Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:15:00 EDT
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.BITNET>
Subject: Re: "No Cost" Family Leave Bill

> >                                       The market didn't provide any of
> >these by itself.  All of them impose costs on businesses.  Some of the
> >costs might be significant (overtime, for example).  But an elected
> >legislature decided that the costs were less than the benefits to the
> >society.
>
> Note that Peter's argument is changing.  Before he asserted that
> unpaid leave (with benefits) was profitable to the companies.  Now
> he's claiming that it is beneficial to society.  (BTW - The elected
> legislature didn't decide that they were beneficial to society, it
> decided that they were politically appropriate.)  Oops....

Wrong, I make both arguments.  Companies with generous benefit plans
profit by having lower turnover and higher productivity.  And, family
leave is also beneficial to the society as a whole.  It's too bad that
some business owners don't see this, just as some others didn't see
that employing six-year-olds in textile mills was a bad idea.

> >       You haven't argued that there is no benefit to family leave
> >(although you've made the irrelevant argument that if the market doesn't
> >provide it, it can't be worth anything).
>
> Try again.  I've shown that the relevant parties think that the costs
> exceed the benefits.

In a democracy, "relevant parties" may be a larger group than you think.
And your "relevant parties" might not have a big enough spreadsheet.

> Errors by insiders are corrected by the market; losers fail, and they
> do so with their money.  Peter likes to gamble with other people's
> money.

Nobody's forcing them to operate.  Isn't that the argument they always
hand to the workers: "Nobody's forcing you to work here!"?  There are
costs associated with doing business, and some of those costs are
imposed from outside.  As you're fond of saying, life's tough like that.
Or do power companies gamble with other people's money when they raise
the cost of lighting the place?

And if you think that the only thing lost is "their money" you're living
in a fool's paradise.  When the losers fail, lots of people who never
had the first chance to influence the running of the business, or to
have a share of the profits, get hurt.  Often more badly than the people
who had the real control (how many former CEO's are living in poverty
these days?  How many former manufacturing workers?).  So maybe some of
these folks are "relevant", eh?

> We're now seeing estimates of the costs of the family leave bill by
> its advocates.  They're quite low.  Let's see how accurate they are;
> let's pay for the program using tax dollars.  If the advocates are
> right, that won't be much, if any money, and if they're wrong, we all
> pay for it.  Surely they're sure enough of their numbers to risk money
> on them.  What?  Even they don't believe the numbers if they'll lose
> if they're wrong?

While we're at it, why don't we pay all of their other expenses as
well?  We pay the expenses, they get to keep the profits.  Let's make
free enterprise REALLY free!

Best,
Peter

> -andy