There is a counter-argument to your claim that tariffs are a no-brainer. Cheap clothing and household items benefit lower quintile families. Capitalism for employers-only has resulted in wage suppression. Corporations, with the help of the state and federal governments, have throttled unions and kept minimum wages artificially low. Refor…
There is a counter-argument to your claim that tariffs are a no-brainer. Cheap clothing and household items benefit lower quintile families. Capitalism for employers-only has resulted in wage suppression. Corporations, with the help of the state and federal governments, have throttled unions and kept minimum wages artificially low. Reforms that would allow workers to obtain a living wage are the answer, not tariffs.
I’m all in on serious administrative reform. Get the speculators out. Ban the high-volatility trades. Make it mandatory for companies to pay out at least 30% of earnings as dividends. Every worker should own a piece of the company. And if a business is profitable, it shouldn’t be allowed to lay people off—period. Employees aren’t some cheap, disposable input; they should be co-owners, not collateral damage. Yeah, maybe we lose a bit of efficiency. But the trade-off? A hell of a lot more social health.
What about distributional effects? It seems like data points against the effectiveness of minimum wage laws, whereas a proper accounting of social costs of distributional effects favors some rational degree of tariffs. And then there is China--can enforced wage inflation address the relationship we have with China or does it exacerbate whatever issues we have?
There is a counter-argument to your claim that tariffs are a no-brainer. Cheap clothing and household items benefit lower quintile families. Capitalism for employers-only has resulted in wage suppression. Corporations, with the help of the state and federal governments, have throttled unions and kept minimum wages artificially low. Reforms that would allow workers to obtain a living wage are the answer, not tariffs.
I’m all in on serious administrative reform. Get the speculators out. Ban the high-volatility trades. Make it mandatory for companies to pay out at least 30% of earnings as dividends. Every worker should own a piece of the company. And if a business is profitable, it shouldn’t be allowed to lay people off—period. Employees aren’t some cheap, disposable input; they should be co-owners, not collateral damage. Yeah, maybe we lose a bit of efficiency. But the trade-off? A hell of a lot more social health.
What about distributional effects? It seems like data points against the effectiveness of minimum wage laws, whereas a proper accounting of social costs of distributional effects favors some rational degree of tariffs. And then there is China--can enforced wage inflation address the relationship we have with China or does it exacerbate whatever issues we have?