Comments on: An immigrant woman’s paradise

By: Sapient

Sapient — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:20:21 +0000

samiam,
that was a sarcastic ‘gotta love it’, lol.
that was a terrible series, but randy was a jackson wasint he?
But that aside, i wouldint trust people to make such decisions, wouldint even trust myself.
for euthenasia i would make it very much up to the individual, as it should be, i would just try to bring about a small change in social values, lol.
for eugenics, i would offer a higher rate for unemployment/dpb benifits for women on the temporary infertility injection and attempt to find other ways to ensure equality of opportunity for children without rewarding the parents; prehaps kibbutz style child rearing and require the parents to pay for the majority of the costs through loans, lol. who knows?

By: samiam

samiam — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:54:27 +0000

But Sapient, who shall we put on the Eugenics/ youth-in-asia selection panel? Randy what’s-his-face, Paula Abdul & Simon Cowell perhaps?

By: kiwinuke

kiwinuke — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:22:00 +0000

Hi bb, what took you so long to bite?

Mostly it gets left on the trees (or the trees ripped up) because there is no unfetterred access to other markets for the apples (especially Australia).

One of the outcomes of the free marklet is that if people make decisions to invest in producing things that it later turns out there isn’t a market for then the investor/producer faces a loss.

By: Sapient

Sapient — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:15:44 +0000

Sam,
it appears your mind has not progressed significantly far to recognize that the ability of workers to demand pay rates is a factor of supply and demand and it appears also that you are totally unfamilar with the concept of a ’supply curve’ and a ‘demand curve’.
Also, working on the assumption that my postulate it true, why would it automatically follow that fruit pickers, nurses, and the like would, under the current system of demand and supply, get higher wages? Are you not aware that fruit picking is a job with massive fluidity and extremly low skill demand and as such the potential supply of labour is almost the size of the entire population given the right pay rate. With such massive supply, even at low pay rates there will be sufficent supply of demand.
Furthermore, since you appear to have no comprehension of even the most basic of economics; the maximal price a employer is willing to pay for a service provided is reliant on the perceived marginal benefit; if the worker demands a wage that is higher than the benefit to the employer of that extra unit of work then the employer will not hire the worker.

Kiwinuke,
Correct, the maximal wage paid to a worker will not exceed the value that is added to the product through their service. The properties of the value-added industries depends on the specific product; if we take apples for example (because processed foods have so many more steps); the apple is produced and harvested by the farmer and workers there of, the workers a paided a maximum of the profit that farmer is able to extract from those apples, those apples may be sold at a market at that price level if the farmer chooses to add on the cost of transportation to venue and cost incured in manning a stall, otherwise the apples may be sold to a company such as foodstuffs distribution; the product is now made more valuable as its market is increased widly without a corresponding increase in supply as it is now accessable to any foodstuffs catered store (new world, pak n save, four square, etc) and the maximum increase in value is what is the maximal rate for the workers. The product is then onsold (at a massivly inflated price) to the supermarkets themselves which brings the product to a wider audience once again and further increases the value as supply stays the same but demand vastly increases and this increase is the maximal amount that will be paid to store workers. For ease of writing I have left out the marginal benefit of each additional unit of produce and work, both of which serve to further lower the maximum rate.

Kahikatea,
lol, we could always gently push the old people towards euthenasia, make it a social expectation; after all, once one has breed children the most useful thing they can do is to turn to dust.
As for the disproportionality of breeding rates; indeed, that sucks, it is the makings of our very own idiocracy and yet a ethical way to make the change illuded me, that is short of seperating child from poverty stricken or stupid parents and bringing them up seperatly whilst making the parents pay the full cost and funding smart people to breed, lol. Eugenics, gotta love it!
Also, for the value-added comment, dont take them individually, prices are set by the value added, the supply and demand, and the marginal costs and benefits of each additional unit.

By: turnip28

turnip28 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:18:06 +0000

Agreed Big Bro.

By: big bro

big bro — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:03:32 +0000

If fruit is rotting on the trees in the Hawkes bay then the 11,000+ lazy sods who claim the dole should me forced to pick it.

By: turnip28

turnip28 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:54:50 +0000

To argue then that we should place trade barriers and impose restrictions on foreign trade or waste money on a buy NZ made campaign only hurts the citizen’s of NZ who must pay higher prices for goods and subsidize those members of society who are working in those industries.

By: turnip28

turnip28 — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:51:55 +0000

If fruit is rotting on trees in the hawkes bay then thats the free market, all labour competes on a global scale, a lot of NZ’rs never adopted to NZ getting rid of Mercantilism, these people never adapted to NZ moving into a global market. In a global market the low skill labour needs to compete with workers around the world, in NZ we have artificial wages created by unions and minimum wages. This adds a much higher cost to producing goods in NZ so the companies move overseas.

By: kjuv

kjuv — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:57:10 +0000

>>our current slightly-below-replacement birthrate is about right.

Perhaps. But when immigration is taken into account we have a continuing increase in overall population. Clearly to attain replacement level, we either have to lower immigration or further decrease our birthrate or, of course, achieve an appropriate combination of both. Coupled with this should be planning for a more or less constant population basis. (That is, no significant growth).
This can be construed as a nil-growth market and, when coupled with a strong move away from ‘planned obsolescence’ to ’sustainability’, there is a real danger of stagnation, not to mention the resultant unemployment in the productive sectors.
So the question is, are the Greens (or any other party) ever likely to overtly support nil population growth? Personally, I think they can, as I believe that a nil growth but dynamic market could be realised under some future eco-economic theory. It is, admittedly, a leap of faith at present: for not only is a comprehensive economic theory required but also it has to gain wide acceptance. And time is running out……

By: eredwen

eredwen — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:48:46 +0000

kahikatea,

> Eventually, Greens will have to face the population question.

A few comments …

A lowering birthrate (and thus fewer income earners and caregivers) would impact only on one or two generations of “oldies” and could be planned for.

As far as that care is concerned, the possibilities of optimum diet and better health care will potentially reduce the need for significant amounts of help for this group, even though they are living longer.

As far as the intelligent women breeding less …

Intelligence levels “tend towards the norm” anyway.