Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mcg404 who wrote (17188)	2/12/2004 11:27:32 AM
From: gpowell	Respond to of 306849

When someone, with full and accurate information of the available choices, freely chooses to perform an activity, you are not exploiting him or her. All worker desire to make the most per labor hour and all capitalists wish to make the most per unit of output. The wage rate is ultimately bounded by the value the worker brings to the activity and the minimum wage that produces a higher state of satisfaction. The market for labor will determine where the wage falls within this bound. What these workers will do, if they are like us, is they will improve their skills in areas that produce more highly valued products or services- thus their output per hour in dollar terms, otherwise known as labor productivity, will rise. By most measures, the productivity in some low wage countries are less than 5% of the average worker in the US. However, it does look like productivity is increasing and, for industrial nations', converging. I posted previously that wage rates for unskilled laborers are dropping all over the world, even China. Most likely this is due automation and the fact that capital, in seeking the highest return, is being put to work in activities that do not use unskilled labor. What the unskilled labor force must do is acquire some skills, assuming the expected higher wage exceeds the cost of acquiring those skills.