Maternity leave is all ready factored into the studies. Clearly, his statement is false.

I don't doubt that's the case. But it's not discrimination: it's hedging against risk; namely, the risk of spending resources on training someone and having them bail shortly thereafter. Regulations like mandatory maternity leave only serve to exacerbate the problem.

I have made no such claim that the market is flawless. But if you understand value theory (value is not a price, but is subjective; value ends up indirectly determining price), then you will know that the market is the *only* way to come to a sensible price. It is the only way by which we can calculate how scarce resources should be used amongst their alternative uses, in what quantity, etc. It may seem nonsensical to you, but if for some reason, all of the western world values a steaming pile of shit, shit will become a scarce resource and have a price associated with it. Just because I don't want shit doesn't mean other people don't and that its price should be lower than, say, a pound of rice. It may turn out that the desire for shit was misplaced sometime in the future, it is abandoned, but that doesn't prove anything at all.

Oh, how so? It outlines the same things that have been echo'ed here, that there women make decisions that negatively affect their earning power. That's not to say that those decisions are poor decisions--only an individual can decide if such a sacrifice is worthwhile. As for linking to a book, apologies. I only did a very brief search; it's a political topic and most of the results are political in nature, not scientific.

You are drawing conclusions from something that was not said. It may well be that the author is sexist and meant it in a sexist way, but I see no reason why we should assume it to be a sexist statement.

Sigh, arbitrary arguments over wage rates. The only way to find out what someone should be paid is by letting the market show us. There's no other way to aggregate the necessary information.

That varies depending on what data you look at. The link I provided above accounted for all of 4%. The other thing to remember is that there could be other factors that we just haven't thought of yet--that remaining 4-7% could very well make perfect sense, as has the other 17%. The point is that it's a very small deviation--small enough that any efforts to "correct" it, should it even need correcting, would almost surely hurt everyone involved more than help them. As I stated above (maybe in a different message), the market does not reward discrimination. That doesn't mean that it won't exist, only that a firm places itself at a competitive disadvantage if it discriminates[1].

[1] Actually that's really only true when society detests the discrimination in question. It could certainly be plausible that if a society detests brown-eyed people working in factories (for whatever silly reason), any company who attempts to hire a brown-eyed person to a factory job would be boycotted to the point where hiring that person would be a net loss, even though otherwise his hiring practices may be at a competitive advantage over the competition. Suffice it to say, I don't think society detests women being paid on par with men, given it is an apples to apples comparison, so I don't think this analysis applies.

Ultimately I think he communicated the same thing that you did, but in fewer words. He didn't say "women who act like men are paid more," just that when the behaviors are the same, which would include career choice, child rearing decisions, etc., the pay is the same. There is *nothing* sexist about that statement.

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I rarely read signatures, but I did read yours.

It's a political talking point. Of course logic and reason have no place in the argument. I have a feminist friend who will make the "79 cents on every dollar" claim frequently; I will point her to research which very convincingly refutes the claim; later, she will say, "but we make 79 cents on every dollar." [ mind blown ]

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba766

In my relationship with my wife, as is the case with many families, I am the one who is tasked with earning the money. Some may take it that we're just playing into a stereotype, and that may be true to an extent, but it works for us and plays to both of our strengths. I admittedly did not plan my career around the possibility of myself getting pregnant and having to take a year off of work for each of my three young children, but to do so would be silly, since I am, after all, a man. In my family's situation, my earning more money (time spent working held constant) is synonymous with caring for my children. Like it or not, most women--even today--do plan their lives, at least to a certain extent, around being a mother. This affects the sorts of careers they go into and how quickly they move up the ladder. But is it wrong? No, I don't think so. They receive non-monetary compensation for their decisions. I do not get to experience my children all day long, which I consider a downside to my working; my wife does. Can't have your cake and eat it too. :)

Yeah I'm sure there are biases, but the reality is the market doesn't reward biases, as it puts an employer at a competitive disadvantage. That's not to say that an employer won't act on his or her biases--just that they're not rewarded. I would expect there to be more un-acted-upon biases than acted-upon biases, but that's purely speculative. :)

There are many studies that verify his claims. Once you account for various factors, the wage gap all but disappears. This sort of article does nothing but affirm the stupidity of comparing apples to oranges. *Of course* if a high-paying employer moves into an area and hires a bunch of one demographic, but not another, the group it hires will gain financially, relative the other group. If you bother to look up the data, you'll find that women *do* consider more factors than finances than men do; preparing to have and care for children is one of the obvious things they consider.

OK this will be my last response. First of all, aren't you conflating financials with economics? While on a balance sheet, you may be able to say that building out infrastructure is simply a shifting of assets, but that is simply not true economically. Economically, we cannot say that built infrastructure is worth the same as the money used to build it, as value is entirely subjective. Whether or not the infrastructure increases or decreases in value (as represented in units of dollars, although of course value and money are not the same thing) is determined by whether society (internet service consumers in this instance) prefer the resource in its former or latter state. If Comcast invested $500 million in a vast infrastructure that no one wants and thus has little or no value, then that is certainly not a $500 million asset (it may be when looking at a balance sheet, but not economically).

As for AT&T, you're completely changing the subject. Not only that, but you're just throwing random anecdotes around without anything to substantiate, such as: "They were a monopoly and they gouged us." Interestingly, then you concede the argument: that innovation overthrew the monopoly. Okay, yeah I'm being facetious. But you do get my point, right? Competition need not come strictly from another company trying to offer a very similar service or product.

I concede it may not be possible for Comcast to grow their cable business. I thought of the same constraints you mentioned before I submitted, but wasn't about to make your argument for you. :)

The last thing I take issue with is your idea of what a normal firm does vs what a monopoly[1] does. Both firms seek to optimize their prices and capacity as to obtain the greatest possible profit. A monopoly is not the only type of firm who may want to reduce output to increase prices and ultimately gain a greater return.

[1] For the record, I reject your definition of monopoly. It is arbitrary to assume that the optimum number of firms in a given market must be between x and y.

Operational income margins are the worst indicators of the big picture, as they don't include outstanding debt, etc. Like I said, to get an accurate picture we need to look over a greater length of time than just a year or quarter. What sort of return do the telcos get on their investment? That is really the question.