Free Republic

There is much debate in the United States about the minimum wage. Many people feel it should be higher, since those who earn the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour are often just barely making it. Others feel any minimum wage discourages businesses from hiring more employees, so the issue of how much employees are paid should be left to the free market to determine.Advocates of both options often cite the minimum wage laws of other nations as evidence of the validity of their views. One oft-cited fact is many developed nations without minimum wages have drastically lower...

Academics Downgrade Socialized Medicine by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 25, 2008 Throughout the Twentieth Century into the new millennium, academia has been the incubator for a flood of ideas on how to nationalize health care. Now, it seems, academics themselves are admitting that it doesn’t work, even as various presidential candidates still float ideas to provide “universal health care.” The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) at Harvard recently compiled a survey of 20 developed countries. As relayed by John Goodman of the free-market National Center for Policy Analysis, the NBER concludes that: 1. There is no general relationship between...

Emissions levels have proved a sticking point Leading US politicians are meeting with legislators from the EU, China, Japan and India to seek a breakthrough in the international climate deadlock. The meeting, organised by British-run parliamentarians' group Globe, is strongly supported by the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. On Thursday, it will publish recommendations for a new world deal on climate change at the G8 summit. G8 leaders will be meeting in Germany this summer. The gathering in the US senate has attracted two presidential candidates - John McCain and the Senate Foreign Relations committee chair Joe Biden. In...