This may not apply to all care professions, but caregivers for the disabled are dramatically underfunded right now, to the point that many people simply can't get the services they need to live independently.
Could be a delusion, problem is we can't know. If the US remains productive and a preferred destination for global savings then I fully agree, deficits are easily sustainable.
If not, deficits will be a major problem one day forcing us to choose between inflation, taxation, and austerity (judging by recent history we would be quick to choose inflation is my guess, as the elites are somewhat insulated from its effects).
Agree we probably had more fiscal space in recent decades but PCE inflation has been 1.9% pa over past 20 years so I don't think we were too far from the limit.
Current cry against inflation is a political tool by the opposition party (and probably an effective one). I'd expect to hear the exact same from the other side should power flip. Looking at wealth among the elites (way up) vs real wages (flat) shows pretty clearly who is gaining. My guess is that nearly all policy makers are now captured by "portfolio effects" and would be hesitant to push back on inflation if we had to make some tough choices.
"In the real world, people generally prefer salaries to government checks" is it that people don't like government checks, or they don't like their neighbors to get government checks, or both?
1) Does anyone have a view of why large employers don’t provide on site childcare and even in some cases housing for younger employees (dorm style)? Would be a lot more efficient than paying for it with after tax dollars and the economies of scale would be there. I am sure many people would gladly accept the commensurate reduction in compensation. As for housing I am thinking of banks in NYC - surely it’s easier for Bank of America to fight nimbyism by building its own residential dorm for 22 year olds - and what a great retention tool!
Second. I wonder to what extent the rising stress and insecurity comes from better productivity measurement tools. I feel that a decent amount of job precarity comes from being constantly measured and feeling that your “belonging” is highly conditional. Imagine a world without constant 360 reviews, bottom 10% firings, etc. even if in reality it may not be a big impact, psychologically it may well feel differently.
I don’t get the idea of Medicare negotiating drug prices. Negotiating a price assumes the seller can refuse any offer. Is the government really going to allow a company to withhold its drug if it doesn’t like the offer? If not, then the government is not negotiating, it is dictating.
Replacing temporary monopolies with a permanent monopsony. Conveniently for the advocates of this idea, we’ll never know how many excellent drugs will not have been invented.
That's just an assertion. What we do know is that allowing government negotiations work in reducing drug prices everywhere it's tried. Keep in mind pharma companies can just sell the drug if they want, just not paid for by government. A smaller percentage margin of a larger volume is better than a larger percentage of diminished volume.
Of course it can reduce drug prices. The government could “negotiate” the price of anything and reduce prices to consumers, including houses and cars, and whatever product it is that you happen to derive your income from.
Have to find a balance. Tradeoff is between lost lives bc of innovation, and lost lives bc people can't afford the right meds. Yes, there's an optimal amount of innovation.
British government isn't omniscient, neither is the Australian government, or any number of governments who negotiate with pharma companies. So it can work. If was so bad, wouldn't we see better health outcomes for Americans vs rest of rich world?
When it comes to pharmaceuticals, those countries are mere parasites on the market enabled by the freedom of the American system. Only America can destroy the market entirely.
I'm supportive of the government negotiating medicare drug prices, but the current legislation seems like a purposeful attempt to find the worst of all possible ways to do it. They set a price based on other government's negotiations with pharma companies. Then if companies don't accept that price, they tax sales at 95%. I don't understand why we would outsource this, if we want to negotiate prices, why not just do it ourselves. Second, the method here is terrible. If I was a drug company, I wouldn't accept the fixed rate the government is offering, instead just raise prices 2000%. After the 95% tax it ends up at the same place after shuffling money between the government payments and taxes.
Presumably to piggyback off other countries' negotiations, plus a distrust of the US lobby system. Easier to negotiate harder when pharma lobbies don't control a hefty proportion of your politicians.
As for the price rise - ha. Who'd buy them at those prices then?
If it makes sense for our government to “negotiate” prices, it makes even more sense for countries to pool their negotiating power. That said, neither makes sense to me.
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
I'm going to push back very strongly against the idea that paid family/parental leave should be lumped in with care jobs, rather than investment. It's a way to increase labor force participation, especially female labor force participation, across the board. It's an absolute travesty that we don't have it already.
A lot of human capital is lost when parents (usually mothers) drop out of the labor force to care for young children, and find themselves on a lower career trajectory for life as a consequence. As long as it's a matter of personal choice, that's fine, but when that choice is forced on people because of a lack of paid parental leave, it's much less fine.
I agree. It's definitely not investment in the traditional sense, & I only mentioned that because of the binary classification in the post. But it's not a "care job" either in the sense that it has a high likelihood of increasing LFP & productivity.
You'd have to wonder if it's that good, why wouldn't the private sector do it themselves to retain talent? The answer is most likely that they do, for sectors where it's economic to do so. But where they don't is probably the SME side, where you can't afford to have 1 out of like 5 employees not be at work for 6 months.
The bigger difference is between salaried and hourly -- most salaried positions have some parental leave, almost no hourly positions do. And yes, SMEs v/s larger firms.
I don't think 6 months parental leave is on the table at all. What I heard was 12 weeks.
Why do firms not do this on their own? Inertia plays a large role. Also, for a long time, workers have been easy to replace. But one could also argue that it persists for the same reasons that other sorts of discrimination do. There is a documented bias against caregivers.
6 months was a number plucked out, and includes unpaid time off.
I'd agree that inertia is a partial explanation as is discrimination. The thing is that those two things can persist because there is either economic slack or lack of competition in labour market demand. Those things aren't helped when you mandate things that large firms were probably going to do anyway, but small firms aren't.
As for the case that it counts as investment, I'm a bit sceptical. In the long term, are we really saying prospective parents don't take the possible hit to their career into account when deciding to have kids? I'd say they do in the long term. In which case by subsidising it you'd be affecting the decision of those where the decision was marginal, and more people would be having kids where they otherwise wouldn't. Which would be ok if children were public goods - but the US has no shortage of prospective English speaking skilled migrants.
Also a bit wishful to expect such a transformation with a tied Senate and a three vote majority in the House? I was guilty of this as well. But it's hard to be the safe, moderate president and the transformational, progressive president at the same time. It worked well in the campaign, when it's useful to be all things to all people, but now we're seeing the consequences of that contradiction.
This may not apply to all care professions, but caregivers for the disabled are dramatically underfunded right now, to the point that many people simply can't get the services they need to live independently.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/disabilities-caregiver-shortage-covid-pandemic-hcbs_n_6132d69fe4b0df9fe2769ae2
Odd that the bill does nothing to address big problems #2, 3, & 4. Its almost like DC just doesn’t care.
Could be a delusion, problem is we can't know. If the US remains productive and a preferred destination for global savings then I fully agree, deficits are easily sustainable.
If not, deficits will be a major problem one day forcing us to choose between inflation, taxation, and austerity (judging by recent history we would be quick to choose inflation is my guess, as the elites are somewhat insulated from its effects).
Agree we probably had more fiscal space in recent decades but PCE inflation has been 1.9% pa over past 20 years so I don't think we were too far from the limit.
Current cry against inflation is a political tool by the opposition party (and probably an effective one). I'd expect to hear the exact same from the other side should power flip. Looking at wealth among the elites (way up) vs real wages (flat) shows pretty clearly who is gaining. My guess is that nearly all policy makers are now captured by "portfolio effects" and would be hesitant to push back on inflation if we had to make some tough choices.
"In the real world, people generally prefer salaries to government checks" is it that people don't like government checks, or they don't like their neighbors to get government checks, or both?
Two thoughts:
1) Does anyone have a view of why large employers don’t provide on site childcare and even in some cases housing for younger employees (dorm style)? Would be a lot more efficient than paying for it with after tax dollars and the economies of scale would be there. I am sure many people would gladly accept the commensurate reduction in compensation. As for housing I am thinking of banks in NYC - surely it’s easier for Bank of America to fight nimbyism by building its own residential dorm for 22 year olds - and what a great retention tool!
Second. I wonder to what extent the rising stress and insecurity comes from better productivity measurement tools. I feel that a decent amount of job precarity comes from being constantly measured and feeling that your “belonging” is highly conditional. Imagine a world without constant 360 reviews, bottom 10% firings, etc. even if in reality it may not be a big impact, psychologically it may well feel differently.
I don’t get the idea of Medicare negotiating drug prices. Negotiating a price assumes the seller can refuse any offer. Is the government really going to allow a company to withhold its drug if it doesn’t like the offer? If not, then the government is not negotiating, it is dictating.
Monopsony power to cancel out monopoly power
Replacing temporary monopolies with a permanent monopsony. Conveniently for the advocates of this idea, we’ll never know how many excellent drugs will not have been invented.
That's just an assertion. What we do know is that allowing government negotiations work in reducing drug prices everywhere it's tried. Keep in mind pharma companies can just sell the drug if they want, just not paid for by government. A smaller percentage margin of a larger volume is better than a larger percentage of diminished volume.
Of course it can reduce drug prices. The government could “negotiate” the price of anything and reduce prices to consumers, including houses and cars, and whatever product it is that you happen to derive your income from.
Wouldn't put it that way, but if you agree it works, no problem then.
Have to find a balance. Tradeoff is between lost lives bc of innovation, and lost lives bc people can't afford the right meds. Yes, there's an optimal amount of innovation.
No problem, just assume an omniscient government, lol.
British government isn't omniscient, neither is the Australian government, or any number of governments who negotiate with pharma companies. So it can work. If was so bad, wouldn't we see better health outcomes for Americans vs rest of rich world?
When it comes to pharmaceuticals, those countries are mere parasites on the market enabled by the freedom of the American system. Only America can destroy the market entirely.
I'm supportive of the government negotiating medicare drug prices, but the current legislation seems like a purposeful attempt to find the worst of all possible ways to do it. They set a price based on other government's negotiations with pharma companies. Then if companies don't accept that price, they tax sales at 95%. I don't understand why we would outsource this, if we want to negotiate prices, why not just do it ourselves. Second, the method here is terrible. If I was a drug company, I wouldn't accept the fixed rate the government is offering, instead just raise prices 2000%. After the 95% tax it ends up at the same place after shuffling money between the government payments and taxes.
Presumably to piggyback off other countries' negotiations, plus a distrust of the US lobby system. Easier to negotiate harder when pharma lobbies don't control a hefty proportion of your politicians.
As for the price rise - ha. Who'd buy them at those prices then?
If it makes sense for our government to “negotiate” prices, it makes even more sense for countries to pool their negotiating power. That said, neither makes sense to me.
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
-- Enoch Powell
Unless there is something in the bill you don’t like, don’t ruin your happiness over what you don’t get, but be glad for what you do get.
I'm going to push back very strongly against the idea that paid family/parental leave should be lumped in with care jobs, rather than investment. It's a way to increase labor force participation, especially female labor force participation, across the board. It's an absolute travesty that we don't have it already.
A lot of human capital is lost when parents (usually mothers) drop out of the labor force to care for young children, and find themselves on a lower career trajectory for life as a consequence. As long as it's a matter of personal choice, that's fine, but when that choice is forced on people because of a lack of paid parental leave, it's much less fine.
I agree that it increases labor force participation, and that it's a good policy, but economists wouldn't strictly count that as "investment"...
I agree. It's definitely not investment in the traditional sense, & I only mentioned that because of the binary classification in the post. But it's not a "care job" either in the sense that it has a high likelihood of increasing LFP & productivity.
You'd have to wonder if it's that good, why wouldn't the private sector do it themselves to retain talent? The answer is most likely that they do, for sectors where it's economic to do so. But where they don't is probably the SME side, where you can't afford to have 1 out of like 5 employees not be at work for 6 months.
The bigger difference is between salaried and hourly -- most salaried positions have some parental leave, almost no hourly positions do. And yes, SMEs v/s larger firms.
I don't think 6 months parental leave is on the table at all. What I heard was 12 weeks.
Why do firms not do this on their own? Inertia plays a large role. Also, for a long time, workers have been easy to replace. But one could also argue that it persists for the same reasons that other sorts of discrimination do. There is a documented bias against caregivers.
6 months was a number plucked out, and includes unpaid time off.
I'd agree that inertia is a partial explanation as is discrimination. The thing is that those two things can persist because there is either economic slack or lack of competition in labour market demand. Those things aren't helped when you mandate things that large firms were probably going to do anyway, but small firms aren't.
As for the case that it counts as investment, I'm a bit sceptical. In the long term, are we really saying prospective parents don't take the possible hit to their career into account when deciding to have kids? I'd say they do in the long term. In which case by subsidising it you'd be affecting the decision of those where the decision was marginal, and more people would be having kids where they otherwise wouldn't. Which would be ok if children were public goods - but the US has no shortage of prospective English speaking skilled migrants.
Also a bit wishful to expect such a transformation with a tied Senate and a three vote majority in the House? I was guilty of this as well. But it's hard to be the safe, moderate president and the transformational, progressive president at the same time. It worked well in the campaign, when it's useful to be all things to all people, but now we're seeing the consequences of that contradiction.