ALS: thoughts on freedom

Minimum wage

Minimum wages

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July 14, 2009 - Posted by John Humphreys | Economics

17 Comments

1. Wow, what a clever cartoon.

   Comment by Rationalist | July 14, 2009

2. Speaking of minimum wages, why don’t some ALS readers come and play with the lefties.

   I’ve been doing this thread. The LPers have linked this to another one about minimum wages and equality.

   If you’re looking for some fun get on over there and ask them about the phenomenon of social mobility and why equality matters that much anyway.

   Comment by Michael Sutcliffe | July 14, 2009

3. I always wondered where Mark Lathams ladder got to.

   Comment by TerjeP (say tay-a) | July 15, 2009

4. Dammit, I hate being one of the only people who turned to Libertarianism through his own reasoning and not through the study of economics It makes it difficult to go after people like this sometimes

   Comment by Steve | July 15, 2009

5. Steve, even though I’m like you, I still go round taunting and teasing lefties wherever I can! It keeps me sane. We used to have regular leftoid haranguers here, but they’ve disappeared because of our lack of blind faith in Big Government. And lefties are usually emotional types, so economic arguments are not their strong points anyway- they want to ‘belong’ to a big group for protection, and help others to belong. It’ll be a long time before I belong!

   Comment by nicholas gray | July 15, 2009

6. Nice cartoon.

   Comment by Tim R | July 15, 2009

7. “If you’re looking for some fun get on over there and ask them about the phenomenon of social mobility and why equality matters that much anyway.”

   Not so fast young Micky Sutcliffe. Terje got over there (at your behest?) and first sung the praises of Sweden’s wage fixing system and then sang the praises of enterprise bargaining over centralised wage fixing systems. What the??

   Comment by Anthony | July 23, 2009

8. It ain’t at my behest, mate. You’re dealing with a bunch of individualists here, unlike your ragtag collective. I was just asking who was up for some fun.

   And yup, Terje’s certainly good a choosing the best option when presented with a number of less than perfect choices.

   Comment by Michael Sutcliffe | July 23, 2009

9. Anthony – enterprise bargaining is better than a centralised wage fixing system. Do you disagree?

   Comment by TerjeP (say tay-a) | July 24, 2009

10. “enterprise bargaining is better than a centralised wage fixing system. Do you disagree?”

    Yeah, I disagree. And I’m willing to say so, rather than support centralised wage fixing in one comment and enterprise bargaining in another, which seemed to be the stunt you pulled at LP.

    Micky Sutcliffe, my sincere apologies at even daring to suggest that someone could be influenced by your comments.

    Comment by Anthony | July 26, 2009

11. You can’t produce a quote that shows me supporting centralised wage fixing. So stop telling porkies.

    Comment by TerjeP (say tay-a) | July 26, 2009

12. Yeah, I though that was odd Terje. I didn’t know what Anthony was talking about either, that’s why I didn’t reply.

    Comment by Michael Sutcliffe | July 26, 2009

13. Off topic.

    Michael Sutcliffe, I just had a look at your site. On the UAV post you have “Rotary wing is too… unstable (unless it’s a gyrocopter)”, which isn’t actually true in general. Helicopters are only inherently unstable if the rotor is above the centre of gravity. Ridiculous as having the rotor underneath may seem, I think there actually are UAVs like that, with the undercarriage poking down through the rotor hub but most of the works on top (having them underneath with a boom poking up would work too, as would multiple overhead rotors “focussed” underneath). Those could carry a suspended load, provided only the support point was near enough the hub and the load could pivot about it. And, of course, inherent stability is a non-issue these days anyway, what with modern control systems (think Segway). RC model helicopters on the Hiller system are certainly practical – I’ve seen them. So the only problems are the expense, reliability etc., but even those are much less if you are willing to settle for a jatogiro or a jump start autogiro – inherently stable unless you viff them too long.

    Comment by P.M.Lawrence | July 26, 2009

14. “Rotary wing is too… unstable (unless it’s a gyrocopter)”, which isn’t actually true in general. Helicopters are only inherently unstable if the rotor is above the centre of gravity. Ridiculous as having the rotor underneath may seem, I think there actually are UAVs like that

    Yep, OK, I’ve never seen a rotary winged vehicle like this but I don’t doubt they could exist – if you think that negates the term ‘in general’ then so be it. Of course, the conventional design is both statically and dynamically unstable. More to the point, remembering the idea is to develop a vehicle for casualty evacuation, I’m interested in the configuration of your ‘low rotor’ design and how you envision take-off and landing on an unprepared area like a battlefield.

    Those could carry a suspended load, provided only the support point was near enough the hub and the load could pivot about it.

    Is this ignoring the fact that the suspended load will change your centre of gravity to a point significantly lower, or am I missing something?

    And, of course, inherent stability is a non-issue these days anyway, what with modern control systems (think Segway).

    This is absolutely true, although control systems for helicopter hover at low levels are somewhat more complex (probably not more than a Segway). I was recently on a relatively simple conventional fixed-wing UAV project that relied on the control system to negate deficiencies in the flight envelope due to it’s physical design, which suprised me somewhat, because physically correcting these issues is not hard on a conventional fixed wing UAV.

    So the only problems are the expense, reliability etc., but even those are much less if you are willing to settle for a jatogiro or a jump start autogiro – inherently stable unless you viff them too long.

    Yep, this is the guts of it. Remembering the point was casualty evacuation, so we want to put a person on board. But if we’re going to do that what level are we going to certify and maintain the aircraft to? If we’re going to do it like a normal helicopter that carries a hefty cost, maintenance and ‘ground footprint’ burden, and the costs start to outweigh the benefits of using a normal manned helicopter. A fixed wing conventional aircraft design offers a chance to negate some of this and start getting the benefits of a UAV, but it would want to be a pretty short take off and landing to fill the role. As you say, a jump-start autogiro might be one solution.

    Incidentally, my undergraduate thesis was a single bladed (with counterweight) autogiro (scale model only) that could be packed up and potentially carried into a tight spot, then assembled.

    Comment by Michael Sutcliffe | July 27, 2009

15. Michael Sutcliffe wrote “More to the point, remembering the idea is to develop a vehicle for casualty evacuation, I’m interested in the configuration of your ‘low rotor’ design and how you envision take-off and landing on an unprepared area like a battlefield”.

    I suspect it would do a fast in and out under those circumstances, not landing but only hovering briefly while a line was attached or a pre-attached pod loaded.

    Of my “Those could carry a suspended load, provided only the support point was near enough the hub and the load could pivot about it”, he asks “Is this ignoring the fact that the suspended load will change your centre of gravity to a point significantly lower, or am I missing something?”

    That’s missing “… and the load could pivot about [the hub]“. A rigidly fastened load would lower the centre of gravity significantly, but a loose coupling would make the load act at the support point close to the hub (up to the limit of the line’s travel, within the undercarriage layout). There could even be a coupling that “focussed” the support point higher, although that would limit the travel further and probably be complex enough to be unwarrantedly expensive, heavy and unreliable. It would be important not to build up wide swings in the load because of travel limits, but smaller swings would not destabilise things.

    “I was recently on a relatively simple conventional fixed-wing UAV project that relied on the control system to negate deficiencies in the flight envelope due to it’s physical design, which suprised me somewhat, because physically correcting these issues is not hard on a conventional fixed wing UAV”.

    Ah, but that lowers the negative lift, drag and weight overheads of the conventional approach, and gives better response from more flexible “bicycle stability” – instability mild enough that control systems can respond but also allows fast changes since they don’t “fight” that. This is why birds evolved the other approach.

    “A fixed wing conventional aircraft design offers a chance to negate some of this and start getting the benefits of a UAV, but it would want to be a pretty short take off and landing to fill the role”.

    Actually, if you have good enough control, dropping a line while the aeroplane “orbits” works. Apparently a line, even with a load, can be made to snake around under its lift, drag, weight and centrifugal forces in such a way as to centre the end and allow it to be placed on the ground with little relative motion. The New Scientist somewhere has an article about modern tests revisiting old pioneering work along this line, that delivered light equipment to teams working in a jungle. And, of course, a moving aircraft can snag a balloon or kite lofted line to hoist a load…

    Comment by P.M.Lawrence | July 27, 2009

16. Ah, but that lowers the negative lift, drag and weight overheads of the conventional approach, and gives better response from more flexible “bicycle stability” – instability mild enough that control systems can respond but also allows fast changes since they don’t “fight” that.

    All of this is absolutely correct. My point was that it was using the flight control system to optimise aerodynamically unrelated characteristics like basic utility functions, manufacturing simplicity and cost rather than some kind of aerodynamic function like drag or maneuverability. Kind of like the F-117 used the flight control system to minimise radar cross-section, rather than some kind of aerodynamic function – but that was cutting edge aircraft, this was an ‘agricultural’ UAV.

    The manufacturers were also attempting to use the flight control systems as part of certification, by claiming that although the aircraft wouldn’t perform aerodynamically to the certification standard, it didn’t matter because the flight control system would intervene to ensure that the aircraft never went into a problematic area of the envelope.

    Comment by Michael Sutcliffe | July 27, 2009

17. Interesting though this helicopter discussion is can somebody enlighten me as to what it has to do with the minimum wage?

    Comment by TerjeP (say tay-a) | July 27, 2009

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