New way to look at (literally) appraising the minimum wage

New way to look at (literally) appraising the minimum wage: add one line within a line to ye ole 101 supply/demand chart always invoked against raising the minimum: show the labor component of the supply price. If the price of labor doubles -- but is only 10% of the total cost of output -- and demand consequently dropped only 10%: that sounds great for labor. Justice: simply explain that a market is only efficient (and fair) when all parties to a bargain are able to extract the maximum the other parties are really willing to pay.

Feed a bust -- rebuild US labor

Here is an email I just sent to David Leonhardt at the Times:

The consumer bust may never end as long as the US labor market remains a permanent pay squeeze market. It is more than plausible the US minimum wage could have risen to $15/hr from $10/hr (adjusted) as per capita income doubled since 1968. That means that half today's workforce may plausibly be earning less than what the minimum wage should be -- today's median wage being $15/hr. If we could somehow have foretold this to Americans of 1968 they would not have labeled it as wan "inequality." What "disaster": small nuclear exchange, plagues, comet strike?

Any OECD labor market that works for the average person (and empowers same politically too) uses legally mandated, sector-wide labor agreements. All that do not work so nicely (e.g., Japan, Australia) do not avail themselves of this seemingly perfect labor market balancer -- instituted to prevent a wage race to the top in postwar Europe.

Supermarket workers and airline workers would kill for sector-wide bargaining -- easy political place to start. Never happen if no one ever informs 2011 Americans of what I fantasized informing 1968 Americans of.

New way to look at (literally) appraising the minimum wage: add one line within a line to ye ole 101 supply/demand chart always invoked against raising the minimum: show the labor component of the supply price. If the price of labor doubles -- but is only 10% of the total cost of output -- and demand consequently dropped only 10%: that sounds great for labor. Justice: simply explain that a market is only efficient (and fair) when all parties to a bargain are able to extract the maximum the other parties are really willing to pay.

PS. Isn't inflation -- I'm thinking labor market inflation -- the classic way to diminish all debt (our grandchildren paying New Gingrich's grandchildren because Newtie and friends these days lend the government money at interest instead of paying taxes) -- and -- doesn't lowering real prices through inflation the classing cure for a housing bust?

Monday, July 18, 2011 at 09:27 AM

Republicans have their minimum wage theory backwards

My comment on "Slate Magazine's" "Get A Job Kid" :

Republicans have their minimum wage theory backwards: that American teens are now missing out on minimum wage jobs because better skilled adults came running for them after 2007's "big raise" -- ROFL. After the "big raise" from $5.15 to $7.25 the federal minimum wage was still $1 short in buy power from what it was in 1956 (that's nineteen-fifty-six in case you think you read wrong) -- $1/hr nominally in 1956 being $8.19/hr adjusted.

But there's more -- as they say in those TV commercials. Average income in 1956 was 40% of what it is today. To put meat on those bones -- and mine -- when I was a kid in NYC we ate a lot of Hamburger Helper and a large variety of noodle casseroles, not because we were poor but because the economy simply put out a lot less per person back then. No dream in anyone's mind of stainless steel kitchens and de rigueur granite counter tops. :-)

Which brings up relative living standards. Americans on the minimum wage today -- if you can find any (recent parolees forced to take any job?) -- see the how the upper percentiles live on television and understand too well they are at the bottom of the 21st century standard of living barrel. McDonalds restaurants in Chicago are staffed almost exclusively by Mexicans. Higher skills than American teens? Worse English language skills. But no one else will work for Illinois' minimum wage of $8/hr.

LBJ was pushing the minimum wage pretty hard in both 1956 -- when as majority leader he snuck it through the US Senate seeing not enough conservatives present -- and in 1968 -- at 80% of the median wage. I guess there is so little money in that end of the economy that it does no harm.

America's greatest historical economic scandal: if the minimum had kept up only half speed with per capita income growth it would be $15/hr today. Today's American median wage (the average person's wage) is $15/hr. And 20% of our wage and salaried workforce is earning less than LBJ's minimum wage.

The welfare state in Europe was instituted after WWII as a compensation for something call LEGALLY MANDATED, SECTOR-WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS which were designed to hold off the race-to-the-top by labor unions so more money could go to rebuilding -- which very same labor market system recently chased Wal-Mart out of Germany because they could not hang on there paying the same pay and benefits as everyone else. Every OECD labor market in which sector-wide is in place (e.g., Canada, Germany to take the lite and heavy versions) the economic well being of the average person is assured. Sector-wide bargaining prevents the race-to-the-bottom too.

Everywhere in the OECD sector-wide is not in place (e.g., Japan, Australia, America) labor is ever more screwed. Theoretically I cannot think of anything else that can reverse America's race to the bottom; can you?

It is not the Holocaust -- waited too long for a Jewish state -- God said to Abraham kill me a son

It is not the Holocaust. The further back in today's Israel's, the less likely it would have retaliated to a guerrilla force hiding grabbing two uniformed soldiers POWs by mass bombing neighboring Lebanon's infrastructure and capital city, killing 1000 men and women in 400 children – or to a single soldier taken POW by bombing immediately the only power plant supplying electricity for a million mostly very poor Gaza inhabitants? The further you back, the closer to the Holocaust, the less likely such venomous reprisals would have been.

It is not fear of military attack today than decades ago. It would take 9,000 NATO quality tanks and crews to invade against today's Israel's 3,000 -- takes 3 to 1 on offense. Israel's fighter force is fully one-sixth the size of today's American fighter force: active, National Guard and reserve. What other small nation possesses nuclear tipped ICBMs, 5 second-strike nuclear warhead missile submarines, nuclear bombs and even nuclear artillery shells?

I would postulate "The Picture of Dorian Gray* syndrome": the more Israel offends its neighbors, the more Israel's guilt builds up unconsciously, the more Israel needs to repress its growing bad conscience, the ever more desperately Israel strikes out at anyone who reminds it that it is not the respectable nation state it wants to see itself as (analogous to a Mafia kingpin who lately comes to desire respectability). * http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Dorian-Gray-George-Sanders/dp/B000OHBCI8 [1945, 3 1/2 stars, cinematography Oscar]
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Suppose mid-19th-century Americans arriving to settle in the Midwestern continent had found 20 million Plains Indians already living there – instead of the 1 million remaining after Spanish diseases had traveled up from the Gulf Coast starting 100 years before, wiping 95% of them out.

The only feasible – and moral – way for us to have moved in on them would have been to assimilate the Indians into our culture – it is called acculturation*. The Indians took to European horses and guns. Why would they not have been attracted to the "iron horse" all the other conveniences of a technological civilization that they were a 1000 years behind? In this alternate history, America might have had many Indian blood presidents by now. :-o * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee

Want a nice Jewish state (neighborhood)? In 100 years the Chinese will be reading and writing English and the world may be one big city with a really big Chinatown. Today's Israel would be only a neighborhood in that world -- a world where people get off airliners and walk around other countries like they were their own -- oh, we already have that world. For those who waited two millennia for to return to a Jewish nation – they have waited too long. :-)
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God said to Abraham kill me a son/Abe said God you must be putting me on/God said no/Abe said what/God said do what you want Abe but the next time you see me coming you better run. (B. Dylan)

Did Abraham jump at the opportunity to kill his son? I didn't know the kid. Do West Bank settlers who they are obeying God's will taking back their biblical homeland from Palestinians agonize (like Abraham) over doing such a thing: evicting them from their ancestral homes and lands? Do they offer tearful apologies to them; do they long to offer generous financial compensation to them?

God chose Abraham because of his willingness to give unselfishly – not grasp greedily. What would Abraham have thought – what does he think – about the unabashed eagerness of West Bank with which West Bank colonizers displace whole Palestinian communities.

No fair and efficient market unless both sides can EXTRACT THE MAXIMUM the other will pay

Are American median wage earners, at $15.11 an hour*, getting what the minimum wage rightfully should be? LBJ pushed the minimum hard in 1956 (as Senate majority leader) and 1968 – to 80% of, for the times, much more robust median wages. (* “State of Working America – 2008-2009”, p.134, Table 3.5, Wages of all workers by percentile, 1973-2007 -- 2007 dollars)

More incredibly, 20% of today’s American workforce earns below LBJ’s $10.15 an hour ($1.60 adjusted) minimum.

Jumping the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour could make about 3% direct inflation – easily computed: 70 million (half the workforce – at most; many positions not hourly or salaried) X $3.25 average raise (close enough) X 2000 hours (work year) + 3.5 million* more half raises for those at or below the minimum (in 2009) getting the full raise X $3.25 X 2000 hours = $477.75 billion altogether -- out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.4% direct inflation. * (http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2009tbls.htm)

Before we check out the only workable solution to today’s American pay and benefit race to the bottom let's put stupid Republican economic tricks behind us. An individual banker can figure he cannot bust the entire economy all by his lonesome so why miss out on millions in fees before the bubble bursts? Republican tax cuts for the rich flooded banking system with excess liquidity while their deregulation ideology did away with checks on irresponsible loans. Of course, the automatic Republican response to the resulting real estate bust is even more tax cuts and endlessly picking away at new restrictions on over lending. And don’t forget to cut government spending in the middle a recession. Feed a bubble; starve a bust.

Guiding free market principle: Markets operate at maximum efficiency – also at maximum niceness -- when both parties to a bargain may extract the maximum price the other would be willing to pay.

There are two kinds of labor markets in modern OECD economies: the kind that produce adequate political and economic strength for most people and the kind that do not. Wherever legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements are the rule the average person gets what they need because they cannot be out flanked at the bargaining table and because the associated unions supply adequate political muscle. Where they are not the rule the average person is toast.

From “Japan, the System That Soured”, I got the impression that the vaunted security of half the Japanese work force is paid for with permanent 60 hour work weeks and that the other half lives more like our illegals. Australia, which uses an eccentric judicial system for setting wages, has seen union membership dropped from 40% to 20% over the last 25 years.

The original intent of legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements was to fend off a race to the top by European labor unions after World War II so more money could be directed to rebuilding industries. Europe's vaunted welfare state was actually a compensation for lower wages. Britain did not adopt sector wide agreements in the aftermath of the war and thus fell behind in development (according to Barry Eichengreen in "The European Economy Since 1945").

Magic bullet on the “Great Wage Depression” (I hate that pallid word “inequality”): What prevents the race to the top just as effectively prevents the race to the bottom. Over 60 successful years all over the first, second (Argentina) and third (Indonesia) worlds prove so.

Magic bullets for today’s housing bust stalling recovery: shifting 15% of lost income share back to the bottom 90 percent of earners could add 30% more inflation over X number of years. David McWilliams' “Follow the Money” about Ireland’s housing bust and in Matthew Lynn’s “Bust: Greece, and the Euro” both tell that inflation is the “painless” cure for housing bubbles at all times and in all places – home owners who wont lower their price nominally will ignore an inflation discount.

Magic bullet on consumer spending stalling recovery: no need to explain

Magic bullet for the exploding federal deficit: Inflation is the classic “painless” cure a bulging federal deficit (think post WWII) – in the long run our grandchildren get to pay back less to the Republican’s grandchildren (Republicans preferring to lend the government money at interest over paying their share of taxes).


Best video by Robert Reich (a lawyer): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE&feature=player_embedded
Best article by Harold Meyerson (a journalist): http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/using-german-ingenuity-to-fix-our-economy/2011/06/14/AGdRJVWH_story.html
Best book by Thomas Geoghegan (a lawyer): http://www.amazon.com/Were-You-Born-Wrong-Continent/dp/159558403X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309099936&sr=8-1
Best book digest on You Tube -- "The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class" by Elizabeth Warren (a lawyer): http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/04/the-coming-coll.html
Loudest wake up call?: Median pay for top execs at 200 big companies jumps 23%, 2009-2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/business/03pay.html?_r=1&hp

The TSA's -- and law enforcement's -- spreading doctrine of indifference to sexual privacy

Most mindless TSA practice of all: genitally frisking persons entering the country – via air transportation – without probable cause. Courts have made it perfectly clear that requires probable cause of contraband or reasonable cause of danger when entering the country -- by ground transportation. Personal recording wherein an aware citizen compels the TSA to give in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkRPS0pSScQ

Most egregious all-day-every-day TSA practice: allowing openly gay male agents frisking men and boys all day. Is there an openly gay male athletic coach employed anywhere in the country who is free to wander through the school boys locker room at will? There is no way to differentiate between this practice at an airport or at a school or anywhere there is a security job. This is way more than a matter of Fourth Amendment protection of privacy; this is a matter of grave sexual intrusion.

When and where did America take leave of its senses? One place where is apparently the Castle Rock courthouse in Colorado – in the heart of the heartland. In this widely circulated story (about scanners, frisking not even commented on) a mother with two small boys receives a so-called "quick pat down" from a male court officer to discover that she has left the paper backing of a label in her left rear pocket. A story photo shows a male remote scan viewer who has what looks like a small black-and-white monitor in front of him. So much for the male x-ray strip searching the female never seeing her (how would dad feel about his wife or daughter)? http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/full-body-scanners-popping-752566.html

If a TSA remote viewer brought a male friend to work to look at naked images of underage girls he could be charged with some kind of indecency to a child. If anyone personally recorded a scanner image of an underage girl or boy, they could be charged with creating child pornography. I don't think I could legally email around an artist's conception of what such a scan would look like. Courts only allow female prison guards to view male prisoners naked if it happens only occasionally and accidentally. I cannot imagine any court permitting male guards to routinely view scanner images (now used exclusively for strip searches in Chicago's Cook County lockup) of female inmates, least of all a underage female inmates -- or even the other gender way around. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/cook-county-jail-body-scans-85552562.html

They think nothing at all of it:
http://www.wikilaw3k.org/forum1/Law-Enforcement-Police/Can-a-male-police-officer-frisk-my-13-year-old-girl-594510.htm
If you touch my wife I should be able to get you arrested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NI7JEA4iK4
Leg and breast frisk 1st minute -- released 10th minute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RxH1CnYhd8.

While randomly clicking by a TV episode of "Cops" I accidentally caught sight of a male officer begin exactly the same back and forth sequence fingering of a female, beginning over exactly the same right shoulder of the woman that we see in the "touch my wife" video. Perhaps seeing the TV camera, and feeling a bit ridiculous – social reality, he stops as fast as he starts. Law enforcement all over America may have come to see a male frisking a woman as no different than popping open the glove compartment -- purely utilitarian outlook.

Suppose a cop pulls over a car that he knows is not really eligible for search – he's bored; come on, everybody does it – if that illegal search includes frisking a female anywhere below her belt other than ankles or includes lifting breasts with the heel of the hand – I hope we can all agree, though he is playing cop not copping a feel, that the same felony prohibition of sexual abuse has been violated as if a creep in an elevator did it. Ditto for frisking without what the courts call immediate danger.

Eighth-grade math: if 10% more LEOs died in assaults every year for not safety-groping all over the legs and under the breasts of arrested female's bodies (and they think there is no law prohibiting going much further -- just policy) before transporting them to the police station -- rear cuffed, strapped down behind a locked cage – that would be seven more to the yearly count of 70 – and seven more out of 700,000: 1 chance in 100,000 over a years time. 10% more assault deaths; one of the most dangerous aspects of police work -- transporting basically frisked, hermetically sealed females: joke.

More eighth grade math: let's perfectly accurately measure the the threat that tens of millions of underwear checks every year and hundreds of millions of x-ray strip searches (half the time opposite sex) a year supposedly protected us from. May we assume that any potential underwear bomber who has been deterred by TSA creepy peeping since 9/11 must have bombed or at least have tried to bomb something other target? Oh so simply, add up all the bombs that have gone off and all the attempts that have been caught in time since then -- and then ask the crazies involved if they were switched from the air to the ground.

Can anybody imagine any red-blooded fiend who would not derive more satisfaction from blowing a couple thousand pounds of explosive on the ground than sneaking a couple of ounces on an airplane? When they are on the ground they always -- always -- attack us on the ground.

We wouldn't force a breathalyzer into the mouths of 25 million road drivers every year (that represents about 3% of the 800 million annual airline passengers) to save 600 lives on the road every year (the passenger load of two 747s) -- we don't want to live that way. We will never know how many (hundreds?) will be killed every year -- driving instead of fully groped flying.

Offer to switch public employee pensions to inflation adjusted -- but with much smaller payout

Just an idea off the top of my head:
State employee pensions unlike federal pensions are usually (never?) adjusted for inflation as the years run on -- meaning 20 years out they may not be worth very much; 40 years out forget it (NYC police and fire for instance retire after 20 years, often in early 40s). Suppose localities and states offered retirees the option to switch to inflation adjusted pensions but with a much lower pay outs now.

This could head off the looming public employee pension crisis. Then the push could be on -- plenty of time -- for all pensions, not just government employees, to become the responsibility of the federal government just like in Europe. Just an idea to play with.
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As far as SS future is concerned -- even if in this economically totally illiterate country nobody knows the eighth grade math of SS -- average income doubles at twice the rate of population, meaning that 80 years out when average income has quadrupled and population has doubled our GDP will be pushing $120,000 TRILLION a (as in each and every) YEAR. So much for that $63 trillion or $75 trillion or whatever latest scare figure Republicans bandy about.

The SS trust bonds get cashed with tax money -- income tax -- instead of payroll tax. It's something like the "death tax" the Republicans are always railing about: be you alive or be you dead the IRS has to take just so much bread -- either way.

The real problem is as with everything else is with our incredibly squeezing American labor market. I made $25,000 in 1968 adjusted for inflation. My SS payout is supposed to calculate that $25,000 as if it had grown along with average wages. Since average income (not wages, but per capita income) doubled over that time I expected my 1968 income to count as $50,000 when calculating my benefit. Instead it counted only as $33,000. The wages of the people who pay the FICA tax -- what the adjustment is geared to -- on their entire income (under $100,000) only creeped up even while per capita doubled. From what I can find out that horrible trend is assumed into all the future calculation you hear about.

If America had the kind of legally mandated unionization that exists anywhere in the world where the average person gets their share of the economic pie and political power -- both of which don't exist anywhere they don't have this system -- SS at this point in time would be flooded with money. The system is called S-E-C-T-O-R W-I-D-E labor agreements.

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION RECOVERY?

First, get stupid Republican pet tricks out of the way. Recessions here and in Europe's second-rank economies (Ireland, Spain, Portugal) were caused by giving bankers more money than they could responsibly lend (Greece does everything crazy, not just banking). On an individual level a banker knows he is not going to bust the economy all by himself so why miss out on the millions in fees until bubble is bursts? The Republican answer to the bust is of course more tax cuts for the rich to flood the bankers -- and as little regulation of banker behavior as possible.

And don't forget to cut spending and raise taxes to choke the sinking economy. In every time and place inflation is what ends housing gluts and affiliated recessions by cutting prices painlessly (subjectively), bringing demand back in balance with supply. Inflation caused by deficits this year even somewhat ameliorates the long hanging deficit over the years. Zero inflation or deflation can mean a housing glut forever -- ask Japan. So much for stupid economic tricks.

When if and to ever America's Great Recession ends, our Great Wage Depression will carry on like nothing ever happened. Average income should double again over the next 40 years -- will the median wage grow only 20% again while the top tier -- linebackers, TV anchors and CEOs -- become as rich as Saudi princes (presumably the minimum wage wont drop in half in real terms as between 1968 and early 2007 -- it is a dollar below 1956 now!).

There are two kinds of labor markets in the OECD world: the kind that produce adequate political and economic strength for most people and the kind that do not. Wherever legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements are the rule the average person gets what they need because they rule. Where they are not the rule the average person is ruined politically and economically.

Socialism (Republican pet trick)? Keep in mind that sector wide agreements were introduced in Europe after World War II -- actually requiring Europe's welfare state to compensate for sector-wide's original purpose -- which was to keep labor's prices down – so Europe's industrialists could rebuild after the war. Guess what? What avoids the race to the top also prevents the race to the bottom (politically and economically). Again, every modern economy in which the average person does well, sector-wide bargaining is the rule; in everyplace it is not the rule the average person is lost.

In Japan the super secure half of the labor force pays for it with 60 hour work weeks. I got the impression the other half lives more like our illegals from the book "Japan, the System that Soured." Australia which has an odd judicial labor pricing system has seen union membership drop from 40% to 20% over the past 25 years. http://www.amazon.com/Japan-System-That-Soured-Japanese/dp/0765603101

I read in David McWilliams' (Ireland’s amazing popularizer) fabulous book – and elsewhere* – that inflation is what cures all housing bubbles at all times and in all places. Shifting back 15% of income to the "lower" 90% (some mess!) could possibly by my cab driver pure guess cause 30% inflation over X number of years as labor prices bump each other up. http://www.amazon.com/Follow-Money-David-Mcwilliams/dp/0717148076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309103892&sr=1-1
* http://www.amazon.com/Bust-Greece-Sovereign-Crisis-Bloomberg/dp/047097611X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309104028&sr=1-1

Doubling the minimum wage to $15/hr – giving half the American workforce a raise! – would add less than 3% inflation directly – easily computed. (Half the work force) 70 million X $3.25 average raise X 2000 hours + 7 million at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.25 X 2000 hours = $500.5 billion -- out of a $14 trillion (economy)/$500.5 billion = 2.8% direct inflation. * http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2009tbls.htm [This link timing out as I post this.]

50% of our workforce wants to unionize. Supermarket and airline workers would kill for sector-wide agreements. Sector-wide labor contracts seem to be the magic bullet that not only avoids the race to the top (as originally intended) but also ends the race to the bottom (politically and economically) = the perfect labor market -- there seems no other answer. When are our progressive economists going to start talking sector-wide bargaining up?


Best video by Robert Reich (a lawyer): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTzMqm2TwgE&feature=player_embedded
Best article by Harold Myerson (a journalist): http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/using-german-ingenuity-to-fix-our-economy/2011/06/14/AGdRJVWH_story.html
Best book by Thomas Geoghegan (a lawyer): http://www.amazon.com/Were-You-Born-Wrong-Continent/dp/159558403X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309099936&sr=8-1
Check out video version of the book "Coming Collapse of the Middle Class" by Elizabeth Warren (a lawyer): http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/04/the-coming-coll.html


Income Share
Dean Baker (in 18th reply on his blog post -- most important info for America -- only accidentally ran into it years ago!) reproduced what he called "a slightly altered table from Gordon's paper *, showing income shares in 1972 and 2001" -- my percentage changes on the right.

0-20_______2.6%, _ 2.0%________- .6%__ -12.3%
20-50____ 16.0%, _ 11.7%_______ -4.3%__ -11.7%
50-80____ 33.7%, _ 27.2%_______-6.5%____ -7.4%
80-90____ 17.0%,_ 16.1%________ - .9%___ -
*********************************************
90-95____ 10.8%,_ 11.3%______ +_ .5% __+
95-99.0___12.2%,_ 14.8%______ +2.6% ___+ 3.1%
99.0-99.9__ 5.7%,__ 9.6%_______+3.9% ___+ 7.0%
99.9 -100__ 1.9%,__ 7.3%_______ +5.4%__ +12.4%
(see p. 84 of Gordon for similar breakdown of wage income)

4.9% loss of overall share meant 26.3% chop of 0-50 percentile share.
6.4% loss of overall share meant 14.5% chop of 50-90 percentile share.
Don't forget more family members working more hours for more years still ended in chops.
* http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/BPEA_Meetingdraft_Complete_051118.pdf

Law enforcement's growing "doctrine of indifference" to sexual privacy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7wLEbjnG3Q&feature=related

Could this officer pictured in this short video legally grope his own son in this manner – were there some safe, effective alternative like a wand (so much for the innocuous sounding judicial words “over outer clothing”)? You can also find an object as big as a gun pressing an object instead of your hand.

Why may a TSA employee grope all over your son in the same manner without even any individual cause? Could we constitutionally force 24 million Americans drivers a year to insert a sobriety meter into their mouth (better than genitally groped!) even if that would save 600 lives on the highways, the passenger load of two 747s? And we may be losing 50 lives a month on the highways over people avoiding too much to take airport groping and naked scanning.

Underwear bombers (least dangerous by volume anyway) will certainly try something else. Terrorists already on American soil favor giant truck type bombs – much more satisfying to their mania than a few ounces of explosive maybe only blowing out a window.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLpOcEtsElI&feature=player_embedded

Could this remote viewer (at 45 seconds) legally watch his own pubescent daughter’s naked scan -- just to be playful at the repair office? Could we constitutionally put 800 million American drivers a year through naked scanning to save 600 lives on the highway (no practical example)?

And why does security grope every square inch of your body if the scanner spot something in one pocket (take it out; go back through)? Even in the widely reported Castle Rock courthouse (should be horror) story (is no one shocked?) – where the pictured remote viewer also has a TV monitor possibly to view folks to be scanned (is he watching old movies?) and where male officers apparently frisk female visitors intimately every day – the male court officer may have only fingered over the left rear pocket of the mother with two small boys to discover the paper backing of a sticker. http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/full-body-scanners-popping-752566.html

The official TSA rule is, once a woman enters the security zone she may not leave without being frisked even if only male agents are available (continuing occurrence at small airports): $11,000 fine. They won't actually do that (hopefully). They will actually force her to choose between being grossly violated or not getting on the plane. This is the equivalent of taking a violent beating or not getting on the plane – not a legitimate choice.

We never got flying cars. We did get flying buses. Genitally groping tens of millions of Americans every year and strip searching three quarters of a billion to protect two buses – which probably won't be attacked anyway; if so will now be attacked some other way – turns the Fourth Amendment into toilet paper.

If you touch my wife I should be able to get you arrested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NI7JEA4iK4
Leg and breast frisk 1st minute -- released 10th minute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RxH1CnYhd8

Could these police officers legally frisk their minor daughters --- whom they presumably have dominion over -- for the sake of literally millions-to-one danger (see eighth-grade math, next paragraph) – or to make a reasonable/probable cause search if a 5 minute ride (or much longer) could reach a female searcher?

If 10% more police officers got killed every year transporting rear cuffed, strapped down behind a locked cage females fingering for every last tiny taped on razor blade, etc, – that would be 7 more out of 700,000 male LEOs. Tell your daughter you may finger grope her legs and in between and the bottom of her breasts because this one chance 100,000 she might hurt you – or don't tell mine. Couldn’t hurt you hermetically sealed in into cage in any way. Still frightened; bring a wand to work.

Police "cadets" at play (presumably over 18), at 2:00 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1-dcSUDPE8&NR=1

Somewhere along the line American law enforcement across the board – not just the TSA – has developed a "doctrine of indifference" to the worst from of personal intrusion, unwelcome groping of females by males – and now at the TSA all day unwanted groping of males by gay acting males*. The interests of the state are not being balanced against popping open a glove compartment here. If it's a sick crime on the bus it's a sicker crime on the job where law enforcement itself is compelling you without the most compelling immediate danger. Until untamed government groping is cleaned out at every level, state and federal, I for one will not feel like a free American again. * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkRPS0pSScQ

LATE LEGAL EQUATION: EVERYBODY SHOULD AGREE THAT IF A POLICE OFFICER PULLED A CAR OVER TO SEARCH WITHOUT REAL JUSTIFICATION, JUST OUT OF BOREDOM (EVERYONE MAY HAVE DONE IT) THAT IF HE FRISKS A WOMAN LIKE A MAN HE IS BREAKING THE SAME FELONY LAW THAT ANYONE ELSE WOULD BE BREAKING FRISKING HER -- EVEN THOUGH IS PLAINLY JUST PLAYING COP, NOT COPPING A FEEL. DITTO FOR ANY MALE FRISKING A FEMALE WITHOUT A GENUINELY COMPELLING MOTIVE --- NOT JUST PIPE "OFFICER SAFETY" WHEN THERE ISN'T A CHANCE A MILLION (SEE ABOVE) THAT HE WILL BE HARMED BRINGING HER TO THE POLICE STATION FOR A FEMALE TO FINISH THE JOB FRISKING LEGS AND LIFTING BREASTS. DITTO FOR TERRY STOPS. GUNS CAN BE DISCOVERED WITHOUT EVEN USING HANDS -- PROBABLE TAPED ON RAZOR BLADES MAY BE CHECKED FOR AT THE STATION. I DON'T SEE HOW ANYONE CAN ARGUE WITH THIS.

WE ARE NOT TALKING ILLEGALLY POPPING OPEN A GLOVE COMPARTMENT, CONSTITUTIONAL PRIVACY -- WE ARE TALKING A MAN GROPING A WOMAN'S SEXUAL AREAS WITHOUT TRUE NEED, RAPE WITHOUT PENETRATION.

Remedy for American Crime: no-lead gas, abortion or rebalancing our labor market?

My comment to Angry Bear post "Get the Lead Out II" at http://www.angrybearblog.com/2011/05/get-lead-out-ii.html#comments:


For those of you who have not spent enough time in New York's slums and other badlands (Times Square was the a**hole of the world in early '70s) here are the origins of crime -- which led paint or abortion may or or may not add to or subtract from -- where it begins.

Five esoteric things in a row on juvenile delinquent boys:
Boys until 18 1/2 are in the emotionally dependent stage -- for all practical purposes -- as much as if they were 12.
This turns off over a week's time in my personal observation -- pure social instinct thing.
THE CORE: If they perceive nobody cares about them (wrong about half the time) they literally wont care about themselves -- no penalty can deter them. Any street temptation at all, they are gone.
This is easy enough to accept with a badly neglected 12 year old -- just as crazily true for an 18 year old who has simply been out of control for a long time -- every bit as hysterically alienated as I call it.
Unlike the decades of positive socialization it takes to wind down the paranoia underlying heavy heroin or alcohol addiction -- only 5 to 6 weeks of normal adult attention (teaching to drive) -- slowly brings the kid into the normal supportive orbit (have to kiss his toes and tell him everything he wants to hear first 7=10 days) -- but the crime doesn't slow one bit until a new kid wakes up one day (invasion of the body snatchers day ???).

Gangs:
Very simply the Crips and the Bloods could not whip a decent paying Ronald McDonald.

While reading When Work Disappears by William Julius Wilson and American Project by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh side by side I noticed that after Wilson's book ended the project only descended into a completely gang infested hell as the minimum wage dropped in half from LBJ's peak -- as average income doubled.

BOTH OF THE ABOVE -- certainly and totally the latter -- CAN BE BLAMED ON AMERICA'S AMAZING, INCREDIBLY SQUEEZING LABOR MARKET. A $15 minimum wage would add about 3% (earlier figuring here *) to the cost of living (not counting other wages pushed up -- good), give half the country a raise and send a lot more low end customers (me ;-]) to McDonalds. Needless to say with a labor market where the median wage grew 20% while average income doubled and left a quarter of the workforce below LBJ's minimum wage by early 2007 (under performing Malthus) many more fatherless homes(massively more in our inner cities) leads to many (massively) more neglected or thinks they are neglected, hysterically alienated kids (for those of you who have not spent enough time in the badlands). * http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-cost-of-gdp-output-and-inflation.html

America's great wage depression also leads to schools that don't work because nobody can be bothered trying to excel when they know they are not going to get paid anything like adequately when they leave school to finally go to work -- according to a professor Martín Sánchez-Jankowski who spent 9 years on the street observing in 5 inner city neighborhoods (slums): read his book Cracks in the Pavement.

So to me crime in America all boils down to what to me almost every other problem in America all boils down to: the totally missing bargaining power (or even any awareness of the need to bargain) of down at the heels American labor. And to me the answer is the only answer that has worked all over the better paid world: SECTOR-WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS. Never, ever hear this spoken anywhere in supposed progressive forums though this answer is the only one guaranteed to work and everything else put together is guaranteed not to work. When are you going to wake up and start discussing legally mandated sector wide agreements progressive so you can wake up everyone else?

Women in combat: my comment in Washington post

My comment to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-women-in-combat/2011/05/25/AGAsavCH_story.html

Eighth grade math:
If 10% of the police force doesn't handle 5% of the time -- even if it comprises 50% of the job -- the public will have a difficult time observing this.
If the NYC fire department hires almost 30 women a year for 30 years and there are still only 30 left on the job (half indoors?; 12 of the first 38 ever opted for light duty, e.g., public relations, right out of the academy) the public cannot see them not perform.
If half the prison guards cannot perform the public will never see it. The part of Rikers Island I used to visit weekly -- the 16 to 20 years old -- is now totally out of control (see recent story in "New York Magazine"). http://nymag.com/news/features/70978/
If half the court officers cannot handle the job prisoners must enter the courtroom in chains. In my years of going to court in the Bronx in the '70s they were brought in for arraignments in street clothes. 4 NYC court officers recently injured when judge insisted on removing chains. http://www.worldbookandnews.com/news/crime/44573-Robbery-suspect-injures-four-in-court.html

Of course the rigor and aggression required of a Marine grunt pales compared to that needed to be a big city court officer.

(still in rewrite) MY VERSION OF: The Real Social Security and Medicare Problem (and a Doable Fix)

CUT AND PASTED FROM THE BULK OF BRUCE BARTLETT'S ARTICLE -- "The Real Social Security and Medicare Problem (and a Doable Fix)". THE NUMBERS -- MOST ESPECIALLY IN VIEW OF EVER EXPANDING OUTLET (MALTHUS WAS WRONG BRUCE) -- DON'T LOOK CATASTROPHIC OR EVEN PARTICULARLY THREATENING:

"Looking at Social Security, we see spending rising from 4.8 percent of gross domestic product to 6.2 percent by 2035, an increase of 1.4 percentage points."

"Another way to think about it is that the long term Social Security deficit is 1.2 percent of G.D.P., or 3.6 percent of taxable payrolls."

"Thus we could raise the Social Security tax rate from 12.4 percent, which it has been for the last few years, to 16 percent immediately and forever, or we can assume general revenue financing for the unfunded liability and would have to increase federal income taxes from 6.2 percent of G.D.P. to 7.4 percent, about a 30 percent increase in the amount of income tax revenues the government needs to collect."
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I've always said that if the so-called trust fund peters out (it wont; a 5-year fund needs to be maintained -- all ever needed -- see below) the same tax payer money that was cashing bonds with income tax to feed retirees will simply switch to a higher payroll tax (with accompanying drop in income tax). Instead of 75% payroll tax and 25% income tax, retirees will be paid through 100% payroll tax -- only difference, a bit less progressive.

The only practical effects of the trust fund as far as I can see is that it allowed politicians to set on payroll tax rate for 60 years so they would not have to face endless raises and tax payer wrath which payroll tax surpluses on the front (when average income was lowest) made overall taxes more regressive (capped, flat tax paying for on-budget outlays) and more progressive on the end.

Average income doubles twice as fast as population (over 40 years compared to 80 -- worker-to-population ratio stabilizes after 2050) so there never was any retiree revenue crisis. If there is any funding problem it is cause by the average worker's (median) income growth not keeping even close pace with overall income.

For instance, my Social Security payments are supposedly calculated factoring in income growth. But my 1968 income is not credited as double my $25,000 to $50,000. I get credited for only $33,000 because the formula uses average persons' wages instead of overall growth. In the unbalanced US labor market median income only grew 20% as average income doubled! The minimum wage actually halved by early 2007!! Get the American labor market back in balance and payroll taxes will overflow.

BTW, While we are throwing all those trillions of dollars around let's remember that doubled population and quadrupled per capita income 80 years out means GDP looks to be 8 X $15 trillion = $120 trillion EVERY year by then.
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AGAIN -- ESPECIALLY IN VIEW OF NORMAL ECONOMIC GROWTH:

"Part A pays for hospital visits and is financed by the Medicare portion of the payroll tax, which is 2.9 percent. (That leaves the total payroll tax rate, at 15.3 percent, ignoring the temporary cut enacted last year as a stimulus program.)"

"The 2009 report, before passage of the new health care law, had estimated a long-run unfunded liability of $36.4 trillion, which is equivalent to 2.8 percent of G.D.P. forever and would have required a payroll tax increase of 6.5 percent. (Also Table III.B10.)"

"The long term general revenue contribution to Medicare Part B is estimated at $22.4 trillion or 1.5 percent of G.D.P. in perpetuity. (Table III.C15.)"

"The unfunded cost of this program is estimated at $16.1 trillion, or 1.1 percent of G.D.P. in perpetuity. (Table III.C23.)"

"To put these programs on a sound footing, federal income taxes would have to rise from 6.2 percent of G.D.P. to 10 percent, an increase of 61 percent."
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Doctors' incomes have not DOUBLED in real terms since 1968 while average (per capita) income has. So doctor's incomes cannot be blamed for the doubling and re-doubling and re-redoubling of health care. As one doctor put it to me: in his other career as a Navy helo pilot everyone can see the three engines and the sixty miles of wiring in the "new beast" Black Hawk, but when they go to the hospital all they see is the bed.

Where the money is going to come from is another question. The average person's (median) wage only grew 20% while average income doubled. The minimum wage actually dropped in half by early 2007 (now $3/hr lower than under LBJ after the "big" Demo raise). Meantime, the linebackers and TV news anchors and CEOs who now get paid 25X what they made back when (instead of only 2X) don't have 25X as many livers and bones to mend.

Like most problems in this country it comes down the the totally out of balance -- as in thoroughly de-unionized -- US labor market. Decades old proven answer: legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements -- standard practice all over the better paid OECD world, not to mention the second-world (Argentina), even the third-world (even Indonesia). Supermarket workers and airline workers would kill for sector-wide agreements -- good political place to start.

Doctors fees are 20% of Medicare (not overall economy's). Private insurance costs (whole economy) quoted as high as 30%? Where to start cutting? :-)

The real American "misery indexes" -- my comment on "Angry Bear"

This post on the "misery index" -- seemingly meant to be taken as a realistic comparison of, well, economic misery on this side of the Pond compared to the other side -- is almost enough to make me give up forever on ever getting the slightest bit of common sense out of our economic (supposed?) progressives.

I mean this with all of my heart -- ready to give up on you all.

Please do a graph which shows the doubling of average income as one line on the chart going up at a 45 degree angle contrasted to the 20 percent increase in the median (average person's wage) going up at a 9 degree (?) angle over the same 43 years. Not to mention the complete political disempowerment that goes with a unionless work force (ever hear of legislatively mandated SECTOR-WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS -- airline and supermarket workers would kill to get them; good place to start, but somebody's got to tell them about the possibility).

Please do a Malthusian chart tracking wages dropping 33% as population increased 50% since 1968 contrasted to the drop in the US federal minimum wage of almost 50% by early 2007. Not to mention the Crips and the Bloods couldn't whip a decent paying Ronald McDonald ($15/hr minimum wage -- mere 50% increase as per capita income doubled -- would raise the price of what in the poorest part of the country?).

Call them the "Nakba" indexes (or the "Great Wage Depression" indexes).

We -- Americans below 90 percentile income are suffering alright. Do you guys know anybody below 90 percentile income? What the deuce is wrong with you?

REPLY TO MYSELF -- RELEVANT "PSYCHOLOGICAL" POINT:

Endless reports of violence and non-performance in Berkeley public schools? Does this concern the Berkeley economic faculty? Not really their world right? Why, then, could anyone expect them to be concerned about poor side of town high schools in Detroit -- though I am sure their interests would perk right up about the goings in any elite high in Detroit -- or France.

I worry about the tragedy of poor side of town schools in New York and Chicago (core problem: nobody will prepare hard for a labor market that offers them nothing now and less for more work later if things keep going on that way on this side of the Pond). You would accordingly expect me to worry about troubles in Berkeley schools -- from thousands of miles away.

Get the "psychological" point. All the learning does no good if you don't know what to care about -- midbrain motivates forebrain to get what midbrain desires; not the other way around.

The answer to the American labor "Disaster" is not a floor under inadequate incomes

TODAY'S COMMENT ON THOMA'S ECONOMIST'S VIEW: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/05/links-for-2011-05-01.html#tpe-action-posted-6a00d83451b33869e201543212b890970c


Re: Economics Principals

Here we go again. David Warsh -- a commentator whose breadth of understanding normally dazzles me -- quoting this as a good summary of what to do about so called "inequality": “The only things that can possibly address inequality of a magnitude that will soon be judged to be unacceptable in this country are much higher levels of taxation on the well-to-do and a negative income tax for the poor.”

If, first, our progressive elite understood that it is not about wan "inequality" but more like what the Palestinians call the "Disaster", they would understand that what American workers need is not a guaranteed floor under inadequate incomes but the median wage to double over time whenever average income doubles, not grow only 25%, for the minimum wage not to drop in half (by early 2007) over the same doubling per capita span.

We, American workers, would like to earn $25/hr on the average with a $15/hr minimum wage in the poorest parts of the country (the latter with all of 2% direct inflation*). We American (Chicago) cab drivers do not want the mile rate on our meters to get one (1!) 30 cent increase over the course of 16 years (81-97) period, at which mid point the city began adding 40% more cabs while cutting the business nearly in half with subways to both airports, unlimited limos and (the coup de grace) free trolleys between all the hot spots downtown (fine transportation progress, but what's with 40% more cabs?!).
* http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-cost-of-gdp-output-and-inflation.html

What American workers need is the power to protect themselves in the market place -- and in the legislature. Of course nobody in America from cab drivers to dazzling progressives has any idea anything is so fundamentally out of whack.

I caught the answer to the Disaster (A.K.A., Great Wage Depression) -- assuming anybody in apparently brain isolated America knows there is a question -- the first time I saw it; wondered why I never thought of it myself, so obvious from the purely theoretical point: legally mandated, sector-wide labor agreements. The one and only answer to the race to the bottom. Canada has a lite version right next door: is Canada like the South Pole?

See these two books for how it works so well in Germany, undoubtedly the leading example of a successful capitalist economy:
"Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life" by Thomas Geoghegan. http://www.amazon.com/Were-You-Born-Wrong-Continen/dp/159558403X
Union of Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany (Cornell Studies in Political Economy) by Kathleen Ann Thelen
http://www.amazon.com/Union-Parts-Politics-Postwar-Political/dp/0801425867/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304343097&sr=1-3

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Reply to myself -- just another insight of a sort, not yet sorted out itself:

The presumably (supposedly?) avant guarde Berkeley economics faculty feels no personal responsibility at all (as far as I know) for the violent goings on at their public schools. If they don't feel any personal responsibility for making Berkeley public schools safe (attended mostly by poor minorities?) -- especially safe -- good learning places we cannot in the least expect them to take serious responsibility for the poor side of town(s) across America.

OTW, if you are from the poor side of town where you live we can expect you to be seriously anxious about what is going bad in Berkeley public schools thousands of miles away.

It's not what you know -- that makes you useful -- it's apparently who you identify with -- that makes you useful -- think LBJ v. Obama. As I would say midbrain outflanks forebrain (no matter how dazzling) again and again.