JOBS FOR EVERYONE Without Minimum Wage Laws

ISIL ^ | January 2001 | Mark Tier

[Moonman62]

Good find. Another factor is a Federal Reserve Chairman who body slams the economy every time we approach full employment.

[j271]

Theoretically the Fed has to ease up on the printing press as we approach full employment in order to avoid inflation.

Typically a side-effect of this is an economic slowdown.

However, inflation is mitigated by rising productivity. If the same amount of labor can produce an increasing amount of output, this tends to push back against inflationary forces.

The key problem is that taxes and regulations undermine not only productivity, but productivity growth. The result is that the economy misses out on longer expansions during business cycle upsides, and shorter contractions during downsides. That would mean more jobs and prosperity for everyone.

Unfortunately in contemporary America, society believes it's more important for people like Ted Kennedy to get good press for false compassion than it is for the average American to have a rising standard of living.

C'est la vie.

[Age of Reason]

If they'd stop flooding the country with immigrant workers, there would be no minimum wage laws because without immigrants there would be fewer workers for low-wage jobs, which would cause those jobs to pay more.

End of problem and end of poverty and end of slums and end of welfare.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Ping.

[Madame de Winter]

This is most ludicrous article I've ever read here. Was it penned by Smidley McWhiplash? Is this an argument for returning to serfdom? Just do the math and suppose there are no taxes or anything taken out of your paycheck.

Eight hour days for a 40 hour week for 52 weeks

$4hr= $8,320
$5hr=$10,400
$6hr=$12,480

Eight hour days for a 48 hour week for 52 weeks

$4hr= $9,984
$5hr=$12,480
$6hr=$14,976

Eight hours a day for every day of the year
$4=$11,680
$6=$17,520

What kind of consumers will these poor folks be? Rice? Rice and Beans? How about buyers of a wish sandwich? Or a holiday cake!

Is this the brave new world of the new "Hong Kong" a la punk sci-fi writer Gibson? Will these people live 10 to a room trying to make ends meet? Or is this a country where this is a great per capita earnings statement? I hope this not the new vision for the USA!

Haven't we progressed to the point we can take care of our OWN tired and poor and huddled masses yearning to be free...

Oops, I forgot, taxes is the government stealing from me, ME...

[FairWitness]

Very reasonable.

[Moonman62]

Theoretically the Fed has to ease up on the printing press as we approach full employment in order to avoid inflation.

Theoretically, but in reality a correlation has never been shown between full employment and inflation. And business cycles seem to be artificial constructs of economists who think there should be one, and who have the power to make it happen.

In reality the only cause I've ever found for inflation is the anticipated and real destruction caused by large wars, and sovereign sized debt defaults. Once those conditions are met, then printing money exacerbates the problem, and stopping the presses fixes the problem. The only long term solution I've found for inflation is economic growth and innovation.

[Moonman62]

What kind of consumers will these poor folks be?

And if they don't have a job, they'll be making $0, and not gaining any experience to help them make more money.

[Jason Kauppinen]

Down with the Fed!! Up with the Austrian Trade Cycle Theory!!

[CanadianFella]

Serfod is when the govt forbids you from freely negotiating your own work contract, so you spend the month living hand-to-mouth over a welfare check. Nice alternative.
And no, we don't have to "take care of our OWN". I owe nothing to no one except the good life to myself alone. Anything else is forced servitude for someone else, i.e. serfdom.

[CanadianFella]

Serfod=Serfdom, I need sleep.

[Dead Corpse]

The DU is over there. You are in the wrong place.

[j271]

And if they don't have a job, they'll be making $0, and not gaining any experience to help them make more money.

Agreed 100%.

Using the numbers shown in a previous post, eliminating minimum wage could provide an extra $10,000 per year to someone who currently has no job.

More importantly, that person would get experience, and start to build the contacts young people so badly need to get access to better-paying jobs.

When you consider that youth unemployment is a jarring 17.7%, (seasonally adjusted numbers for total population age 16-19, figures available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ) it becomes clear that eliminating minimum wages really means creating new jobs for the young.

[Madame de Winter]

Dear Canaianfellatio,

Please do a google search before you write such tripe.

Serfod leads to a Spanish language page about dragons or prehistoric Saurians or a Dutch sport page.

You might also try "serfdom" in your search and learn that it has nothing to do with government. It is when wealthy land owners (read Czarist Russia) or Warlords, just like in Afghanistan, contol a subservient populace to maintain the their status. You might even want to look up "feudalism."

Have I insulted you enough? It's Friday Night and it's good for fighting (if you google that you may even come up with Elton John).

Apart from my bashing, would you work for those wages? By the way all those wages were way below the poverty line. If you have a family forget about getting braces for the kids.

My point was about economics. And maybe a little bit about social responsibility. Now everyone hates taxes. The argument is about how they are spent: Guns vs. Butter.

However, it is no one's interest to have a large dispossed class. That's the breeding ground for socialist revolution. Common sense ya' know!

If you "owe nobody nothing" then go be an island unto your self and cut yourself from all the benefits of social discourse.

I've got my brassknuckles on so let's go a few rounds whadd'ya say?

[Madame de Winter]

Is that the best you can come up with? I am insulted! You must not like the fact I disagree with a libertarian. I like most of what libertarians say but their position on economics, dare I say, SUCKS!

So if we repeal the minimum wage that will make us all richer and teach us the value of a dollar?

Ppshaww!!!

[SamAdams76]

Without a minimum wage, things might not cost as much. Everytime the minimum wage goes up, inflation quickly rises to wipe out any gains for those at minimum wage. Make the minimum wage $100 an hour and all that will mean is that a hamburger and fries at McDonald's will cost about the same.

No matter what you artificially set a minimum wage at, those making it will be at the bottom of the economic ladder. They will not be getting braces for their kids in any case. They will need to upgrade their skills and move into a position where there skills and ability will command more money in the marketplace.

[Madame de Winter]

True some jobs are better than no job. But consumerism is what has been driving the economy and according to some, our patriotic duty.

A healthy middle consumer class is what drives the creation of demand for good and services. So a $4 dollar an hour job for lots of folks won't drive that kind of economy. That's a third world wage. Unless we are looking forward to a sci-fi punk world of Gibson. God I hope not!

Hong Kong? Do you want to live there?

[Madame de Winter]

In theory I might agree with you. But in actual exerience in the last ten years, I've seen the the minimum wage in my state go from $5 dollars to almost $8 an hour (round numbers). I have seen very lityle inflation of prices, outside of real estate, to support your position.

Do you know something I don't know from actual experience?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Do you know something I don't know from actual experience? 19 posted on 8/23/02 10:22 PM Pacific by Madame de Winter

Visited Switzerland in the last coupla years?

I have.

• Switzerland has NO Minimum Wage. Zero. Zip. Nada. (Minimum Wages are set industry-by-industry by voluntary collective bargaining, in which the State does not interfere).
• In Switzerland, the Budget consumes only 15% of the economy as measured by GDP.
• In Switzerland, the Unemployment Rate is 1.9%.. The US rate is nearly triple that level.
• In Switzerland, the Inflation Rate is 1.5% The US Rate is at least double that level.
• In Switzerland, poverty is essentially non-existent. In the US, the figure is more like 13% of the population.

Obviously, any true American Patriot should seek to reform the US Economy along the lines of the Swiss Model (a Gold Standard monetary base, and a combat rifle in every household are also fine Swiss ideas as well, of course; anyone with an IQ somewhere above room temperature can see that), and should therefore seek to abolish the unemployment-generating, inflation-producing, poverty-creating policies of the Liberal War on Poor People.