Friday, May 13, 2016

Venture Capitalist Calls for $28 Minimum Wage

“People think I am insane, but I would argue that if the minimum wage had tracked what the top one percent made — and it was $28 today — we would have an unbelievably robust economy,” said venture capitalist Nick Hanauer (an early investor in Amazon.com and co-founder of aQuantive), according to Geekwire

While there would be unemployment, Hanauer said “I bet you, it would work out really, really well.”

Proving once again that just because you are skilled as a venture capitalist, it doesn't mean that you know a damn thing about how the economy works.

He is also on an inequality kick.

Via Geekwire:
Hanauer said that capitalism is the “greatest social technology ever invented” since it permits and incentivizes people to innovate, which raises standards of living. But he says there is just too much inequality in the system, supported by broken political concepts.
“We need some inequality in our society, and every human society has always had some kind of inequality,” he said. “It has never been an equal thing ever, and it is ludicrous to think it would, but the question is how much economic inequality do we want?”

If technology raises standards of living, what exactly is the problem with inequality? But, hey. if he wants to send me some of his Amazon stock, I'm a willing taker.

 -RW

7 comments:

  1. Great when you can have it both ways, huh?

    A minimum wage at this level would super charge automation and robotics, leading to productivity increases that leads to higher living standards for those that lost their jobs. Right?

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  2. Do you think he spends $20 for a Big Mac?

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  3. I always like to rephrase things for people that support the minimum wage. Why don't they say,"No job shall exist that cannot produce at least $28 of value to an employer." Or, "no one is allowed to have a job that cannot produce at minimum, $28/hr worth of value for their employer." Of course the real floor is even higher since a $28 minimum wage has all sorts of burden attached to it, making it closer to $33/hr.

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  4. Maybe Michael Malice got to him? See Tom Woods Show 659, near the end of the episode.

    It's a totally sensible policy for any cronyist technology investor to promote. Mandate higher then otherwise labor price floor and this will drive increased demand for automation be provided from your tech investments. "I bet you, it will work out really well" for investors and engineers and anyone else on that gravy train of diverted resources. Just a call for tech subsidies thinly veiled in wage inequality relief plan.

    Lower skilled labor, and all of us who are forced to feed the welfare state, will pay the price for these subsidies.

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    1. Malice is using that evil dirty cash so he deserves what he gets from the low wage earning low math skilled work force.

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  5. As many others have asked: why stop there? Why not $50 per hour, or even $100? Why this arbitrary $15 or $28?

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  6. Hanauer said that capitalism is the “greatest social technology ever invented” …

    In the broadest definitions capitalism could be considered a technology and an invention. But was capitalism invented or did it develop out of normal human interaction? A comparison would be spoken languages. I don’t think of things that develop out of normal human interaction as inventions; wouldn’t everything humans do then be an invention?

    What about private property, is this an invention? I don’t think so. I think of private property as part of human nature, starting with self-ownership, not something that was conjured up and presented as new. Codification of property rights I could consider inventions but not the rights themselves.

    Now if you want to talk about inventions how about inequality.

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