CapelDodger said:
[sigh] No, the short ru in economics is just a few months. We aren't talking about lifespans here.
No; they find new jobs.
I become increasingly frustrated at the outright refusal of some people on this board to learn some basic freakin' economics.
Re: Re: Re: Re: You smoke? You're fired!
It's not, because of competition. The companies who do this only shrink the pool of workers they have to hire from, leaving many qualified workers available for the competition to snatch up.
kerfer said:
It's not, because of competition. The companies who do this only shrink the pool of workers they have to hire from, leaving many qualified workers available for the competition to snatch up.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You smoke? You're fired!
And workers can quit for all sorts of reasons or just on a whim. That you feel the latter is acceptible while the former is not just shows how anit-freedom your position is.
Except employers, apparently.
Or the right to contract, apparently.
Or how people should be able to run their businesses, apparently. I'm so glad you have positive omnipotence in order to be able to tell every single business what has a legitimate bearing on them and what doesn't...
Circular reasoning.
Um, because there's not any actual coercion, except in your own mind and due solely to your fallacious thinking?
username said:
And workers can quit for all sorts of reasons or just on a whim. That you feel the latter is acceptible while the former is not just shows how anit-freedom your position is.
Except employers, apparently.
Or the right to contract, apparently.
Or how people should be able to run their businesses, apparently. I'm so glad you have positive omnipotence in order to be able to tell every single business what has a legitimate bearing on them and what doesn't...
Circular reasoning.
Um, because there's not any actual coercion, except in your own mind and due solely to your fallacious thinking?
shanek said:
Do they? There will always be a job for everyone?
Gee, that must mean there will not be unemployment....
shanek said:
I think your frustration is caused by reality and its refusal to mould to your perception of economics.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
shanek said:
But never the power of money?
a_unique_person said:
The power of money is indeed in large part what allows an oppressive government to grow even further. That's why the people have to be vigilant enough to keep the government from taking any power beyond what is Constitutionally authorized.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
shanek said:
I have decided to allow myself the indulgence of one rhetorical question a day.
Who else besides governments has the power afforded it by the control of large amounts of money?
a_unique_person said:
The only other group I can think of is organized crime mobs (who can really only operate in areas such as drugs, gambling, and prostitution, things that the government has criminalized). Everyone else can only get your money by convincing you to part with it willingly.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
shanek said:
Isn't that an oxymoron?
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
convince <=> willingly
shanek said:
By 'faith' I meant your belief that the market can correct the irrational demands of an unreasonable employer. I agree with you that over long periods of time this can happen, but in the short term things are cyclical as you yourself pointed out. And when things are on the bottom of the cycle as far as employee power in negotiating reasonable terms we do not have a contract being entered into by equals. Thus we have a coercive contract where terms were agreed to under duress. Quit smoking now or we fire you 2 years before you are eligible for the pension plan. Yes, your work is great and all, but you smoke so no pension for you.
One of the things that regulation can accomplish is preventing the excesses that will occur when the cycle is at an extreme end one way or the other. The cycle will continue, but the abuses that occur on the far sides of that cycle can be tempered.
You claimed that the cycle was cyclical and generally corrects itself quickly, but government often prevents a rapid correction. Whether or not we should have sweeping government reform is outside the scope of this discussion. My point was that your theories on how the cycle would work were qualified by saying government screws the cycle up. OK, but that is the reality and as long as it is the reality employees will typically be the ones getting the short end of the stick when it comes to negotiating power. Hence the need for protections of the weaker party against coercive tactics.
Depends on the economy and the employment market. Viewed on a macro scale this is usually true, but it does nothing to prevent an employer in an employer's market from coercing employees into accepting absurd demands. You keep looking at things from a macro level over time instead of dealing with the fact that at the micro level there are all sorts of situations where the employer has far more negotiating power than the employee. Your admission that this is a cyclical trend demonstrates that the weaker party requires protection from the stronger party when this imbalance is present. That is what regulations are for.
It isn't freedom when the choice is coerced by a stronger party.
What I have said, multiple times, is that employment is rarely an agreement reached by two parties of equal negotiating strength. If it is an employee market the employee can demand higher pay or additonal perks. If it is an employer's market the employer can pay less and ofter fewer benefits and perks. This is natural and as it ought to be.
However when the power imbalance is such that a company can begin making demands upon the employee that have nothing to do with the actual employment (stop smoking, vote as we say etc.) with no ill effects there exists an imbalance that can only be corrected via a union or government regulation. The market isn't going to prevent this kind of tyranical behavior from occuring to people in the short term. Unions and government regulations are not perfect solutions, but neither is a market that screws people over in the short term but says "Don't worry about it, it will all work out in the end."
I will be out of town today so don't expect a reply until tonite or tomorrow.
username said:
It's not a belief, either. It's an observation. It happens.
Of course...but the cycles go just as much one way as they do the other.
I would urge you to read Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. There's a free online copy here:
http://www.fee.org/~web/Economics in One Lesson/Economics In One Lesson.pdf
Those regulations will without any doubt have detrimental effects that do inhibit the long run economy. You'd be cutting off your hand to save a finger.
No, this is a fallacy as well: government made the problem so we need more government as a solution. The solution is to get rid of the government policies that created the problem in the first place.
Actually, competition among employers does exactly that. You also have the free market effect we have seen here in this very thread: people, learning about the company doing this, will begin to speak out against the company and people will stop doing business with them as a result.
Look at Denny's. A number of years ago, a couple of their stores came under fire for giving bad service to black people. There was an outcry, and Denny's immediately acted to clarify their nondiscrimination policy and to fire the people responsible. All because of negative public backlash.
No, regulations are for protecting big companies from competition by smaller companies who can't absorb the costs of compliance.
It isn't. No one's forcing anything. They don't own the job, and they aren't owed the job.
shanek said:
Wrong.
There is nothing willingly about it.
When you (and I am speaking generally here) are convinced of something, you are persuaded by the validity of the argument. You are not persuaded because you want it to be valid.
But I can understand why you (as in "you, shanek") see it this way. It fits neatly with how you argue in general: You are only persuaded by an argument when you want it to be valid. Whether it really is valid or not is irrelevant to you.
treble_head
Cupcake Loser Moron
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Here's how this boils down for me. If I sign a written statement that says I will not smoke during my employment at my place of work, that is one thing. If the govornment makes smoking illegal, that is the same. Neither has happened for me, and if one of those two things happens, I will seriously consider quiting. However, If I smoke a cigarette after sex and am fired the next day, I will have some very serious thoughts about living where I live.
I make it a point to not smoke in restaurants that even have smoking sections. I smoke in my own home on my own time. The company I work for has benifits for non-smokers, and I certainly won't lie on an application to try to get that break. I certainly feel I should be able to do whatever legal activity I wish on my own time in my own space.
I don't believe in banning fat people from work, because they choose to eat more than they might. I should not necessarily agree that smoking is a right, but under our current laws, it is. Change the laws or let people do what is fully legal. That's all I ask.
I make it a point to not smoke in restaurants that even have smoking sections. I smoke in my own home on my own time. The company I work for has benifits for non-smokers, and I certainly won't lie on an application to try to get that break. I certainly feel I should be able to do whatever legal activity I wish on my own time in my own space.
I don't believe in banning fat people from work, because they choose to eat more than they might. I should not necessarily agree that smoking is a right, but under our current laws, it is. Change the laws or let people do what is fully legal. That's all I ask.
shanek said:
Sure, just like the punitive taxation of smokers where things have gotten so out of hand that NewYorkers have been unwittingly buying their smokes from Hezbollah in order to avoid all the taxes. The public 'outcry' against this unfair targeting of smokers has certainly put an end to this practice. Not.
Rather that beat our heads against a wall on this issue I think we should simply agree to disagree.
You believe the market will correct the unreasonable demands against smokers. I don't. I don't think this practice effects enough people directly to result in any correction.
You believe that even in a tight employment market both employer and employee have equal negotiating power. I don't.
I don't believe there is anything more to be said.
Thank you for you time and thank you for keeping things civil.
username said:
I don't know how unwitting you can say that is. They certainly know they're buying their cigarettes on the black market. I would also say there is all the difference in the world between free market competition and the government criminalizing something that isn't a real crime and the black market coming in to fill the void.
Well, I have shown you the economic principles, and I have given real-world examples. Perhaps instead of just "agreeing to disagree," you could come up with a rebuttal? Refute the economic argument, and provide real-world examples of it not happening as I say? Your example above is unsuitable since, as I said, it's about a government and a black market, not the free market.
I just don't see it as being black-and-white as you do. There are cases where it's equal, there are cases where it's favored on one side or the other. Even with a market phase that favors the employers, that doesn't mean there aren't employees who have the upper hand, and vice-versa.
And guess what? That's true with everything. It's true with buying cars or groceries, with investing in stocks, any time you have a human interaction. We can lament the fact that life isn't fair, but we also need to acknowledge that the more we use force to try and make it fair, the less free we make it.
And in any economic situation, there's always strength in numbers. If something really is a problem, they should be able to get enough people on their side to make a difference.
There are options other than government intervention. And those options don't have the perverse negative consequences that government intervention always does.
No problem.
shanek said:
The fact the employees working for a company who presumably were good workers have been fired for smoking on their own time makes my argument.
The fact that right now there are employees who have to submit to testing to determine if they smoke a legal product or they lose their job makes my argument.
As I said previously, I don't disagree that over the long haul the market may be able to correct for things like this, at least partially.
The problem is that while we are waiting for the market to take corrective action people have lost their jobs for a reason that is not at all related to any legitimate business of the employer. Now, you might quibble over who determines what is or isn't reasonable, but someone in this thread gave a real world example of an employer firing an employee for not voting the way the employer wanted and the courts upheld the right of the employer to fire the employee for that reason. I don't consider that reasonable as nobody, employer or otherwise, has any legitimate right to control how one votes.
As long as we have a market that allows for even one person to lose their job for no cause related to the business the market isn't sufficient as far as I am concerned. Fire someone because they aren't needed, due to poor performance of their responsibilities or whatever. That is fine just so long as the employee isn't being discriminated against for something that isn't the employer's business. I have even said I support the right of an employer to prohibit smoking on their property or while the employee is on the clock. Totally the employer's right. It is also the employer's right to mandate the employee wear pink spandex while on the job, but what the employee wears at home isn't the employer's business.
I think the employee's right to privacy trumps the employer's right to hire/fire at will in these cases.
I agree, there may be some employees in some sectors that have the upper hand while the reverse is true in other sectors, but you keep looking at this in a macro sense while I am looking at it in a micro sense.
I believe the market forces are able to handle abuses on a macro level, but often not on a micro level. To me it is too much for even one person to lose their job due to a tyranical employer who makes their employee's private business their ilegitimate business.
I agree government regulation can have perverse consequences. However what other option is their for the employee fired for smoking on his own time? There are no labor laws protecting him therefore the courts will not rule in his favor and I don't see there being any public revolt, particularly since it is fashionable to be intolerant of smokers these days.
The fact that people continue to shop at Walmart demonstrates that people are about price over principle so I don't see any help for the fired employees other than government regulation.