What's your prediction on the Australian Dollar?

[Isochronous]

Can you please explain why the market cannot provide these functions and why you still live here and not one of those countries without any tax ?



Is there any prosperous, civilised country of significance that does this ?

1. I live in HKG
2. Sweden doesn't have free healthcare - equivalent of AUD$30 co-payment to see a GP or go to the hospital emergency room. Denmark has privatized ambulances. Are people dying of heart attacks on the street there because of these modest fees?
3. Germany has no minimum wage. Nor does Singapore. If you want to give the poor the opportunity to get a job and improve themselves, you need to remove the minimum wage.

 

[drsmithy]

1. I live in HKG
2. Sweden doesn't have free healthcare - equivalent of AUD$30 co-payment to see a GP or go to the hospital emergency room. Denmark has privatized ambulances. Are people dying of heart attacks on the street there because of these modest fees?
3. Germany has no minimum wage. Nor does Singapore. If you want to give the poor the opportunity to get a job and improve themselves, you need to remove the minimum wage.

Hypocritical non-answers. How surprising.

 

[whatmeworry]

3. Germany has no minimum wage. Nor does Singapore. If you want to give the poor the opportunity to get a job and improve themselves, you need to remove the minimum wage.

I called BS for Germany no minimum wage.

€8.50 per hour. A higher minimum wage is often set by collective bargaining agreements and enforceable by law.

Some Singaporeans have minimum wage.

None.[SUP][8][/SUP] However, two exceptions were made recently: 1) Cleaner jobs to have a minimum wage of $1,000/month effective January 2014.[SUP][196][/SUP] 2) Security guards to have a minimum wage of $1,100/month effective September 2016.[SUP][197][/SUP]

Let's lower minimum wage like the yanks did and further entrench poverty and destroy the middle class so the one percenter's can get more obscenely rich.

The federal minimum wage in the United States is US$7.25 per hour. States may also set a minimum, in which case the higher of the two is controlling; some territories are exempt and have lower rates.[SUP][221][/SUP]

 

[Infreq]

Fx Currencies forecast poll AUD USD:
week - sideways - avg .786
month - bearish - avg .77
qtr - bearish - avg .7549

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Interesting link to the US minimum wage... reading confirms my suspicions... tipped workers only need receive a 'paid' minimum of $2.13 per hour, with the proviso that tips make up at least $7.25 (and if they don't the employer must make up the short fall).

Not even like they get a minimum $7.25 with tips on top.

 

[Isochronous]

I called BS for Germany no minimum wage.



Some Singaporeans have minimum wage.



Let's lower minimum wage like the yanks did and further entrench poverty and destroy the middle class so the one percenter's can get more obscenely rich.

Germany only introduced a minimum wage this year. Do you really believe that Germany was full of an enslaved class of working poor on €0.50 an hour with no prospect of advancement before this year?

Do you really think Czech Republic; Italy; Cyprus; Austria; Norway; Iceland; Sweden; Switzerland and Finland - all countries with no minimum wage - are terribly impoverished because of it?

Hang on, the average annual gross salaries in these countries are much higher than in those states with an established minimum wage! The average salary in Denmark exceeds 60,000 euros, while in Switzerland it is even higher and exceeds 70,000 euros per year. Finland with an average annual salary of 43,848 euros, and Germany with 43,300 euros, are two other good examples of the higher wages in these countries.

Don't believe all the paternalistic Union scaremongering. The data proves them to be demonstrably false.

 

[drsmithy]

Germany only introduced a minimum wage this year. Do you really believe that Germany was full of an enslaved class of working poor on €0.50 an hour with no prospect of advancement before this year?

Do you really think Czech Republic; Italy; Cyprus; Austria; Norway; Iceland; Sweden; Switzerland and Finland - all countries with no minimum wage - are terribly impoverished because of it?

Hang on, the average annual gross salaries in these countries are much higher than in those states with an established minimum wage! The average salary in Denmark exceeds 60,000 euros, while in Switzerland it is even higher and exceeds 70,000 euros per year. Finland with an average annual salary of 43,848 euros, and Germany with 43,300 euros, are two other good examples of the higher wages in these countries.

Amazing how great those high-taxing, "welfare state" countries become when you want to go cherry picking.

But this is just more hypocritical disingenuity.

While it's true that countries like Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Finland have no centrally legislated minimum wage, they do have very strong collective bargaining agreements between workers, [often local] government and employers that negotiate minimum wages within industries, which are then applied to all workers regardless of whether or not they are part of the unions. They also tend to have very strong protections for workers rights and, of course, very strong social services and publicly funded institutions.

Why don't we pick a few of those low-taxing, financial-services countries you seem to like that do have a minimum wage ? Say, Luxemborg and Monaco. How badly are they going ?

Or maybe we should pick some other industrious, innovative and highly productive countries, the kind every capitalist should love ? Say, Japan and Israel.

Don't believe all the paternalistic Union scaremongering. The data proves them to be demonstrably false.

Now there's some weapons-grade irony !

Unfortunately for all the greedy psychopaths out there, all the data also demonstrates higher taxes, minimum wages and unions do nothing to slow economic growth or constrain prosperity either. The USA's post-WW2 golden years had massively high taxes, regulations and strong unions compared to the last few decades. As you have conveniently shown above, countries with high taxes, strong social welfare support systems, public institutions (eg: Finland has no private schools) and strong unions also manage to not be apocalyptic wastelands.

What minimum wages (and strong workers rights) do achieve is smaller wealth gaps, lower levels of inequality and greater class mobility. Which is why countries without them tend to have wide (and/or increasing) wealth gaps, high inequality, low social mobility, and usually a structurally impoverished underclass of working poor.

Ultimately, if you can't pay your employees minimum wage - which exists to set a floor on acceptable living standards - then your business model is broken. You either need to charge more, take less profit, or pay others less.

 

[drron]

Now come on drsmithy you know that neither argument really has legs.None of your paragon societies feature in the most recent list of fastest growing economies.Neither do the ones you have the opposite view of.Though very few on the fastest 20 growing economies list have strong unions or a minimum wage.But I agree that fact has nothing to do with their growth.
The 20 Fastest-Growing Economies This Year - Bloomberg Business

 

[cove]

If you have a business where you have to cheat someone to make profits then your business needs to be fixed or folded so I am agreeing with dr smithy on this.
When it comes to predicting the unpredictable you cannot always tell when there will be more buyers or sellers of our currency.
You can develop a feeling that a currency is too high and that happened to the Aussie dollar a couple of years ago. I got one right and the other a bit wrong. Fortunately time passes and both are now big winners if I think in Australian dollars.

 

[drsmithy]

Now come on drsmithy you know that neither argument really has legs.None of your paragon societies feature in the most recent list of fastest growing economies.Neither do the ones you have the opposite view of.Though very few on the fastest 20 growing economies list have strong unions or a minimum wage.But I agree that fact has nothing to do with their growth.

I'm not sure why we should expect advanced, well-established economies to grow at the same rate as third-world countries lifting themselves out of poverty.

Infinite growth in a finite world is not possible, no matter how much economic "theory" might argue otherwise.

 

[Isochronous]

Hypocritical non-answers. How surprising.

I give you facts and figures and instead of admitting you were wrong you decide to fling around invective like faeces in a cholera epidemic. You think "free" healthcare is the only thing stopping people from dying when I demonstrate clearly that it is not. I'll declare victory on this point.

Amazing how great those high-taxing, "welfare state" countries become when you want to go cherry picking.

But this is just more hypocritical disingenuity.

While it's true that countries like Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Finland have no centrally legislated minimum wage, they do have very strong collective bargaining agreements between workers, [often local] government and employers that negotiate minimum wages within industries, which are then applied to all workers regardless of whether or not they are part of the unions. They also tend to have very strong protections for workers rights and, of course, very strong social services and publicly funded institutions.

Why don't we pick a few of those low-taxing, financial-services countries you seem to like that do have a minimum wage ? Say, Luxemborg and Monaco. How badly are they going ?

Or maybe we should pick some other industrious, innovative and highly productive countries, the kind every capitalist should love ? Say, Japan and Israel.



Now there's some weapons-grade irony !

Unfortunately for all the greedy psychopaths out there, all the data also demonstrates higher taxes, minimum wages and unions do nothing to slow economic growth or constrain prosperity either. The USA's post-WW2 golden years had massively high taxes, regulations and strong unions compared to the last few decades. As you have conveniently shown above, countries with high taxes, strong social welfare support systems, public institutions (eg: Finland has no private schools) and strong unions also manage to not be apocalyptic wastelands.

What minimum wages (and strong workers rights) do achieve is smaller wealth gaps, lower levels of inequality and greater class mobility. Which is why countries without them tend to have wide (and/or increasing) wealth gaps, high inequality, low social mobility, and usually a structurally impoverished underclass of working poor.

Ultimately, if you can't pay your employees minimum wage - which exists to set a floor on acceptable living standards - then your business model is broken. You either need to charge more, take less profit, or pay others less.

Businesses pay their employees what they are worth - an employee's worth is based on their productivity. If the minimum wage is $15, a business will only employ someone who can generate at least $15 of value to the business. What the statutory minimum wage does is lock out the low-skilled and the disabled from the dignity and opportunity of gaining work experience, and using a modest entry-level job as a stepping stone to something better.

I would much rather we abolish the statutory minimum wage and replace that with a job guarantee combined with a negative income tax so the low skilled can have the dignity of having a job on their CV and get into the habit and discipline of going to work on a regular basis, with a "minimum wage" achieved through the combination of that wage and the rebate they would receive under a negative income tax.

Also bear in mind the minimum wage is not just the absolute minimum figure you can find - it's also the award and the penalty rates that define minimums in certain industries well above the bare minimum. It's not viable to pay someone $40 to pour coffees on a Sunday, or to stand at the cash register of a boutique. No wonder Australian retail is struggling and people prefer to buy when they travel overseas.

 

[footy99]

We still on the Aussie Dollar?

I don't know if I'd go as far as no minimum wage like Iso suggested, but we are miles ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the rate which makes it very hard to justify hiring extra workers who can't possibly pull in enough revenue to justify the minimum wage outlay. It seems fair to say the extremely high minimum wage in Australia is becoming a primary driving force behind unemployment.

At the same time it does provide a high standard of living for everyone employed relative to the rest of the world, which is certainly beneficial if unemployment can be contained.

It's a balancing act. My response would be more in line with not increasing it for the next decade or so rather than abolishing it completely.

 

[drron]

For drsmithy.
But if you go by GDP per capita there really is no relationship between strong unions and minimum wages and the countries ranking.it is alkl over the place.
List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As I was saying it is not just a simple question of Left V Right political views.
Same for unemployment.The US and UK are doing better than Scandinavia with the exception of Norway.North sea oil may just be having an effect don't you think.
So my point stands austerity V stimulus,Strong Unions V weak,Minimum wage V none do not explain the differences.it is much more complex and simple explanations are just that.simple but wrong.

Now if you really want a system which works well why not Singapore?
Many believe that this is due to the system of land tenure that it adopted on Independence in 1965.The State owns most of the land and leases it out.Now you may think it strange but I go along with this.Fits in with our arguments re negative gearing etc.Unfortunately way too many conflicts of interest for us to ever go down this track.

 

[drsmithy]

I give you facts and figures and instead of admitting you were wrong you decide to fling around invective like faeces in a cholera epidemic.

I haven't even come close to "flinging invective".

This is just another non-sequitur. Your "facts and figures" are irrelevant at best, disingenuous at worst.

I asked you to explain why "national security, immigration/border control, quarantine, police, and courts" must be responsibilities of Government (and, conversely, why things like healthcare and education are not). You responded with a pointless non-sequitur about Swedish healthcare and Danish ambulances - right after implicitly condemning those countries as "thieves".

You live in a Hong Kong, a country with both taxes and publicly funded healthcare, that does not fund its own national security (hence, in no small part, the low taxes). Clearly "taxation is theft" and "government should do the minimum - [...] national security, immigration/border control, quarantine, police, and courts" are not at all a matter of principle, simply a negotiation of scale. So any attempt you make to handwave away publicly funded services wholesale is just self-serving hypocrisy.

It'd be funny if you weren't serious.

You think "free" healthcare is the only thing stopping people from dying when I demonstrate clearly that it is not. I'll declare victory on this point.

You can declare victory over as many straw men as you want if it makes you feel better. Simple fact is that countries with comprehensive publicly-funded healthcare have the best outcomes for the lowest costs.

The idea that healthcare is something like deciding between Subway and McDonalds for lunch, that can be left to "the market", is so absurd it beggars belief anyone seriously suggests it.

Businesses pay their employees what they are worth - an employee's worth is based on their productivity. If the minimum wage is $15, a business will only employ someone who can generate at least $15 of value to the business. What the statutory minimum wage does is lock out the low-skilled and the disabled from the dignity and opportunity of gaining work experience, and using a modest entry-level job as a stepping stone to something better.

I would much rather we abolish the statutory minimum wage and replace that with a job guarantee combined with a negative income tax so the low skilled can have the dignity of having a job on their CV and get into the habit and discipline of going to work on a regular basis, with a "minimum wage" achieved through the combination of that wage and the rebate they would receive under a negative income tax.

The minimum wage sets a floor on living standards. If someone can't be employed for minimum wage, that implicitly means they are being judged incapable of generating enough "value" to even justify their existence at the entry level society deems acceptable, which is about as base and grotesque an attack on someone's dignity as you could imagine.

A jobs guarantee is something sorely missing from society for the last 30-odd years of neoliberal vandalism, but it in no way needs to be conflated with inequality-boosting concepts like a lack of minimum wages or flat income taxes.

Here, let's see how you feel about flat taxes: how about a flat tax on wealth (land/property, cash, shares, etc) ?

Also bear in mind the minimum wage is not just the absolute minimum figure you can find - it's also the award and the penalty rates that define minimums in certain industries well above the bare minimum. It's not viable to pay someone $40 to pour coffees on a Sunday, or to stand at the cash register of a boutique.

Sure it is. Just charge the customers more to reflect the additional costs. If they aren't prepared to pay, then obviously they don't want to drink coffees or browse boutique shops on a Sunday that much.

It's amazing how the people who tediously preach "market, market, market" are only ever looking at one side of the register.

No wonder Australian retail is struggling and people prefer to buy when they travel overseas.

Australia's expensive goods have far more to do with importer gouging and the property bubble than they do with people earning barely enough to live on getting some overtime. Wages wouldn't need to be so high if the cost of living wasn't so outrageous.

You don't need to spend much time looking at percentage of GDP going to labour vs capital over the last few decades in Australia (and most other developed countries) to see who the big winners have been. And it sure as hell isn't shelf-stockers at Woolies getting overtime for working at 3am.

 

[drsmithy]

We still on the Aussie Dollar?

I don't know if I'd go as far as no minimum wage like Iso suggested, but we are miles ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the rate which makes it very hard to justify hiring extra workers who can't possibly pull in enough revenue to justify the minimum wage outlay. It seems fair to say the extremely high minimum wage in Australia is becoming a primary driving force behind unemployment.

If you thinking minimum wage is too generous, I invite you to try living on the equivalent of minimum wage for, say, three months.

Heck, just do it on paper and let us know how you'd go in theory. Minimum wage is approximately $680/wk.

 

[drsmithy]

For drsmithy.
But if you go by GDP per capita there really is no relationship between strong unions and minimum wages and the countries ranking.it is alkl over the place.
List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This sort of average measurement has the same problem of using "average" (= mean) wages vs median. It gets dragged upwards by the absurdly exponential increase in wealth at the top fractions of a percent of population.

To use an extreme example to make the point, in a country with two people where one person is a billionaire and the other person doesn't even have enough to buy bread, the average looks pretty good.

You are better off looking at things like GINI coefficients, class mobility, and similar metrics.

As I was saying it is not just a simple question of Left V Right political views.

I am making no arguments about Left vs Right politics. I am making arguments about what has been demonstrated to drive sustainable prosperity and wealth to a wide group of people vs what has been demonstrated to funnel wealth and prosperity to a relatively small group of people.

The greatest uplift in wealth, prosperity, class mobility, etc, etc, etc, in human history came during the few decades post-WW2 in America, and if you (not meant to be a personally direct "you") think that was a time and place of low taxes, little regulation and minimal publicly funded investment services and assets, you're off your rocker.

Same for unemployment.The US and UK are doing better than Scandinavia with the exception of Norway.North sea oil may just be having an effect don't you think.

Sure. Norway was gifted with an incredible windfall of natural wealth and has chosen to use that to try and benefit all its citizens for as long as time as possible. Like adults.

Australia was gifted with a similarly incredible windfall, and we chose to use it to hollow-out the the non-resources economy, funnel massive amounts of wealth to a small number of (often foreign) companies, and get ourselves a couple of trillion dollars into debt swapping houses with each other. Like children.

So my point stands austerity V stimulus,Strong Unions V weak,Minimum wage V none do not explain the differences.it is much more complex and simple explanations are just that.simple but wrong.

You will struggle to find many countries that stay sustainably wealthy, prosperous and equitable that do not have a wide and (genuinely, not debt-driven) wealthy middle class based on strong protections for workers, strong social support, relatively low wealthy gaps and high class mobility.

Or to use Henry Ford's example: I pay my workers enough so that they can afford to buy my cars.

Now if you really want a system which works well why not Singapore?
Many believe that this is due to the system of land tenure that it adopted on Independence in 1965.The State owns most of the land and leases it out.Now you may think it strange but I go along with this.Fits in with our arguments re negative gearing etc.Unfortunately way too many conflicts of interest for us to ever go down this track.

Singapore is an authoritarian state (thus the hypocrisy of the Libertarian "FREEDOM !" crowd using it as one of their perennial examples - kind of like they do with Switzerland and guns) with high inequality, large wealth gaps, low social mobility and a massive impoverished underclass.

Personally, my model country is Switzerland. But that's because I fundamentally believe that people as a whole want to do the right thing - once you have proper Democracy established, and thus have the intrinsic ability for the People to keep the "elite" under control, everything else flows from that. Germany rates pretty highly as well, as do most of the Scandanavian countries.

 

[footy99]

If you thinking minimum wage is too generous, I invite you to try living on the equivalent of minimum wage for, say, three months.

Heck, just do it on paper and let us know how you'd go in theory. Minimum wage is approximately $680/wk.

I did it for years up until about 10 years ago. Saved maybe 20% of it in the latter part when I moved out of the city and got comfortable with the train commute. I don't intend to do it again but it was hardly the worst. Most people do it until they are ~25. In fact, excluding international trips and just going through expenses when I'm at home, I currently live on significantly less than that.

It's generous by all international measures. Every increase makes life a bit better for those with a job and a bit harder for those without a job to get one. It's a balancing act. Given how high it is currently by international standards and increasing concerns around unemployment, I'd be inclined to keep it on hold for a while.

 

[drron]

But then the 50s were also the time of a monetary system still linked to gold.Since 1970s it is purely a paper system linked to credit.many believe this is the cause of rapidly increasing inequality in thw world.
When a reserve bank or fed creates credit who can take greater advantage.naturally those who find it easier to obtain credit,ie the rich.
As for Gini it is also an imperfect measurement.Afghanistan,Serbia and Kazakhstan have similar ginis to Switzerland so they are just as good countries to live?
Cyprus,Slovenia,Hungary and the Ukraine have lower ginis than Switzerland.Not my idea of economic wonderlands.
List of countries by income equality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Employment should also be considered.Singapore's rate is nearly half of Switzerland's.
List of countries by unemployment rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Though Singapore was undoubtedly as you describe it in the past it is slowly moving away from that model and I guess that a majority of Singaporeans are proud of their state now.
Interesting that you bring up libertarians.Dont I remember you using that word to describe your beliefs in the past.As you well know the word libertarian is used for a wide spectrum of beliefs from the Libertarian socialist to the left where I feel you are coming from to those described as right Libertarians who also cover a wide spectrum.Pressed on my basic beliefs I would describe myself as a Minarchist.Definitely a right Libertarian.
List of countries by income equality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The problem is there is no measurement that by itself measures a countries success either economically or the wellbeing of it's citizens.

 

[drsmithy]

I did it for years up until about 10 years ago. Saved maybe 20% of it in the latter part when I moved out of the city and got comfortable with the train commute. I don't intend to do it again but it was hardly the worst.

It's worth considering that, proportionally, minimum wage has become substantially less livable over the last 10-15 years (in no small part thanks to cost of shelter). It hasn't even come close to tracking inflation (especially real inflation, vs the absurd headline number)

Most people do it until they are ~25. In fact, excluding international trips and just going through expenses when I'm at home, I currently live on significantly less than that.

Most people up until 25 are relying on their parents for shelter and food, probably their two biggest and least-negotiable expenses !

I don't know where you are, but if you can live comfortably off $550 (minimum wage - 20% savings), covering food, shelter, transport, clothes, etc, then I tip my hat to you (sorry, can't find an appropriate smiley). I'm not even going to try and pretend I could.

It's generous by all international measures. Every increase makes life a bit better for those with a job and a bit harder for those without a job to get one. It's a balancing act. Given how high it is currently by international standards and increasing concerns around unemployment, I'd be inclined to keep it on hold for a while.

Proportionally it was a lot more generous in the past. A minimum wage job decades ago would have let you support a family and probably buy a house. It is a struggle to see why the same should not be true today.

 

[footy99]

I don't know where you are, but if you can live comfortably off $550 (minimum wage - 20% savings), covering food, shelter, transport, clothes, etc, then I tip my hat to you (sorry, can't find an appropriate smiley). I'm not even going to try and pretend I could.

Cheers for the hat tip! Getting comfortable with the commute is the trick (or better still finding a job outside the city). When you can start looking at places to rent around $300, the rest is easy.