God will guide fair pay
Ian Harper is the head of the new fair pay commission (which is amazing seeing as we don’t even have legislation on this yet). Anyway, he apparently is guided by God as to how this will work:
“I’ll be praying for wisdom … praying for courage and praying above all that God’s will is being done through this, not mine,” the committed Anglican said.
“I’m a Christian. I believe in God and I believe that God’s will is important to be done in the world. It means I hold very dear to the values of fairness, justice, honesty, integrity in the process that I’ll use to be making a decision with my fellow commissioners.”
Now admittedly he was talking to a meeting of the Australian Christian Lobby, which is concerning in itself if you ask me. The article goes on to say that he believes minimum wages have been “historically high”, that God wants low inflation and good economic growth and that he would be against slavery. Sounds just peachy really.
November 10th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Am I a pastor?
Dang, and I’m fresh out of snake oil.
November 10th, 2005 at 4:21 pm
Want my tithe, Lance?
November 10th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
Nah, I’d just spend it on buildings and programs that don’t work, but which appease the 40-something women who hold the balance of power in my congregation, and who won’t have any sandwiches to make for the people in these ineffective programs, if I don’t bluster on about the tithe for 10 minutes each week.
Spend it on something useful like beer and ciggies, so you can have a good old heart-to-heart with your mates down at the pub.
November 10th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
good-o, I’ll give Johnny Howard my 10% then, so he can puff out the surplus, dole out bribes to grannies, middle-class suburbanites and Tony Windsor, and give HIllsong a bit more dough that should have to gone to Aboriginal communities.
November 10th, 2005 at 11:19 pm
Gods will? How about a simple concept instead “fairness” ie:
able to live a comfortable life while doing 50+ plus hrs a week, anyhting less IS actually slavery.
This man is insane, what the does this actually mean?
Quote:
“praying for courage and praying above all that God’s will is being done through this, not mine,”
God talks to him? I find this a very diturbing concept, being that he can justifiy anything AND give it some sort of
lofty importance to “christians” Learn to think for yourselves people.
November 11th, 2005 at 6:34 pm
2 things re min wages.
The melbourne Age (7/11) notes that the British Low Pay Commission concudeds “in short the rising min wage has had no negative impat on employment.Indeed the LPC says employment has grown in the sectors where the min wagehas had the most impact” (Robyn May).
An economist friend,who as a baptist does not see all things in market terms,writes -”The emerging consensus amongst labour economists generally is that moderate minimum wages are neutral with respect to employment. I do not know which ‘one piece of research’ is being referred to but if it is Card and Krueger it is their critics who have been discredited. The key point is that the size of the supposed effect of minimum wages on employment is small, negligibly different from zero. Theoretically, the sign (ie is the effect positive or negative) is ambiguous. See Richard Freeman in the Economic Journal ~1990 “The Minimum Wage as a Redistributive Tool”; Card and Krueger (1995) Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, Princeton UP; Alan Manning Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets, Princeton UP 2003; any of the Reports by the UK Low Pay Commission (get them from http://www.lowpay.gov.uk); also see (various issues of) The State of Working America, an annual book publication by the Economic Policy Institute, Washington authored by Jared Bernstein, John Schmitt and others (key Economic Policy Institute into yr google); I could go on but ….
The idea that low paid jobs get poor buggers on the jobs escalator in life is mostly bunk. Most low paid workers get on and off the hurdy gurdy throughout their working lives, in a succession of intermittent low paid jobs
For assisting low income families better meet their needs, tax credits are a useful tool as a complement to but not substitute for effective minimum wages. And they cost lots.
Australia has high minimum wages relative to community standards (and also in absolute terms when expressed in a common currency) and we have had for decades. But our unemployment rate is lower than the US; our jobs growth record is second to none in the OECD over the past 25 years at least; and our employment to population ratios are respectable by international comparison - lower than the highly regulated Scandawegians and the lowly regulated US and UK, but higher than the highly regulated Europeans and the lowly regulated Irish and others.
November 11th, 2005 at 7:05 pm
alan,
never have an economist for a friend and always remember it is a noun not an adjective.
Yes the Card & Krueger study has had a lot a study and I believe neither their supporters nor critics wil agree.
Agree that neglible rises in minimum wages will have little impact on employment however as you point out OZ minimum wages are relatively high.
A better comparison is not US but NZ because of economic cycle. Its unemployment rate is much lower.
Minimum wage should never be a redistibutive tool in my view.
I have always said tax credits are expensive but they:
reduce very high EMTRs
can keep incomes high whilst mimimum wages can fall over time.
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:33 pm
Homer, back at number 53 I asked what evidence exists that “people do not spend a lot of time in the initial low paying job. They rise up the ladder as they gain important core competencies learnt on the job.”
Do you have any you can point to?
November 23rd, 2005 at 7:03 pm
Nige, It isn’t something i have looked at recently.
It happened previously both here and the States and I would expect it to contimue.
Another person might have said a persson climbs the lader of opportunity!
The important part is getting the unskilled into the labour force, after that it becomes much more easy.
November 24th, 2005 at 8:31 am
Homer, surely you have records of prior research somewhere??
November 24th, 2005 at 8:34 am
Nige,
if you e-mail me I wil give you the other author’s e-mail address.
He works in the NSW cabinet office so I would hope he may be able to help.
Bec,
I am married and I have to continually clean up the place so no I do not have anything from 6 years ago.
Besides I like researching a subject from the start.
November 27th, 2005 at 1:10 pm
I was reading an article about Delphi Mfg - a bankrupt parts maker owned by general motors and came across this article about executive bonuses, saying:
“Delphi’s Chairman Steve Miller recently proposed $90 million in cash bonuses, while seeking a 60 percent pay cut for workers, renewing interest in a debate that has simmered for years.
For more than a decade, compensation for chief executives who run major U.S. companies has soared more than 400 percent, thanks to the proliferation of stock options, while average household income has risen 12 percent since 1992.”
from: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051126/BUSINESS/511260365
Does Australia have laws that prevent execs of bankrupt companies from taking huge sums of compensation while asking workers to make severe wage cuts?
November 27th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
I hate options.
They either have no hurdle rates or they are so smal to be pathetic.
They are not expensed so they don’t ccome off the profit and loss account.
Only the ‘elite’ of a company get them.
I always vote against them in any company I have shares in.
November 28th, 2005 at 7:30 am
which is why the 5 economists proposals for keeping the minimum wage steady whilst introducing family tax credits is such a great proposal but also costly.
you keep incomes steady have mimimum wages fall over time therefore increasing employment.
November 28th, 2005 at 8:06 am
Kevin, to answer your question re directors’ bonuses - a couple of years ago after a high profile company collapse where the directors had been paid substantial bonuses, parliament introduced legislation to address this. Where a company subsequently goes into liquidation (bankruptcy), payments to a director may be recovered by a liquidator as “unreasonable director related benefits”.
However, to my knowledge no cases have been determined by the courts on the question.
November 28th, 2005 at 8:25 am
Dan - It sure seems like a good idea if it works. I think Jack Welch, former CEO of GE earned over 200 million dollars in his last year at GE - as he moved the manufacturing processes to Mexico to exploit the labor market there.
November 28th, 2005 at 9:13 am
two points.
given what Jack Welch did gor GE he deserved every cent.
there is nothing wrong in moving to countries whose labour is better suited for that process.
This reduces the costs of production enables the godd or service to remain at a low or lower price and thus increases the general standard of living.
I think you will find most jobs are not in manufacturing but is sales and service both of which can’t be shifted to another country and both of which need high skills.
November 28th, 2005 at 9:55 am
well homer, if it is true that you don’t have any access to prior research or references, I would say that makes you a very bad researcher for the following reasons:
- it means you have to do research over and over again because you don’t have records of your prior research
- it means you can’t back up your assertions
- it means others can’t trace your steps to reaching your assertions
most researchers keep final copies of their work and some form of bibliographic database. I find it very, very difficult to believe that you don’t have anything to back up the claims you are making on this blog.
November 28th, 2005 at 10:34 am
Sorry Bec but my wife insists on cleaning up the house so everything goes out after a certain time.
I might add that in labour economics the ‘assertions’ are not controversial and are generally accepted.
I like doing it that way anyway.
November 28th, 2005 at 10:37 am
Ummm…do you not have a computer, Homer?
In my research and as a lawyer I often make assertions which are far from controversial, yet I am expected to back them up.
November 28th, 2005 at 10:52 am
Let me add one more thing.
We were living in a unit. when we moved to our present house a lot of things went out.
My former laptop was ‘destroyed’ one time where I lost everything on it.
As it is I am a paper person and I like to keep my original sources where I can.