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America needs a raise. At $7.25 an hour, the minimum wage is 21 percent below its 1968 level. President Obama has proposed raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour by 2015, and indexing it to inflation. And the right-wing has responded with one of their favorite zombie lies – always wrong, endlessly repeated.
Speaker John Boehner: “When you raise the price of employment, guess what happens? You get less of it.”
Rachel Maddow: “We can check to see if that argument works… This is empirical. This is knowable. And here’s what we know: Raising the minimum wage basically has little to no effect on the amount of low-wage employment.”
Center for Economic and Policy Research: New Paper Finds Modest Minimum Wage Increases Have Little Impact on Employment
More info:
Links for the 2/21 TRMS
Minimum Wage Proposal an Essential Step Toward Making Work Pay
Minimum Wage: John Boehner, Mitch McConnell Give Raise A Cold Shoulder
#1 by Larry Bergan on February 25, 2013 - 6:07 pm
Robert Reich weighed in this morning on NPR:
#2 by brewski on February 27, 2013 - 1:15 pm
Robert Reich:
1. Is not an economist
2. Said that Obama is causing the end of Democracy
#3 by Larry Bergan on February 27, 2013 - 9:12 pm
brewski:
Just recently, right wingers are actually starting to criticize each other, and I’m hoping no amount of additional money slipped into their greedy little pockets will be able to change that fact.
Liberals have always criticized each other to the point that it became known as “herding cats”. The money involved in persuading democrats to stick together is, in no way equivocal to what the right wing has been able to steal from it’s countrypeople; so don’t go there.
#4 by brewski on February 28, 2013 - 4:43 am
Thank you for the non sequitur.
#5 by Larry Bergan on March 4, 2013 - 11:50 pm
brewki:
You’re saying that Robert Reich is accusing Obama of causing the end of democracy and that’s not a non sequitur.
I probably should not have trusted you to quote Mr. Reich, but if he said that, and I pointed out the FACT that liberals often attack each other to arrive at some kind of truth…
Well, you decide.
#6 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 7:05 am
Reich did say that. Sorry if the truth is inconvenient.
#7 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 7:08 am
Reason #1 as to why to never listen to Paul Krugman about anything:
“To fight this recession [2002} the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.
Judging by Mr. Greenspan’s remarkably cheerful recent testimony, he still thinks he can pull that off.”
PAUL KRUGMAN
August 02, 2002
So Krugman agreed that Greenspan needed to create a housing bubble, and he did. How did that work out?
#8 by Richard Warnick on March 5, 2013 - 8:06 am
brewski–
Seems like you missed Krugman’s sarcasm. He wasn’t saying that a housing bubble is a good thing for the nation, only for the Bush administration to pretend all was well.
#9 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 9:00 am
What he said was the pre-W era was a bubble caused by irrational exuberance. It popped, as do all bubbles. No where in the piece did he blame W for the pre-W bubble or its popping. He then said Greenspan needs to get things going by getting people to spend money on something else, like their homes. There was no sarcasm nor any blaming of W. Krugman was dead wrong and should not be listened to.
#10 by Richard Warnick on March 5, 2013 - 9:32 am
You know and I know that Greenspan let the housing bubble grow because it was the only thing propping up the economy when Bush was in office.
I suspected it at the time. Bush was the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs. Under Bush, wages were flat or declining, and poverty increased steadily. When I pointed out these facts, right-wingers always said “hey look at the stock market.” Without the bubble economy, Bush would have had no economy at all!
I think it’s reasonable to suppose that a Nobel Prize winning economist knew this too.
#11 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 9:52 am
You haven’t explained why Greenspan also created the bubble economy in the 1990s, as the Nobel Prize winning economist pointed out.
#12 by Richard Warnick on March 5, 2013 - 10:15 am
I don’t know, Greenspan loved bubbles? As long as the bubbles grew, Greenspan looked like he knew what he was doing.
#13 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 1:05 pm
So the fact remains that Krugman was advocating the creation of a housing bubble, which we got, which was a disaster. Ergo, never listen to Krugman again.
#14 by Richard Warnick on March 5, 2013 - 2:10 pm
I don’t think Krugman ever advocated the creation of a housing bubble. There’s no evidence for that.
#15 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 4:52 pm
“Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble”
PAUL KRUGMAN
August 02, 2002
#16 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 5:25 pm
#17 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 5:30 pm
Jeffrey Sachs eviscerates Paul Krugman:
#18 by Richard Warnick on March 5, 2013 - 7:28 pm
brewski, brewski, brewski…
(1) You can’t get away with quoting Paul Krugman out of context. Krugman himself got a good laugh out that feeble right-wing smear attempt.
(2) And Joe Scarborough’s Economics degree is from where? He’s spectacularly wrong, but in keeping with the current (and rather ironic) Washington deficit hysteria. After eight years of “deficits don’t matter.”
(3) Jeffrey Sachs eviscerated a straw man who, according to Sachs, advocated wasteful government spending and big Pentagon budgets. I think what Paul Krugman actually wrote was that even wasteful government spending is better than austerity when our economy desperately needs help.
#19 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 8:28 pm
Richard Richard Richard….
1. “What I said was that the only way the Fed could get traction would be if it could inflate a housing bubble. And that’s just what happened.”
2. ad hominem
3. No, Krugman did not say wasteful spending is better than austerity. He said wasteful spending is better than not wasteful spending. There is a difference. Sachs is a liberal and he thinks Krugman is nuts. Everyone thinks Krugman is nuts. Except for nutty bloggers who have no one else left to worship anymore.
#20 by Richard Warnick on March 5, 2013 - 8:46 pm
brewski–
(1) Krugman meant that in a snarky way, and you know it. No serious economist thinks asset bubbles are good policy.
(2) You are always pointing out that “so-and-so is not an economist.” Krugman’s “critics” are just posturing, because they know he’s right:
(3) Krugman never said what you say he said. He did write “[W]e are making a total mess of a solvable problem, with consequences that will haunt us for decades to come.”
Even you can’t disagree with that.
#21 by brewski on March 5, 2013 - 9:46 pm
1. “No serious economist thinks asset bubbles are good policy.
You answered your own question.
2. “You are always pointing out that “so-and-so is not an economist.” ”
Jeffrey Sachs, is an economist. Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is internationally renowned for his work as an economic adviser to governments around the world. One of the youngest economics professors in the history of Harvard University, Sachs became known for his role as an adviser to Eastern European and developing country governments during the transition from communism to a market system or during periods of economic crisis. Subsequently he has been known for his work on the challenges of economic development, environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, debt cancellation, and globalization.
(3) “Krugman never said what you say he said.”
I quoted him word for word.
#22 by Richard Warnick on March 6, 2013 - 9:31 am
(1) What part of Nobel Prize winning economist do you not get?
(2) Joe Scarborough is a lawyer, not an economist. That was my point. Sachs deliberately distorted Krugman’s views, same as Scarborough.
(3) Out of context!
#23 by brewski on March 6, 2013 - 10:33 am
(1) You must love Nobel Prize winning economists Friedman, Hayek, et al.
(2) I didn’t quote Scarborough. Why do you keep mentioning him? Can you read?
(3) Bullshit
#24 by Richard Warnick on March 6, 2013 - 10:39 am
(1) I used to, when I was a libertarian. TANSTAAFL!
(2) You inserted a video of Scarbrough vs. Krugman. Same as quoting.
(3) I agree, it’s total bullshit to deliberately quote someone out of context.
#25 by brewski on March 6, 2013 - 10:49 am
(1) I used to love Krugman until I actually listened to him.
(2) Krugman could be talking to a tree for all it matters. It doesn’t matter who Krugman was talking to. I matters what Krugman said, which is nuts.
(3) I didn’t.
By the way, how many Nobel laureates have you ever been on a first name basis with? I have been with 2.
#26 by Richard Warnick on March 6, 2013 - 11:12 am
(1) Krugman’s a great economist, but he’s also good with the snark – that’s why Scarborough and other righties hate him.
(2) It’s not “nuts” to worry about the middle class and job creation in the wake of Bush’s Great Recession. You can’t budget-cut your way to prosperity.
(3) You did.
I only know one Nobel laureate, Ron Neilson.
#27 by brewski on March 6, 2013 - 2:31 pm
(1) Krugman’s area of expertise is not every topic he writes op-ed pieces on. His Nobel was specifically awarded “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity”. So attributing great wisdom on Krugman for his knowledge of macroeconomics is like attributing great wisdom on psychiatry on a cardiac surgeon.
(2) Sachs did not say budget cut your way to prosperity. By they way, you CAN spend your way to the poor house. You are doing what you accuse me of which is saying someone said something when they did not.
(3) Liar liar pants on fire.
I was speaking of economics Nobels. I have known 2 well enough that they would greet me by name in the hallway. At the time I knew them I had no idea that they were going to win Nobels later. They were just great professors who are geniuses as well as great people.
Ron Neilson sounds like a good guy.
#28 by Richard Warnick on March 6, 2013 - 3:58 pm
(1) Leave Krugman out of it for a moment. Can you say with a straight face that now is the time for austerity budgeting? No Keynesian would agree.
(2) Since President Obama took office, half a million government employees have gone to the poorhouse. Where is the out-of-control spending the right is so upset about?
(3) If I said that the only way President Obama could justify drone assassinations inside the U.S. would be if he staged a false flag terrorist attack, would you say I was advocating a false flag terrorist attack?
#29 by Shane on March 6, 2013 - 4:22 pm
Well, you know, except for the fact that he predicted exactly what is happening. Aside from that he is nuts.
Facts, once again brewski has failed to have them, understand them, or even know that they exist….
Yeah, cause trade and economic activity relate to economics in exactly the way psychiatry relates to cardiac surgery.
Lastly, prove your nobel claims. So far all we know about you supports the claim you are a lying sack of shit living in your moms basement…..
#30 by brewski on March 6, 2013 - 4:38 pm
(1) Now is the time for smart effective spending and not stupid spending. Someone whose name sounds something like Krugman but I am leaving out of this was advocating stupid spending. Keynes would agree with me and not Krugman, as Dr. Sachs already pointed out.
(2)
2000 $1.78895
2013 $3.80336
Up 112.6%
(3)
No.
Shane, what’s your point? Nothing I have said is factually incorrect nor a lie, and you have not been able to show one thing that is. Go back to your tarted up junior college.
#31 by Larry Bergan on March 6, 2013 - 5:32 pm
brewski says:
So what you’re saying is that two professors who you were on a first name basis with would slap you on the back in the hallway and say ‘Hi brew’…
or…
brewski actually had a real name at one time.
#32 by Larry Bergan on March 6, 2013 - 5:45 pm
I was fun watching Krugman try to shame “morning Joe” though. I’m sure he knew that wouldn’t happen. Not a single one of these right wing pundits has EVER apologized for a misstatement and that one talking point was the reason Joe came on Charlie Rose’s show in the first place.
#33 by Richard Warnick on March 6, 2013 - 8:32 pm
(1) The GOP-controlled Congress won’t allow smart effective spending (i.e. on infrastructure, clean energy, energy conservation, re-hiring a half million out-of-work public employees, etc.) They only want austerity, but won’t specify where to cut except “not at the Pentagon.” Which is too bad because that’s the main office for government waste.
(2) President Obama cut the deficit by $312 billion during his first term. And the CBO projected that the 2013 Obama budget, if enacted as is, would shrink the deficit to $977 billion — a four year total of nearly $500 billion in deficit reduction.
(3) Thank you.
#34 by Shane on March 6, 2013 - 9:13 pm
Larry figured it out. I guess his reading comprehension is better than yours.
#35 by Shane Smith on March 6, 2013 - 9:33 pm
…and a recent poll found 94% of Americans don’t know this very simple fact. Which tells you just how well the news is getting out around the corporate/GOP budget bullshit.
#36 by Larry Bergan on March 6, 2013 - 10:36 pm
I’m still mad at John Kerry for throwing his own election in 2004, but he said some really interesting things in his first tour-of-duty as Secretary of State, and some of the things he said were in FRENCH;
OMG:
It’s a short report. Click the forward arrow at “listen to the story”.
There is an elaboration of his “Americans have the right to be stupid” comment here.
If I were a teabag republican. I would take both comments to be offensive, but I’ve marched in parades too. Most of the signs I saw at the liberal ones were spot on.
#37 by brewski on March 7, 2013 - 2:31 am
Which of course proves my point that nothing I have said is factually incorrect nor a lie, and you have not been able to show one thing that is. Thank you for the confession.