One Sided Conversations On Huffington Post

I've recently taken to dropping comments on articles that I read on the web.  Yesterday, I couldn't resist sounding off on this Huffington Post article, Republican Rhetoric vs Reality, by Charles Schumer, Senator from New York.  Said Senator Schumer,

Democrats are encouraged to hear Republicans co-opting our rhetoric on the economy and we stand at the ready to work with Republicans to get things done for the middle class. But only when Republican policy proposals catch up to their rhetoric will we have an opportunity for real solutions.

So, what qualifies as a real solution in the mind of the Chuck Schumer?

Democrats want to raise the federal minimum wage and lower the cost of tuition. The President was right to think boldly in proposing the goal of free community college.

Raising the minimum wage, and proposing yet another government subsidy.  How bold.  The cost of a college education has never been higher thanks to the various subsidies and student loan programs.  So now the idea is to put community colleges out of reach too.  Great ideas.

I clicked on the comments to this article.  They are in a default sequence which is by "Social Ranking," and at the top of the list is one by "Top Commenter" Mark Cohen.

Mark Cohen · Top Commenter · St Leo University

Teapublican economic and tax policies have never worked historically and certainly not for anyone other than the already wealthy. However, Conservatives approach it just like many of them approach religion ...it is "faith based" and no empirical facts are required and to say otherwise is "heresy" ...just look at the latest example in Kansas ...

"Teapublican."  And Mark Cohen is rated as a "Top Commenter."  We have a clue into the philosophical leanings at the Huffington Post.  Not that we needed one. 

It's a pretty typical left-wing argument.  Broad generalities.  No mention of which policies and how it is they never worked.  Never in history, mind you.  And alas, with no "empirical facts" in support of of what he said.  I thought I'd respond by bringing up an inconvenient fact about a favorite policy of the Democrats, so I posted this in reply:

Tom Bowler · Works at Retired

Mark Cohen, speaking of economic and tax policies, have you checked with the employees of Borderland Books in San Francisco to see how that minimum wage hike is working out? http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/borderlands-books-in-sf-announces-closure-cites-minimum-wage-increase/Content?oid=2918723

According to the story linked in my comment, Borderlan Books, a local San Francisco book store, announced that it would close after San Francisco voters approved a minimum wage increase from $11.05 to $15.00.  Borderland was already struggling against competition from online book sales and the trend towards ebooks.  The minimum wage boost was the final straw.  Borderland's owner, Alan Beatts, said the store would have to increase sales by at least 20 percent just to stay afloat.  He considered it an unrealistic target.

Later on I went back to see if there was a reply to my reply and found that Mr. Cohen had posted this :

Mark Cohen · Top Commenter · St Leo University

Tom Bowler They may blame the minimum wage but the real reason is ,sadly, local bookstores have had serious problems for years mostly from the huge chains and online.

Show where historically when we have raised the minimum wage it has actually hurt employment...hint: it doesn't. Since the 1930's employers have poor mouthed about it and making threatening noises but the fact is more money in more hands creates more aggregate demand and boosts the economy. Whereas more in the hands of a tiny few does nothing of substance. Of course, that is where Conservatives then throw up "trickle down" but ,once again, that has never worked unless regulations or unions force it...

Show where raising the minimum wage hurt employment?  That's what I just did. 

I composed a reply, which took a while, since it was a long comment that needed proof reading and corrections.  I used Open Office Writer rather than trying to compose on the web site, then I copied what I wrote from Writer and pasted it into the Huffington comment box.  When I posted it, I noticed that only the first part of it was shown along with a "more" link to reveal the rest of it.  I clicked on the "more" link to confirm that the full comment made it in there.  It did.   I clicked on the X to close the Writer window, and when it asked "Save," "Discard" or "Cancel" I thought, oh what the hell, I'll save it.

This morning I got up to see what Mr. Cohen had to say about it.  Guess what!  My comment is gone!  I thought, well maybe it got misplaced somehow, so I tried exploding all sub-threads to make sure all of the comments were shown on the screen. I tried listing the comments in chronological sequence.  I couldn't find it.  I used CTRL-F to search for my name.  My original comment was there, but my final comment was still nowhere to be found.

What could I have said to so offend the folks at Huffington Post?  Well, here it is, essentially.  It's not verbatim because I did some final editing on the Huffington Post web site that I didn't transfer to may saved version

Mark, there is always a combination of factors that cause a business to go under. To simply dismiss the effect of the minimum wage hike because there are other factors is to ignore reality.

Policy makers have learned over the decades that price supports and price ceilings have rather nasty unintended consequences. The memory of gas lines in the 70s convinced policy makers in subsequent administrations, both Bush and Obama, that imposing price ceilings on gasoline creates shortages. So they didn't do it and the market took care of itself. Price supports on wheat in the 50s caused so much surplus wheat to be grown that they were abandoned in favor of direct payments to farmers not to grow the wheat. (We could argue the effectiveness of subsidies but that's another story.)

A price support on labor (minimum wage) is still a favorite with Democrats, even though its effect is to encourage a labor surplus (unemployment) in those jobs. There are union contracts that use the minimum wage as a trigger for higher union wages, and we know that higher union wages means more union dues and more campaign money for the Democratic party, so Democrats are always pushing for a minimum wage hike. It's always about the money, you know.

If things worked the way you think they do, we should be in an era of unprecedented prosperity, what with all the new regulations and that aggregate demand that the trillion dollar deficits and stimuli were supposed to create. But somehow we're not. In fact, we've got these rosy unemployment numbers only because the BLS unemployment calculation ignores people who have completely given up on finding a job. And there are a lot of them.

You can't regulate our way to prosperity any more than unions are going to force it. The way that wages go up is when employers have to compete for workers. In a rapidly expanding economy there is higher demand for labor and employers are forced to pay more for it.

That has not been the state of the economy for the last six years, due to Obama's fixation on higher taxes and more regulations for employers. Which brings us back to the topic of other factors that cause a business to go under. Regulations and taxes are part of that list. They contribute to the drag on economic growth, which is a drag on employment, all of which contribute to the drag on wage growth. Jobs have been scarce and employers have been under no pressure to offer good wages to retain workers.

When Democrats tell you that raising the minimum wage is going to bring prosperity through a boost in demand, it really means a boost in their own prosperity through a boost in campaign contributions. It's really all about the money, you know.

I thought I had a really good argument.  Apparently the Huffington Post did too.

Comments

[Jackson DeBolt]

It is an excellent argument and it represents the reality of the situation well. There is only one weakness to it. You need a fair understanding of economics and some experience to understand it. The Democrats version "raise wages and you get more" is so easy to understand and makes sense in a very simple way that an idiot can understand it. Unfortunately for all of us, life is not THAT simple. Only through an increase in the demand for workers will you see an increase in wages AND a decrease in the unemployment rate.

[Tom Bowler]

Thanks, Jackson. Unfortunately Democrats have been having great success selling their policies to people who don't have a good understanding of economics.

[Razorback]

You were wondering what you may have said that could have gotten you censored on the huffle-puffle post.

Well, for one thing, you DARED question and contradict the denizens of that particularly imbecilic liberal echo chamber.
Don't bother- you can't try civil debate with kool aid drinking true believers, they just cannot be reasoned with. They will call you names, ridicule you, and when that doesn't work, they'll just censor you.

However, I suspect this stung them the most-

"There are union contracts that use the minimum wage as a trigger for higher union wages, and we know that higher union wages means more union dues and more campaign money for the Democratic party, so Democrats are always pushing for a minimum wage hike. It's always about the money, you know."

You DARED expose them.

Heres the thing- alot of folks who have sort of been watching the "liberals" in operation as of late, and who haven't partaken of the kool aid, are noticing something quite terrifying:

These people want a single party rule banana republic.

Its that simple.

Anything to perpetuate their rulership.

Lies, cheats and steals are all fair game for to them, the ends justify the means, and since THEY have determined that THEY and ONLY THEY know whats best for EVERYONE ELSE, how dare you question them in their superiority or worse yet, stand in their way?

These people are not "liberal" at all.

Rather, they are socialists who deem themselves fit to rule the rest of us.

[Tom Bowler]

You got it, Razorback:

'However, I suspect this stung them the most-

"There are union contracts that use the minimum wage as a trigger for higher union wages, and we know that higher union wages means more union dues and more campaign money for the Democratic party, so Democrats are always pushing for a minimum wage hike. It's always about the money, you know."'

This is an argument I'd like to see Republicans embrace during the 2016 campaign.