The Economic Fallacies of Robert Reich

A recent article from our yellow journalist friends at Salon.com furthers the website’s tradition of economic illiteracy and unoriginality. The article, entitled “The 4 biggest right-wing lies about income inequality” was written by the economist Robert Reich, and as the title suggests, attempts to debunk several alleged economic myths. What makes this article significant is not the complete lack of economic understanding displayed, but that it was contrived by a person who has no small influence in the field. Reich is currently a professor of policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a member of Barack Obama’s economic advisory board, and has also contributed to such esteemed publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, and the Harvard Business Review. Despite his reputation among economists, Reich’s Salon article is poorly argued, badly written, and espouses common misconceptions that should be above someone of his education. Many of his arguments are commonly made by people on the left and in this post, I am going to address them one-by-one.


The first lie (or so he claims) is that CEO’s are America’s Job creators and that they should be exempt from taxation. Reich argues that “the middle class and poor are the job-creators through their purchases of goods and services. If they don’t have enough purchasing power because they’re not paid enough, companies won’t create more jobs and economy won’t grow.” If all firms just paid their employees higher wages, they would not gain any more purchasing power since the market price for goods would also increase correspondingly. Higher nominal wages do not create higher real wages. The arguments he presents for the first two supposed “lies” are essentially the same. Reich writes that, “We’ve endured the most anemic recovery on record because most Americans don’t have enough money to get the economy out of first gear. The economy is barely growing and real wages continue to drop.” Social liberals like Robert Reich never tire of bringing up the long misconceived fact that real wages have either dropped or remained stagnant over the past fifty years. Although Reich fails to cite where he got this information, he is most likely referring to the often-quoted statistic regarding household incomes, which have only increased by six percent over the last fifty years. Many social liberals have suggested that this is evidence of wage stagnation. However, if you look at the average income earned per individual over the past fifty years, the numbers tell a different tale. Individual incomes have actually increased by a whopping fifty-one percent since 1969 when adjusted for inflation.1 There is also further evidence to suggest that people today are now working less than they did in 1960 to earn the same amount of goods.2 Real costs of living in the United States have generally decreased over the past decades, at least for individuals. The reason why the statistics regarding real income per household suggests stagnation is because of the decline in household size. As the standard of living has increased over the decades, people are more likely to live on their own instead of relying on their parents or siblings to supplement their incomes. As the number of individuals per household declines over time, so does income per household, and thus it appears to the uncultivated economist that wages have not increased since the 1960s, which is demonstrably false. Robert Reich’s argument and many others similar to his are based on misleading reading of statistics about real incomes. This is an amateurish mistake, and one that I suspect Reich may have intentionally overlooked for the purposes of the Salon.com article and to further support his own ideology.

In debunking the second supposed lie, Reich writes that, “Meanwhile, most American workers earn less today than they did forty years ago, adjusted for inflation, not because they’re working less hard now but because they don’t have strong unions bargaining for them.” Everything about this statement is incorrect. Not only have workers’ real wages not deceased over the past forty years, but workers indeed have been working less. There are more part-time employees in the work-force than there have been forty years ago, and since many labour statistics do not distinguish between full-time and part-time employees, it may appear that workers today earn the same as they did four decades ago for the same amount of work. However, part-time employees generally work less than full timers and thus their wages should not be compared on the same basis. Also, American workers today earn much more in employee benefits than workers forty years ago. When medical and dental coverage, unemployment insurance, and retirement benefits are taken into account, worker compensation rose by about a third from 1980 to 2004.3 Contrary to what Reich claims in the article, unions are not responsible for the creation of wages and benefits, nor do labour unions create wealth in general. Unions do nothing but siphon off wealth created by others. When a union succeeds in securing higher wages and benefits for its members, it always comes at a cost, which is usually passed onto the consumer. For example, If the coal-miners’ union gets a higher wage for coal miners, the market price of coal goes up. If a department store chain bargains for a higher wage for cashiers, then cashiers become more expensive and thus fewer will be employed. Those people who champion labour unions do not understand that higher wages for union members always comes at the expense of higher prices for goods in that sector, as well as lower rates of employment. Many firms will actually pay their employees more than the equilibrium wage in the market for the sole purpose of keeping the labour unions out.

Robert Reich’s third economic myth that he tries to debunk is that nothing should be done for lower-income children in America. This seems to me like nothing more than a twisted depiction of libertarian ethics. A desperate strawman. Nobody seriously argues that poor children should not be helped in any way and denied a proper education. In fact, the state of many schools in poor areas of the United States is indeed deplorable and the children who attend them truly deserve better. It’s difficult to disagree with Reich on this fact. However, the failure of American public schools is more an indictment against government ineptitude and a bloated and incompetent bureaucracy than it is against wealthy people. Try again, Reich. 


Reich saves the last economic myth to drop his bombshell of idiocy. He claims that raising the minimum wage does not contribute to unemployment and that it will actually benefit workers by giving them more spending money. Reich’s arguments can easily be refuted with only the most basic economic understanding. When a price is artificially raised beyond the market equilibrium, then supply will increase and demand will decrease. If the equilibrium wage in a market for shit-shovelers is x dollars per hour, increasing the minimum wage in this market simply means that the shit-shovelers are now more expensive to hire and fewer will be employed. The minimum wage, regardless of how high it is set, will not benefit someone who is unemployed. Sadly, the greatest victims of high minimum wage laws are young people. Since only 2% of workers above the age of 24 currently work a minimum wage job4, those people who are just entering the workforce are placed in the most disadvantageous position, lacking the skills and experience to justify the high price for their labour. If the labour of a high-school student has a value of 7$/hour, that student is unlikely to find a job in a state whose minimum wage is set at 10$/hour. Such is the plight of any worker whose labour is worth less than what the law demands an employer may pay him. Ironically, the poorest people in society have the most to lose from minimum wage legislation—the very people whom these laws are intended to help. Reich cites a study done by IRLE which lists unemployment rates across the United States as independent of the minimum wage laws. However, comparing data from the US alone would naturally differ a lot less than comparing data from the US to other countries with different policies. Most Canadian provinces have minimum wage rates that are a higher percentage of output per capita than American states. Canada correspondingly has a higher unemployment rate, a higher average duration of unemployment, and a lower rate of job creation than much of the United States.5 Nations such as Hong Kong and Switzerland do not have minimum wage laws and have a much lower unemployment rate than the United States and Switzerland especially has one of the lowest unemployment rates on earth.

Switzerland is pretty awesome.

Robert Reich’s call to action at the end of his article, “Don’t listen to the right-wing lies about inequality. Know the truth, and act on it” sounds like something I would read on a social justice warrior blog. It’s like a Smokey the Bear slogan for socialist retards. Reich’s poorly written article is definitely befitting of it though. It’s just one of the many gems you can find on Salon.com.

1 U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Changes in Median Household Income:
1969 to 1996," Current Population Reports, P23-196, p. 1.
2 http://econpapers.repec.org/article/fipfeddar/y_3a1997_3ap_3a2-24.htm
3 Alan Reynolds, Income and Wealth, p. 64.
4 U.S. Department of Labour, Bureau of Labour Statistics, Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers: 2004, (Washington: Department of Labour, Bureau of Labour Statistics, 2005), p. 1 and Table 1.
5 Jason Clemens, Measuring Labour Markets in Canada and the United States: 2003 Edition (Vancouver, Canada: The Fraser Institute, 2003)

A Treatise on Feminism and Social Justice

Hardly anybody can squeeze a fart into the wind these days without enraging the social justice advocates. They have evolved like a cancerous growth to all corners of the internet. I am not just referring to the Tumblr feminists, and the /r/ShitRedditSays crowd, but the so-called Men’s Rights Movement as well.  All these ideologies fit nicely into the category of social justice advocates. Both of these mindsets are equally ridiculous because they do not take into account the inherent biological differences between men and women. They make the mistake of viewing mankind as existing in a vacuum that is beyond the realm of the natural order. This must be given due consideration when discussing issues like sexism.

Feminists are always harping on about the pervasive sexism in our culture. Many of them have an almost militant fervour when discussing all the various ways women are being subjugated and marginalized. They point to various discussions on Reddit.com. Look, People are making sexual remarks about photos that girls upload of themselves. Sexism! Look, submissive males are complaining about being friendzoned. Sexism! Look, somebody asked a girl out for coffee in an elevator. Sexism! This naive interpretation of anything and everything as sexism is both hilarious and imbecilic. The feminists congregate en masse to forums and message boards where they pat themselves on the back for being the only ones to see all this sexism. They are only one step removed from tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists. It is amusing to watch this menstrual bukkake in action. It is equally amusing to watch how the feminists react to those who dare criticize their ideology. When anybody tries to tell the feminists that they are exaggerating, they retort by saying that the opinion of the dissenter is null and void due to their inherent privilege.

Social justice is the privilege game! Anybody can play. All you need is a list of things people make fun of you for. The more reasons people have to dislike you (maybe you are a bi-polar communist transvestite with a PCP addiction?), the less privilege you earn. Whoever has the least amount of privilege at the end of the game is the winner! Pretty shitty game, huh? The feminists and social justice clowns hold their lack of privilege as the arbiter of intellectual worth. If you are a winner of the privilege game and you claim no privilege whatsoever, then your opinion is infallible compared to a lowly denizen with a ton of privilege. In reality, basing the merit of one’s opinions on some arbitrary standard of privilege is not the way to engage in a proper debate. Regardless of what social privileges you have, it should be the logical consistency of your opinions that determines their validity, not privilege. The geocentric theory is still wrong if it is proposed by an obese transgender mulatto witch-doctor or a straight white athletic male.

 There is an eerie similarity between what the neo-feminists call privilege and the Catholic doctrine of original sin. Both privilege and original sin conjecture that you are inherently immoral and you can never fully shed this immorality. Instead of trying to improve yourself, the feminists claim you should “check” your privilege and devote your life to perpetual servitude of their whims and ideologies. The main comparison to original sin is that nobody can fully purge themselves of their so-called privilege, but must continually redeem themselves by subscribing to feminist doctrine and bowing before the might of their vaginal supremacy. Of course, all this talk of privilege is bullshit. It is nothing more than a circumstantial ad hominem argument employed by the feminists in order to evade the burden of having to reason their position. Why bother with logic and evidence when you can just claim your opponents have privilege and therefore they will never comprehend your argument? It’s a claim to infallibility. What if politicians used this same argument when making policies? The world would be a fucking mess by now. Feminists claim that one’s privilege prevents them from criticizing the standard feminists drawl. Remember what Voltaire said?

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Back to the topic of sexism; does it exist in our society? Yeah, of course it does. But I don’t think it is anything to be too disgruntled about. If men asking girls out for coffee in elevators is the worst manifestation of sexism, then I fair to say it’s not a matter of earthy concern.

One of the biggest mistakes that the social justice advocates make when they talk about sexism is their ignorance of biological differences between men and women. Human beings are not simply blank slates at birth. We all come with a wide range of inherent biological functions and dispositions. Because the biological functions of females (giving birth, nursing children) differ from the biological functions of males (sperm dispensers, guardians), the inherent mental traits of women are different than men. Look at the animal kingdom. Read this article about the behavioural gender differences among animals. 

The article explains how female jumping spiders are more aggressive than the males and if the male is unsuccessful in convincing her to have sex, he will likely be eaten. Therefore, we can observe that the inherent difference between the female jumping spider and the male is that the female is more aggressive. Next, watch this video about the mating rituals of cheetahs.

The male cheetah follows the female cheetah for miles and miles until she finally submits to his advances and they fuck. Which mechanisms of social oppression have led the female jumping spider to eat her courters and the male cheetahs to stalk their females with such persistence? Is it the media? Do cheetahs have magazines or television shows like ours that give them oppressive delusions about sex? I don’t think so. Do the female jumping spiders indulge in a rape culture that justifies their devourment of the opposite sex? I’m pretty sure they don’t. These specific behaviours are the result of evolution. They are inherent to their respective natures.

It would be naive and ignorant to claim that natural selection has failed to bestow these sexual differences between males and females onto humans. It is demonstrated that males are naturally more aggressive than females and that females are more nurturing than males. This is not the product of social oppression or gender discrimination. It is the product of natural selection and these respective behaviours serve a very good purpose in human relations and reproduction. The aggressive sexual nature of men in elevators and on the internet is simply a manifestation of these inherent biological differences. It is not something that we could change or should change. That would be like trying to get rid of greed or laziness. It doesn’t work and would only end in disaster. Instead, we should embrace our sexual differences instead of trying to suppress our primordial nature and pretending it doesn’t exist. As the German philosopher, Oswald Spengler once put it:

In man and woman, two kinds of history are fighting for power. In the masculine being, there is a certain contradiction; he is this man, yet he is something else besides, which woman neither understands nor admits, which she feels as robbery and violence upon that which is holiest. This secret and fundamental war of the sexes has gone on ever since there were sexes, and will continue—silent, bitter, unforgiving, and pitiless.

The doctrine of feminism doesn’t just state that sexism exists, but that it is perpetuated by a social order that has the malicious intent of subjugating women for the benefit of men (patriarchy). The MRAs (Men’s Rights Movement) claim the opposite—that men are subjugated for the benefit of women. Both of these beliefs are equally fallacious when you comprehend that men and women are entirely different creatures with different tastes and biological dispositions. Just as with every animal species on the planet, the social order is a product of these biological differences and not the product of some malicious design on behalf of one sex or the other. Do these differences constitute sexism? Sure. But as I have already said, this sexism is a manifestation of evolutionary traits and nothing we can or should ever try to eliminate.

Another thing that must be addressed about the social justice clowns is their tendency to victimize themselves. This self-victimization is common between the feminists and the MRAs. They whine and moan about how they are a victim of this or that social institution and they chastise anybody who tells them otherwise (“check your privilege, shitlord!”). The thing about self-victimization is that it is not only a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it creates a cycle that is very difficult for the victim to break. The social justice crowd loves the hand-holding and belly-rubbing that comes with sympathizing with victims. They envy the attention and empathy bestowed upon real victims of rape or domestic violence and so they seek this empathy for themselves. More often than not, they don’t have any real problems that warrant such empathy so they make some up. They point to the aforementioned sexual differences between men and women and claim to be a victim of those. Help! Creepy men are making sexual passes at me on the internet! Woe is me. Self-victimization is a self-fulfilling prophecy because when you go through life acting like a victim, then people will tend to victimize you. When you act weak and submissive, then people will take advantage of you. Eventually, somebody will come along and abuse them in some actual way. The social justice advocate thinks this abuse has thus validated their twisted world-view and so the cycle continues ad nauseam.

The self-victimization of the social justice advocate is very similar to the mindset of a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist like David Icke or Alex Jones. They make up some sort of batshit fallacious reasoning to justify their oppression by the evil government, and then when people call them imbeciles, they reason that whoever is criticizing them is part of the government conspiracy. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Both the conspiracy theorist and the social justice advocate are impervious to criticism. They think that whoever is trying to argue with them has obviously been blinded by social privilege or by government deceit, depending on which brand of insanity the delusional victim has subscribed to.

I have tried to write as comprehensive of a treatise as possible to convey my opinions regarding the social justice crowd. People like them have existed long ago and will continue to exist for centuries to come. You can’t argue with them using logic and reason because that is not how those people function. The best way to deal with them is to either ridicule them or ignore them. As the philosopher Karl Popper would say; they adhere to an unfalsifiable hypothesis. They have arranged their platform in such a way that they can neither be disputed nor debated. All they seek is attention. Just like you shouldn’t feed bears in the woods, you shouldn’t give the social justice crowd their much desired validation by attempting to reason with them.

Bird is undergoing an existential crisis right now

Six Traits of a Marxist Douchebag

1.     Overcomplication of basic tenets and principles

Normal Person: So you’re a Marxist? Can you explain to me what you believe?

Marxist Douchebag: I believe that the epistemological framework inherent in the institutionalization of private property stems from the literal interpretation of economic realism. Furthermore, the arbitrary principles upon which the capitalist system is established are examined not in the context of physical ineptitude but by the exploitation of the modern worker. Consider a political framework established in a labour environment devoid of any utilization of monetary, as opposed to tangible means of production. It is only by this dialectic that you can ever understand the Zen of Marxism.

Normal person: what the fuck are you talking about?

2.     Relating politics to things that have nothing to do with politics

Normal Person: The Lion King is one of my favourite movies. Have you seen it yet?

Marxist Douchebag: The Lion King is a capitalist invention used to perpetuate the institutionalization of private property. The kingdom should have been distributed  equally among the workers after the death of King Mufasa instead of being given to Simba. Property is theft, man.

3.     Nonsensical Apologies for tyrannical regimes

Normal person: If communism is so great, then how do you explain North Korea?

Marxist Douchebag: North Korea is actually one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Poverty and Starvation are small prices to pay for living in a Marxist utopia. All hail Dear Leader!

4.     Refusal to acknowledge basic human nature

Normal Person: If all wealth is equally distributed in a communist society, then wouldn’t there be a shortage of doctors and engineers since there would be no monetary incentive to become one?

Marxist Douchebag: No, you’re wrong. People would become doctors and engineers out of the goodness of their hearts because they would want to help society, not because they want the money. Greedy people are a product of capitalist mentality. Greed did not exist before capitalism. It magically came into the universe after the birth of Adam Smith.

5.     Thinking that Capitalism is Literally Hitler

Normal Person: I think I might vote for Ron Paul.

Marxist Douchebag: Why don’t you just put on an SS uniform and goose-step down the street you anti-Semitic pig? Fascist scum like you disgust me.

6.     A comical hatred for Ayn Rand

Normal Person: The Fountainhead is one of my favourite novels.

Marxist Douchebag: Ayn Rand was a fucking stupid Russian bitch who chain-smoked like a fucking cunt and hated poor people. She also cheated on her husband, thereby discrediting her philosophy. She also accepted money from the government and she was so fucking ugly. What a batshit insane fucking cunt she was. She’s rotting in hell now and subhuman vomit like you will soon join her. You should read good communist literature like The Red Book by Mao Tse-Tung instead.

It Is Good To Be Arrogant

There is a certain trend I’ve noticed that has become pervasive in the zeitgeist. It is the tendency to put those who are suffering up on a pedestal; anyone who could be described as weak or indigent or miserable in any way enjoys a special status in the hearts of society. You can observe this in entertainment. In particular, movies that exploit the misery of a certain demographic of individuals have become very popular amongst the adherents to this cult of suffering. Films like Forrest Gump, Schindler’s List, and Passion of the Christ are all movies that fall into this category. Their appeal lies in their ability to make the audience members sympathize with the misery and woe of the characters therein. The trend can be observed in social media especially. If you look on YouTube, you will see that many so-called vloggers exploit themselves and become victims of their own doing. The vlogger MrRepzion is archetypal of this. Most of his videos depict him exploiting himself and the various misfortunes that happen to befall him. On the site Reddit as well, many of the most up-voted AMA’s and text posts express the “woe is me” worldview. We live in a society in which the downtrodden and indigent are looked upon as infallible heroes and the self-sufficient, confident people are merely default zeroes.

I call this trend the cult of suffering. It has infected the minds and the attitudes of many people. The consequence of this trend is that those who are miserable and are suffering have become infallible. You dare not criticize miserable people in civil discussions unless you wish to be labelled as a sadist or an insensitive chauvinist. You dare not point out that those who suffer may do so of their own actions. In feminist circles, you get labelled as a “victim-blamer” if you even have the audacity to suggest that women take precautions to avoid being victimized. In the political sphere, you get labelled as a Social-Darwinist or a Nazi if you dare propose that the economic failures of the system were a result of their own lack of responsibility. Poverty and misery are the traits which people idolize. In the modern view of things, you are only righteous insofar as you have experienced misfortune. People who are successful are looked upon as arrogant pricks and if you advocate personal responsibility to change your condition for the better, then you have committed social suicide.

Why do people think this way? Why would someone rather listen to the viewpoint of someone who is depressed than that of someone with high self-esteem? The answer is plain and logical: It requires effort to become happy. It is necessary for you to get off your lazy ass and pursue your goals in order to attain success. This is why most people would rather praise the failures of society; because it lowers the standard of greatness and thus validates their own self-worth. It is much easier to whine and grumble about how you are a victim of various forces outside your control than to actually take charge of your life and impact it in a positive way. Get up from your fucking computer for once and actually do something.

Another consequence of this cult of suffering is that those who display any modicum of conceit or confidence are basically spat upon. Those who are successful and happy are made into villains because they are the antithesis from those who suffer. I adhere to the opposite view of this. I believe that those who are confident and arrogant are the goal to which everyone should aspire. Look no further than the public opinion of rich people to see how this cult of suffering operates. The downtrodden and indigent never cease to claim they are somehow being victimized by the rich and that is why they cannot better their condition. Look at the attitude towards successful businessmen to see how this trend has portrayed the strong and self-sufficient as callous pigs.

Self victimization is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you wallow through life claiming to be a victim of something or another, then you will act as though you are a victim. When you act like a victim, people will tend to victimize you because you make yourself seem vulnerable. Adherents to the cult of suffering claim their own misery as proof of their supposed victimization, when in reality; it was by the consequences of their own actions that they allowed themselves to be taken advantage of.

Don’t be ashamed of your own self esteem. You are only valuable insofar as you value yourself and anyone who says otherwise only wants to drag you down to their level of misery. Also, just because you are suffering doesn’t make you a saint. More often than not, one’s misery is the result of bad judgment and poor decisions. Don’t be fooled into showering praise upon the weak and indigent simply because they are. It only lowers you to their standard and lowers the standard of praise itself.

Fuck Twitter

Millions of base-functioning, mouth-breathing insects congregate en masse to the swirling pool of degeneracy known as Twitter. Twitter is the new social media fad to enthrall the attention-deficient imbeciles of the day. If you can compress your thoughts and feelings down to 140 characters or less, then you are operating at a sufficient intellectual level to use Twitter. 

Twitter is a sad reflection of the diminishing attention spans of modern man. Nobody wants to read anymore or let alone think. Nobody wants to take the effort to learn new ideas and concepts that will be conducive to their respective betterment and mental development. No—to hell with that! Why read when you can consume and regurgitate easily digestible phrases and nonsense written by celebrities and otherwise unimpressive fucks on the internet?

Twitter is a cesspool of anti-intellectualism. It encourages the oversimplification of ideas and feelings. Nothing of value can be said in 140 characters or less whether it was written by Justin Bieber or that guy Jim from my calculus class. If the new standard for wit is what you can communicate with 140 characters or less then all academic pursuits should immediately be abandoned. Fuck rhetoric, literature, philosophy, and art—we have Twitter now. Everybody’s thoughts are accessible to everybody! Everybody can follow everybody even though nobody really knows where they’re going; so they only follow each other like rats into the yawning abyss of idiocy.

Fuck Twitter and the easily-impressed simpletons who use it. The sooner humanity can discard such frivolous pursuits; the sooner we can all press beyond this dark age of mindless masturbation and achieve something substantial as a human race.