First of all, let me say, I like Morgan-a lot. He's about as thoughtful a conservative a you're gong to find-except for Sumner who is also very thoughtful. The two of them are tied for the most conservative in my book.
Of course, I like to razz Sumner but this is for one reason: he deserves it. As for Morgan he intervenes in the middle of what is actually something of a debate right now that liberals are having amongst themselves.
We have Friends of Hillary arguing against other Friends of Hillary about things like technological displacement and it's effect on the labor market. It's a question if they can't decide on just yet I have some sympathy as I'm not wholly sure what I think about it just yet.
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/one-where-larry-summers-demolished-robots-and-skills-arguments
http://prospect.org/article/failed-theory-posed-wall-street-dems-puts-hillary-clinton-bind
The Prospect rather pejoratively frames it as the Wall Street Dems vs. the Real Dems: with this framing you're kind of pushed to pick the Real Dems. Yet to me those he calls the Wall Street Dems aren't obviously wrong.
I did read the Second Machine Age and found it very compelling.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/after-larry-summers-recent-new-normal.html
First of all just on a purely personal level, I feel that I've seen technology displacement. When I was just out of college in 2001 with a Bachelor's degree in accounting I saw things more or less change overnight. In the first half of 2001 we had the classic 'tight labor market' where the accounting temp agency I used could always find me more work.
I had a number of assignments with Accountemps and every time I finished one job they had another one waiting. For the last 3 months I was there through June I worked for a waste disposal company doing accounts payable and collections.
It was kind of a dysfunctional company that was in Chapter 11 but was still trying to collect from customers. The pay though was $17 an hour. Try finding pay like that today even if you have as I did a degree-or even if you have 2.
This assignment was over in June 2001, but I expected more of the same-the guy at Accountemps would call me back with another assignment like he always did. He had promised just that. I never heard back from him. I'd have to call him back. He'd talk to me for a bit but the bottom line was: he didn't have anything.
This never really changed. I was not alone as many people who had these kinds of middling to white collar degrees were downsized never to return. It was a such a growing problem that George W. Bush addressed it: he helpfully told millions like me to go back to school and get another degree.
Gee thanks. I've just spent years getting this degree that was certainly not free but, by all mean, take another year or two and get another degree-not like I need money in the meantime.
I would get jobs in the future but not many on the level of my degree. Within a few years I'd been out of school too long to get the kind of entry level jobs I needed in accounting. I got a job doing pizza delivery that wasn't bad but certainly didn't pay what I needed.
Many have similar stories to tell. Now I know some smug person like Sumner will say 'What do I care about your personal anecdotes' but it's clear that many with degrees and education have had to settle for low paying service jobs that are often part time and just about never pay overtime.
So the idea of technology displacement makes sense based on my own personal experience-I know 'anecdotes' aren't everything but are you telling me I hallucinated all this?
If you really doubt that this happens let's take a walk to the supermarket today where you can see for yourself if you're like George Prescott Bush who hadn't been to the supermarket in 20 years that more and more lanes at the supermarket are now automated as well as when you call customer service departments on the phone they often try to make you talk to a robot.
Ok, I get it, you can ask 'but then where's the productivity?' but why don't you ask Pathmark and Waldbaums about this? They clearly think they're gaining something by automating the checkout line.
On the other hand, I get why many people say education is overhyped. I agree. At this point it seems to me we've reached the law of diminishing returns on education.
My impression-again, that is not hard data admittedly-is that if you were to look at the US labor department today vs where it was in 2000 you'd see that a lot more people are in dead end service jobs than then. I'd like to see the numbers though, if they do jibe with my impression or not.
As for Morgan he sort of seems to agree with people like Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the influential The Second Machine Age and at least my own personal anecdotes, that there has been a lot of tehcnological displacment.
His answer is what he calls GI and CYB-Guaranteed Income and Choose Your Own Boss. His proposal is thought provoking but just like with Milton Friedman, Sumner, and all conservatives who make such proposals there's a kind of poisoned pill to it.
"There’s only one way it works. Deviations that federally remove the requirement to choose a job offer priced by someone else’s ROI… ruin it immediately. States can do whatever they want.
Of course, I like to razz Sumner but this is for one reason: he deserves it. As for Morgan he intervenes in the middle of what is actually something of a debate right now that liberals are having amongst themselves.
We have Friends of Hillary arguing against other Friends of Hillary about things like technological displacement and it's effect on the labor market. It's a question if they can't decide on just yet I have some sympathy as I'm not wholly sure what I think about it just yet.
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/one-where-larry-summers-demolished-robots-and-skills-arguments
http://prospect.org/article/failed-theory-posed-wall-street-dems-puts-hillary-clinton-bind
The Prospect rather pejoratively frames it as the Wall Street Dems vs. the Real Dems: with this framing you're kind of pushed to pick the Real Dems. Yet to me those he calls the Wall Street Dems aren't obviously wrong.
I did read the Second Machine Age and found it very compelling.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/after-larry-summers-recent-new-normal.html
First of all just on a purely personal level, I feel that I've seen technology displacement. When I was just out of college in 2001 with a Bachelor's degree in accounting I saw things more or less change overnight. In the first half of 2001 we had the classic 'tight labor market' where the accounting temp agency I used could always find me more work.
I had a number of assignments with Accountemps and every time I finished one job they had another one waiting. For the last 3 months I was there through June I worked for a waste disposal company doing accounts payable and collections.
It was kind of a dysfunctional company that was in Chapter 11 but was still trying to collect from customers. The pay though was $17 an hour. Try finding pay like that today even if you have as I did a degree-or even if you have 2.
This assignment was over in June 2001, but I expected more of the same-the guy at Accountemps would call me back with another assignment like he always did. He had promised just that. I never heard back from him. I'd have to call him back. He'd talk to me for a bit but the bottom line was: he didn't have anything.
This never really changed. I was not alone as many people who had these kinds of middling to white collar degrees were downsized never to return. It was a such a growing problem that George W. Bush addressed it: he helpfully told millions like me to go back to school and get another degree.
Gee thanks. I've just spent years getting this degree that was certainly not free but, by all mean, take another year or two and get another degree-not like I need money in the meantime.
I would get jobs in the future but not many on the level of my degree. Within a few years I'd been out of school too long to get the kind of entry level jobs I needed in accounting. I got a job doing pizza delivery that wasn't bad but certainly didn't pay what I needed.
Many have similar stories to tell. Now I know some smug person like Sumner will say 'What do I care about your personal anecdotes' but it's clear that many with degrees and education have had to settle for low paying service jobs that are often part time and just about never pay overtime.
So the idea of technology displacement makes sense based on my own personal experience-I know 'anecdotes' aren't everything but are you telling me I hallucinated all this?
If you really doubt that this happens let's take a walk to the supermarket today where you can see for yourself if you're like George Prescott Bush who hadn't been to the supermarket in 20 years that more and more lanes at the supermarket are now automated as well as when you call customer service departments on the phone they often try to make you talk to a robot.
Ok, I get it, you can ask 'but then where's the productivity?' but why don't you ask Pathmark and Waldbaums about this? They clearly think they're gaining something by automating the checkout line.
On the other hand, I get why many people say education is overhyped. I agree. At this point it seems to me we've reached the law of diminishing returns on education.
My impression-again, that is not hard data admittedly-is that if you were to look at the US labor department today vs where it was in 2000 you'd see that a lot more people are in dead end service jobs than then. I'd like to see the numbers though, if they do jibe with my impression or not.
As for Morgan he sort of seems to agree with people like Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, authors of the influential The Second Machine Age and at least my own personal anecdotes, that there has been a lot of tehcnological displacment.
His answer is what he calls GI and CYB-Guaranteed Income and Choose Your Own Boss. His proposal is thought provoking but just like with Milton Friedman, Sumner, and all conservatives who make such proposals there's a kind of poisoned pill to it.
"There’s only one way it works. Deviations that federally remove the requirement to choose a job offer priced by someone else’s ROI… ruin it immediately. States can do whatever they want.
Milton Friedman walked away from a Negative Income Tax because it wasn’t a full replacement for the social safety net. This is that exact situation.:
https://medium.com/@morganwarstler/guaranteed-income-choose-your-boss-1d068ac5a205
Right away you see the same problem as with Sumner: Warstler is just another conservative who thinks he gets to make unilateral demands-a la George W. Bush- that for some reason we have no choice but accept.
I appreciate that Ken Duda, Sumner's NGDP targeting benefactor, agrees with me that one problem of Scott's is that he allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Who exactly does Morgan imagine he's negotiating with? Does he think it's a hostage negotiation? If not then he should get why liberals don't jump at this offer.
What Duda does is add a kind of condition to NDPLT: assuming Sumner is mistaken and things don't go according to plan then there is a kind of fiscal life-preserver as well in the form of tax cuts.
"1. Switch monetary policy to NGDPLT."
"2. Enshrine automatic fiscal stimulus in the form of universal tax credits that apply when NGDP drops below target by X and/or there is an output gap for Y for Z amount of time."
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=28674#comments
With Morgan we have the same problem: he's certain he's correct but what if he's wrong? That's why his unilateral demand doesn't work. There would at least have to be some conditions.
The trouble is I don't think liberals are in as weak a position as he seems to think. He and I've differed before. During the 2012 election he was certain that Obama would be punished for Obamacare and it didn't happen.
If you're a liberal right now there are some worries for sure like the GOP strength at the state level and all the voter id laws and the gerrymandered districts in the House but ultimately I'd trade the Dems' problems anyday for the GOP's troubles.
If Hillary wins in 2016 then we got a real shot at finally changing the makeup of the Supreme Court back again.
Once the Dems figure out a way to end GOP gerrymandering of the House what's to stop them from putting in what they think is the best fiscal policy to revive the labor market? Then they won't have to negotiate at all.
I agree with Duda that you should always be willing to take a second, third, or fourth best policy-heck I'd take the seventh best if it's considerably better than the status quo. However, if Morgan is going to say 'My way or the highway' it's logical for liberals to choose the highway and get something better.
As to Morgan's real argument he seems to imagine that the labor market can become a market kind of like you see on Ebay for other markets. However, as far as getting there he sees the minimum wage as teh big hurdle.
He seems to think his theory is a 'Theory of Everything' a la Stephen Hawkings, perhaps not realizing that Theorys of Everything are now under question in the physics world.
"Mike Konczal, who endorsed Uber for Welfare, before un-endorsing it, doesa nice summation Summer’s Secular Stagnation and why robots are not the problem. He’s right and wrong. Robots are not a problem, but robots are definitely depressing consumer prices (wages). However consumption is up. Way up."
"Uber."
"That’s all you need to know."
"I have mentioned this before, anytime you read left economists talk about marginal (small) changes, they always say elasticity is low."
"But none of the left economists ever model dropping the Minimum Wage from $8–10 to $1. Uber for Welfare effectively drops the Minimum Wage for those on welfare, who are able to work, to $1 per hour ($40 per week). This is ultra-elastic, and no lefty economist will deny it."
https://medium.com/@morganwarstler/opposite-konczal-the-theory-of-everything-9618aa30c0f
Well in that case any jolt to the economy would just be one time, it'd be temporary not permanent as the labor market will adjust.
I look at it this way. How can a cut to the MW be a panacea if you look at the history of the MW? Throughout most of the history of the US we didn't have a MW-not until 1935. So the labor market utopia that he imagines should have been in effect prior to 1935. Does anyone remember that? The history books don't show it. In fact we were in the middle of a Great Depression.
Look, it's true that the MW is not a panacea. There are other ways that liberals could achieve their aims without it. After all Germany and even Britain didn't have a MW till recently-though they had other things that a Morgan or a Sumner would not have approved of any more than the MW.
How come with those nations that just recently got a MW they didn't have an idyllic economy previously? The MW is one way to do something about poverty and inequality. But either positive or negative it's not a panacea.
P.S. Again, I think Morgan is very innovative in his arguments-they are certainly better than the ones I'm used to from conservatives. Here he thinks he has the answer to all the hyper partisanship and gridlock in the US in recent years.
https://medium.com/@morganwarstler/vox-com-uses-anti-federalism-to-make-americans-hate-each-other-327187201683
News flash: government is the problem, it's all the government's fault that there is all this conflict between people. Or more specifically the federal govt. I recommend reading the piece for yourself as it is argued well. Still, I can't buy it.
This whole 'Let the states decide' is kind of a time warp. I mean this was why Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers and why the Founding Fathers held the Constitutional Convention.
Seems to me we tried to let the states do it with the Articles of Confederation and it didn't work out too well. This was also the basis of the Civil War.
Also, sorry to have to say it but the federalist argument was used on the wrong side of some of the biggest issues in American history-it was used against abolition in the 1850s and desegregation in the 1950s.
So I'm with Hamilton-sometimes you need a strong central government.
No comments:
Post a Comment