Financial crisis ! whats your opinion and why :)

These people are unfortunate. But as long as they are not slaves, that is they are not free to choose where they use their labour, then they will take the decisions that benefit them.

Primitive economies must go through such stages. We did in the industrial revolution. One of the great fallacies of the industrial revolution was to think it caused proverty. What it really did was concentrate poverty in such a way that is was easily observable. Which is what happens when people see 3rd world factories, they see concentrated poverty. Rather than unconcentrated grinding poverty of the worst kind.

1st world countries do precisely the same things. We have to compete with them. We have to compete with China and India. But in reality nations do not compete, it is people who compete.

Yeah, because they went to nations that had opportunities. Nations that had the free market. The people voted with their feet. And the voted for freedom.

Wasted lives. The reason why we do not work really long hours is because we are productive enough work for 8 hours a day, and that is enough to support us. And that is because we have access to advanced capital which makes us more productive.

And lower wages is not an indentity to high profitability. That is a complete Marxist fallacy.

Again this is not true. Real wages have been rising. People who saying wages have been stagnent are always quoting household incomes, rather than individuals.

The cities are growing at a maddening rate in many developing countries, and "choice" is the most laughable naive reason I have ever heard to explain that.

These people have zero choice. Their farms are bought out by larger companies, or prices pushed down by more competition from international firms (see Haiti or Egypt for real-world examples), and you end up with a mass exodus of rural people into the cities in search of better lives. They invariably end up in slums and in squalid misery. To impute that this process is about "freedom" and "choice" is the saddest most bourgeoise thing I've heard in my life, really.

Nobody ever said freedom was freedom from necessity, or that choice meant that one could have or do everything or everything.

@Snozzle,

I'm also attacking the notion that people's suffering is just a temporary stage. I think we could do a lot more to stop that, but we don't because of views like Classical Liberal's which argue that their suffering is a temporary phase in their capitalist development. I argue that developing countries now cannot develop in the same way that western countries did for reasons mentioned in the posts

Classical Liberal argued that these people have the choice to work in their chosen fields, which somehow increases productivity because they aren't forced into it. I was telling him that they have no choice whatsoever in choosing their jobs, and that they are very much forced, not to mention their inability to revert back to previous jobs. Klein's No Logo documents a lot of examples of how workers are forced and treated. The point being:

a) slave-labour is slave-labour, let's not pretty it up for ourselves by some fantastical imaginations of 'freedom of choice' or that these people are entering into jobs that they inherently like or want to be in. That's just silly.

b) We could regulate this sort of thing and ensure people have decent lives, but that would hurt our own living standards

c) Regulation to improve people's lives goes against the religion of free-marketeers, whose beliefs have little connection to reality or history, as I've proven above.

You really need to read through the debate to understand what's going on. Otherwise you're just taking statements out of context

Which is why the credit industry exploded.

Care to prove that statement?

Tell me something - how old are you? What is your educational background in? What kind of jobs have you had?

No. The expansion in credit has been mainly due to people leveraging up, trying to gain from rising property prices. People go into debt to buy homes with the hope that those homes will increase in price. Which the act of many people doing this, actually increases house prices. It is self fulfilling.



It is entirely possible that you lower wages and this leads to labour leaving your firm. Wages are set where the marginal cost of labour (wages) equals the marginal revenue product of labour (output per worker). Employment does not increase beyond this point, otherwise each additional worker would cost more than they produce.

Suppose you had set wages where MC = MR. If you were to reduce wages, some of the workers you had previously employed would leave, these workers were making you a profit before, and have no left. Thus it is entirely possible that loweing wages decreases profits for a firm.

Infact it is very obvious this is true, because if your assertion were true, people would not be paid anything because firms would maximise profits that way.

The workers wages versus the corporations profits is pure fallacy from start to end. Where do you suppose corporations get their revenue from? They get it from consumers. And where do you suppose consumers get their money from? They get it from their wages. It should be pretty easy to work out the rest.



What is the sampling methodology and statistical methodology?
And why have you just quoted manufacturing?



Jump to 5:00.



None of your damn business. Who I am makes absolutely no difference to the strength of my arguments.

This belief relies on the false assumption that a peasant leaving his farm to the city has complete knowledge and that once he is in some crappy factory working 16 hours he is either happy, or can return back to his previous life.

Now, go take any class on urban studies, or city planning. Go and read Planet of Slums for example.

The cities are growing at a maddening rate in many developing countries, and "choice" is the most laughable naive reason I have ever heard to explain that.

Again a bunch of nonsense about freedom to choose.

Ah, the "temporary misery" argument. It's ok if your life is crap, it's only temporary!

What the industrial revolution did was organize workers. I can tell you know nothing about the riots and strikes that swept England during the 1800s. It was those workers who achieved what you take for granted now - the 9-hour work day, the 5-day week, and no children in labour.

Secondly, to remove such misery, we here in the west could force our companies to avoid child labour. But that goes against your religious beliefs, so that's not on the table. They deserve their suffering just like your forefathers did right? It's all temporary...soon they'll have an information economy and cheap ipads and nikes - the sign of a great life.

Also, I'd recommend reading No Logo, by Naomi Klein. The unbelievably horrifying conditions of these workers are well documented if you choose to open your eyes to them, but Klein documents the process of how big firms like Nike and Apple use these workers. They are not hired, they are sub-contracted by labour companies, like a bunch of slaves being rented out by a slave-owner temporarily. And they have to petition the firms for short contacts by competing with other such companies. Ah the beauty of freedom!

Uhm no. First world countries do not do the same things. They have labour laws. That's why they don't produce anything here anymore.

They had military strength over the indigenous people whom they destroyed. That was not freedom, that was invasion and genocide. They invaded north America by military might, and they invaded Australia by military might. Then they appropriated their resources. "Freedom" is a wishy-washy fantasy you've adopted.

Secondly, this is impossible today. International movement for the lowest classes is highly restricted. They are stuck within their own nations.

Do you think we could ever live without money?

If you notice I carefully worded it to say that the action of labour was speculation rather than action with definite results.



I think people are freely going to cities. Have you ever heard somebody say this ''I am sick of this place, I want to leave and go to the city"? I have many times.

These people have zero choice. Their farms are bought out by larger companies, or prices pushed down by more competition from international firms (see Haiti or Egypt for real-world examples), and you end up with a mass exodus of rural people into the cities in search of better lives. They invariably end up in slums and in squalid misery. To impute that this process is about "freedom" and "choice" is the saddest most bourgeoise thing I've heard in my life, really.






You think that people make bad decisions then?






Do you have a proposal that gets rid of this stage? Charity and governmental control clearly do not work in any meaningful sense.



I suspect there is a lot more to such regulations than first meets the eye. There is always two groups of people with bad laws. The well intended sponsors who think laws that remove freedom will help people, and then the special interests who will benefit from such laws. Child labour laws I suspect were backed by incumbent labour as a way of getting rid of compeition from children.

The workers of developing countries can't do this because capitalism is global. If a factory in Vietnam strikes, the international corporation moves to Cambodia or India. You would need a mass strike of an entire continent.



I think companies that avoid Child labour are apeasers and are actively doing harm. There is nothing compassionate about taking choices away from people who have very few. I don't want children to work. But on the other hand in some nations children need to work just to feed themselves.



Naomi Klien is about as much of an authority on labour economics as I am on classical music.

Firms like Nike and Apple probably treat their workers better than alternative employers anyway. Sure the treatment the workers get is poor by our standards but the more choice in employment workers have, the better the conditions the workers actually get. But it is just pure demagouery to highlight Nike and Apple just because people recognise the brands. It is just a way to sell crappy books.



One of those great ironies. What good are your employee rights, when you don't have a job?




Complete red herring. That is a completely seperate issue.

Are you saying people have not emigrated to America and Australia?



I would like to open up borders more, being a libertarian and all.


Here is a great video that you might enjoy, it is all to do with employee rights and the like.

I think we could live a pretty poor standard of life without money. Human beings used to live in caves, without money.

What about the stress of working a mundane repetitive job? What about the long term stress and detrimental health of working these type of jobs, so more profit can be made?

Surely, the long term solution is to redesign the system?

Watched this twice now - wonder what you (and others on here) may think of shortening the working week?

What are your thoughts about the availability of resources? Is there enough to go around?

I certainly want to improve working condition (assuming workers are willing to accept the trade offs freely). But the only way working conditions are improved is practice are where employees have more bargaining power, rather than government mandate. The way to give them more bargaining power is to allow them to have multiple potential employers and to give them more skills.



If by redesign you mean, liberate people to associate freely, then yes.



I am all for people working less. That is the ultimate goal for mankind really, we need not work and machines produce everything we need. However I am completely against government mandated hours of work. That can only hurt people.

What do you want the World to progress to? How do you want to see the World?

Now that is a very good question. In essence freedom to choose for all men.

Can someone make an unconditioned 'free choice' - what is 'free will'?

None of your damn business. Who I am makes absolutely no difference to the strength of my arguments.

No. The expansion in credit has been mainly due to people leveraging up, trying to gain from rising property prices. People go into debt to buy homes with the hope that those homes will increase in price. Which the act of many people doing this, actually increases house prices. It is self fulfilling.

It is entirely possible that you lower wages and this leads to labour leaving your firm. Wages are set where the marginal cost of labour (wages) equals the marginal revenue product of labour (output per worker). Employment does not increase beyond this point, otherwise each additional worker would cost more than they produce.

Suppose you had set wages where MC = MR. If you were to reduce wages, some of the workers you had previously employed would leave, these workers were making you a profit before, and have no left. Thus it is entirely possible that loweing wages decreases profits for a firm.

Infact it is very obvious this is true, because if your assertion were true, people would not be paid anything because firms would maximise profits that way.

The workers wages versus the corporations profits is pure fallacy from start to end. Where do you suppose corporations get their revenue from? They get it from consumers. And where do you suppose consumers get their money from? They get it from their wages. It should be pretty easy to work out the rest.

What is the sampling methodology and statistical methodology?

If you notice I carefully worded it to say that the action of labour was speculation rather than action with definite results.

I think people are freely going to cities. Have you ever heard somebody say this ''I am sick of this place, I want to leave and go to the city"? I have many times.

You think that people make bad decisions then?

Do you have a proposal that gets rid of this stage? Charity and governmental control clearly do not work in any meaningful sense.

I think companies that avoid Child labour are apeasers and are actively doing harm.

Naomi Klien is about as much of an authority on labour economics as I am on classical music.

Firms like Nike and Apple probably treat their workers better than alternative employers anyway.

One of those great ironies. What good are your employee rights, when you don't have a job?

Complete red herring. That is a completely seperate issue.

Are you saying people have not emigrated to America and Australia?

I would like to open up borders more, being a libertarian and all.

. I feel like I'm having a discussion with a 2nd-year undergraduate student in economics .