Billionaire goes rogue, admits policy not schools destroyed middle class

https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/billionaire-goes-rogue-admits-public-policy-not-public-schools-destroyed-middle-class.html

by hhs • 7 years ago

55 32 7 years ago

inc.com

tyree731• 7 years ago

"Billionaire gives opinion on causes of poverty"

I'm not sure what this person is admitting other than than their own opinion. For example, it is incredibly debatable that raising the minimum wage would improve the livelihood of low income workers, as those workers could end up trading underemployment for unemployment.

This just reads like a progressive opinion piece, which is fine, except it postures itself as the truth revealed. I'd downvote it if I could.

mi100hael• 7 years ago

Billionaire says something people disagree with

"That's just the ramblings of a greedy, out-of-touch asshole who should be taxed down to 0 to atone for their sins."

Billionaire says something people agree with

"Our idea is validated! Someone who is very rich and successful concurs!"

deogeo• 7 years ago

Journalists wouldn't waste so much ink - just use 'claims' for one, and 'admits' for the other.

PhasmaFelis2• 7 years ago

It's easier to trust someone who's speaking against their own interests.

hhs• 7 years ago

I also agree that it's incredibly debatable. Though, please note that there was a Bloomberg piece earlier this year [0] that claimed that 'higher minimum wages haven't increased unemployment', based on a research paper [1].

Of course, one paper isn't enough; I'm willing to learn if there's contradictory evidence out there, too.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-24/u-s-ec...

[1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w25434

itp• 7 years ago

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-...

Doubly applicable in this case, as it talks about the perils of a single study _and_ discusses this in the context of minimum wage research.

kbenson• 7 years ago

It's a weird piece. It presents as something more akin to the interlinking blog sites that just link to other blog articles (but at least some of these links are to reputable organizations), but that style doesn't do much to actually impart information to the reader. Laying some basis of what to expect in what is being linked to helps quite a bit, but this article is too lazy to do so.

Combined with overreaching assertions, the whole article just makes me feel like they're trying to manipulate me in a ham-handed way. And I'm someone receptive to this argument! I can imagine anyone that already hold beliefs otherwise immediately ignoring it.

fzeroracer• 7 years ago

I don't really think it's that debatable because the issue of minimum wage is a smokescreen. It hides the fact that the minimum wage simply isn't livable for a large amount of the population.

If you raise the minimum wage and it results in unemployment, then that's a clear indication that the only reason the jobs existed was to exploit workers that couldn't meaningfully survive off that wage. Which means we need some sort of other societal solution to solve the problem of jobs being rendered redundant.

Ultimate the intent of working for a living is that you work _for_ a living. If that doesn't work out, then the system is broken.

coldtea4• 7 years ago

For example, it is incredibly debatable that raising the minimum wage would improve the livelihood of low income workers, as those workers could end up trading underemployment for unemployment.

Or that's an old wives tale, and the market will adjust and keep them employed (like tons of countries with minimum wage AND low unemployment), while most low-end job sector bosses will never willingly pay more than the minimum it can get away with.

The same way that if bosses could have child labor or slave labor or company scrip, tons of them would use it (as tons of them did use it, when the law allowed it).

AnimalMuppet3• 7 years ago

Supply and demand (or, more technically, the slope of the demand curve) is an old wives tale? If you're going to make that claim, the burden of proof is on you to show why it doesn't apply in the employment market. Merely stating that it could be an old wives tale isn't very convincing.

mjevans• 7 years ago

I wouldn't downvote it because I believe it might frame a good discussion or debate.

Specifically, while I agree with three of the four solution points, I actually strongly disagree with the first.

  1. Increase the minimum wage.
  2. Pay workers for overtime labor.
  3. Restore labor's bargaining power.
  4. Increase taxes on the rich and their estates.

The first is often stated but is incorrect in the long term. Raising the minimum wage FAILS to increase the long term BUYING POWER of those earning it. Prices for all staples in the economy rise to consume the numeric gains. What raising the MINIMUM WAGE does is destroy the value of SAVINGS and lower the wages of everyone that earns wages rather than returns from investments.

The true way of achieving the spiritual ideal of the first point is to instead INCREASE CONSUMER BUYING POWER by making the 'staples' of living cost less. There are many and potentially controversial ways of making that happen. My own favorite is for "the government" to establish a baseline which private industry is free to compete against. (If they're so much better, they should be able to win; which would be a win for consumers.)

taiwanboy• 7 years ago

I think the venture capitalist conveniently forget that a way to maintain or increase household income......

Is to not let millions of job leave the country in the first place. And preferably not to countries that abuses human rights.

captainredbeard• 7 years ago

It’s the elephant in the room

mountainofdeath• 7 years ago

Economists would argue the jobs go to where they are more efficiently done. The trouble is, "efficient" means pushing negative externalities onto someone else e.g. pollution, lax labor laws, forced labor. All of them condoned and sometimes actively encourage by the ruling regime. Then again, being forced to work in a sweatshop and having a minimum amount of food is better than not working and starving.

You get my point...

Animats• 7 years ago

The US has too much education. About half of college graduates are doing jobs that don't require a college education. Worse, many of them borrowed to go to college.

yumraj2• 7 years ago

This. Not every job or career needs a college education. A lot of college tracks, such as a lot of liberal arts, while useful in the general sense have few corresponding career paths with a resumable ROI for all the debt that those paths lead to.

And, what is worse is that in general there is no, or very limited, concept of on job training. Everyone wants experts who can become productive on day one.

shados2• 7 years ago

The amount of time you hear "I dont use anything I learnt in college, its all about experience on the job!" definitely screams "we need to encourage apprenticeship-type learning over college".

EliRivers• 7 years ago

I wonder if the US economy could change to accommodate all that education. If it could change the proportion of low-education (and typically low wealth creating) jobs and simply have more people working at higher-levels, creating more wealth. Why are there so many low-productivity, low-wealth-creating jobs that don't require higher levels of education (be that college or other), and what can we do about it?

fulafel• 7 years ago

Does this really follow? If automation continues to eliminate low skill jobs, is cutting down on academic education a solution? But maybe it automation cuts down white collar jobs just as much. Anyway,making the populace less erudite feels like the wrong way to go. Unless institutional education is obsolete.

anm89• 7 years ago

Strawmen go rogue, admit billionaires aren't a secret club with homogeneous viewpoints.

neonate• 7 years ago

He has been doing this schtick for years: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=hanauer&sort=byDate&dateRange=...

Zimahl• 7 years ago

Obviously, poor performing public schools don't do anyone any favors. They are filled with apathy from the teachers to the students. Other than that, regardless of what the parents are making, a strong education is a huge contributing factor for upward mobility.

People who see education as a cure-all have largely ignored the metric most predictive of a child's educational success: household income.

This is patently untrue and can be seen directly in several poor immigrant populations that have come to the US in the last several decades. Cultures that put an emphasis on education have had the highest social mobility. The only reason household income is 'predictive' is because success typically begets success. But in higher income areas parents are simply more involved - maybe because they can afford to be or because they put an emphasis on education or they know the benefits of an education. This can work just as well for poor students, it's just more difficult.

orwin• 7 years ago

The actual piece is imho more interesting and less opiniated: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/educati...

Billionaire goes rogue, admits policy not schools destroyed middle class

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