He's a college professor--are you saying hie's right wing? :confused He's a chief economist with the US Department of Labor. What source are you going to use to educate yourself if not economic institutes or academics?
OK Evan--let's try that. Forget that virtually every economist in the country would come to the same conclusions (because economics is a science), do your own common sense approach since you are a scientist yourself. Start with answering a few questions.
1. The price of gas went up recently--you've see I am sure the ripple effect of that through the economy--prices of everything else is going up--that's Economics 101, basic supply and demand.
2. If unions were a good thing and actually worked, then why don't we just have a national union providing those benefits to every American worker? Or better yet, why not just set a minimum wage at $20 per hour for every worker (or whatever we decided is a "living" or fair wage)?
Ok--if we had No.2, the laws of economics would dictate of course that prices would simply compensate for the increase in labor costs--that is it would be impossible to give employees real wage increases because the increases, if done across the country, would simply be reflected in higher prices, thereby eliminating the wage gain. And that would be the least of the problems--the higher wages would make our goods and services non-competetive in the world market thereby eliminating jobs.
The old Soviet Union attempted to remedy this problem by controlling prices. Of course, any good economist will tell you when you can't control prices--the world market operates in a free market, not a controlled market. The cost of the goods to the consumer had to be subsidized by the government, which of course had to get the money from somewhere--they can't just print it up. That's why the Soviet Union's economy collapsed--why its currency became worthless. That's what happens in an artificially controlled market.
Unions attempt to artificially raise wages above the prevailing market rates--they are allowed to do this solely by government advantages given to them--it is EXACTLY the same thing as what the Soviet Union did. If we allowed that on any large scale, the economy would collapse.
If you truly are a "science" person, then you should be able to research this and you'll come to the same conclusion--you have to because science does not lie.
One, I said I didn't believe that "Politcal Think Tanks" were of any value at all, I didn't say the information was no good..There's a difference, and don't think they aren't influenced, who do you think financially supports them for all the research they do? (government grants maybe???? I might look into that)
Secondly talking about oil and gas is my business, and what economists obviously don't a. see or b. ignore hoping it will go away is the FACT that energy particularly GASOLINE, a traded commodity closely tied with the price of WTI (which a a totally bullshit benchmark and needs to be done away with) is no longer traded on the basis of supply and demand, and I know this to be a fact, there is no linearity at 100+$BBL. Period
Next, my attitude is, has and will always be that decent salaries stimulate the ecomomy, it's simple you don't have to be a Nobel Laurate to comprehend that the more you have, the more you're going to spend. That money works its way up to the top, then trickles back down, I don't see what's so difficult to uderstand.
A happy, well compensated workforce is historically more productive, don't cite a college prof, I'll tell you my company spent millions on an internal study to prove what I would have told them for free.
Unions are conglomerating, and to some degree there will be a ceiling to salaries for union workers, we are dealing with that on my side of the industry.
What we deal with is dangerous, and the workers we employ are employed to do a job that requires skill, a modern approach to problem solving, and a willingness and knowledge that they could easily sacrifice life and/or limb to manufacture the gas that your Prius needs
For that, they are compensated well, and have the best benefits we can afford to give them, in exchange for that we see very skilled workers coming into the workforce, less injuries, less days missed and our assets seem to operate better than they ever have...
Perhaps we are more profitable than ever because of political think tanks:dunno
Or just maybe....We know what the fuck we're doing
