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In The Long Run . . .

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:08:48 PM EST
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From the comment thread of a much cited today Austin Frakt post:

The literature is clear that an increase in premiums will decrease the available pool of funds necessary for wages. However I would argue that a corresponding decrease in premiums would be ’sticky’ in any return to the employees. The problem of course is that we have never seen the premiums go down.

Austin Frakt [--] Excellent point. My thinking on this one is that it is a short-run/long-run question. In the short-run, wages will stick as you suggest, in the long run, they’ll go up [. . .].

(Emphasis supplied.) Any data to support that "thinking?" Why no of course. Alan Greenspan "thought" a lot of things too. Also, "In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." - John Maynard Keynes.

Also, The Eagles

Speaking for me only

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    In The Long Run . . . | 25 comments (25 topical)

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    Yeh, we're always told this at my workplace (5.00 / 4) (#2)
    by Cream City on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:29:02 PM EST
    and every workplace I've been in, public or private, and it never has happened in my long experience now.  Never.

    Wages even have gone down this year, actually, from our "furloughs" and raises that were rescinded and more -- and I know after long decades that those won't be restored.

    Theory, shmeory.  In the long run, economists don't know from reality.  They are so removed from it that they actually believe what our employers say.  We who work for them know better because . . . well, I know it's so passe to say so, but experience matters.  

    Btw, re Chicago economists vs. Keynes (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by Cream City on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:31:43 PM EST
    there's an interesting article in the new New Yorker about a leader in the Chicago school of economists, Posner, who has abandoned that school's nonsense and gone back to embracing Keynes.

    In other words, he says oops.

    But that's easy for him to say, as he's not paying for the cost of his theories to us all.

    Reagan was Keynesian (none / 0) (#4)
    by MKS on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:35:16 PM EST
    in spite of all the supply side nonsense he ran deficits to boost the economy....

    And as Cheney said, Reagan proved deficits don't matter.  So Bush tried it too...

    Parent

    Nothing of the sort (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by pluege on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 06:56:54 AM EST
    he ran deficits to boost the economy

    reagan ran deficits to plunder the labors of Americans for his fat cat friends in the military industrial complex - 500 ship navy for NOTHING! (they scrapped the damn thing as soon as they built it.) Missile defense - for NOTHING! bombers - for NOTHING! The reagan revolution was the re-energization of the march of the plutocracy to rob and plunder Americans' wealth for their obscene greed - it was a massive amping up of the class warfare the rich have been waging against the average American since the industrial revolution began.  

    Parent

    I worked at the ad agency for a major defense (5.00 / 1) (#23)
    by esmense on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 12:26:01 PM EST
    defense contractor during the 1980 campaign. Reagan was the industry's handpicked boy and they made no bones about what they expected from his administration.

    Parent
    "You supply the pictures, and (5.00 / 1) (#24)
    by jondee on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 01:17:59 PM EST
    I'll supply the war" Hearst said in the 1890s.

    With the Raygun Revolution, it was "you supply the tax-cuts and loopholes, and we'll supply the President (shill)"

    Reagan ushered in a new era in which the roll-back-the-New Deal thugs decided to stop pussy  footing around and took off the gloves, got out the vaseline and hired Reagan to convince American workers that that position they were assuming was called "morning in America" -- and with the aid of a little soft-lighting, mood music, a little fire 'n brimstone and spook stories about "evil empires" they more-or-less pulled it off.

    Moronization in America is what Reagan initiated.

       

    Parent

    Since before that, actually (none / 0) (#21)
    by Cream City on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 11:10:10 AM EST
    Who was the American Revolution really for?  Who got to vote?  :-)

    Parent
    Wyoming calls itself the equality state (5.00 / 1) (#22)
    by Militarytracy on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 12:14:21 PM EST
    because it was the first to allow women to vote.  And it is such a bunch bull because the only reason why women were granted the right to vote in that state was that without granting women full rights they didn't have enough citizens to be granted statehood. Sell it though boys however you can get it to work for ya!

    Parent
    In the case of the Revolutionary Era (none / 0) (#25)
    by Cream City on Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 11:48:00 PM EST
    it's not even only about restricting women from voting.  Most men were restricted from it, too.

    Only the propertied males could vote -- the rich.  We're right back to only the rich having power.

    Parent

    You dont wanna over-simplify (none / 0) (#5)
    by jondee on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:41:38 PM EST
    things and say this started with Friedman telling his rich patrons what he knew they wanted to hear -- sort of like Herbert Spencer with his music-to-Carnegie's-ears "survival of the fittest" crap in the late 19th cent -- but it certainly seems that way.

    Parent
    No, I don't. (none / 0) (#6)
    by Cream City on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:44:01 PM EST
    And I didn't.  Is this a reply that is misplaced?

    Parent
    That's my own working hypothesis (none / 0) (#9)
    by jondee on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 04:52:13 PM EST
    Cream.

    Not saying that thats what YOU were saying.

    Parent

    Oh, okay. (none / 0) (#11)
    by Cream City on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 05:25:48 PM EST
    That is what you said in the header -- but it's not what you meant.  Now I'll go reread it to try to understand it as aimed at a general audience.

    Parent
    "you dont wanna.." (none / 0) (#13)
    by jondee on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 05:37:16 PM EST
    as in, "one dosnt want to.."

    Parent
    As Maerose Prizzi says (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Militarytracy on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 04:31:38 PM EST
    "What the hell Charlie, the calendar takes care of everything."

    Looks like I'm stuck with the part of Irene again though :)  Same old same old

    "Do I marry her, or do I zotz her?" nt (5.00 / 1) (#10)
    by DFLer on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 05:04:47 PM EST


    Parent
    Man! What is the recent history (30-40 years)? (5.00 / 1) (#8)
    by pluege on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 04:51:35 PM EST
    its is plain as day:

    ALL
    PROFITS
    GO
    TO
    SHAREHOLDERS
    AND
    SENIOR MANAGEMENT
    PERIOD

    There is no 'plough back' of anything into wages - only declining living standards for average Americans. What is difficult about this? There just is no other recent history in the US.

    BTD, ya big silly! (5.00 / 1) (#12)
    by cpinva on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 05:31:40 PM EST
    by now you should know that "facts don't matter, it's perception."

    oh, and history is written by the winners.

    I think I figured out... (5.00 / 4) (#15)
    by kdog on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 06:58:41 PM EST
    what really makes wages go up or down...the stones of wage earners.  When they are big and brassy and make people step back when they walk down the street, wages go up...see labor movement.  When they are tiny and meek and scared of their own shadow, wages go down...see last 30 years.

    All other factors are secondary.

    Agreed, in general (5.00 / 3) (#16)
    by gyrfalcon on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 08:44:38 PM EST
    but unfortunately, there is no lack of management that thinks experience in employees is not particularly a virtue and that "fresh blood" is better, not to mention a lot cheaper  You simply can't bargain with that kind of mindset.  Threaten to quit, and they say, OK.  See ya!

    This is what unions are for and why we're so, so, so much worse off as a society without them.

    Parent

    Yes... (5.00 / 1) (#19)
    by kdog on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 07:06:07 AM EST
    no stones bigger and brassier than collectively bargaining stones!  Gotta have unions, but they become an issue too when they become large and bloated and concerned with maintaining their beuracracy over the well-being of the members.  Kinda like governments that way....bigger is not always better.

    You don't get a bigger slice of the pie via health insurance reform...thats for damn sure.  You get it by demanding it, facing risk & temporary hardship for it...up to and including billy clubs to the dome.  I wish there were a kinder gentler prettier way...but they don't call it gold fever for nothing...money makes people crazy.  

    Probably why money makes me uncomfortable and I try not to sweat it, I'm crazy enough:)

    Parent

    But there also are the b*lls (none / 0) (#17)
    by Cream City on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 10:17:22 PM EST
    of those who hire, those in management, who think that they are there because the gods gathered in the heavens and anointed only some of us to take the bread from the mouths of others of us. . . .

    It all comes down to hubris.  You're right; we workers need to work up more of that hubris -- and I think we may see it happen soon, unless those who were elected to leadership start to actually lead us, instead of following their orders.

    Parent

    And, I thought you (none / 0) (#1)
    by MKS on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 03:22:55 PM EST
    were making a pick for tomorrow's game....

    Here to report Brian Bilbray, (none / 0) (#14)
    by oculus on Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 05:49:30 PM EST
    GOP Congressperson, finally responded to my e mail urging him to vote against Stupak/Pitts amendment.  He voted against the House bill and tells me at great length why.  No mention of Stupak/Pitts.  But I can tell you, those Dems. have really blown it, per Mr. Bilbray.

    Something to think about (none / 0) (#20)
    by jbindc on Sat Jan 09, 2010 at 08:13:51 AM EST
    While no one who supposedly knows really expects a Republican to pick up Ted Kennedy's seat, the Dems are still making contingency plans to pass the health (cough) care reform bill before Sen. Kirk is out.

    The notion of a Republican winning Ted Kennedy's seat remains unlikely, despite (or perhaps because of) the recent hubbub around the race.

    But it's a real enough possibility that Democrats have started to consider the question. There are, it appears, two ways health care reform could still pass, in theory, after a victory by state Sen. Scott Brown  in Massachusetts a week from Tuesday.

    The first is simple, if controversial: Get it through between the time the polls close and the new senator is sworn in. [Actually, the Secretary of State has to wait 10 days to certify because of absentee and military ballots]

    Sen. Paul Kirk, currently in the seat, told reporters today he would vote for a health care bill even if Massachusetts voters elect Brown.

    "Absolutely," Kirk said, according to the State House News Service, when asked if he'd vote for the bill even if Brown captures the seat. "It would be my responsibility as United States senator, representing the people and understanding Sen. Kennedy's agenda and the rest of it."

    Any delay in the certification and swearing in of the new senator would provoke a massive partisan battle, but it's apparently imaginable.

    The second path is a different kind of heavy lift. The Senate does not, in fact, need to act on the bill anymore. It has already passed a version. With Brown seated, the White House could prevail upon House Democrats to pass the Senate bill as written, making the same case it has made all along: It's this or nothing. That would be a heavy lift on both the left and right of the caucus. But again, imaginable.

    Apparently, there's also a thought to re-convince Olypmia Snowe.

    Will be interesting political maneuvering to watch if it happens.

    In The Long Run . . . | 25 comments (25 topical)

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