these kinds of interventions as the equivalent of playing Minefield. Sometimes you click on a square, and everything is hunky dory. Sometimes you get blown up. Since we are talking about the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, I think thats a piss poor paradigm to follow.

You are correct, increasing wages does not *always equal large inflation. There are many many factors involved. See minefield example.

Outline a path for such outcome. To make it easy - assume entire payroll doubled, not just hourly wages, and nothing was passed to the consumer. Take any retail or fast food industry, assume 20% profit margin and show me them going from profitability to non-profitability.

If you are too lazy to go through this exercise - I will save you the time, you would be hard pressed to make such case.

Have you read Card and Krueger on monopsony power in labor markets?

Plus lots of recent stuff, like Addison, Blackburn, Cotti 2009 paper on US retail or Metcalf's work in UK.

Not that I want to get into discussing this with you, there is less than zero chance that you'd listen to any of it.

Hmm, I typically do a lot more lifting when it comes to supplying detail. Sorry, in this case - you need to be the one to not be so damn lazy and make the case that no one, or a marginal number of companies and people would be unscathed.

The impetus is on you here, as you are the one proposing the drastic changes.

Also, its rather ironic that you would accuse me of not wanting to listen to something - when the reverse is the norm here. Unlike you, I am quite unafraid and even eager to parse and dissect new viewpoints and ideas.

You seem to be projecting your own behavior onto me, which is probably not healthy. Perhaps it is just because you dont want me possibly questioning the conclusions of some of your favorites? Not sure, because if you had been paying attention for the past several months you would have noticed I actually read things by people who do not share my worldview with high regularity.

Feel free to pick a paper or topic, outline how it relates to the case you are trying to make and I will look. It would be a lot more effective than the non sequiturs you have been popping out.