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"A "living wage" is one of the standard mantras of the socialist left. it completely defies the basic laws of economics. If you price someting above equilibrium it results in loss of supply."

I would say that dismissing the concept of "living wages" as "socialism" is one of the mantras of the idiot right. I shouldn't say idiot. Its an inertia thing. Most right-wingers just haven't thought much about it or parrot what they hear smart guys like Milton Friedman say.

What defies the basic laws of economics is not paying a person enough to live. I tried to explain that once here with chickens. If you don't feed a chicken enough to live, it dies. Freepers still wouldn't listen. But, never giving up, I try again. The same would happen to American workers except that the gov't steps in and pick up the pieces. Forget "altruism" for the nonce, and forget simple human compassion and basic logic. Forget fairness and equity. Just think GREED. Why should the gov't(the taxpayers) pick up the difference between crap wages and what it costs for food, housing, and medical care? Make employers pay a floor wage that is livable and save your own pocketbook parsy the really logical freeper.

You still prefer employers to subsidize low productivity, low value added, workers rather than the government, despite the hideous attendant economic inefficienies associated with doing it that way. Oh well. "Idoits" like Milton Friedman prefer the government doing it via the negative income tax. Actually, I heard Milty on the Limbaugh show last Friday, with guest host Walter Williams. The guy was still going strong at 91. He didn't sound like an idiot to me.

The minimum wage is mainly for people who don't need a job for their existence, i.e. high school students and college students who still get support from Mom and Dad. It is also meant for entry-level personnel. If you increase the minimum wage, it reduces opportunities for young people to get their foot in the door. If you still earn the minimum wage after several years on the job, perhaps it's time to find a new career, or if you're an illegal alien, to get back to the country you came from.

What defies the basic laws of economics is not paying a person enough to live. I tried to explain that once here with chickens. If you don't feed a chicken enough to live, it dies. Freepers still wouldn't listen. But, never giving up, I try again. The same would happen to American workers except that the gov't steps in and pick up the pieces.

So if I use your analogy, we should all be kept like chickens. They have no control over their own lives except when to defecate. They are fed when the farmer decides and they die when the farmer decides. It sounds very much like a system that was in place in the former Soviet Union.

As far as people espousing the negative impacts of minimum wage laws (or any price floor for that matter) because some "smart guy like Milton Friedman said it" is not accurate. Sure, he believes in the free-market system, but I have yet to come across any introductory college econ textbook that does not take the same position. It is basic supply and demand. I would be happy to transcribe the wording verbatim from my college micro 101 textbook if you are still in doubt of the negative impact of minimum wage laws.

The only people that promote minimum wage laws are politicians on the far left, labor union leaders (from the far left by definition), Marxist (or socialist) college professors, and readers of the popular press (including evening news viewers) who have never taken an econ course in their life who are basically regurgitating what Ted Kennedy and his ilk are promoting.

Now here you've done drug them damn chickens out here again. What did you want to do that for? I could have went ten more years without hearing about them starving chickens. I wisht you would leave the chickens out of this, parsy.