Sunday, August 02, 2020

(Im)moral Hazard


“Unemployment is supposed to be wage replacement,” the Treasury secretary told ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “So it should be tied to some percentage of wages.”

“We want to fix the issue where in some cases people are overpaid,” he continued. “And we want to make sure there’s the right incentives.”

“Do you do think it’s a disincentive to find a job if you have that extra $600?” Raddatz asked.

“There’s no question,” Mnuchin replied. “In certain cases, where we’re paying people more to stay home than to work, that’s created issues in the entire economy.”

Raddatz interrupted by pointing out a Yale study which found that there is no evidence that the $600 weekly payment is a disincentive to return to work.

“I went to Yale,” Mnuchin replied. “There are certain things, I don’t always agree.”

Most people trying to survive on $600.00 a week never darkened the campus of Yale.  Asshole.

$600.00 a week is basically 40 hours a week at $15.00 an hour, without taxes removed.  Or what should be minimum wage.   1.3 million Texans had filed for unemployment as of April 23, 2020.  That's the most recent overall number I can find.  Not all of those people were making minimum wage.

I heard an economist (?) quoted on an NPR story, in passing, saying the CARES Act had given Americans "too much disposable income."  According to some economic theory he was espousing.  Moral hazard, no doubt; pretty much in line with Mnuchin's statement.  My response to Sec. Mnuchin is that we take away his assets and investments and savings, and see how much moral hazard he finds in living on $600.00 a week in unemployment compensation.

These people have to look up to see the soles of the feet of the mole people.

1 comment:

  1. These are the people who lead other people to revolutionary movements that advocate killing all people such as them. Which, alas, doesn't really eliminate their kind of people, it just puts a different bunch of gangsters in power. I wonder how many Yalies were pulling for Mnuchin to have that job on the basis that it would be another feather in its absurdly feathered hat.

    The answer is, of course, to level such people to the totally unaccustomed position of having to survive on the wages they advocate. I think both "business degrees" and degrees in economics should be considered training to be prostitutes and pimps because that's what such people are.

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