World’s richest woman would prefer to pay her miners $2 a day

[Aeson]

No, he doesn't. He just said so. Multiple times. You might as well just make all your posts consecutively without even waiting for replies.

It's easy to say you don't support something. It's hard to foment your arguments which support something to not support it.

HC supports the effects of immigration restrictions. It's rather obvious.

He thinks it's a good thing to pay workers based on how little choice they have.

He thinks it's a bad thing to pay workers based on their productivity rather than their inability to immigrate.

He congratulates himselfabout how much more productive he was as a grocery bagger than someone doing a necessary job in a foreign country simply because he was paid more (again, due to immigration restrictions).

He consistently downplays the effects of immigration restrictions or (as in his last reply) completely devalues it as non-existent.

He applauds those who take the fullest advantage of immigration restrictions as they can.

Like I said, he probably doesn't realize that he's supporting the effects of immigration restrictions by doing so. He's just a knee-jerk GOP capitalist cheerleader spouting off talking points without really understanding the implications of what he says or the intricacies or details of the underlying issues.

[Aeson]

Inflation is "tremendously helpful." Wow. Mugabean economics 101?

If you can't see times when inflation would be helpful, you're a moron.

If you can't read my post and see the implied limits which are nothing like where Mugabe went, you're a moron.

[kentonio]

Without the unemployment that comes with the minimum wage, who can we shower with state based patronage, love and entitlements?

I'm still waiting for this evidence that the minimum wage causes unemployment. I've previously provided data that showed no corresponding match in unemployment in the UK when the minimum wage was introduced, so if you folks want to make bold claims, please back them up with evidence. Preferably in the form of actual data, not just opinion peices.

[Jaguar]

Misinforming ?

Unlike you, I was there. I spent several months in the Sishen and Grootegeluk mines.

Really? So you should be fluent in Xhosa, then!

This "language" is used a lot to talk with one another (since a significant amount of the miners are nigerans it can't be a full fledged complex language). And it is in part based on Xhosa, I can tell you that. Besides Xhosa and Zulu belong to the same family of languages and are relatively similar.

We're now at the point where the excuse the Apolyton left offers is that the 2000-word pidgin language based on Zulu, which is related to Xhosa, which isn't actually spoken in the mining provinces, should be enough to learn Xhosa.

No, I'm sticking with the "tried to sound smart and failed" hypothesis. And frankly, I doubt your argument from authority about a language you couldn't even name.

[dannubis]

No. But my friends there are.

And we are again at a point where all you (the right?) can do is to nitpick on an out of context detail in a feable attempt to disproove a point.

And that little personal attack on me is the second time you try to do this in this discussion. The lack of arguments is showing.

[Jaguar]

Aeson: my questions about aggregate demand were meaningless. An economics professor would cry at the idea of "designing a policy to maximize aggregate demand."

I was curious how much I could get you to expand on your "feelings" about a concept with a precise definition, as if it were an English essay. You treated it roughly as a synonym for real GDP, which is not a bad guess, but it's wrong.

[Jaguar]

No. But my friends there are.

And we are again at a point where all you (the right?) can do is to nitpick on an out of context detail in a feable attempt to disproove a point.

And that little personal attack on me is the second time you try to do this in this discussion. The lack of arguments is showing.

I only respond when people continue to defend a ridiculous one-liner that exposed obvious ignorance. The thread had let it die for about fifty posts, and then you brought it back, yet again!

[Jon Miller]

Sure. A standard of living you think is reasonable for your girlfriend comes at a relatively high cost - one that South Africans typically can't afford. I'm glad she's able to live reasonably, and I wish that all South Africans could live as well as she does.

safe should be part of the basic standard of living everywhere, it isn't just a first world thing.

She lived in her uncle's house (2 bedroom apartment in midrand) with her uncle, aunt, and 1 adult cousins. Later she lived in her grandparents home (3 bedroom now, initially it was a lot smaller) with her grandparents, parents, and (adult) sister.

She didn't live as europeans or americans would be use to.

JM
(in South African terms her family would be 'middle class', her step-father, grandfather, and sister have cars, jobs, travelled the world. This is nowhere near what most South Africans have or can do. )

[Jaguar]

safe should be part of the basic standard of living everywhere, it isn't just a first world thing.

It should be, but it isn't. The way we do that is by having people offer to pay South Africans for their work - and not just that - we need many bidders, competing with each other, driving up wages. And you want to attack one of the few bidders that exists. For shame.

[Aeson]

Aeson: my questions about aggregate demand were meaningless. An economics professor would cry at the idea of "designing a policy to maximize aggregate demand."

I'm more than willing to answer even poorly worded questions to the best of my ability. You quoted a statement where I used "demand", obviously referring to specific actors gaining purchasing power. You responded to it with questions about "aggregate demand", quoting my use of "demand". I addressed it as if you were asking how what I was talking about could play out. It's not important to me what label you were addressing it with, or if you are using that label correctly.

Your unwillingness to engage in honest discussions of the issues we were addressing is noted though.

[Jon Miller]

The central issue is that South Africa was completely broken ~20 some years ago.

Over 80% of the population were not given an education where they could become things like doctors and programmers and teachers. Many of them were not even taught to read.

They were trained and taught to be laborers.

This isn't a place where free market works for people. The system was setup so that most people (africans, coloreds, to a lesser degree indians (they culturally valued education more, so I think more of them acquired an education ~20 years ago)) could not be part of the market for jobs that were not just laborer jobs. The system was set up so that there would be laborers and that these laborers would not have any political or economic power.

So yes, if you just follow the market dictates (which isn't based on how much the companies can pay to make a profit but rather on how many laborers are demanding a job) you will end up with people who will work to barely feed themselves. And often not even acquire decent shelter (or even not decent shelter).

In this situation, the government needs to act in the miners interest instead of supporting the unions which abuse them (paying 50% of wages in union dues is outrageous).

The government also needs to act to support higher skilled people to come to South Africa (or South Africans to be trained, but this takes time), the current requirement that some large portion of every business is african doesn't work out when most africans do not have the skills necessary (due to the lack of education).

The government also needs to open up the housing sector and open up land for development. The regulations that are in place here slows down construction and increases the price for the homes which are not given away by the government.

JM

[Jaguar]

I'm more than willing to answer even poorly worded questions to the best of my ability. You quoted a statement where I used "demand", obviously referring to specific actors gaining purchasing power. You responded to it with questions about "aggregate demand", quoting my use of "demand". I addressed it as if you were asking how what I was talking about could play out. It's not important to me what label you were addressing it with, or if you are using that label correctly.

Your unwillingness to engage in honest discussions of the issues we were addressing is noted though.

I asked you about aggregate demand because it was the closest economic concept to what you were trying to talk about.

[Aeson]

And yet when I continued talking about it you said it wasn't aggregate demand, but closer to real GDP...

[Aeson]

If you want to address my statements about "real GDP" (or whatever else you want to label it as as you run away from addressing it) as "aggregate demand", that's on you for applying the wrong label.

[Jaguar]

Yes, when you expanded on your thoughts, it sounded more like real GDP (or real consumption, really).