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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:07 pm Post subject: |
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| luvnpeas wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
| Fair enough. But I would caution you at thinking that a typical economist is as distanced from reality as is, say, a typical "sociologist". They tend to deal with the data as it is and look for these relationships. They aren't just guessing. |
| John Kenneth Galbraith wrote: |
Economics is a subject profoundly conducive to cliche, resonant with boredom. On few topics is an American audience so practiced in turning off its ears and minds. And none can say that the response is ill advised.
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
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Caution about treating economic research as scientific cuts both ways. You can find in it anything that you want to believe: Reaganites and Marxists have done so with equal success.
I doubt very much that economics agree "rent controls are bad." First, I doubt very much economists agree on anything. But if they did, I doubt it would contain a half-baked moral term like "bad."
Mexicans don't come to the US to work for less than minimum wage. They can do that in their own country. The majority of illegal immigrants in the US work for minimum wage or better in jobs Americans don't want to do, like spending all day in a field picking strawberries or roofing in the middle of summer. |
| Quote: |
| Several years ago, the American Economic Review published the results of an opinion poll sent to a large number of economists, some academic, some employed by business or government. The questions--and the results--divided fairly clearly into three categories. One consisted of reasonably straightforward issues of price theory: the effect of rent control, of minimum wage laws, of tariffs. On those questions, there was general agreement, often by more than 90 percent of those polled. |
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_Chapter_22/PThy_Chap_22.html |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
Again, this is all basically undone by the illegal Mexians. Their comparative advantage against the "documented" population is that they will work for lower than the MW stipulates. The Mexicans render this whole discussion quite pointless. |
People don't want to do the work Mexicans do because it is low paid and hard. The argument to do away with illegal Mexican workers is pay more for picking field tomatoes. Americans will then take those jobs. Given the porous border, it's hard to control the flow of illegals. However, if Americans are in line for those jobs, there is no job for them to come north to, no? |
If the Mexicans were not there, the wages would be higher and the prices of the goods higher as a result of the inflated wages.
I was in Miami a year or so back (apparently, it will soon be my new home as well). I had assumed that the illegal Hispanics typically worked in the fields picking fruit, or maybe construction. I was quite surprised to see that even places like Wal-Mart and Arbys were employing people with zero English ability and who who were obviously undocumented. I bought a pair of jeans Robinsins May (sp?), a large department store. I needed my finance to translate for this simple transaction. The checkout lady was from Columbia, maybe 19 years old. Undocumented. The employment of Mexicans (and others) has moved very far beyond fruit picking. There are 13 million Mexicans alone.
The point I'm making is that their very presence holds down wages. The employer doesn't have to insure them, pay into social security, taxes or follow wage/employment laws. They are extremely cheap to employ. The whole "they do jobs Americans wouldn't" is total nonsense. There are millions of unemployed/underemployed Americans. Not too mention recent immigrants (the documented variety). |
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luvnpeas
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Location: somewhere i have never travelled
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Several years ago, the American Economic Review published the results of an opinion poll sent to a large number of economists, some academic, some employed by business or government. The questions--and the results--divided fairly clearly into three categories. One consisted of reasonably straightforward issues of price theory: the effect of rent control, of minimum wage laws, of tariffs. On those questions, there was general agreement, often by more than 90 percent of those polled. |
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_Chapter_22/PThy_Chap_22.html |
The article continues:
| Quote: |
| The second category involved questions, mostly "macroeconomic" questions, in areas where there is considerable professional controversy; as one would expect, opinion on those questions was divided. The third category consisted of questions where the answer depended in large part not on economics but on issues of moral philosophy--what one believes to be a good or just world. An example would be the question "Should the income distribution of the U.S. be made more equal?" In this category too, there was widespread disagreement. My conclusion from the results of the poll was that economists, like physicists, generally agreed about the solved questions of their science, disagreed about areas where work was still going on, and disagreed on issues where their conclusions depended largely on things other than economics. |
Economists do not agree "rent control is bad." |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 8:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes, they do. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Economists are virtually unanimous in the conclusion that rent controls are destructive. In a late-seventies poll of 211 economists published in the May 1979 issue of American Economic Review, slightly more than 98 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." Similarly, the June 1988 issue of Canadian Public Policy reported that over 95 percent of the Canadian economists polled agreed with the statement. The agreement cuts across the usual political spectrum, ranging all the way from Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek on the "right" to their fellow Nobel Laureate Gunnar Myrdal, an important architect of the Swedish Labor Party's welfare state, on the "left." Myrdal stated, "Rent control has in certain Western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision." Fellow Swedish economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck, asserted, "In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city�except for bombing." |
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html
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| Standard supply-and-demand theory predicts that any price controls, including rent controls, will produce an excess of demand over supply--an economic "shortage." There is virtually no disagreement on this premise. In a survey of 75 of the world's outstanding economists, J. R. Kearl and his colleagues found nearly unanimous agreement on the proposition: "A ceiling on rents will reduce the quality and quantity of housing." [4] Of 30 propositions presented for review, only one other received the same level of support. Further, a poll by the American Economic Association of its members in 1992 produced a similar result |
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-274.html
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all hidden in the rent control proposal�s fine print. Rent control will also hurt the city generally � as virtually all economists agree |
http://www.spoa.com/pages/victory2.htm
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That�s why the overwhelming majority of economists � even economists of the Left � agree that rent-control laws are flawed. Indeed, their effects on a city�s housing stock are always devastating. |
http://www.lewrockwell.com/bresiger/bresiger20.html
| Quote: |
It's not just me who thinks rent control is a stupid idea -- smart people agree, too. In a poll of 211 economists done in the late 1970s and reported in the American Economic Review, 98 per cent of respondents agreed that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." This group included right-wing economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and lefties such as Gunnar Myrdal (all Nobel Prize winners). |
http://daveryanink.blogspot.com/
That is from the first two pages of a google search. I haven't even touched my econ texts yet. |
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luvnpeas
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Location: somewhere i have never travelled
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:26 am Post subject: |
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Your own first source, discussed previously, contradicted the sources you have now seen fit to produce. How do you account for the different result?
"Bad" is not a term that belongs in economics. Nothing in the discipline makes economists experts on what is bad.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In a late-seventies poll of 211 economists published in the May 1979 issue of American Economic Review, slightly more than 98 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." |
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html |
The Library of Economics and Liberty is set up entirely to promote a libertarian ideology. It's "Concise Encyclopedia of Economics," which you cited, is an encyclopedia of the party line. Regardless of whether the party line is correct, to call such a thing an encyclopedia of economics is propaganda.
Note the rather severe lack of diversity in the two-person editorial staff (and, if you are not familiar with the agenda of the University of Chicago School Economics, research it):
| Quote: |
Lauren F. Landsburg... received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago
Russell Roberts...holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. |
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In a survey of 75 of the world's outstanding economists, J. R. Kearl and his colleagues found nearly unanimous agreement on the proposition: "A ceiling on rents will reduce the quality and quantity of housing." |
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-274.html |
You managed to make one source look like two: The gist of the supporting quote here is identical to the one before--they came from the same study. The Cato Institute does some good stuff, but it is no more neutral in this debate than your last source.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
all hidden in the rent control proposal�s fine print. Rent control will also hurt the city generally � as virtually all economists agree |
http://www.spoa.com/pages/victory2.htm |
Just because a landlord association says so doesn't make it so. Nice source. I wonder what the New York Coalition for Affordable Housing has to say on the topic.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
That�s why the overwhelming majority of economists � even economists of the Left � agree that rent-control laws are flawed. Indeed, their effects on a city�s housing stock are always devastating. |
http://www.lewrockwell.com/bresiger/bresiger20.html |
So, he says what you say. The point was to provide a reason to believe it, not a list of people who believe it.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In a poll of 211 economists done in the late 1970s and reported in the American Economic Review, 98 per cent of respondents agreed that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." This group included right-wing economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and lefties such as Gunnar Myrdal (all Nobel Prize winners). |
http://daveryanink.blogspot.com/ |
That was word-for-for-word identical to your first source. So now you've made one source look like three.
You have exactly one source here (from a study done thirty years ago). The result is not that economists agree "rent control is bad" but that it reduces the quantity and quality of housing.
You might bother to ask yourself why renters in New York consistently favor this reduction in the "quantity and quality" of their housing. What does a reduction in "quality" mean in this context, when safety codes are enforced? Could it mean a reduction in luxury apatments, as opposed to mundane affordable ones? In Manhattan, that reduction is what makes it possible for people who don't earn six-figures to live in Manhattan, which in turn contributes to the diversity and vitality of the area.
Are economists experts on the value of increasing the diversity of income levels in a neighborhood? No, they aren't. That isn't their discipline. Are economists experts on what is good or bad? No, they aren't. That isn't their discipline.
I don't favor rent control. But, it is silly to say economists agree that rent control is bad. If true, it is irrelevant: economists aren't experts on good and bad. But it isn't true. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:11 am Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| I was quite surprised to see that even places like Wal-Mart and Arbys were employing people with zero English ability and who who were obviously undocumented. |
Not being able to speak English doesn't mean they're illegals. What evidence do you have that main stream corporate American businesses are employing so many illegal aliens in traditional minimum wage jobs? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:46 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| BJWD wrote: |
| I was quite surprised to see that even places like Wal-Mart and Arbys were employing people with zero English ability and who who were obviously undocumented. |
Not being able to speak English doesn't mean they're illegals. What evidence do you have that main stream corporate American businesses are employing so many illegal aliens in traditional minimum wage jobs? |
The girl at RW was asked, and said she wasn't legal. The others, I don't know. It is an assumption. But an informed one. As someone who is about 25% into his attempt to immigrate to the USA, I think it quite silly that someone could even suggest that a person without English ability could navigate this bureaucratic nightmare. And even if there are one or two who did, I seriously I came in contact with all of them in a few weeks in Miami.
Last edited by thepeel on Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:08 am; edited 2 times in total |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:49 am Post subject: |
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| luvnpeas wrote: |
Your own first source, discussed previously, contradicted the sources you have now seen fit to produce. How do you account for the different result?
"Bad" is not a term that belongs in economics. Nothing in the discipline makes economists experts on what is bad.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In a late-seventies poll of 211 economists published in the May 1979 issue of American Economic Review, slightly more than 98 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." |
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentControl.html |
The Library of Economics and Liberty is set up entirely to promote a libertarian ideology. It's "Concise Encyclopedia of Economics," which you cited, is an encyclopedia of the party line. Regardless of whether the party line is correct, to call such a thing an encyclopedia of economics is propaganda.
Note the rather severe lack of diversity in the two-person editorial staff (and, if you are not familiar with the agenda of the University of Chicago School Economics, research it):
| Quote: |
Lauren F. Landsburg... received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago
Russell Roberts...holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago. |
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In a survey of 75 of the world's outstanding economists, J. R. Kearl and his colleagues found nearly unanimous agreement on the proposition: "A ceiling on rents will reduce the quality and quantity of housing." |
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-274.html |
You managed to make one source look like two: The gist of the supporting quote here is identical to the one before--they came from the same study. The Cato Institute does some good stuff, but it is no more neutral in this debate than your last source.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
all hidden in the rent control proposal�s fine print. Rent control will also hurt the city generally � as virtually all economists agree |
http://www.spoa.com/pages/victory2.htm |
Just because a landlord association says so doesn't make it so. Nice source. I wonder what the New York Coalition for Affordable Housing has to say on the topic.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
That�s why the overwhelming majority of economists � even economists of the Left � agree that rent-control laws are flawed. Indeed, their effects on a city�s housing stock are always devastating. |
http://www.lewrockwell.com/bresiger/bresiger20.html |
So, he says what you say. The point was to provide a reason to believe it, not a list of people who believe it.
| BJWD wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In a poll of 211 economists done in the late 1970s and reported in the American Economic Review, 98 per cent of respondents agreed that "a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available." This group included right-wing economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and lefties such as Gunnar Myrdal (all Nobel Prize winners). |
http://daveryanink.blogspot.com/ |
That was word-for-for-word identical to your first source. So now you've made one source look like three.
You have exactly one source here (from a study done thirty years ago). The result is not that economists agree "rent control is bad" but that it reduces the quantity and quality of housing.
You might bother to ask yourself why renters in New York consistently favor this reduction in the "quantity and quality" of their housing. What does a reduction in "quality" mean in this context, when safety codes are enforced? Could it mean a reduction in luxury apatments, as opposed to mundane affordable ones? In Manhattan, that reduction is what makes it possible for people who don't earn six-figures to live in Manhattan, which in turn contributes to the diversity and vitality of the area.
Are economists experts on the value of increasing the diversity of income levels in a neighborhood? No, they aren't. That isn't their discipline. Are economists experts on what is good or bad? No, they aren't. That isn't their discipline.
I don't favor rent control. But, it is silly to say economists agree that rent control is bad. If true, it is irrelevant: economists aren't experts on good and bad. But it isn't true. |
As someone who studies economics at the graduate level, I salivate at the opportunity to drag some lowly leftist English teacher through the mud on this. So, instead of you questioning my sources, why don't you show evidence that my statement "virtually all economists think rent-control is bad" is wrong.
This idea that you have, that they don't make value judgments, is just absurd. Simply absurd. A shortage in housing is bad, and even the most cold of people (like myself) will admit that to be the case. I've never met an economist, or person knowledgeable in the mechanics of a market economy, in my life who would advocate rent-control. It is laughable. The idea that they won't make a difference between right and wrong or good and bad is just retarded.
| Quote: |
You might bother to ask yourself why renters in New York consistently favor this reduction in the "quantity and quality" of their housing. |
Give me a source that "renters in New York" think this. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:23 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| It is an assumption. But an informed one. As someone who is about 25% into his attempt to immigrate to the USA, I think it quite silly that someone could even suggest that a person without English ability could navigate this bureaucratic nightmare. And even if there are one or two who did, I seriously I came in contact with all of them in a few weeks in Miami. |
But beyond assumptions that people who don't speak English are likely illegals, do you have evidence major American corporations are hiring illegals for minimum wage jobs? And what good would that do them? Or are you suggesting they're paying below minimum wage?
Last edited by mindmetoo on Tue Feb 20, 2007 4:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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luvnpeas
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Location: somewhere i have never travelled
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| BJWD wrote: |
| As someone who studies economics at the graduate level, I salivate at the opportunity to drag some lowly leftist English teacher through the mud on this. |
Drooling does seem in character for you. I'm libertarian. That's why I said I oppose minimum wage and rent control. You have to understand the topic before you can say something intelligent about it.
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| So, instead of you questioning my sources, why don't you show evidence that my statement "virtually all economists think rent-control is bad" is wrong. |
Suddenly I feel like I am talking to Junior about Creationism. You share the idea that intelligent contribution to debate consists of making up what you want to believe and demanding that others refute it.
You've done a good job refuting yourself. Your first source said economists disagree consistently on moral matters (you tried to twist it to say otherwise). Your second source didn't say "bad." It left a key term undefined, was thirty years old, didn't specify the kind of rent control under discussion, and obviously had been read by you only in secondary sources all of which were right-wing libertarian think-tanks and bloggers (and a landlord association).
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| This idea that you have, that they don't make value judgments, is just absurd. Simply absurd. |
Because you say so.
Actually, the main point was that economists are not experts on value judgements. Therte is no reason to take an economists definition of "bad" over your own. But, most economists probably know their limits, and don't go around writing peer-reviewed articles arguing that things are "bad."
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| A shortage in housing is bad, |
Simplistic. If you are poor, a 50% reduction in luxury homes for the sake of a 30% increase in affordable ones is good.
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| It is laughable. The idea that they won't make a difference between right and wrong or good and bad is just retarded. |
I bet a lot of your favorite economists write peer-reviewed articles calling it "retarded."
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| You might bother to ask yourself why renters in New York consistently favor this reduction in the "quantity and quality" of their housing. |
Give me a source that "renters in New York" think this. |
Nah, you're worth ignoring. You don't even apply your own standards to yourself: Demanding I prove your claims wrong, and demanding I prove my claims right. I'm not really into doing a lot of work to talk to someone whose mind is closed.
Cheers! |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:57 am Post subject: |
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BJWD,
Your claim that "economists agree" is like saying "weathermen agree" . Yes, they do agree at times, but the reality is always much more multi faceted and depending on "where you are standing". There are always many many more weathermen of unprofessed ilk, saying so.
Facts matter but only to a certain extent. That is the fallacy and weakness of your arguement. The greatest economists were always those with reservations, always those with non claiming statements who bowed to the weather of human nature and the proximate and dynamic "virtues" (yes, it is a virtue) of human action.
Your thoughts otherwise only make me suggest that you will make one more (of many) poor economist.
Note the difference maybe of Herodotus vs Thucydides for further thought regarding this matter of become a "learned ignoramus" as so many economists surely are.
Reminds me of the guy at the card table always knowing everyone else's hands (but we are never sure, if he called it right) and always losing money......
DD |
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