Liberals created gentrification

[chrisvfr800i]

Originally Posted by fflint

Yeah, I was going to say. I know for fact there is a discrepancy between what my firm pays temp workers and what they actually earn--we get billed $28/hr for a clerical temp by the agency, but that same temp only actually earns $15/hr. Obviously it's a different setup than what crane operators operate under, but the larger point stands: it's simply ridiculous to conflate an employer's labor costs with any given worker's actual income.

Yes, but labor costs are what drive housing costs, not just worker wages. In that way, I think TUP's premise is on the right track. For example, in Illinois, we have fairly generous workman's comp laws. Even before any claims, the cost of WC insurance adds significant % to the cost of labor. Who enacted those WC laws...and who refuses to reform them? In Illinois at least, it's obviously democrats, many of whom could be called "Liberal."

[chris08876]

With crane operators though, its very hard to become one. Not due to the difficulty of the job, but getting your foot in the door. For the NY metro, a lot of these jobs are through nepotism. Its one of those cases where if you had a family member, your good. Often generations of operators in the same union. NOT to say thats always the case, but its like the investment banking version of blue collar work. Its just difficult to get in. But with overtime, sky is the limit for that position. Often yes, pay does reflect overtime. But even without it, it's solid a solid six figures. Even just in general with some union based blue collar work. Overtime can quickly add up. Not just time and a half, but double and triple in some cases depending on the project.

Its the same way with some of the port jobs. Also you have to pay your dues. My grandpa worked in Port Newark. Back in the day when it was controlled by the mob. Now those where good wages back then. Crawford is also correct with the pay. Its high for some of these labor positions.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ thanks, that doesn't seem egregious for such a high-skill, high-risk position. lives literally hang in the balance of the crane operator's hands.

I agree. I might even be okay with the largest, more technically difficult jobs being paid out at $500,000 in salary for a crane operator, but certainly low six figures for any crane operator who is basically setting the pace for construction of mid-to-large projects and holds lives in his hands is completely reasonable. Not only can only a subset of people do that, but even among those who can, I'd imagine the subset who can do it and can handle the stress of that level of responsibility is even smaller. I mean, if an entry level foreign exchange trader can earn six figures, a high-skills blue-collar job that few have the combined skill and temperament to do should be well-paid, too.

The idea that unions hurt the middle class misunderstands what "middle class" should mean. Unionizing a lot more people would probably mean somewhat lower income for the highest earners in every industry, but higher income for the lowest income. Narrowing that spread, almost by definition, creates a middle class and, with it, social cohesion. People accept differences in pay for different types of jobs, but when the differences become extreme, resentment, competition and compounding of the benefit of being far above average emphasizes differences between us instead of allowing us to feel we are all part of one society that we all contribute to and benefit from and have a joint responsibility to maintain. If you earn much less than average, you start to feel you're not contributing anything of value and if you're not contributing anything of value, you feel expendable. If we value human life, we can't maintain a system that makes entire segments of society feel that they are expendable to the rest of us.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ thanks, that doesn't seem egregious for such a high-skill, high-risk position. lives literally hang in the balance of the crane operator's hands.

I think crane operators are very overpaid compared to other construction trades when you consider what they have to do. FWIW, we hire them regularly, and have been for many years now, so I get to work with them (i.e. give them orders) on jobsites quite often. (Cranes up to a 200-ton Terex-Demag.)

It doesn't really stand out in terms of risk, difficulty compared to other jobs involving the operation of large machinery or even just construction jobs that don't involve machinery. You just have to know your machine. (Obviously. Like most jobs out there.)

As for lives hanging in the balance, you can say that, for example, any 18-wheeler truck driver has plenty of lives in his hands when doing 70+ on the freeway. That's not enough reason to single-handedly make the job worth a six figure yearly pay. I could come up with other examples.

[SD_Phil]

Originally Posted by lio45

I think crane operators are very overpaid compared to other construction trades when you consider what they have to do. FWIW, we hire them regularly, and have been for many years now, so I get to work with them (i.e. give them orders) on jobsites quite often. (Cranes up to a 200-ton Terex-Demag.)

It doesn't really stand out in terms of risk, difficulty compared to other jobs involving the operation of large machinery or even just construction jobs that don't involve machinery. You just have to know your machine. (Obviously. Like most jobs out there.)

As for lives hanging in the balance, you can say that, for example, any 18-wheeler truck driver has plenty of lives in his hands when doing 70+ on the freeway. That's not enough reason to single-handedly make the job worth a six figure yearly pay. I could come up with other examples.

If you're going to be this dismissive of the difference between an 18-wheeler and a crane operator then we might as well just be dismissive about the ER doctor (I mean...on a busy day...how many lives do they actually have in the balance). The problem with being this dismissive is that it paints a far too simplistic picture of the world and it radically downplays the amount of skill that jobs require.

Just because a job doesn't require a PhD or MD (or JD) doesn't mean that it isn't technically difficult or challenging. It just means that it requires a different set of skills. In my line of work it's commonplace that PhDs have supervisors who hold only a BS or MA (or MBA). That doens't actually speak to the relative difficulty of either job.

[10023]

It may have been said, but the one thing that's true about the thread title is that liberals created the idea of "gentrification".

[Ryanrule]

Originally Posted by lio45

I think crane operators are very overpaid compared to other construction trades when you consider what they have to do. FWIW, we hire them regularly, and have been for many years now, so I get to work with them (i.e. give them orders) on jobsites quite often. (Cranes up to a 200-ton Terex-Demag.)

It doesn't really stand out in terms of risk, difficulty compared to other jobs involving the operation of large machinery or even just construction jobs that don't involve machinery. You just have to know your machine. (Obviously. Like most jobs out there.)

As for lives hanging in the balance, you can say that, for example, any 18-wheeler truck driver has plenty of lives in his hands when doing 70+ on the freeway. That's not enough reason to single-handedly make the job worth a six figure yearly pay. I could come up with other examples.

yeah, are YOU worth what you make?
i am going to say NO. you are NOT worth what you make.

[Ryanrule]

Originally Posted by chrisvfr800i

Yes, but labor costs are what drive housing costs, not just worker wages. In that way, I think TUP's premise is on the right track. For example, in Illinois, we have fairly generous workman's comp laws. Even before any claims, the cost of WC insurance adds significant % to the cost of labor. Who enacted those WC laws...and who refuses to reform them? In Illinois at least, it's obviously democrats, many of whom could be called "Liberal."

false.
capital costs drive construction costs.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by SD_Phil

If you're going to be this dismissive of the difference between an 18-wheeler and a crane operator then we might as well just be dismissive about the ER doctor (I mean...on a busy day...how many lives do they actually have in the balance). The problem with being this dismissive is that it paints a far too simplistic picture of the world and it radically downplays the amount of skill that jobs require.

Just because a job doesn't require a PhD or MD (or JD) doesn't mean that it isn't technically difficult or challenging. It just means that it requires a different set of skills. In my line of work it's commonplace that PhDs have supervisors who hold only a BS or MA (or MBA). That doens't actually speak to the relative difficulty of either job.

I was dismissing the "when doing this job, you have others' lives in your hands, therefore you should be highly paid, based on this factor alone" argument, yes.

I hope you can see that there's a difference between "when doing this job, you have others' lives in your hands" and "this job is technically difficult or challenging" and "this job requires years of higher education". There's no real correlation, and my trucker example was supposed to highlight the lack of correlation.

I'd be surprised if you were more familiar with the job of crane operator than I am, though. If you want to branch off topic and discuss that, I'm okay with it. In any case, I will say it seems crystal clear to me that the current level of pay for that line of work is at least partly the result of unionization, i.e. the pay isn't entirely "deserved" compared to non-union jobs. A fast food industry worker, for example, is working a LOT harder for each dollar earned compared to a typical big industrial jobsite crane operator.

We keep hearing that CEO pay is out of whack with other workers', well, okay, but at the same time, to be coherent with their logic, the exact same people should also be complaining that unionized crane operator pay is out of whack with other jobs.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Ryanrule

yeah, are YOU worth what you make?
i am going to say NO. you are NOT worth what you make.

What I make is strictly solely the result of my own work, so by definition it's kinda automatically what "I'm worth" whether it's financially been a good year or a bad one.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Ryanrule

false.
capital costs drive construction costs.

Uh....... yeah but break down capital costs, and the cost of labor plays a big role.

Hell, the cost of labor even increases land costs. Here's how:

As we discussed, more expensive labor (as well as other factors such as zoning and strict building codes) leads to more expensive construction costs, thus higher rents needed to recuperate investment.
This leads to gentrification, the premise of this thread.
Gentrification means higher rents/sq foot.
Properties with higher rents per sq foot are more valuable.
More valuable properties raises the appraised value of properties all around them.

Thus, liberal policies contribute to higher land and land improvement costs, thus higher capital costs.

[mhays]

Fast food workers probably work hard, but the average person off the street can learn those jobs quickly. That's generally not true in the construction trades, particularly once the need to do risky things safely is factored in.

TUP, if new construction brings higher values around it, then those richer people are moving FROM somewhere. Generally from other neighborhoods, which become cheaper in relative terms.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by mhays

Fast food workers probably work hard, but the average person off the street can learn those jobs quickly. That's generally not true in the construction trades, particularly once the need to do risky things safely is factored in.

Construction trade pay is pretty out of whack with the "how quickly does it take to learn those jobs" factor, actually.

True story: some years ago, while we were in our late 20s and most of my uni friends were still doing their PhDs (me and most of my closest friends are physicists, though I don't work in that field at all, I'm in construction and real estate, as was my dad before me), someone found by happenstance the pay scale for brick layers here in Quebec (an unionized profession), and that info circulated widely around the bunch of us... the consensus was, though mostly jokingly of course, "WTF, we should all quit and go install bricks!" The point, though, is that EVERYONE in my circles found it ridiculous that the pay was that high. Either physicists are grossly underpaid or bricklayers are grossly overpaid. It's one or the other. That's unescapable. I can't see how it's possible to not admit that.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by mhays

TUP, if new construction brings higher values around it, then those richer people are moving FROM somewhere. Generally from other neighborhoods, which become cheaper in relative terms.

^ That's not necessarily the case...at all really. If rich people move from one place to another, that doesn't mean that the place they come from is becoming cheaper.

Of course, I may be misunderstanding your point, so pardon me if I am.

[mhays]

Not my point.

It's not enough to build something. For rents to stabilize or fall citywide, you need to build more than the local growth in households.

In a growing city, that might be a large volume of new housing.

[lio45]

FWIW... saw this in today's paper...

Maybe if we paid them even more, we could attract operators who don't drop their loads on people

New York crane drops load, injures at least 10 people

[Ryanrule]

maybe if we paid bankers more, they wouldnt ruin the global financial system.

[CCs77]

Just think in this:

An area of the city is considered as undesirable, the landlord asks for lower rents, since that is what people is willing to pay for living there.

The area somehow began to become progressively more desirable, the landlord suddenly is able to ask for higher rents, just because higher income people are willing to move to the area. It is the same building in the same area of the city, maybe the owner doesn't even make any improvements to the building at all, and just because the area is more desirable now, he or she is able to ask for higher rents. That is the gentrification, has that something to be with unions, regulations or taxes? not so much.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by CCs77

Has that something to be with unions, regulations or taxes? not so much.

Unions, regulations and taxes do impact housing prices. Obviously individual landlords charge what they can get but such factors play a role in determining the market price.

And in NYC, about half the rental market is non-market, and in such cases unions, regulations and taxes play a direct role in the year-over-year rent increases, since the formula for determining the regulated rents is determined in part by the relative change in year-over-year landlord costs.

[CCs77]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Unions, regulations and taxes do impact housing prices. Obviously individual landlords charge what they can get but such factors play a role in determining the market price.

And in NYC, about half the rental market is non-market, and in such cases unions, regulations and taxes play a direct role in the year-over-year rent increases, since the formula for determining the regulated rents is determined in part by the relative change in year-over-year landlord costs.

Obviusly they do. But my point is more toward the phenomenon of gentrification, object of this thread. My point is that the perceived desirability of a place is much stronger than those other factors, at the end of the day. Or are different the regulations, taxes and union costs in the worst part of the Bronx vs the best part of Manhattan? Or was those factore that different that 30 years ago, when NYC was considered as a less deirable place to live, having significant lower rents.