Minimum Wage - How Much???

You might think this is a joke, but while the minimum wage in many states is around 4725 which is the Federal Minimum wage - and some states are still at $5.15 for certain jobs, a legislator in California is proposing a $50. per hour minimum wage.  

This is treating the symptom rather than treating the problem.  The argument is that the cost of living is very high in California, so we need to increase salaries.  The problem is to increase salaries will only fuel more increases in prices - a vicious circle.

The proper way is to encourage less expensive, starter homes, for people to buy less expensive automobiles, teach people how to manage they money better.  

Now the minimum wage had just been raised recently to the $15 level.  If the minimum wage had been keeping pace with inflation AND productivity - it would probably be closer to $20.00 today.

One of the real problems today is that people expect a minimum wage to be a living wage.  The minimum wage was intended to be a bottom line floor.  The issue is real wages have not kept up with productivity and money is pouring into the hands of corporations, rather than the people who are providing the value.  

As jobs become more automated and workers eliminated, this problem will just become worse.  Are we going to be able to back to the days where a one income earner can support of family of 4?  Probably not.  We need to look at the economy from top to bottom in order to figure out the road ahead.

Some ideas would be universal basic income supplements and tax breaks, redesigned cities to lower the cost of transportation, company supplied housing for their workers,  and food co-ops to feed families.  None of these ideas are without their own problems.  The question is how do you manage a capitalistic system when classical capitalism does not work?

It Ain't Bank Robbery - or is it?

One of the complaints about the recent Trump trial in NY, was that there was no victim.  I wish to disagree.  There were over 200 million victims, people who could not get away with over valuing their worth.

First, an absurd comparison.  Suppose you robbed a bank, say for 1 million dollars.  You laundered that money to invest in the stock market, bought a Ferrari,  and a nice house.  Five years later you cashed out the stock, sold the Ferrari and the house with a cool 60% profit.  You then retuned (anonymously) the million dollars to the back along with $150K worth of "interest" (3% for 5 years).  You walk away with $450,000 in cash. Was there a crime committed?

Second, a more realistic example.  You have a house worth $100K.  You go to the bank and say it is worth $200K so you can do some repairs and buy a nice car.  First - do you think the bank would let you get away with it?  No, which is why I wish the banks would be held as co-conspirators in this scheme.  They enabled people like Trump to get away with this.  Remember, these were the banks that were never punished for the home loan scandal where millions lost their homes.  And we keep letting them do this?

Third.  There is a stanza in Credence Clearwater's song "Fortunate One" :

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand 
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord?
But when the taxman come to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah

So you say a home is worth $300 million, but talk the town into appraising it at $20 million.  Hmmm.

Do you think you can convince the town your house is worth only 7% of market value so you can pay less taxes?  What does that do to all the other people in the town who do not have the ability to sway local politicians?

So you see - the definition of a victimless crime, doesn't really fit here.

I recently found this quote from Johanne Goethe

“It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to every one.”

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections

It works great - Things I have learned series.

 I was lucky to have mentors who would tell stories in order to teach.  One of them was Gary Lee Gahagen, who passed away in 2020.  He was a sales rep for Arburg Plastic Injection Molding Machines.

He told the story about when he was starting out, a seasoned sales rep took him on a customer visit.   They met with the one of the principals of the company who asked "How do your machine work"  Gary launched into a complete technical talk of how we had the best hydraulic systems to drive the screw, which was designed to properly mix and plasticize the plastic pellets to insure uniform molding.  He talked about the design of the clamp which was optimized to ensure even clamping force on the mold so there would be no flashing.  He went over the pump system that was built to save energy and yet still provide the speed needed.

After they left the customer, Gary asked the other sales person how hid did.  The answer he got back was "okay - but you should have said - "It works great"  and then asked "What issues are you having".  

I have come across this many times in Sales.  The salesperson does what is called a data or features dump, without knowing what the customer really needs. This way you can focus on what you have than they need.  

And it is important to realize sometimes you may not have a solution right ten and there.  If you make something up to get a sale, you might get one, but not likely to get more.  Better to do more listening than talking.  Under promise and over deliver.

Thanks Gary

Emotional Denial - do facts help or hurt

Some people believe the election of (fill in the blank) was stolen.  Some people believe the earth is only 6000 years old.  Some people believe the earth is flat.  Some people believe the world is out to get them.

What is the difference?  In the last case, many people would classify that person as suffering from paranoia, as there is a  psychological term "paranoid personality disorder".  

When it comes to flat earth believers, there is a strong case to be made for the Dunning-Kruger effect,

Young Earthers are mostly driven by religious beliefs, that if the Bible is literally true, and it conflicts with science, then the Bible is the default.

When it comes to elections, it sometimes seems like it is a religious belief.  Despite mountains of evidence,  the people will stick to the belief that their candidate was robbed, just like after every close football game, the losing team will point to the officials saying they were the difference; not looking at either team and how they played.

Not being a psychologist or psychiatrist, (although I have stayed at a Holiday Inn at times), let me put out a idea, that we all are guilty of - emotional denial.

As human beings we have a hard time separating the logical side and the emotional side.  If we get too logical we separate ourselves emotionally and lose the sense of empathy for other people.  If we become too emotional, we cannot act rationally and therefore make decisions we might later regret.

That is why there are so many fact checking web sites on politics and science.  But do they have the expected effect?  Do they do anything to change people's minds from their original position, or just cement that position?

I am coming around to the idea that if we associate fact checking with people, that is like an ad hominin attack.  If people see the fact check associated with  a particular person, it is an attack on that person and because of our emotional denial, our position is not swayed.

So at best, whatever form the fact check is, it will have the following effects.

1. Not change those who believe (actually they will look at it as obvious)
2. Sway some of the people who are in the middle (who probably didn't care in the first place)
3. Just strengthen the people who are checked - pushing them further away.

In order to change someone's mind, who is suffering from emotional denial, I think you first have to get to the root cause of this denial.  The person has an emotional bank account, filled with experiences and things that they have been told, by people they trust or admire.  This bank account needs to be drained, or at least put in another account, in order for them to build up an account contrary to the first.

This is difficult.  Sometimes charismatic leaders can accomplish this, if they are not the persons who caused this in the first place.  So beliefs will be hard to break down, and in many cases should not be, as they might destroy the person.  However, if truth is the end goal......I don't remember anyone making a good argument that life will be easy.

Next - possible techniques.

Can we agree to disagree?

 There are several sayings that I do not like

1.  it is what it is
2.  it's not rocket science
3.  then we'll just have to agree to disagree

All of them are cop-outs

"It is what it is", just means it's not worth changing or it's not even worth thinking about.  People believe they are powerless - when they may not be.

"It's not rocket science" is a pretty much of an insult; as rocket science is actually pretty easy.  It's mostly math that's difficult, but there are well known formulas.  This phrase is is usually used in a situation where people are involved; and people are definitely not easy to deal with, as there are so many individual opinions and experiences.  The person saying this usually does not want to spend the time to understand the real reason.

But when I want to talk about today is the statement "we'll just have to agree to disagree".

 I was in a discussion with another person and the argument came to a stalemate and the person said "well we'll just have to agree to disagree".   I said I wouldn't accept that because there was no discussion of the facts in the case but it was rather an emotional argument on the other person's part.  Now of course in hindsight, what I should have asked; was, if this is your position, what would you accept that would change your mind.   If the person had said nothing will change my mind, then the argument was futile; because once a person will not give even 1% possibility that they are wrong, then it's not it's not worth to continue the discussion.  So rather the statement being we'll just have to agree to disagree,  I should have made the statement; that I can't have a discussion, if you won't at least be open to the possibility that you could be wrong.   

Neil deGrasse Tyson has a great quote when two scientists argue: "When two scientists argue, there is an implicit contract.  Either I'm right and your wrong, you're right and I am wrong, or we're both wrong."  (Now there is a 4th option - they might both be partially right - in case they really need to go out and have that beer.)

You might think, well did you offer the same deal in response?  Well let me ask you this question. If someone said the world is flat; would you even debate them? Would you even have a discussion if someone said that we never went to the Moon,  that NASA faked everything?  Would you even continue the conversation?   

Being aware of the current situation,  if someone said, that they had a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you could have a discussion once both plans were laid out.  Since nothing that has been tried before this worked. then other possibilities are open to trail and it is not so much that we agree to disagree but in this case there may be multiple options. Further discussion needs to happen before the better of the options can become apparent.  

If you were to say that evolution is not the best scientific explanation for life on Earth,  without any other alternative reason, it would be very hard to have a discussion.   Now you can have discussions of philosophy on the meaning or non-meaning of life, on the necessity or non-necessity of religion,  or consider the value of a human being,  These are discussions that are of a level above facts, above science or above mathematics, and therefore again different opinions may be valid.   But when it comes to matters of economics, the law of science or of history,  we have to be very careful in staking out a claim that we cannot back up by facts.  

So if you find yourself talking to someone who says "we will just have to agree to disagree" maybe the proper response is "We need to continue this discussion, when we have more time to lay out our positions."  If you find yourself using that saying.......You need to go back and come up with a better argument or more evidence.  Of course the other person could be in a state of emotional denial. To be covered in another post.