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"And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - Bastiat
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." - Voltaire
Indeed! Think of the children!
Regarding the back and forth about the historical value of minimum wage in today's dollars:
In many ways this is a red herring, because it diverts attention from the real issues, which are that:
--in a free society all trades including those that involve labor must be consensual and freedom to contract at mutually voluntary terms must not be abrogated
--in a free enterprise economic system, price signals are essential to determine the allocation of resources. Any attempt by government to impose either price ceilings or floors cause the mis-allocation of resources and make the system as a whole less productive with the result that everyone is worse off.
Furthermore, different products have changed cost in nominal dollars at different rates over the years. Some things like a lot of electronics weren't available at any price years ago. Others are much cheaper now: computing power as an example. Or look at microwave ovens, cheaper now than 30 years ago. Or recording devices--a VCR that cost $400 in 1984 goes for about $40, if you'd even want one, better substitutes like DVD players available for even less.
A "general price level" is only an approximation, and is dependent on what market basket of goods is included in the measure.
Not surprisingly, the sectors of the economy that are most influenced by governmental policy, like healthcare and education, have suffered the greatest increases in current-dollar equivalent costs over recent years.
Direct examples & support for the above assertions from my own experience:
Burger flipper economics- year 1972 NY state--minimum wage $1.85; Burger King Whopper + small fries + Coke cost $1.04 before tax. Current costs for labor and the food both have gone up about 5 times in 44 years
1977 VW Rabbit cost about $4700; current equivalent vehicle about $19000, only about 4 times as much
Ivy league education 1972-1976 cost about $4000 per year all-in, including tuition room and board. About $65,000 today, which is about 16 times increase
Brawndo's got what plants crave. Its got electrolytes.
H. L. Mencken said it best:
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Exactly.
(Also, making sure that you know @Anti Federalist also understands this- he was just showing the inflation craziness.)
The answer is to get .gov OUT of business and close the FED, no more fractional banking, and bring back the gold standard. Think Trump understands THAT?
Hello?
Bueller? Bueller..........?
There is no spoon.
The demand curve is for cucks yo...
combined with tax cuts and loosening of red tape regulations, $10 should be fine phased in gradually over a few years. It's been almost 10 years since the last minimum wage law increase was passed.
How many PHD economists do we have on these forums?
600 Economists Now Back A $10.10 Minimum Wage
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
Originally Posted by spudea on 01/15/24Originally Posted by spudea on 04/20/16Originally Posted by spudea on 05/30/17
Raising the minimum wage isn't going to make the prices go up as much as the minimum wage goes up. Because labor costs - minimum wage labor costs - are only one part of prices.
Heck, we don't live in a free market now, so if the minimum wage goes up, the prices of goods don't necessarily go up. The oligopolies don't charge the cost to produce the good, the oligopoly charges whatever gives them the most total profit. Econ 101.
Okay I can do that too.
500 economists signed a counter letter to the one you listed advocating for the elimination of the minimum wage. Included on that list were Robert Lucas, Gene Fama, Vernon Smith, and Edward Prescott who all have Nobel Prizes. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...0-minimum-wage
Gary Becker has one of those Nobel Prizes. Here what he said on his blog. http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/20...ea-becker.html
Yeah combined with enough exercise you can eat more and lose weight, Congress won't cut taxes or loosen any regulations, they will keep spending more and more. Trump isn't advocating for fixing congress, he isn't running on a platform of term limits. This is just more liberal bull$#@!, see my Sig if you have any questions.combined with tax cuts and loosening of red tape regulations,
Yes i like how their letter has ZERO specifics, but recommends "comprehensive policy solutions that truly help address poverty, boost incomes from work, and increase upward mobility by fostering growth in our nation’s economy."
Which is exactly what I propose as well and a small increase to the fed minimum wage can be part of that comprehensive policy solution.
Heres the letter if you need it: http://nebula.wsimg.com/0ac0b639d50f...&alloworigin=1
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
Originally Posted by spudea on 01/15/24Originally Posted by spudea on 04/20/16Originally Posted by spudea on 05/30/17
That is soooooooooooooo laughably not true. That is a phony Elizabeth Warren stat that she passed around a couple of years ago. It was based on nothing.
The minimum wage in 1968 adjusted for inflation would be $8.54 in today's dollars and that is the all time peak minimum wage.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...-minimum-wage/
Last edited by Krugminator2; 07-27-2016 at 07:08 PM.
Okay. Here are some specifics. This Wascher Neumark study aggregated all minimum wage studies. Guess what conclusion they came to? http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663
Here is from the abstract.
A minimum wage will lower productivity and incomes make things worse off. Vernon Smith wrote the letter and passed it around. Here are his policy prescriptions for growth. http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-spending.htmlFirst, we see very few - if any - studies that provide convincing evidenceof positive employment effects of minimum wages, especially from those studies that focus on thebroader groups (rather than a narrow industry) for which the competitive model predicts disemploymenteffects. Second, the studies that focus on the least-skilled groups provide relatively overwhelmingevidence of stronger disemployment effects for these groups.
Last edited by Krugminator2; 07-27-2016 at 06:13 PM.
Raising the minimum wage to $10/hr. is far worse than the PATRIOT Act.
$7.25 in 1986 was worth what $15.94 is worth today.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
Originally Posted by spudea on 01/15/24Originally Posted by spudea on 04/20/16Originally Posted by spudea on 05/30/17
No, you wouldn't.
The price of a burger doesn't go up 50% if you raise the minimum wage
Let's say 10%.
Then, let's say the minimum wage workers get a 10% hike in the minimum wage.
Burger prices will go up 2%.
Then minimum wages will go up 2%.
Then burger prices will go up .4%.
It doesn't accelerate the way you think it would.
What all of you folks who think that you really know economics don't understand is that we don't live in a free market. Not at all. We talk about hamburgers as if they're commodities. That a Big Mac and a Whopper costs the consumer what it costs to make. It doesn't. And when it simply doesn't because oligopoly, because advertising, because of all the changes since Adam Smith in the 1700s and Alfred Marshall in 1890. It just doesn't work the way you think it does. Obviously costs are included in prices, but no oligopoly is racing to sell their products at the cost it takes to make them. They charge more. They charge the amount that leads to the largest total profit, because the rules of perfect competition do not apply to oligopolies. The rules of oligopolies apply to oligopolies apply to oligopolies, and almost everything is an oligopoly right now.
It goes up less than 50%.
Why discuss those things as if they go together? The raising of the minimum wage should be addressed on its own. And it's a bad thing. You can't do some other good thing and act like it undoes the bad. You should do only the good and not the bad.
And I wonder what policies you have in mind that have "positive employment effects." If you're not talking about policies that make the market more free, then those also would be bad policies.
The idea that raising the minimum wage increases inflation is a misconception.
Without increasing the money supply, it wouldn't increase inflation. Instead, certain prices that depend on the minimum wage would go up, and others would go down to make up for them.
Inflation adjusted minimum wage:
Right. That is graph from the article I linked. This idea that the minimum wage is too low historically vs inflation is wrong. It is now higher in inflation adjusted dollars than for most of the last 30 years.
The idea that we should be reverting back to the bad economic ideas of the 60's, when the economics profession was far to the left, is crazy,
If by "you need to help people" you actually mean "you need to force some people to 'help' some other people, while never actually doing anything yourself to 'help' anyone at all, but nevertheless claiming credit all along for being the one who is 'helping' people," then I must disagree with Teh Donald - that is indeed a "very Republican [thing] to say." (It's a very Democrat thing to say, too ...)"There doesn't have to be," Trump said. "I would leave it and raise it somewhat. You need to help people. I know it's not very Republican to say."
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to CaptUSA again.
The Bastiat Collection · FREE PDF · FREE EPUB · PAPER Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)
- "When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law."
-- The Law (p. 54)- "Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
-- Government (p. 99)- "[W]ar is always begun in the interest of the few, and at the expense of the many."
-- Economic Sophisms - Second Series (p. 312)- "There are two principles that can never be reconciled - Liberty and Constraint."
-- Harmonies of Political Economy - Book One (p. 447)· tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito ·
The minimum wage is a relic from the 30s. Abolishing the minimum wage won't bring the utopia that you believe. All employment is a competition between employer and the employee. The employer wants maximum profits for his own benefit. The employee wants a suitable living wage in exchange for his labor and time. In this relationship, the employer typically enjoys greater power with knowledge of the business, industry, and market forces. Some employees can increase their power through organization/unions. However not all jobs/trades are conducive to unionization, especially the lowest skilled, least educated, and youngest workers. Enter the minimum wage protection.
F.D.R. Makes the Case for the minimum wage“Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, who has been turning his employees over to the Government relief rolls in order to preserve his company’s undistributed reserves, tell you – using his stockholders’ money to pay the postage for his personal opinions — tell you that a wage of $11.00 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.” - F.D.R.
I would favor Rand's personal income tax plan, abolishing corporate income taxes, or at least a drastic reduction. abolishing obamacare. abolishing licensing laws. The employer only cares about his bottom line. While a minimum wage increase can hurt his bottom line, combining with other policies that boost his bottom line can have overall positive effect.
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
Originally Posted by spudea on 01/15/24Originally Posted by spudea on 04/20/16Originally Posted by spudea on 05/30/17
I just want objectivity on this forum and will point out flawed sources or points of view at my leisure.
Originally Posted by spudea on 01/15/24Originally Posted by spudea on 04/20/16Originally Posted by spudea on 05/30/17
I have a better idea. Swing it all the way to zero and don't price black teenagers out of the labor force.
The black teenage unemployment rate was 10% in 1948 before the first major minimum wage hike. From Walter Williams with the early unemployment rates. http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st112.pdf
It is a little under 40% now. Or Politifact says it is 51% http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...-rate-african/
Pricing kids that are most likely to be a problem out of the labor force is in no one's best interest.
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