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Does Labor Exist on a Supply / Demand Curve?

Does Labor Exist on a Supply Demand Curve

  • Price, Supply, and Demand of Labor all impact each other

    Votes: 29 96.7%

  • Labor is not impacted by Price, Supply, or Demand

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Total voters
    30
UtahBill said:
I have seen stupid employers try to keep pay too low, and equal among non-union workers....their best workers left as soon as they could find better pay elsewhere...
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The keyword in that sentence is stupid.
 
UtahBill said:
I know a few people who didn't attend college, but are paid as engineers...self taught, genius, types....the kind who COULD go out on their own but choose not to....and we all know people with graduate degrees who somehow lack the common sense/good judgement to do things right...
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There's a grant given to college students to use to drop out and start a business
 
MoSurveyor said:
You think all those corporate lawyers who pen contracts are redistributing wealth instead of creating it? Try inter-corporate relations without contracts and see where that gets you.

You think holding companies financially responsible for defective and harmful products doesn't contribute to the economy by giving companies an incentive to produce better and safer products?!?

Considering your talk in other threads your comment here earns you 2/3 ... :lamo :lamo
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:) If you'd like to challenge his data, I'd be interested in seeing you do so. But I'm thinking you may want to make sure you have your ducks in a row before you do... or else... you know... you're just going to look like a fool who is trying to make an argument over something he didn't bother to understand. :)
 
OhIsee.Then said:
So when your top down analysis using top level measurements gives you the answer, then you are confident that the answer is correct. However, if many of your low level samples don't show the same causality and and have a high level alignment you should question the high level analysis.
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Not at all, because examining one firm ignores the entire dynamics of the larger market, its totally different rules.
 
cpwill said:
:) If you'd like to challenge his data, I'd be interested in seeing you do so. But I'm thinking you may want to make sure you have your ducks in a row before you do... or else... you know... you're just going to look like a fool who is trying to make an argument over something he didn't bother to understand. :)
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Oh, did you actually quote the book??? I seemed to have missed the quote marks and reference in your original post.

I'm more willing to bet you posted your skewed interpretation of the facts given and are now trying to pawn your opinion off as authoritative. Or you're pulling a common cpwill stunt by not including other information relevant to the original assertion but contrary to what you want to believe - or what you want us to believe.
 
MoSurveyor said:
Oh, did you actually quote the book??? I seemed to have missed the quote marks and reference in your original post.

I'm more willing to bet you posted your skewed interpretation of the facts given and are now trying to pawn your opinion off as authoritative. Or you're pulling a common cpwill stunt by not including other information relevant to the original assertion but contrary to what you want to believe - or what you want us to believe.
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:) Just to be clear. You are basing your argument on the claim that I have made this up, in the hopes of distracting this thread from the subject which is that labor is impacted by supply and demand, yes?
 
cpwill said:
:) Just to be clear. You are basing your argument on the claim that I have made this up, in the hopes of distracting this thread from the subject which is that labor is impacted by supply and demand, yes?
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I do not believe the post of yours that I quoted has much to do with that issue, either - so who's distracting what???


And, no, I base it on the history you have of interpreting things from your own view then presenting them as someone else's view, just as you did with me (and apparently others like me) in the OP and most likely did with this book in reference to your comment on lawyers.
 
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MoSurveyor said:
I do not believe the post of yours that I quoted has much to do with that issue, either - so who's distracting what???
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:shrug: it' wasn't, really - it was a humerous aside. You are the one who came in here and decided to make an issue of it :)
 
cpwill said:
:) Just to be clear. You are basing your argument on the claim that I have made this up, in the hopes of distracting this thread from the subject which is that labor is impacted by supply and demand, yes?
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And, no, I base it on the history you have of interpreting things from your own view then presenting them as someone else's view, just as you did with me (and apparently others like me) in the OP and most likely did with this book in reference to your comment on lawyers.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: it' wasn't, really - it was a humerous aside. You are the one who came in here and decided to make an issue of it :)
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So you posted off-topic, which was 100% OK, but when I do it it's "distracting this thread from the subject"?!?

:lamo :lamo :lamo
 
RGacky3 said:
Not at all, because examining one firm ignores the entire dynamics of the larger market, its totally different rules.
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I'm sorry. I thought I was clear. Let me clarify this one point. I’m a retired design engineer/systems architect. I was a member of several international standards committees that had representatives from more than ten large companies, some European. Over drinks in the evenings we would share high level issues about how our businesses were being run. We got to know each other and how our companies were really run. These meetings would be held in various places in the US and Europe. My designs would first be manufactured in house, but then moved to an outside vendor. I would travel to the vendors and evaluate their capability alone or as a part of a team. The vendors that I visited and evaluated (and occasionally trained) were in Europe, Mexico, Taiwan as well as the US.
 
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RGacky3 said:
Not at all, because examining one firm ignores the entire dynamics of the larger market, its totally different rules.
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I forgot about my wife that I also commented on. She worked as a software design engineer for two large US companies whose product has made international news lately. She is legally responsible, i.e. can go to jail, if she allowed certain things in their product to be released w/o adequate testing. She decided to quit and took a job out of state but in the same industry until retirement. (We rented an apartment there.)
 
OhIsee.Then said:
I'm sorry. I thought I was clear. Let me clarify this one point. I’m a retired design engineer/systems architect. I was a member of several international standards committees that had representatives from more than ten large companies, some European. Over drinks in the evenings we would share high level issues about how our businesses were being run. We got to know each other and how our companies were really run. These meetings would be held in various places in the US and Europe. My designs would first be manufactured in house, but then moved to an outside vendor. I would travel to the vendors and evaluate their capability alone or as a part of a team. The vendors that I visited and evaluated (and occasionally trained) were in Europe, Mexico, Taiwan as well as the US.
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I understand that, but in order to look at macro economics, you have to look at macro economic trends, cross industry, anacdotal evidnece doesn't really work.
 
RGacky3 said:
I understand that, but in order to look at macro economics, you have to look at macro economic trends, cross industry, anacdotal evidnece doesn't really work.
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However, when the data on macroeconomics is obtained from macro measurements are not in alignment with a large sample of anecdotal evidence one should question the validity of the macro measurements. Also you have to question the motivation of those supplying the incremental data that is rolled up into macro measurements.
Here is another example of micro vs. macro. I was advised to buy a house in one of the many developments in the Phoenix AZ area. The data and experts on home values were indicating that buying a home was an excellent investment. I was advised, a micro sample, by a relator to buy an investment house in an area West of Phoenix as we were approaching Phoenix from San Diego. By the time it was built its price would have increased by at least 20k. With that ‘advice’ I remodeled our Phoenix home and sold it almost precisely at peak and bought a home in Michigan were prices had already gone down. About 3 years ago we bought a 2nd home in the Phoenix area near the bottom of its ‘home price curve’, then another in Phoenix area a year later. Both will sell now for much more. Did we do this with macro data on what was happening with home prices?
 
cpwill said:
Is labor impacted by relative supply and demand? If there is a shortage of trained engineers, will their income go up? If there is a surplus of recent law-school graduates, will their income go down? If we increase the price of labor without altering supply, will demand go down?

In short, is labor effected by supply and demand? Or magically is it the one service / commodity that isn't, just because it happens to be the thing that most of us sell?


Poll is in response to several people that I have seen either explicitly or implicitly argue the latter, that somehow if you increase the cost of labor, you do not decrease demand when supply is held constant.
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It is one variable, but one that is often overwhelmed by others to the point it becomes negligible. The thing is that demand for a product or service among consumers is the most overpowering force in determining the value of that product, and that demand is only distantly affected by the labor demand.
 
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Now, I did vote that Labor does exist on a supply/demand curve however unlike other resources I do not believe it should be thought of in the "race to the bottom" mindset we take when looking at other costs.
 
OhIsee.Then said:
However, when the data on macroeconomics is obtained from macro measurements are not in alignment with a large sample of anecdotal evidence one should question the validity of the macro measurements. Also you have to question the motivation of those supplying the incremental data that is rolled up into macro measurements.
Here is another example of micro vs. macro. I was advised to buy a house in one of the many developments in the Phoenix AZ area. The data and experts on home values were indicating that buying a home was an excellent investment. I was advised, a micro sample, by a relator to buy an investment house in an area West of Phoenix as we were approaching Phoenix from San Diego. By the time it was built its price would have increased by at least 20k. With that ‘advice’ I remodeled our Phoenix home and sold it almost precisely at peak and bought a home in Michigan were prices had already gone down. About 3 years ago we bought a 2nd home in the Phoenix area near the bottom of its ‘home price curve’, then another in Phoenix area a year later. Both will sell now for much more. Did we do this with macro data on what was happening with home prices?
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The dynamics are totally different, one is a collection of corporations selling various products to a consumer pool competing over labor, invesetment and so on, the other is a single corporation organizing production and selling and marketing.

As for your second example that's fine, but when we are talking about labor, the dynamics internal to a company are MUCH different than the dynamics on a macro scale, it the same fallacy as comparing a household to a country.
 
RGacky3 said:
The dynamics are totally different, one is a collection of corporations selling various products to a consumer pool competing over labor, invesetment and so on, the other is a single corporation organizing production and selling and marketing.

As for your second example that's fine, but when we are talking about labor, the dynamics internal to a company are MUCH different than the dynamics on a macro scale, it the same fallacy as comparing a household to a country.
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Wow. Quoted after about 4 weeks. Thanks.
I apparently was not clear. (BTY, I was Chating yesterday with someone about this at Homw Depot.) When macro data is collected easily measured numbers are collected, for example the reduced cost of a part when it's manufacture is moved from the States to Tiwan. What is measured is the purchase price. What is delivered is a lower quality part that has to get additional testing stateside that results in a higher effective cost. When I was meeting with staff from more than a dozen companies we would talk about this. More later. Got to go.
 
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