Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in On Layoffs

Re: On Layoffs

Mr. econotarian — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:55:19 -0000

I've fired myself, and I've been laid off (along with my wife at the exact same time).

I'm sure I'll be laid off again. It is part of the modern, flexible economic system that keeps us all so stinking rich. Just keep 6 months of cash in the bank, and keep your resume up to date.

Re: On Layoffs

Julie — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 09:15:35 -0000

I was in major debt 3 years ago. It completely ruined my life! Thankfully I found great help and thought I'd hopefully help someone get out of the same trouble that I was in.I am so glad and thankful I did it. The website I went to was www.debtfreesolutionsinc.com. You will be so happy.

Re: On Layoffs

Methinks — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:24:26 -0000

You are obviously a male, because females normally have a deeper understanding of life and what getting laid off means to putting food on the table for their family.

Speaking as a FEMALE, Trumpit, let me assure you that I have no doubt that I would fire you if you worked for me. If, as an employee, you're not pulling your weight, you are costing me money and taking food off my table for my family. So, you will be cut loose like a gangrenous limb.

Re: On Layoffs

vidyohs — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:44:03 -0000

John S.

Great analogy, that's the kind I like, one that can be taken to the street and understood by anyone at any educational level.

Re: On Layoffs

John S. — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:17:06 -0000

As one of the commenters there pointed out, Don was followed by a woman who totally disagreed with him, but then proceeded to make his point beautifully: she said her own financial situation was causing her to reconsider having her hair done, or having the paper delivered.

In other words, she wants to lay off the hairdresser and the paperboy, but she would not give their employers the right to do the same.

I wanted to ask that woman this question: suppose the next time she went to the beauty salon, she was presented with a contract that would obligate her to use the same hairdresser for the rest of her life -- and to pay for a monthly appointment, forever, whether she needed it or not. Would she sign?

Of course she wouldn't. And furthermore, given a choice between a hairdresser who won't work unless customers sign such a contract, and another who will work without such a contract, any woman alive would choose the latter.

Yet if a business acts in the same way, it's greedy, heartless, and cruel.

Re: On Layoffs

Paul J Croeber — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:02:42 -0000

I thought Don handled himself well. It was quite instructive that the co-host repeated that Don didn't think layoffs were "good", but rather necessary. NPR fancies itself on having a listenership of intelligentsia, yet they don't trust the ears nor analytic ability of their listeners. This is my first post and I'd just like to say I love the blog and podcast. Keep up the good work.

Re: On Layoffs

John Smith — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:40:12 -0000

An employee no more owns his job than a business owns its market share.

Posted by: Sam Grove | Dec 7, 2008 10:21:40 PM

--------------------------------------------------------

Excellent analogy!!

Thank you regular posters for motoring the posts!!! (malicious responses only feed a troll – and make sifting through a thread for something worthwhile tedious.)

There were a number of insightful remarks. Nice thread.

Re: On Layoffs

Guest — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:47:50 -0000

"Damnit now, if I could just find a way to raise the tide and only float my own boat."

Posted by: vidyohs | Dec 8, 2008 11:08:58 AM

I like that analogy vidyohs; it's almost poetic.

Re: On Layoffs

vidyohs — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:08:58 -0000

"Platitudes is what you so-called libertarians spout, not an original bone in your body. It's Monday, so it's back to work for the lot of you - chaining yourself to your desk. Or else you too may be looking for work on Tuesday. Slaves everyone of you! And you spent your lives making someone else rich. Haha!

Posted by: TrUmPiT | Dec 8, 2008 2:30:15 AM"

And this from a self confessed and declared socialist to the core! Tsk Tsk, TrUmPiTite, that thought process was good for Lucy and her kin on the African veldt but mankind has made some progress since then.

God forbid that in benefiting ourselves others find benefit as well.

Damnit now, if I could just find a way to raise the tide and only float my own boat.

Re: On Layoffs

Dan Weintraub — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:25:01 -0000

Good job, Don, with a difficult task. You might have tried also to sketch for your hosts a picture of the extreme -- an economy where no layoffs are allowed. Doing so you might have made some headway in explaining to them and their audience why the flexibility you discussed is such a crucially important part of a growing economy.

Re: On Layoffs

Mike Farmer — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:02:45 -0000

The reality seems to be that small and flexible are needed in industry. In many ways it doesn't matter if we want to save union jobs or not, the deciding factor is what's possible in a global economy. We could go the whole route of protectionism, but in the end, reality wins and protectionism makes the situation worse. Desires, good intentions and wishful thinking are no match for economic reality. So taking sides is somewhat futile because it's not like we can really make things happen just because it's politically or morally popular to do so.

Re: On Layoffs

Randy — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:41:57 -0000

Trumpit,

"It's Monday, so it's back to work for the lot of you - chaining yourself to your desk."

I'm not chained to my desk. The relationship with my employer is completely voluntary and mutually beneficial. The only chains I wear are those placed on me by the political class - that is, by people like you.

Re: On Layoffs

dg lesvic — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:30:25 -0000

Trumped,

I don't know how you would define freedom, but there is only one logical definition of it: the right to be let alone, to offer or withhold one's own resources, and none but one's own.

Re: On Layoffs

TrUmPiT — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:30:15 -0000

http://news.aol.com/article...

And when they won't go quietly...

Whip them into submission?

Platitudes is what you so-called libertarians spout, not an original bone in your body. It's Monday, so it's back to work for the lot of you - chaining yourself to your desk. Or else you too may be looking for work on Tuesday. Slaves everyone of you! And you spent your lives making someone else rich. Haha!

Re: On Layoffs

The_Chef — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:06:34 -0000

Oh look, we have yet another name calling troll.

*sigh*

Well done Dr. Boudreaux! Too bad the masses will never understand allocative efficiency. Does the phrase "most highly valued use" matter to anyone with any understanding in business anymore?

Re: On Layoffs

dg lesvic — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:38:29 -0000

The trauma and issue of unemployment is a monopoly of Interventionism. In a completely free market, there would be no such trauma, for there would be no such thing as chronic, massive unemployment.

Since the market tends toward equilibrium, it tends toward full employment, equilibrium between the supply of and demand for manpower.

So, when a man loses one job, he quickly finds another, and just as good.

There are losers. But they are not the workers. The only losers are the owners of the failed businesses. They lose their capital. But the workers themselves do not lose "their jobs." They simply move from some to others.

Re: On Layoffs

Sam Grove — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:21:40 -0000

An employee no more owns his job than a business owns its market share.

Many businesses are willing to tolerate a higher employee cost when times are good.

Many marginally productive individuals managed to survive through 'charitable' employment. Many such individuals lost these opportunities when employment became highly formalized via labor law and costly mandates.

Guaranteed jobs for some means guaranteed unemployment for others.

Re: On Layoffs

LowcountryJoe — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:03:11 -0000

Com'on, Vidyohs, you're being quite insensitive here. Of course someone's ability to literally survive depends on being able to earn an income working for someone else who has extended the income-earning opportunity [which, after you accept, the job becomes something you're entitled to]. No one could ever possibly learn or relearn how to hunt, fish, farm, pitch a tent, make a fire, boil water, or heat food in order to eat and take shelter.

Also, the income opportunity has to pay out a living wage -- anything less and you'd drop dead right on the spot the moment that wage dipped below the magical line-of-life-termination.

Re: On Layoffs

Against the grain — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:46:36 -0000

I think that I am the NPR crowd, and have learned much since I have started listening and reading Don and Russ. However, while factually correct, Don's comments did not make a dent in the opposing view.

The question is how do we get what we want? It is just as I believe Churchill said. America always does what is right after, it has tried everything else.

We all must admit we wear rose color glasses sometimes and most only take them off when faced with no other choice. It seems that most are not ready to take them completely off yet.

Re: On Layoffs

vidyohs — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:31:59 -0000

"The ability to fire someone is a power not to be abused because it goes to the very core of one's ability to survive in an indifferent world.

Posted by: TrUmPiT | Dec 7, 2008 12:33:33 AM

Strange, the difference in this fools post and our usually idiot, Trumpit; notice the name?

Question O' strange one TrUmPiT, the word above, one's, are you talking about the owner or the employee? It seems to me that you are talking about the employee, and since it isn't "his" job but something he has been allowed/paid to perform, his survival in an indifferent world is his problem, eh? If survival is the employee's concern, shouldn't he be saving or investing to protect that? Can, or should, an employer dictate to an employee whether he saves or not? Which side of that would you agree to, TrUmPiT?

Anyway, let's paraphrase this TrUmPiT's little statement, but make it clear we are talking about the employer and from an intelligent point of view:

"The ability to 'hire' someone is a power not to be abused because it goes to the very core of one's ability to survive in an indifferent world."

Re: On Layoffs

Sam Grove — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:37:15 -0000

C'mon, maintain civility.

Respect the request of the host.

Re: On Layoffs

cpurick — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 08:35:07 -0000

Liberals like Trumpit are an essential part of my strategy for not getting laid off. Thanks to my fellow employees who think and work like the job belongs to them rather than to our employer, I find there's always an ample cushion of dead weight between myself and the chopping block during the slow times.

Trumpit, I hope you work in my department. It's comforting to know they'll be letting you go so they can afford to pay me to stay.

If you find economics difficult, maybe you should go over to DUmmyland where it's a forbidden subject. You'd fit right in over there.

Re: On Layoffs

Sam Grove — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 08:04:45 -0000

Certainly there is employer abuse, just as there is fellow employee abuse and employee abuse of their jobs. Works both ways.

Don't like the way you're being treated at work? Leave.

It is progressive government that has placed so many people so close to the financial edge that they feel unduly constrained from risking a change in employment.

The empire is expensive as is the system of entitlements.

OAN

It occurred to me recently that the reason we don't have our flying cars now is because it was decided to invest in an extensive highway system.

Re: On Layoffs

TrUmPiT — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:53:17 -0000

You live a sheltered life behind a dim computer screen, cpurick. You are obviously a brainwashed, juvenile male, around 15 years old, because females normally have a deeper understanding of life and what getting laid off means to putting food on the table for their family. Are you really "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap incognito? If you are, have yourself a merry little x-mas NOT. You pathetic, egotistical downsizer, loser you!

Re: On Layoffs

cpurick — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:47:12 -0000

"My [obviously very limited] understanding is that the health insurance provided to union workers is one of the problems that GM faces. A single-payer healthcare plan enacted during Obama's first term will go a long way to address this part of the problem."

And how is the problem "addressed" if we simply transfer it to everyone else?