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**Asher** · May 8, 2010, 16:35

Consider: Ford closes a plant employing 6,000 people in Southern Ontario and opens up a new plant in Mexico employing 6,000 people.

To pedantic actuaries and economists, there's obviously no unemployment here.

But if you ask one of the 6,000 workers, or anyone from their communities, they sure as **** did cause unemployment.

It was a terrible question from a pretty stupid group.

**loinburger** · May 8, 2010, 16:37

"I lost my job

"
"But somebody in Mexico is now doing your job for a fraction of the wage and with fewer safety regulations!"
"Hooray

"

**Kuciwalker** · May 8, 2010, 16:37

Originally posted by Oncle Boris View Post

Don't be such a bore. You're trying to have an ontological debate about the "nature of Things". I'm trying to tell you that if we don't have any model, we might as well call the stuff "subjective", because the only object we know is indeed "different to different people".

I didn't know you were a platonist metaphysician.

Luckily, we do have a number of candidate models and an active, intense scientific investigation into the phenomenon. The question now is no more subjective than the existence of the luminiferous aether before 1905.

**Riesstiu IV** · May 8, 2010, 16:49

Originally posted by loinburger View Post

"I lost my job

"
"But somebody in Mexico is now doing your job for a fraction of the wage and with fewer safety regulations!"
"Hooray

"

It's funny because most libertarians I have known who place great emphasis on its economic doctrine are low to mid wage earners themselves working in industries prone to outsourcing (telemarketing), have benefited from minimum wage laws (service industry), or are government supported (military and municipal worker), and essentially advocate economic positions that run against their own personal interests.

I can understand why a harvard educated economist would be a libertarian but there is no reason why an auto worker should be or 90% of the nation for that matter.

**Drake Tungsten** · May 8, 2010, 17:10

I can understand why a harvard educated economist would be a libertarian but there is no reason why an auto worker should be or 90% of the nation for that matter.

There's always pride in being a non-******.

**SlowwHand** · May 8, 2010, 17:15

When you get confronted with facts, insult.

**DaShi** · May 8, 2010, 17:16

I've never seen Drake actually defend a position.

**Riesstiu IV** · May 8, 2010, 17:18

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten View Post

I can understand why a harvard educated economist would be a libertarian but there is no reason why an auto worker should be or 90% of the nation for that matter.

There's always pride in being a non-******.

Ha! Look at that foolish worker living under those silly "safety regulations" and "child labor laws"! I may be earning eight cents an hour doing back breaking labor in a corporate kleptocracy and eating food with specs of sh*t but at least I'm a libertarian!

Drake be honest, what do you do for a living?

**ramseya** · May 8, 2010, 17:20

The statements in the original post are roughly 'true' as far as we know from current understanding of economics. However, just because something may theoretically and/or empirically hold true, that does not mean it will always be true under all conditions. Ceteris paribus does not exist in the real world. Neither does the assumption of human rationality, even in aggregate. Furthermore, economics as a positive science is one thing; economics used for policy-making is another. Normative economics by its very nature involves value judgments that are subjective. Combine all this and take something like the Phillips curve which was considered a theoretical and empirical economic absolute for so long and left us woefully unprepared for stagflation, for example.

The purpose of the original post of Drake's and presumably of the study was to show the supposed economic ignorance of liberal people. Because political ideology is being compared this implies the relevance of policy-making; that is, minimum wage, for example, does lead to unemployment as a generally-speaking, ceteris paribus fact, but it also implies that we should make policy decisions that are inherently normative based on this (that is, do not institute minimum wage)... I don't know if I'm explaining my point in a way that can be understood easily. Basically, the original purpose as I see it is: Economic fact A is held by conservatives but liberals are clueless about it. Therefore, the institution of a policy based on economic fact A, the very policy favored by conservatives but not by liberals, is a definitive must and is only further proved by the fact that conservatives (the most knowledgeable in economics remember), support it. It seems like that's the gist of the point.