[Chgogal]

Yesterday, Romney did say a smart thing. The Republicans should tie the minimum wage to the COLA. I say it should be tied to both the inflationary and deflationary indexes. That seems fair.

[Olog-hai]

That’s the tactic that unions use to demand wage increases whenever a contract comes up for renewal.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Yesterday, Romney did say a smart thing. The Republicans should tie the minimum wage to the COLA. I say it should be tied to both the inflationary and deflationary indexes. That seems fair.

What is the problem we’re trying to solve? Is it the economy - or is it the fact that Democrats demagogue the “minimum wage?" Strictly as a political matter, indexing would, theoretically, take the “minimum wage" off the table. But only theoretically, since in reality there is no way you can prevent complainers from demanding “more.”

“Minimum wage” belongs in scare quotes because it is actually a productivity threshold rule for employers. No one who can’t find an employer who considers his/her time to be worth the “minimum wage” gets a job at all.

Thomas Sowell favored the “minimum wage” in his callow youth - but ultimately he analyzed its actual effect. And then he looked at history, and found out that its actual effect was indeed its intended effect - namely, to price less skilled blacks out of the job market, keeping them from competing with whites for jobs.

In reality it was started explicitly as anti-black legislation. And the “beauty” of it - from the Democrat political perspective - is that it tickles the fancy of the very people whose prospects it subverts.