Comments on: Dick Cheney on Employment

By: JamesW

JamesW — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 17:44:09 +0000

Cheney claims that “hundreds of thousands” make money trading on e-Bay. Any evidence? Hundreds of thousands buy and sell stuff – that doesn’t mean any significant number are actually getting any income out of it. I don’t see how anyone can make anything actually trading (buying and then selling) on e-Bay, a very efficient market. If I buy stuff in a garage sale and resell on e-Bay, then I am a trader. But before I could have sold on a street stall. There probably is an increase in income from the new platform not counted in GDP, but not that much. The main point to make against Cheney is that suddenly adding in all or part of the informal economy doesn’t change the facts about the formal economy you measured before. All the benchmarks change. How does he know the informal economy wasn’t doing well under Clinton and worse under Bush, like the rest?

By: bellatrys

bellatrys — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 16:38:25 +0000

username, I think it’s already established that Cheney needs to mention all the illegal activity-related income, if he wants to be really accurate. (which of course he doesn’t at all) —Though this does beg the question, how many traditional bricks-and-mortar fences and pawnbrokers have gone out of business as a result of ebay?

By: username

username — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 15:50:04 +0000

I know a large number of people who make more than 50% of their yearly income on ebay… And dont pay a dime in fed or state income or sales taxes on any of it to boot. Tell that to Cheney.

By: David Tiley

David Tiley — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 13:16:00 +0000

John Q. – there is a fascinating point inside that joke. I think a heap of the intellectual energy in the blogosphere comes from people like you who are discussing issues that are very close to your professional interests. A lot of the time to blog and comment comes from people who are not taking a cut lunch to work in the cubicle farm all day. Self employed, students, retired, under employed, shift workers, pensioners of various kinds, managers of businesses around the information industry.. etc.

By: bellatrys

bellatrys — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 03:24:24 +0000

daniel that is missing the point. The Cheney argument is meant to show us that all this “Increased Productivity” which has somehow made for greater corporate profits but not translated down into raises or increased takehome pay is still really good for us, because the stats showing no increase in takehome pay are missing all the people who are augmenting it with a share of the GDP which isn’t coming from conventional wages or salary. And technically what he said is true – millions of people are making “some” money from Ebay. “Millions of people” in this country, taken collectively, are also making all of the GDP. But that doesn’t help Joe Smoe in Podunk, Michigan, who’s sold his baseball card collection to buy his kids asthma medicine because he has no benefits from his day job, while Betsy Devos is taking home a much larger slice of the GDP and telling him that he gets paid too much. It’s casuistry, the truth that is less honest than lies. —kieran, that “let them sell tchochkes” line is perfect. I was struggling to come up with a way of making the “let them eat cake” equation all morning.

By: Jim Flannery

Jim Flannery — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 03:22:55 +0000

I must come from a parallel world, but I always thought people selling off their household goods in order to survive was a bad sign. Perhaps Cheney’s just been taking the subject lines on his spam too seriously.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:25:21 +0000

In 2003, $24B of merchandise was sold on eBay. Quite a bake sale I must say.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 23:58:03 +0000

Well to be fair, kevin many ebay vendors sell new items as well. But as timothy points out above many from this group (and categories like cars and boats) use ebay as a supplement to b&m sales operations, hence the most sizeable receipts I would guess should already be part of the commerce dept. figures.

By: kevin donoghue

kevin donoghue — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:53:33 +0000

Alex, in my innocence (never having had anything at all to do with ebay) I had assumed that the goods auctioned are second-hand, hence already part of some previous year’s GDP? Unless I am much mistaken, John Quiggin is taking the piss out of the non-economists.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:28:38 +0000

Kevin, DeLong is only accounting for ebay’s own income from online auctions. Not the receipts from the auctions themselves. It sidesteps Cheney’s [independently questionable] point altogether.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:21:35 +0000

Judging by the times at which I see posts and comments going up, lots of people get paid for blogging!

By: Tithonia

Tithonia — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 22:21:22 +0000

Hmm…. what about men’s domestic labor?

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 21:57:18 +0000

You get paid for blogging? You make money blogging? Good for you!

By: Giles

Giles — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 21:27:56 +0000

“Blogging is (I roughly estimate) a billion-dollar a year industry and (apart from a handful of companies with modest revenues) appears nowhere in the National Accounts.” Surely to be included in the accounts (positively) it must create “value added”? Which is prabably why Cheny wont be pushing for its inclusion any time soon!

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 21:10:40 +0000

I’m surprised no-one here has pointed to the obvious example. Blogging is (I roughly estimate) a billion-dollar a year industry and (apart from a handful of companies with modest revenues) appears nowhere in the National Accounts.