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From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Equality through Reaganomics ?
Message-ID: <39000023@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Nov-85 13:46:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.39000023
Posted: Sun Nov 24 13:46:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 22:06:03 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:inmet:7800672:ISM780B:39000023:000:1271
Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    Nov 24 13:46:00 1985


>>Just goes to show, dunnit?  If all the women stayed home where they
>>belong, there'd be no unemployment.  I mean, it stands to reason....
>
>You are joking, of course, but there *are* a lot of people who
>think that someone who gets a job (a woman, immigrant or whatever)
>*takes* the job from others. On the contrary, anyone who holds
>a productive job *makes* jobs for others. Thus, the more jobs
>for women, the more jobs for *everyone*.

I understand how creating new jobs leads to creating other new jobs,
but just how does forcing one person out of a job due to availability
of cheaper labor create new jobs?  The current policy seems to be to
create conditions of extreme poverty and then lower the minimum wage for
minors.  The economic conditions force the minors to seek work instead
of attend school; the differential on wages gives them a competitive
advantage for *existing* jobs, lowering the cost to the employer and forcing
the higher-paid adult out of work.  Since labor is inelastic (something
conveniently ignored by free market freaks), the adult ends up unemployed,
his children drop out of school to go to work ...

Now in the case of immigrants, many of the jobs they take are so bad
no one else would take them anyway.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)