Veelox

If I am reading the charts on page 3 right [0] the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that labor productivity raised ~1% in 2017 while unit costs of labor raised ~2%. Going off the assumption that labor should be paid in proportion to the value they produce, wages should increase when productivity growth outpaces cost growth. Thus since that didn't happen in 2017 wages should be about flat.

Can you give an alternative reason on why average wages should increase?

[0]https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/prod2.pdf

One of my issues with the discussions of reducing wealth inequality is that people talk about the negatives of having billionaires but often propose measures that would negatively affect millionaires. Also, it would be nice to see more discussion about how to improve the wealth building ability of those at the bottom.

Often times the argument starts with something like "rich people have to much money" and then talks about how we should take more money from them. I had a lot of respect for Bernie Sanders because he started with "we should do X good thing for society" and then he proposed a specific tax to pay for that thing. I think that is much better rhetoric than arguing that some people have to much.

>Putin said in Helsinki that he favoured Trump and directed his officials to help Trump.

Wait, what? Can I get a cite for that because I have heard a lot of claims about Helsinki but I have never heard that.

>> these bad actors are clearly non-partisan

>No, it's not at all clear.

> The 2016 disinformation campaign clearly favored one candidate, while simultaneously attempting to radicalize his opposition.

Per a recent article by FiveThirtyEight.com [0] they labeled 719,087 tweets as "Right Troll" and 427,811 tweets as "Left Troll." When describing the two types they say

"Right Trolls behave like “bread-and-butter MAGA Americans, only all they do is talk about politics all day long,” Linvill said. Left Trolls often adopt the personae of Black Lives Matter activists, typically expressing support for Bernie Sanders and derision for Hillary Clinton, along with “clearly trying to divide the Democratic Party and lower voter turnout.”"

So on one hand, yes they clearly favored Trump. On the other hand, favoring Trump was the most divisive and destabilizing thing they could do.

> Or maybe they're just indiscriminately pouring gasoline into the fire.

I think that is a huge part of the strategy. Was there collusion as well? Probably but Putin is happy to watch the West burn.

[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-were-sharing-3-mill...

Raising children is very hard. I simply saying any benefits a person qualifies for while a single parent should not go away once married.

Currently as a single mother, you can qualify for more things than you can as a married mother. This puts a financial incentive to stay unmarried. This incentive should be removed.

I don't have as good of an answer for reducing children. It would probably be best to work on reducing the number of children by providing easier access to birth control.

> Are you suggesting we make their parents "pay" somehow? Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

Due to the way government assistance is structured it encourages parents to 1) not get married, 2) have more kids, 3) not begin working if they don't already work.

If we changed government assistance to encourage parents getting married that would help reduce fatherlessness and all of the negatives that come with that.

If we changed government assistance to encourage parents to have less children they would be better able to take care of the ones they have.

If we changed government assistance to encourage parents to work it would reduce the number of people who grow up on government assistance and live on it their whole lives. This would have long term positive consequences.

>Your meritocracy is frequently indistinguishable from aristocracy.

I think there is a big leap from saying the crown Prince is most qualified to take the thrown and saying a meritocracy is frequently indistinguishable from aristocracy. I think Prince Charles is probably most qualified to take the thrown but I don't want the British government to go back to mostly inherited positions.

>Then why call it a meritocracy?

Google defines a meritocracy as "government or the holding of power by people selected on the basis of their ability." So since it is deciding on ability which is dependent on training and experience it is still a meritocracy.

>I find merit to be something that comes from within not from without.

But what is that thing within? It seems like you have ruled out experience and skills because both of those can be bought by wealthy parents. Even hard work is something that can be taught. It seems like you mean something closer to potiential (future ability) than merit (current ability). Also, what do you look for as evidence of merit?

>All of those instances are meritocratic? We'll admit the occasional error but would you at least say that bloodline aristocracy is often meritocratic by your definition?

I would say that it often has the same outcome as a meritocratic system. Suppose if every US election, after deciding the winner, they rolled a 20-sided dice and on a 1, elected the loser instead. This would be democratic most of the time but it would not be a democratic system. Similarly since a bloodline aristocracy uses bloodline as the deciding factor not merit, it is not meritocratic.

>Absolutely it would change. It's no longer a measure of merit, now it's a measure of merit AND your parents' wealth AND your parents' willingness to spend on your development. We can't separate out those factors so the test is now useless as a measure of merit.

I feel like what you are saying is that merit is independent of the training and experiences you receive. I define merit as the ability to perform the given task well. With that definition, you have to include training and experience because they have effects on ability to perform. So if you exclude training and experiences, what do you mean by merit?

You have a very interesting world view.

>The two girls are equally meritorious yet only one will get admitted.

>To me merit is something that comes from within, not from without.

>but that knowledge isn't itself merit.

I don't get your definition of merit. The crown prince might be given every advantage be that doesn't mean when the king dies the crown prince is best qualified to rule. History is full of examples. Thus because the crown prince will become king regardless of his current ability when the king dies it is not a meritocracy.

In the book Player of Games the Azad society plays a game called Azad. A person's rank in society is determined by how well they play the game in the "annual" tournament. People who are able to be better trained on the game perform better and thus have a higher rank in society. From how you have spoken, I think you would count this training as privilege and not something that increased merit.

If we had a similar test that accurately predicted future success and job applications were decided by this test, would that be meritocratic? Would that change if parents were able to send there kinds of a special $10k/yr school that significantly increased their children's results on the test? Either way, what is your reasoning?

>The whole point of my example was to pose two people of equal intelligence with equal work ethic. I'll admit the Asian girl has a higher chance to succeed at Harvard but I don't believe that's due to her merit, it's due to being placed in a more challenging environment, something that is completely out of her control.

I agree that being placed in an environment that could be more challenging was out of her control. But, her choice to work hard, and do well in those things was her choice. In life she got dealt a straight flush but she played it well. Much like accusing someone of being admitted because a diversity initiative is an insult to their hard work and ability, accusing someone of their success being solely because of their privilege is an insult to their hard work and ability.

> 1. Culture doesn't just emerge spontaneously, it's a response to environment. Asians and blacks have very different historical circumstances thus different cultures.

Yes, they do have different historical circumstances. Remember, Asian Americans have not been treated great on the West Coast. They have still been able to do very well. Look at Jewish culture. They have been mistreated for over a thousand years and are still able to have good results. Were blacks mistreated and oppressed? Absolutely they were! That doesn't change the fact that 91% of Asian/Pacific Islanders graduate high school and only 76% of Blacks do [0]. If we don't focus the cause of that difference, there are always going to be more Asians with perfect SAT scores than Blacks with the same apply to Harvard.

>2. It's completely unfair to hold an 18 year old accountable to the 'culture of their race' (if there is such a thing).

I completely agree but you were advocating for Harvard to try and correct for that difference which I do not think they should do because it requires treating someone different because of their race.

>These things are irrelevant to merit and yet they all count for one girl and against the other. That's not really a merit-based system.

Example 1: Person A goes to Harvard and pulls a 4.0. Person B goes to community college and gets a 4.0. Both get business degrees. It is almost guaranteed that person A learned more. Thus as an employer if you only have one job and want to decide on personal ability, person A gets the job.

Example 2: Person A goes to an elite private high school and gets a 4.0. Person B goes to a very poorly ranked public high school and gets a 4.0. It is almost guaranteed that person A learned more. Thus as an college administrator if you only have one acceptance letter to send and want to decide on personal ability, person A gets the letter.

In my understanding, both example are a merit-based system. In example 2, person B had the deck stacked against them from the start. When we measure personal ability person A has a greater ability and thus more merit. Yet, I feel like you will disagree about this being merit-based.

Would you be willing to explain why you think the quality of school is irrelevant to merit? It would really help my understanding if you were able to put a working definition to your concept of merit.

[0]https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp

I think we are disagreeing about what it means to be meritorious. Both people should have equal work ethic. I would say that the person who has been to private school, taken hard classes, is physically fit, and a practiced debater has a higher chance to succeed at Harvard and afterward due to having better cognitive skills.

>And then to the extent that there are lots of white and Asian kids who have grown up in circumstances which allow them to signal in a way that the black girl above can't, I really don't have a problem with Harvard stepping in and fixing that.

I would say that Asian culture has done a better job, on average, of preparing its children with good study habits, work ethic, and cognitive skills than Black culture has. Thus it bothers me that Harvard who are less well prepared because of their skin color.

>In a racist structure there is no way to be blind to race, you either perpetuate it or you work against it.

You could be trying to say one thing while I hear something different. Do you think it is okay to elevate underrepresented minorities despite a lack of objectively measurable merit?

>4) Harvard's scoring is unintentionally hurting Asian students.

It's Harvard we are taking about, not a community college. Someone in admissions knew it was happening and let it keep happening. If you are willing to say unintentional means knew it was happening and didn't care to stop it, sure it was unintentional. The issue I have with that is if the same thing was happening but you replaced Asian with African, people would be up in arms. Such a double standard offends my sense of equality.

>Obviously hard objective criteria are not be enough to get into Harvard, and they need to dip into subjectivity which is rife with bias.

I think you are missing the point OP is making. The top 80% of blacks score well on the subjective stuff. Only the top 10% of Asians score that well. With that, there are a few possibilities.

1) Blacks are more interesting than Asians.

2) Personality is uncorrelated with test scores.

3) Harvard is purposely scoring to change the racial split of the class.

Of those, I think 3 is most likely. I am open to discussion but I think Harvard is to smart to be doing it on accident and the racial split is to politically acceptable to be by chance.

I think the part of the issue that bothers me most is how much of a double standard there is between what counts as racism against African Americans and rasism against Asian Americans. Objectively, if you have two identical applications to Harvard except one is labeled black and the other is labeled Asian, the black one has a higher chance of success.

They do the same thing with fake job applications with white names and black names. When whites get called back at higher rates that rasism. Yet when it's Harvard doing it to Asians, that's okay.

This just rubs me the wrong way.

Edit: this post has 30+ votes at 4 hours old and went from the front page to not the top 3 in less than 30 minutes. Looks like mods nuked it.

>To the asian issue I wonder if it isn't even a negative treatment, just that other racial minorities get a tip and many whites make it through legacy and donoring.

I am going to make some assumptions and I apologise if they are wrong. I am going to assume that you think racism is wrong. I think that includes structural rasism. That is, policies, procedures, and practices by institutions that systematically disadvantage on race over another. From you above comment, it seems like you believe other racial minorities get an excplicit tip as a matter of policy. It also seems like you believe whites get an implicit tip due to the due to the process of how legacies work.

Yet, you seemed to stop a step short of calling this structural rasism against Asian Americans. Is there something I am missing for why you didn't take that last step?

Would you be able to link to a source about the UN weapons inspectors or something similar? All I have is pretty much hearsay and I was young enough when the towers fell that I understood "bad guys did it" but not much more.

Do we have reason to believe that the government knew there were no WMDs?

At least 50,000,000 were killed in WW2 alone. In WW1 around 16,000,000 were killed. That is over 65,000,000 people killed counting only the two biggest conflicts of the 20th century. If another global conflict broke out, the death count could easily be 100,000,000. If the money the US spends on military keeps a world war from happening in the 21st century it will be money well spent.

>Because a monopoly is a special status that infers special powers and special responsibilities.

In principal I have a problem with legally treating a company different if they have 85% market share as opposed to 30%. I am okay with making anti-competitive practices illegal but we should also enforce those on small companies.

I do care about companies that abuse their position as a monopoly. I think its probably right that Google gets fined for not allowing companies to sell Android forks. What I have a problem with is that if a company is doing some standard business practice, like paying a different company to exclusively use their product, that is okay when they are a not a monopoly but that suddenly become not okay because they have been successful.

Personally I feel like the European Commission is going to far and trying to make an example of Google. I think there is a space for antitrust fines for practices but I was it was aimed at practices that are anti-competitive at any size and are only effective because of a dominate market position. With in mind I think only 1 of the 3 feels like that to me.

> [Google] has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);

I think this is an acceptable business practice. Saying "If you use one, you have to use the others" is reasonable. We want to provide a consistent experience so you cannot pick and choice which part of the bundle you use.

> [Google] made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices;

I don't see how this is a problem in a business. "Hey, we want to use our app. Here is some money if you agree to only use ours." Seems like a bog standard way of doing business.

> [Google] has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").

This one I think the Commission has made a good point with this one. This one does hamper competition because you have to choose Android or Android forks. Well, that is an obvious choice because of how big Android is. That is bad for competition and I am okay with Google being fined for it.

Overall I disagree with 2/3 of the reasons but I do respect the Commission to make the fines big enough that they hurt so that Google might change behavior.

>>"The issue isn't that wages have grown to slow, it is that important costs have grown to quickly."

>And employers bear the responsibility for that.

Per the article [0] after adjusting for inflation "That makes the current cost [of college] more than two-and-a-half times as much as it was in 1988 — a markup of 163 percent."

How are employers responsible for a 163% increase in the real cost of college?

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/how-much-college-tuition-has...

You have quite a few objections and I will try to address them one at a time.

>With all due respect, that's probably because you're not someone who's having to survive on it.

I have a lot of respect and empathy for those working multiple minimum wage jobs to make sure their children have food to eat. With that said, whenever I consider a policy I start with how I think the world ought to be and then I make considerations for how the world really is. Hence why I say it is probably a good thing that we have the minimum wage.

>I don't believe that population is significant, or more significant than those that do need it to be a living wage.

Data would be nice, but I would guess that the long term gain in increased experience from more jobs happening would be better than the marginal increased income for those with the now higher minimum wage.

>I do not believe that having a non-living wage job would help, because James would still need to survive, and on a non-living wage, he's going to have to supplement that income somewhere.

James would need to live somehow, by keeping the min. wage low, we give James the chance to gain a work history at a low paying job (while he is provided supplemental support) so he can transition to a better paying job.

>A better thing for James would be "Ban the Box" laws, which prevent potential employers from asking about criminal history if it's not relevant to the job.

Ban the Box is a bad idea because it hurts young black men[0]. tl;dr when employers cannot know that a person does or doesn't have a criminal record, they don't hire from the populations with high rates of criminal records (young black men).

>And I don't. Just about every example for why it shouldn't happen comes down to business wants cheap labor. And that's not an argument that I am sympathetic to.

I feel like you missed an important assumption I made, business will never hire a person if the value that labor produces is less than the cost of the wage. The min. wage sets a floor on the value a person and this hurts people that cannot produce more value than the floor. This is different from the fact that a business seeks to minimize costs of which labor is a major one. That is capitalism, some business seek to pay people that absolute minimum they can to cut costs. Others (like QuikTrip and In-N-Out) pay a premium for better workers to get better value.

What is your suggested fix for businesses wanting cheap labor?

[0] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ban-the-box-laws-may-be...

I was arguing against setting the minimum wage to a living wage. I like the status quo of cities and states raising their minimum wage while the federal minimum lags behind. It's federalism in work.

I think we are disagreeing on terms. People support a living wage normally mean legally mandating that the minimum amount of money that is exchanged for an hour of labor is set to $X where X is higher than today's rate.

I gave two examples where increasing the hourly rate would make it so that the business would not hire the worker because it would provide negative value to the company.

Working half the hours does change the fact that each hour loses money for the company.

I guess you misread my example. Frank is not worth $15+ a hour. Thus a business will never hire him for a part time job because it is a net negative for the business at that price point but both Frank and the business would be willing to agree to a wage that is less than a living wage.

The biggest change to safety nets I want to see is the restructuring of benefit phase out because currently people get in a position that earn more money will decrease their standard of living. That is an awful thing for them and for society.

No, but changing the health system so it is cheaper could be workable. Also, if made colleges partially responsible for ensuring loans were repaid it would reduce student debt.