Quote Originally Posted by Johnson85 View Post
That's somebody else's case. My case would be that markets are messy and they are good not because they are always right, but because the worst results tend to get competed away and on average, they get it closer to right, more often, than any other system we have available. In some fields, like sales, high performers get paid more. In other fields, like nursing or teaching, where there is relatively muted feedback from the consumer, there is less penalty for trading quality for lower cost, which means quality in some sense gets "penalized" in how it is paid compered to the value created.

If they can find somebody that meets the minimum requirements and will work for low pay, that is the market worth for the position. If they find it's a better value to pay more for a higher value employee, that's the market worth for that position. There is no set amount at which someone is paid correctly or intrinsic value as to what their labor is worth or whatever. In areas where there are big distortions by government intervention, then it makes more sense to say they aren't being paid their market rate, b/c it's implicitly saying they aren't geting what they would be paid if the government stopped distorting the market. But there are so many markets grossly distorted by the government it's hard to even say waht the market rate is, other than it's the amount needed to keep employers from decamping for other fields. Teachers would fall in this category. I assume nurses would too.

Almost every chart of pay v. productivity I see is comparing hourly workers or at best non-supervisory workers to productivity. Those are garbage charts designed to reach a pre-determined opinion.

Labor compensation as a share of GDP fluctuates over time but does appear to generally be on a downward trend since 1970, although it had a pretty high peak around 2000. That doesn't seem obviously crazy to me or a sign of something nefarious going on in a time frame where we have automated more and more stuff, although opening up trade probably also hurt as well as liberal illegal immigration.
On the first paragraph, good enough.

On the 2nd, I should have clarified high performing/trained workers vs schlubs that meet the minimum requirements that have no experience/training with that employer.

I should also add, they are taking advantage of relocation costs (especially social ones) to pay less for specific workers than competitors are willing to pay. Thus, paying less than market worth.

We also see that companies are willing to pay more to new employees than existing ones, daring the existing ones to leave. Because they know a certain percent of them won't, due to those relocation and social costs. That's a particular problem when policy has driven housing costs through the roof. In effect, we are suppressing pay in general while rewarding workers who don't set down roots. And then we look around and wonder why we have community problems.

I find it funny that you think only the govt can cause market distortions. That's classic hippie con thinking there. Ivermectin all the way down.

"Garbage charts"? Hoo boy. I mean, sure you can quibble with it. But the results are so stark that the conclusion is obvious, and only a hippie con would have the takeaway of "garbage charts" other than, hey, workers are making much less for the same value of work. Pay is suppressed. Reality is calling, deal with it.