long profile at the NYT last week on craig venter, first to sequence the human genome & first to create a synthetic cell genome:
Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World – In the menagerie of Craig Venter’s imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. They will be custom bugs, designer bugs — bugs that only Venter can create. He will mix them up in his private laboratory from bits and pieces of DNA, and then he will release them into the air and the water, into smokestacks and oil spills, hospitals and factories and your house. Each of the bugs will have a mission. Some will be designed to devour things, like pollution. Others will generate food and fuel. There will be bugs to fight global warming, bugs to clean up toxic waste, bugs to manufacture medicine and diagnose disease, and they will all be driven to complete these tasks by the very fibers of their synthetic DNA. Right now, Venter is thinking of a bug. He is thinking of a bug that could swim in a pond and soak up sunlight and urinate automotive fuel. He is thinking of a bug that could live in a factory and gobble exhaust and fart fresh air. If a strain of algae could secrete high yields of protein, using less land and water than traditional crops, it may represent the best hope to feed a booming planet. … “Agriculture as we know it needs to disappear,” Venter said. “We can design better and healthier proteins than we get from nature.”
If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.
A wage of $15/hr would double the take home pay of fast food labor while raising prices one-third. Fast food has the largest by far labor usage (one-third of all costs).
Other businesses tend towards one-tenth of costs. Think Target (“Can somebody help me?”)
If fast food can pay $15/hr, most any business should be able to (sounds like).
$15/hr is now the median wage in the US labor market. Give half the country (the half at or below the median) a raise to $15/hr and McDonald’s should do wonderfully. ****** Roughly, 90-97 percentile earners have kept the same share of income the same earners had in 1968 — double the average income since. This suggests that the reason for so-called “inequality” (would the average non-academic recognize that phrase — how about something like the “post-apocalyptic American labor market”?) is not a higher-tech economy making unskilled labor worth less. Ball players, CEOs and news anchors are not the reason for economic growth. Robots and programs are — humans, I suspect, retain the same economic worth relative to each other.
I just know that when I saw the idea somewhere, years ago, I recognized the answer to American labor’s powerlessness instantly. I had been like one of those “cross of gold” farmers reading pamphlets, trying to figure out why their world was falling apart (deflation making their mortgage payments more expensive all the time).
Sector wide’s advantages are so obvious that when you see it you genuinely wonder why you never thought of it yourself (at least I did). As far as I can see, anywhere in the first-world where it is in practice, the average person has full empowerment — political as well economic because full unionization means equal financing to match ownership’s to go with the overwhelming majority of votes. The late David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, wrote that when he first arrived there fifty years ago the lobbyists were all union.
Anywhere in the OECD it is not the average person is screwed more all the time.
Sector wide is over half a century proven — and — tried even in the second world (Brazil) and third world (Indonesia).
Funniest thing is that sector wide labor agreements were instituted in post WWII Europe by INDUSTRIALISTS to prevent labor unions going on a race to the top (with each other). The welfare state — which is what everybody over here FOOLISHLY thinks as the big economic difference between Europe and us — was actually offered to compensate labor for putting up with sector wide agreements.
Sector wide collective bargaining ends the race to the bottom just as well. Wal-Mart had to close 88 big boxes in Germany because they could not compete paying the same wages and be benefits.
I’ve got a human behavior theory that males being pack hunters are somehow able to relate to the big world only on the terms the world (stupidly?) works on already. Human males seem to automatically eject any solution too original like a spent cartridge — literally incapable consider the novel on merits alone.
Human females being individual gatherers by DNA can according to my cabdriver theory think for themselves — are actually able to ponder a new direction on merit alone — not because they are “receptive” but because they can think for themselves.
the worst that could go wrong would be that it would all go right. and we could look forward to a world with no farms and no fresh (real) air. hell, why would we even need sunshine. looking forward to some of that canned bug protein.
not that there are any farms left anymore anyway, in the old sense of grandfather’s farm.
Is all that fast food labor worth 15 dollars an hour? not to be cruel… and i believe i a fifteen dollar minimum wage… but a lot of the fast food employees i have seen really are not worth the seven dollar minimum wage. not that they couldn’t be, but they just aren’t that into it.
second… do we really want all that fast food? i mean couldn’t we learn to cook at home and make useful and beautiful things and eat at a good restaurant once in a while?
third… and i hope i am not sounding like a republican… after you give them fifteen dollars an hour, what will they buy with it? i mean can the planet really support all that plastic prosperity?
i am more worried about the million dollar a year men. and while i don’t like the “tax the rich” answer to that, i don’t think very many people are actually worth a million a year. and those who have that much money are dangerous to the rest of us.
you obviously know a better class of women than i do. after years of study and pondering the question, i conclude that they are the equals of men in every way.
sector wide may be working in Europe… you would have to convince me. but Europe seems to have other problems… not that we don’t have, but that may demonstrate that even labor equality will not solve all ills.
Whether fast food work is worth $15/hr is not a philosophical question — it is a question of whether enough customers will continue to buy to keep the business profitable. Since $15/hr is now (scandalously) the American median wage (was the German 10 percentile wage I read somewhere some years ago), if half the country gets a raise to $15/hr (remember labor costs are a greater portion of doing fast food business than anywhere else — so if Mac can pay it Target can pay it) fast food should have no problem raising prices one-third to all those newly better paid employees. It is a “what the market will bear” question — which seems to me to answer no problem.
Of course as bottom wages go up other wages will go up even more — causing a lot of inflation (which should be factored into bottom raises — would be under sector wide bargaining) which is just what we need to get out of our balance sheet recession: people waiting to get out from under real estate water before they start borrowing and spending again.
BTW, inflation would be a way to forgive underwater loans that would not reward red ink over black (got to make a separate post over that soon).
colby, Whether fast food work is worth $15/hr is not a philosophical question — it is a question of whether enough customers will continue to buy to keep the business profitable. Since $15/hr is now (scandalously) the American median wage (was the German 10 percentile wage I read somewhere some years ago), if half the country gets a raise to $15/hr (remember labor costs are a greater portion of doing fast food business than anywhere else — so if Mac can pay it Target can pay it) fast food should have no problem raising prices one-third to all those newly better paid employees. It is a “what the market will bear” question — which seems to me to answer no problem.
Of course as bottom wages go up other wages will go up even more — causing a lot of inflation (which should be factored into bottom raises — would be under sector wide bargaining) which is just what we need to get out of our balance sheet recession: people waiting to get out from under real estate water before they start borrowing and spending again.
BTW, inflation would be a way to forgive underwater loans that would not reward red ink over black (got to make a separate post over that soon).
Progressives in the House are introducing a bill calling for a $10/hour federal minimum wage, a round number chosen to approximate the 1968 minimum wage after adjusting for inflation. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/business/bill-pushes-for-increase-in-wages.html?_r=1 Of course, the bill is going nowhere with the GOP in control of the House and they won’t permit a vote that might give them bad publicity in an election year. If the Dems take the House in November (a longshot), both Pelosi and Reid somehow would have to get conservative Dems on-board (two more longshots). If Obama wins in November, the progressives might beat the odds but I’m not holding my breath.
Just thought I’d throw in: Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 3 1/2% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $15/hr is median wage X $3.25/hr average raise (close enough) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.25 X 2000 hours] = $477.75 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.4% direct inflation.
Just thought I’d throw in: Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 3% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $15/hr is median wage X $3.25/hr average raise (close enough) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.25 X 2000 hours] = $477.75 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.4% direct inflation.
Just thought I’d throw in: Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 3 1/2% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $3.25/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.25 X 2000 hours] = $477.75 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.4% direct inflation.
CORRECTION: Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
CORRECTION OF MY FIGURES: Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
i wasn’t thinking about inflation. and i AM all for a 15 dollar minimum wage. i just don’t know i am for the probably consequences.
and… hate to sound like a conservative… some “workers” are not worth ten dollars an hour. to me that is a serious problem that really has nothing to do with the min wage.
and… hate to repeat myself, so i’ll add, when you increase the local prevailing wage you are going to increase rents and groceries and may end up with not much actual improvement in quality of life. this is another problem that i think is very serious and will need to be addressed whatever the min wage is.
as to the philosophical question…. i don’t know what the cost of a hamburger would be with fifteen dollar an hour min wage… my guess is not enough difference to change the buying habits… though i would certainly like to see fewer kids taken to macdonalds. and maybe fewer moms with so little time they can fix real food. but lets say that extra money spent on hamburgers is going to come out of the economy somewhere, and my guess is that it won’t come out of our millionaires take home.
and yes, i know that if the workers spend it, it ought to go back into the economy… i just can’t see it ever actually doing any good: more bigger cars, more gas, more bigger houses, less places to get away from people and cars…
so… yes, we need to pay a decent wage. and more than that we need to give real thought to making it possible for people to live a decent life whatever their wages
sad to say, i won’t see the “decent life” just as you will never see the decent wages.
long profile at the NYT last week on craig venter, first to sequence the human genome & first to create a synthetic cell genome:
Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World – In the menagerie of Craig Venter’s imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. They will be custom bugs, designer bugs — bugs that only Venter can create. He will mix them up in his private laboratory from bits and pieces of DNA, and then he will release them into the air and the water, into smokestacks and oil spills, hospitals and factories and your house. Each of the bugs will have a mission. Some will be designed to devour things, like pollution. Others will generate food and fuel. There will be bugs to fight global warming, bugs to clean up toxic waste, bugs to manufacture medicine and diagnose disease, and they will all be driven to complete these tasks by the very fibers of their synthetic DNA. Right now, Venter is thinking of a bug. He is thinking of a bug that could swim in a pond and soak up sunlight and urinate automotive fuel. He is thinking of a bug that could live in a factory and gobble exhaust and fart fresh air. If a strain of algae could secrete high yields of protein, using less land and water than traditional crops, it may represent the best hope to feed a booming planet. … “Agriculture as we know it needs to disappear,” Venter said. “We can design better and healthier proteins than we get from nature.”
what could possibly go wrong?
If McDonald’s (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement — ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements — the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.
A wage of $15/hr would double the take home pay of fast food labor while raising prices one-third. Fast food has the largest by far labor usage (one-third of all costs).
Other businesses tend towards one-tenth of costs. Think Target (“Can somebody help me?”)
If fast food can pay $15/hr, most any business should be able to (sounds like).
$15/hr is now the median wage in the US labor market. Give half the country (the half at or below the median) a raise to $15/hr and McDonald’s should do wonderfully.
******
Roughly, 90-97 percentile earners have kept the same share of income the same earners had in 1968 — double the average income since. This suggests that the reason for so-called “inequality” (would the average non-academic recognize that phrase — how about something like the “post-apocalyptic American labor market”?) is not a higher-tech economy making unskilled labor worth less. Ball players, CEOs and news anchors are not the reason for economic growth. Robots and programs are — humans, I suspect, retain the same economic worth relative to each other.
MY REPLY to this question on another blog: “Can you describe how industry-wide or common labor agreements work in Germany?
******
I am no expert on how sector wide is done in different economies. If you are studious — you seem much more so than I — you can look up the 1992 book “Union of Parts — Labor Politics in Postwar Germany” by Kathleen A. Thelen (which I have on my lap but never got around to).
http://www.amazon.com/Union-Parts-Politics-Postwar-Political/dp/0801425867/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339119485&sr=8-1-fkmr0
Of course there is the recent: “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-Continent/dp/1595587063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339119525&sr=1-1
I just know that when I saw the idea somewhere, years ago, I recognized the answer to American labor’s powerlessness instantly. I had been like one of those “cross of gold” farmers reading pamphlets, trying to figure out why their world was falling apart (deflation making their mortgage payments more expensive all the time).
Sector wide’s advantages are so obvious that when you see it you genuinely wonder why you never thought of it yourself (at least I did).
As far as I can see, anywhere in the first-world where it is in practice, the average person has full empowerment — political as well economic because full unionization means equal financing to match ownership’s to go with the overwhelming majority of votes. The late David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, wrote that when he first arrived there fifty years ago the lobbyists were all union.
Anywhere in the OECD it is not the average person is screwed more all the time.
Sector wide is over half a century proven — and — tried even in the second world (Brazil) and third world (Indonesia).
Funniest thing is that sector wide labor agreements were instituted in post WWII Europe by INDUSTRIALISTS to prevent labor unions going on a race to the top (with each other). The welfare state — which is what everybody over here FOOLISHLY thinks as the big economic difference between Europe and us — was actually offered to compensate labor for putting up with sector wide agreements.
Sector wide collective bargaining ends the race to the bottom just as well. Wal-Mart had to close 88 big boxes in Germany because they could not compete paying the same wages and be benefits.
I’ve got a human behavior theory that males being pack hunters are somehow able to relate to the big world only on the terms the world (stupidly?) works on already. Human males seem to automatically eject any solution too original like a spent cartridge — literally incapable consider the novel on merits alone.
Human females being individual gatherers by DNA can according to my cabdriver theory think for themselves — are actually able to ponder a new direction on merit alone — not because they are “receptive” but because they can think for themselves.
rjs
the worst that could go wrong would be that it would all go right. and we could look forward to a world with no farms and no fresh (real) air. hell, why would we even need sunshine. looking forward to some of that canned bug protein.
not that there are any farms left anymore anyway, in the old sense of grandfather’s farm.
but hell, it’s all good for the GDP, right?
Drew
I am on your side. Really.
But here are a couple of questions:
Is all that fast food labor worth 15 dollars an hour? not to be cruel… and i believe i a fifteen dollar minimum wage… but a lot of the fast food employees i have seen really are not worth the seven dollar minimum wage. not that they couldn’t be, but they just aren’t that into it.
second… do we really want all that fast food? i mean couldn’t we learn to cook at home and make useful and beautiful things and eat at a good restaurant once in a while?
third… and i hope i am not sounding like a republican… after you give them fifteen dollars an hour, what will they buy with it? i mean can the planet really support all that plastic prosperity?
i am more worried about the million dollar a year men. and while i don’t like the “tax the rich” answer to that, i don’t think very many people are actually worth a million a year. and those who have that much money are dangerous to the rest of us.
drew
you obviously know a better class of women than i do. after years of study and pondering the question, i conclude that they are the equals of men in every way.
sector wide may be working in Europe… you would have to convince me. but Europe seems to have other problems… not that we don’t have, but that may demonstrate that even labor equality will not solve all ills.
Whether fast food work is worth $15/hr is not a philosophical question — it is a question of whether enough customers will continue to buy to keep the business profitable. Since $15/hr is now (scandalously) the American median wage (was the German 10 percentile wage I read somewhere some years ago), if half the country gets a raise to $15/hr (remember labor costs are a greater portion of doing fast food business than anywhere else — so if Mac can pay it Target can pay it) fast food should have no problem raising prices one-third to all those newly better paid employees. It is a “what the market will bear” question — which seems to me to answer no problem.
Of course as bottom wages go up other wages will go up even more — causing a lot of inflation (which should be factored into bottom raises — would be under sector wide bargaining) which is just what we need to get out of our balance sheet recession: people waiting to get out from under real estate water before they start borrowing and spending again.
BTW, inflation would be a way to forgive underwater loans that would not reward red ink over black (got to make a separate post over that soon).
colby,
Whether fast food work is worth $15/hr is not a philosophical question — it is a question of whether enough customers will continue to buy to keep the business profitable. Since $15/hr is now (scandalously) the American median wage (was the German 10 percentile wage I read somewhere some years ago), if half the country gets a raise to $15/hr (remember labor costs are a greater portion of doing fast food business than anywhere else — so if Mac can pay it Target can pay it) fast food should have no problem raising prices one-third to all those newly better paid employees. It is a “what the market will bear” question — which seems to me to answer no problem.
Of course as bottom wages go up other wages will go up even more — causing a lot of inflation (which should be factored into bottom raises — would be under sector wide bargaining) which is just what we need to get out of our balance sheet recession: people waiting to get out from under real estate water before they start borrowing and spending again.
BTW, inflation would be a way to forgive underwater loans that would not reward red ink over black (got to make a separate post over that soon).
Progressives in the House are introducing a bill calling for a $10/hour federal minimum wage, a round number chosen to approximate the 1968 minimum wage after adjusting for inflation. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/business/bill-pushes-for-increase-in-wages.html?_r=1 Of course, the bill is going nowhere with the GOP in control of the House and they won’t permit a vote that might give them bad publicity in an election year. If the Dems take the House in November (a longshot), both Pelosi and Reid somehow would have to get conservative Dems on-board (two more longshots). If Obama wins in November, the progressives might beat the odds but I’m not holding my breath.
“You obviously know a better class of women than I do.” Coberly, all I can say is that I’ll be talking to you about this remark after class. 🙁 NancyO
Just thought I’d throw in:
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 3 1/2% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $15/hr is median wage X $3.25/hr average raise (close enough) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) 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
Just thought I’d throw in:
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 3% direct inflation – easily computed: [70 million (half the workforce); $15/hr is median wage X $3.25/hr average raise (close enough) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) 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/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Just thought I’d throw in:
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 3 1/2% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.25/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) 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
CORRECTION:
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
CORRECTION OF MY FIGURES:
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is the median wage) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million* extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether — out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.
hey, i said you wuz all equal.
drew
i wasn’t thinking about inflation. and i AM all for a 15 dollar minimum wage. i just don’t know i am for the probably consequences.
and… hate to sound like a conservative… some “workers” are not worth ten dollars an hour. to me that is a serious problem that really has nothing to do with the min wage.
and… hate to repeat myself, so i’ll add, when you increase the local prevailing wage you are going to increase rents and groceries and may end up with not much actual improvement in quality of life.
this is another problem that i think is very serious and will need to be addressed whatever the min wage is.
as to the philosophical question…. i don’t know what the cost of a hamburger would be with fifteen dollar an hour min wage… my guess is not enough difference to change the buying habits… though i would certainly like to see fewer kids taken to macdonalds. and maybe fewer moms with so little time they can fix real food. but lets say that extra money spent on hamburgers is going to come out of the economy somewhere, and my guess is that it won’t come out of our millionaires take home.
and yes, i know that if the workers spend it, it ought to go back into the economy… i just can’t see it ever actually doing any good: more bigger cars, more gas, more bigger houses, less places to get away from people and cars…
so… yes, we need to pay a decent wage. and more than that we need to give real thought to making it possible for people to live a decent life whatever their wages
sad to say, i won’t see the “decent life” just as you will never see the decent wages.