Brad DeLong wrote:
> > >A good question. Could this have anything to do with the fact that the US
> > >left is more of a bunch of idealistic, individualistic, and romantic
> > >hotheads than a well organized bread-and-butter social-democratic party?
> > Nicely put...
Dennis Breslin:
> Ehrenreich's been around for a good long time so a sidehand sweep here
> is way wide the mark. DeLong's review also misses the mark, as if
> some wonky-type wielding too much theory decided that people's
> experience couldn't matter since on paper there's just so many
> gov't programs and agencies looking out for the public's
> interest. I'd wager from the vantage point of where Ehrenreich
> was working, gov't is all DMV and cops in radar traps.
Well, there's the famed minimum wage. However, as I see it, raising the minimum wage simply changes the value of the money. (Labor theory of value.) In practice, when the relatively poor start to get more money, the better-off, who have more power than they do, can be expected simply charge them and each other more until the wage change is absorbed by inflation. And this is what we seem to observe. It seems like a cruel joke, in fact, but "only the poor will suffer, and they're used to it."