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The Obama Watch

Obama’s Minimum Wage Welfare State

By on 2.19.13 @ 6:09AM

The data doesn’t support Obama’s proposal, but his party won’t waver in its commitment to the mythology of left-wing class struggle.

Real median household income in the United States has fallen more than 8 percent since Barack Obama was first sworn in as president, and has even fallen during the course of the Obama “recovery.” That, of course, is the fault of George W. Bush, John Boehner, rich people, and ATM machines. Fortunately, President Obama and his economic advisors have come up with a solution to this problem: force businesses to pay their employees more.

The president talks a lot about public/private partnerships, like he did during his state of the union address. What he means is compelling businesses to become partners in the Welfare State. Through Obamacare, he and his Democratic allies have mandated that it is the responsibility of businesses to provide their employees Obama-approved insurance, which must include all the bureaucrats’ favorite bells and whistles, like free contraceptives (not having free contraceptives, after all, is tantamount to “denying women access to birth control”). With that accomplishment under his belt, he has now come forth with a perennial favorite of the Democratic Party, raising the minimum wage.

Already hit hard by the impending costs of the Obamacare mandates, industries with large low-wage workforces, such as food service, janitorial, landscape maintenance, and low-end retail, are now facing the possibility of a 24 percent rise in the minimum wage, from the current $7.25 per hour to $9 per hour. This could, it would seem, bust many a company’s labor budget. But not to fret. According to the president, this will be good for business because “it would mean customers with more money in their pockets.”

Anyone who has followed politics for more than three days knows that politicians are prone to making some of the dumbest comments that supposedly highly educated people can make. This is one of them. It’s not a new one, of course; Democrats make it every time they argue for an increase in the minimum wage, as do a variety of liberal commentators. But that doesn’t make it any less of an embarrassment for anyone with a shred of intellectual integrity.

Where, an inquiring mind might ask, will the money come from that the president says will fill the pockets of customers? It comes from the pockets of the business owners or from the businesses’ other customers, who now have to pay higher prices. So how does moving the money from one pocket to another help the economy? The short answer is, it doesn’t.

This is not complicated stuff. So why does simple economics (and logic) befuddle so many liberal policymakers and commentators? Liberals are naturally drawn to the Keynesian notion that spending is good and savings are bad, and they apply it rather indiscriminately. The middle-income people who bear the brunt of minimum wage increases, however, do not have impressive savings rates. The argument that it benefits the economy to shift a few dollars out of some people’s savings accounts (dollars that would go toward future expenditures: houses, or cars, or college educations) and into the hands of poorer people who are more likely to spend those dollars immediately is bad economics. But the real reason many support an increase in the minimum wage is not that they think it will help the economy. They support it for ideological reasons; it is another way to redistribute wealth.

John Cassidy, writing for the New Yorker in a piece entitled “The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage,” put it quite clearly: “In the current political environment, there is little chance of pushing through another hike in income-support programs. Raising the minimum wage pushes the burden onto corporations and consumers.” Translation: Corporations (and partnerships and sole proprietors) and consumers should be forced by government to pay more for goods and services so that wealth can be transferred to low-wage workers. Again, in the mind of President Obama, and his supporters like Mr. Cassidy, government should use its coercive powers to compel businesses and their customers to be extensions of the Welfare State.

Those on the left brush aside the argument that increasing the minimum wage decreases employment opportunities for lower skilled workers. They point to the fact that the unemployment rate decreased during President Clinton’s second term despite a two-part increase in the minimum wage in 1996 and 1997. They also point to studies such as one from the Keystone Research Center, which concluded that Clinton’s minimum wage hikes had a “small and statistically insignificant” effect on job losses. So a supposed economic law — that if you increase the price of something (all other things being equal) you decrease the demand — must be all wet, the creation of old fuddy-duddy economists who can’t understand the new liberal world order. (On the other hand, though, liberals are all for raising taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, because raising the price of those items will reduce demand for them).

If the economy is growing at a decent clip, as it usually does (the last four years notwithstanding), a small increase in the minimum wage may very well not be a big enough counterweight to cause a reduction in low-wage employment. But that hardly means that the effect wasn’t a reduction from what it otherwise would have been. A study by the Employment Policy Institute, for instance, showed that despite the overall rise in employment, employment for teenagers — who largely make at or near minimum wage — actually fell in the year after the initial Clinton minimum wage increase in October 1996. And most studies of previous rate hikes (such as 1990-1991) show clear evidence of job losses. One reason why some have found the data from 1996-1997 more ambiguous is that the minimum wage lagged behind inflation and real wage growth. Thus, the relatively modest 1996-1997 rises pushed the minimum wage above the fair market value of fewer workers than in the past. Likewise, the rise to $5.85/hr. in 2007 (still a year of good employment growth) only represented a 13.6 percent increase from the still-in-effect 1997 level of $5.15, well below the increase in the consumer price index for that period. But the 1997 increase was only the first phase of a multi-year increase that took the minimum wage up another 24 percent, to $7.25 by July 2009. I have not seen any studies suggesting that this further increase was benign in its effects on low-wage employment. Certainly, the raw data is not encouraging. Whereas the number of employed people in the U.S. fell by about 4.6 percent from July 2008 to July 2010, for teenage workers (a reasonable proxy for minimum wage workers), employment fell by a whopping 21 percent.

The hike proposed by President Obama represents a further increase of 24 percent from the $7.25 level set in July 2009, even though the consumer price index has only risen 6.6 percent. This would put the federal minimum wage even substantially higher than most elevated state minimum wages, such as California ($8.00/hr.) and Illinois ($8.25/hr.). The effects on employment, therefore, would not likely be as ambiguous as in 1996-97 or 2007. Furthermore, Obama has proposed indexing the minimum wage to inflation, thus locking in its deleterious effects on employment.

An official with an Atlanta area Sheet Metal Workers Union local was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal complaining that a certain provision of Obamacare would result in an increase in the price of union labor of between $0.50 and $1 an hour. Why is he concerned about that? Because he doesn’t live in the sheltered halls of government, liberal think tanks, or the New Yorker, but rather in the real world. He understands that higher union labor costs mean fewer union jobs.

One reason the Left has a difficult time accepting that raising the minimum wage reduces low-wage employment is an imbedded belief that most employers exploit low-wage workers to make big profits. Forcing up the price a little won’t cause employers to bat an eye, the logic goes. To quote again from John Cassidy: “With the decline of trade unions and the spread of aggressive management techniques, low-paid workers now have little bargaining power and few legal protections. Only the government can ensure that they receive a living wage.” This comes not from a study of reality but is the product of an ideologically constructed worldview. I don’t know what a “living wage” means, and I doubt Mr. Cassidy can be precise on that matter (though San Francisco has legislated it as $10.55 an hour). But Mr. Cassidy’s meaning is clear: Without government intervention, most businesses will exploit their low-skilled workers and not pay them what they deserve. Mr. Cassidy’s argument is short on facts, and that’s because the facts tell a dramatically different story.

In the labor market, wage increases are driven by productivity — by experience, training, and other factors. People who started working at the minimum wage one or two years ago have very likely already achieved wage increases through the workings of the market, not by government decree. For instance, if low-wage workers were really dependent on action by the government to obtain wage increases, the number of workers earning the minimum wage would have steadily risen during the period 1981 to 1990 when the minimum wage did not increase (thanks to Ronald Reagan). What occurred, however, was dramatically different from what Mr. Cassidy would have us believe. The number of Americans earning the minimum wage fell by 50 percent. Despite nine years’ worth of new entrants in the job market, the number of minimum wage workers fell by some 4 million.

A similar 10-year hiatus in minimum wage increases took place between 1997 and 2007 and showed remarkably similar results. In 1997, 4.75 million Americans were earning at or below the minimum wage (6.7% of the hourly paid workforce). In 2006, the number had fallen to about 1.7 million (or 2.2% of the workforce). If low-wage workers are dependent on government to protect them from exploitative employers, then how did this happen? The fact is the labor market in this country, even for low-skilled workers, is pretty efficient.

We have a president, however, who feels much more at home crafting policy using as his prism the mythology of left-wing class struggle than the reality of free market economics. And that’s why his presidency has been an economic disaster.

Photo: UPI

About the Author

Brandon Crocker is the chief financial officer of a commercial real estate development and management company in San Diego.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (185) |

Robbins Mitchell| 2.19.13 @ 6:37AM

Well,when you've lived off the taxpayers for most of your working life in one form or another,and all the people that work for you have as well,you are just naturally going to be living in la la land and when you suffer from invincible ignorance like Barokeydoke does,you are going to be impervious to market realities...I can't wait for all his sycophants to start blaming Bush is this goes through and the jobless rate climbs to 10% as a result

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 6:49AM

"And that’s why his presidency has been an economic disaster."

Correction:
Actually, the economic disaster happened during the previous president's administration. Obama's record could be characterized as the economic disaster clean up.

Just to be clear ya'll.

Stephie| 2.19.13 @ 7:14AM

huh? Trolls are out early this morning. You consider spending us into oblivion "cleaning up a mess?" Why are more people not working then? Making me pay an uneducated person more for menial work will only cause me to let them go. I'll do it myself and save the money. Minimum wage was meant for teenagers and those new to the job market until they got educated and on to a well paying job that they could live off of. But wait, those have all gone to China and India due to democrats.
Again, thanks to all of you dolts that voted for this idiot.

Stephie| 2.19.13 @ 7:16AM

Oh, I forgot to ask. Is the photograph above of Nasty Nancy and dingy Harry celebrating the raise they just received because of the "dignity" of their offices? Higher wages for the criminals. Great.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:30PM

No.

They're celebrating the upcoming Pay Cuts for our Military Personnel.

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 7:36AM

Hmmm, not sure what you are talking about Stephie. Before the stimulus even started to be dolled out to the states, the unemployment rate was somewhere around 9.0-9.5%. The unemployment rate now has been hovering around 7.8-7.9%, the same as when Bush left office. The difference being, when Obama inherited Bush's economy, the economy was hemorraging millions of jobs per month. That's not happening now.

As for the participation rate, yes, it is lower, but surely you know that part of this is because many baby boomers are retiring.

Kwan| 2.19.13 @ 9:19AM

Awnie da Leftist Dumkoph is back and surprise, surprise he's making dumber statements today than the totally dumb statements he made when he was last posting comments. Obama and the left are desperate to reclaim the House in 2014 so they'll promise anything and everything to low-IQ morons like Awnie and being the dumb sucker that he is he'll lap it up. Leftists live in an alternative universe where reality is whatever the Party says it is. In the alternative leftist universe Obama has the country marching on the road to Leftist Valhalla. In reality Obama and his party have the country progressing in reverse to the days of the 1930's Great Depression.

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 9:29AM

Hey, it's Kwan, the charitable and free Johnson swallower!!

You mean the Great Depression caused by the financial crash of 1929 and the incompetence of the Republicans in power through 1932. Right. That's clear.

***Vote Republican!!! Wrecking economies since 1870!!***

Kwan| 2.19.13 @ 9:40AM

Hey Awnie is your Mom still giving hummers for a quarter? My dog Bruno has been in heat all week and could use her services.

loulou| 2.19.13 @ 11:19AM

Kwan--go easy on him. The creep is just doing his job. He's the designated troll of the day.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:19PM

He's attacking the 1% as we speak, at an Exclusive Yacht/Golf Club in South Florida, surrounded by his Millionaire/Billionaire Friends.

He just gave Facebook a big Corporate Welfare Kiss on the Ass, with the help of a lot of Creative Accounting by his IRS lackeys. Just like he did for Google. Just like he does with his Union Scumbags. Just like he does for that other Scumbag, down in Cornhole State. You know him. He's the Obama Buddy that's making MILLION$, hauling all that Oil from Cananda, down to the Gulf on His Trains, because "The Magic Negro" (Hat Tip - LA Times) keeps refusing to let a Pipeline, and the Thousands of Jobs it will create, be built.

That's why he's President $9 an hour, now.

It's 2013, in Obama's Amerika.

The only jobs left, are Minimum Wage Jobs.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 11:24AM

Here's what she's talking about:

In November 2008 the labor force particpation rate was 65.9%. In January 2013 it was 63.6%.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

Seek| 2.19.13 @ 12:10PM

Could this decline be the result of a growing number of people, rather than being unable to find work, simply find it advantageous not to work? The aggressive expansion of the food stamp and Medicaid programs attest to this possibility.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:34PM

It's a result of this Labour Department decrying that anyone who's Unemployment has expired, no longer exists.

Just one of the slight of hands they use to keep the REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE Sealed in Obama's Vault, in Hawaii.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 10:03PM

Actually the right are big on "outsourcing" and H1B's. Great. They vote Democrat the second they get a green card. Capitalism at work: Selling the rope to hang themselves with.

mzk| 2.27.13 @ 10:35AM

We are? I hate expanding H1B's. I think you're mixing up the Right with Big Business or maybe Libertarians.

Course, I work abroad. Our US office is about gone, and most of the jobs are actually in Romania.

mzk| 2.27.13 @ 10:37AM

You are all missing the point. Minimum wage is not about low-payign jobs. It's about union contracts that list a multiple of minimum wage. Automatic raise for well-paid, well-connected people.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 7:29AM

I'm with ya, Arnie old pal.

Everybody knows that, if there's a grease fire in the kitchen, the best way to put it out is to napalm the entire house.

Now THAT'S a cleanup, am I right?

Seriously, most people would call that "counterintuitive." But you and I, Arnie old boy, we're economic geniuses. Look at all the houses that were "cleaned up" during the Dresden firebombing!

Arnie: "But I can't be overdrawn! I still have checks!"

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 7:50AM

Yea, I'm with you Grzmlyk. The way to battle an economic downturn is to fire more people from their jobs and cut their wages, in the name of austerity.

Some people would call that counter-intuitive, but I know you and I are geniuses.

Grzmlyk: "You mean you don't have any money to buy my stuff after you lost your job? How can that be?"

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 8:14AM

That's right, Arnie! Heck, don't just hire the people you need! That would be selfish. Hire everybody within a 50-mile radius of your business! Pay them all $100,000 a year! Bingo! Aggregate demand!

You are BRILLIANT!

And if you have no money to pay those people, just print it! Duh! What the heck do we have a Fed for, anyway?

You DO read your Krugman, don't you? Like all good cogs in the Totalitarian Army of Diversity, Social Justice, Economic Justice, Gender Confusion, Institutionalized Hatred, Corruption, Vengeance and Plundering the Treasury Till We've Gorged Ourselves on Other People's Money.

Never, ever let utter ignorance sway you from your ideology, Arnie. Reality never, ever has to penetrate your NPR-and-Rachel Maddow-spun cocoon (until, of course, it does, but then again you couldn't spell "cat" if we spotted you the "c" and the "t, " so don't throw away that "Bush Lied, People Died Tee Shirt just yet).

Of course, YOU have no skin in the game, so it's really all just feel-good stuff for you. Because you CARE.

Very easy to care with other people's money, is it not?

Psssst. I have a perpetual motion machine I can sell you. It's only $500 today. Contact me, ok?

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 8:31AM

Grzmlyk, this is why you an idiot. You think the government should behave in the same way an average consumer behaves, or how a small business behaves. And actually there are many large corporations that could pay their workers a dollar an hour more, but instead choose to give their top management multi-million dollar bonuses.

But if the government did behave like an average consumer or small business, then its policies would be pro-cyclical, not anti-cyclical, therefore, making the downturns even worse, and even harder to rise out of.

So explain to me you brilliant idiot how the government, practicing austerity, is supposed to make an economy rebound? Come on, this is a huge Republican talking point...You should know it well.

Anyway, it's clear you have the mental skills of a 5 year old, so I don't expect you to reply with a semi-coherent answer.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 8:38AM

Yawn.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:39PM

"Grzmlyk, this is why you an idiot".

Priceless.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 8:47AM

Just out of curiosity, do you think what you write makes you look smart? Generalities and regurgitated talking points and threadbare dogma?

What you wrote reveals a moron who knows NOTHING about how businesses are run. Weird how that Transgendered Badminton Studies degree you've been slouching toward for the last seven years hasn't taught you squat about the causal universe - the one useful human beings live in.

You think business owners are all rich and greedy and just sitting on piles of money.

That's not how it works, fool.

80% of the businesses in this country are SMALL mom-and-pop operations. Which means that 80% ofpeople in this country are EMPLOYED by small mom-and-pop operations. The guy who owns the Seven/Eleven is NOT sitting on piles of money - he's trying to keep his prices low enough to keep customers while still paying more for the stuff that's delivered to him because your God believes fuel prices should be high and businesses can just absorb the higher cost.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 8:48AM

Here's a homework assignment for you: Name 10 large corporations that could pay their workers a dollar but instead choose togive their tom management multi-million dollar bonuses

And tell me how hiring a 16 -year old kid with know skills or experience, who's only worth $7 to you, at $9 an hour, is a wise business decision. Earth to moron: Instead of hiring another 16-year old kid with no skills or experience, you will just forgo hiring him. So he will remain without a job. Next time your mommy goes to the grocery store, ask her how many aisles are now manned by automated check-out machines. And then ask yourself why that is.

Kidding. Just keep masturbating till the welfare checks stop coming.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 8:48AM

Here's a homework assignment for you: Name 10 large corporations that could pay their workers a dollar but instead choose togive their tom management multi-million dollar bonuses

And tell me how hiring a 16 -year old kid with know skills or experience, who's only worth $7 to you, at $9 an hour, is a wise business decision. Earth to moron: Instead of hiring another 16-year old kid with no skills or experience, you will just forgo hiring him. So he will remain without a job. Next time your mommy goes to the grocery store, ask her how many aisles are now manned by automated check-out machines. And then ask yourself why that is.

Kidding. Just keep masturbating till the welfare checks stop coming.

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 9:14AM

That's easy.

1. Goldman Sachs
2. Bank of America
3. Coke
4. Wells Fargo
5. JP Morgan Chase
6. ExxonMobil
7. Google
8. Apple
9. Pfizer
10. Bechtel

Now answer my question genius. How does the government, practicing austerity as any cutting jobs and wages, supposed to make an economy rebound?

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 11:00AM

Arniepurp/Purparnie

"How does the government, pract'icing austerity as any cutting jobs and wages, supposed to make an economy rebound?"

Well, since the gov is broke and has to borrow 40 cents of every dollar, the gov has to cut expenses. There are many jobs in the gov that could be eliminated, not just at the Defense Dept as you suggest. You could abolish the Energy and Education Dept and nobody would know, except the employees laid off.

The employees laid off will find other jobs preferably in the productive private employment. The layoffs will hurt the laid off employees but will help the economy in the long term by reducing the deficit, which will reduce interest payments, and re-direct the employees to private employment.

The fed gov is similar to an inefficient company that has to be supported by ever increasing borrowing to stay in business. A private company
will eventually file for bankruptcy to reorganize or go out of businsess. The gov can keep borrowing money and raising taxes but eventually it will destroy the economy.

The gov must cust spending which means employees will be laid off.
The gov is not exempt from the laws of economics. You cannot stay in business by borrowing increasing amounts of money so you reach a point where all the revenues go to pay the interest on the debt.

The purpose of gov is not to be the employer of last resort for persons who cannot find a job.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 11:26AM

Don't lay off the Department of Education's SWAT Team.

Al Adab| 2.19.13 @ 11:57AM

Minimum wage math never makes sense. If I have five guys flipping burgers for me at $4.00 an hour and all of a sudden the wage is mandated to $5.00 an hour I have a choice. I can cut back to four employees or I can raise the price of my burger to cover the increased cost. Perhaps I could do both, but most likely I will have four employees instead of five. Sorry. Add to that a mandate to provide health care to full time employees and tell me if you will, how I can stay in business and be competitive? Will the public really pay $15.00 for a one dollar burger?

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 12:17PM

Or the owner/boss could actually make the payments, but just have less in profit for him/herself Al Adab. That might mean they drive a Infiniti instead of a top of the line Benz, but they'll be ok. :-)

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 1:10PM

Arniepurp

Or you could borrow money, start a business,and then pay your employees whatever you want, instead of you taking the profits, if any given your level of economic smarts.

Lead by example. Start a business, recognize the union, pay high wages, pensions, vacations, health insurance, sick days, holidays, double time on holidays and Sundays. Then come back here and lecture.

Al Adab| 2.19.13 @ 1:32PM

W:
Apparently Arnie thinks that the owners pay themselves before they pay the employees. That has not been real world or my experience. How many times have owners done without a paycheck in order to meet payroll? How many only recoup their investment when the business sells? Such is in fact the nature of the beast, but trying to be rational with Arnie, Purp or other true believers is simply a waste of time and effort.

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 3:21PM

Al Adab
I have been self employed for 35 years. We always pay the employees and other expenses before we take any money.
arnie/purpie/vtwin live in obamaworld where the gov provides goodies.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 3:59PM

Exactly! Businesspeople shouldn't be working to take care of themselves and their families! They should be working to take care of other people! They should take all the risks and get no reward! Brilliant!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:04PM

Arnie, you are so wrong about so many things that you can't even pose questions that make sense.

Austerity is not a plan. Austerity is not a policy. Austerity is a consequence of bad policy. Your bad policy.

The economy is not supposed to rebound because of austerity. It is supposed to suffer less than it would under alternative means of cleaning up your mess - namely, runaway deficits and inflation.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 2:14PM

This is why morons who know nothing about businesses shouldn't run businesses.

I know how to cure cancer: Do tons of research, isolate the problem, make it available to everybody! Voila! Isn't running the world simple when you're a moron?

How many minimum wage people do you think Goldman Sachs employs who would benefit from an extra $1 an hour?

Know why no tellers exist at Bank of America anymore? Because year after year, banks have been told to pay their low-skill employees just one dollar more. Than another dollar more. Then another dollar more. And you have payroll taxes and health care insurance costs, of course, and suddenly, that 19 year old off the street who isn't worth $8 an hour to you is costing you $20 an hour. That's why there are no tellers anymore.

But you people NEVER look at the actual consequenes of your actions; just your hyper-sensitive, childish view of "what's fair."

So now run the numbers for me. Go ahead, hot shot. I want you to make a list of the portion of, say, ExxonMobil's employees make minimum wage, and give me a rundown of what it would cost. What's that you say? you have NO IDEA how these businesses are actually run? Of course you don't.

You are an IDIOT. Why do you think YOU'RE not running a business? Because you'd be OUT of business in two minutes if you undertook to run a lemonade stand.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 2:15PM

What's sad isn't that you think this way; you're simply cannon fodder for the corruptocrats. What sad is how MANY just like you there are. You are irretrievably damaged or else irredeemably stupid.

One piece of reality you WILL have to deal with, and soon: When the gravy train stops, your checks will stop coming.

mzk| 2.27.13 @ 10:32AM

By getting out of the way.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 12:19PM

I find this whole argument from Grzmlyk not very well thought out. Let's start with the welfare check disgust. Oppose raising the minimum wage and then when the FREE MARKET raises wages beyond it, look the other way as illegals flood the nation doing the kind of work that the "know skills or experience" kid used to do.

The illegal only does the work as long as they are ineligible for welfare and even then, sometimes they are able to double dip. So the taxpayer winds up footing the bill for the "cheap" labor.

Last summer, the pool boys and girls in our area were almost all entirely from Eastern Europe. They did a great job. In the past, that would have been work done by local kids looking for extra money. I talked to the kids and they told me they paid above-average price for plane tickets ($1300 round trip) AND they had to pay $500 a month rent for their crash pad AND they even paid to rent a bicycle to get back and forth to work (+food and utilities). They made decent money compared to back home, but it was tragic that most of it was wasted.

It's a strange culture we live in where halloween candy is x-rayed and people are terrified of their kids walking to school alone but simultaneously, they allow an undocumented illegal criminal to look after their infants. Amazing.

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 1:08PM

PK, normally I find your posts thoughtful, to a large degree, but not this one. What do you mean, when talking about the money they earned, that "most of it was wasted"? They spent money on airfare, ergo the airline, its employees, its shareholders, the people who build airplanes and engines etc., etc., etc. benefited.They spent money on their apartment, ergo their landlord benefited as did his/her employees. They spent money to rent bicycles, ergo the rental company owner, his employees, the folks who made the bikes, the folks who sold the bikes to the rental company owner, etc., etc., etc. all benefited. All of this plus these eastern European kids (most, I suspect from Ukraine and Russia) went home with some earned money, they got a summer job experience like few other, they were exposed to good, old-fashioned American capitalism and they got to see, first hand, the quality of life in your neighbood, which I suspect, if you need pool boys, etc. ain't exactly slumming it. I can't find a damned thing wrong with this picture.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 1:14PM

By wasted, I was looking at it from their perspective. Having been in their cities before, I felt protective of them. I don't think they got as great a deal as they should have.

The nationalities of the countries they were from are as follows: Serbia, Poland, Ukraine and Bulgaria.

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 3:08PM

PK, I understand where you're coming from but beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I doubt if they think its wasted.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:02PM

If they though thte money they spent was wasted they wouldn't have spent it.

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 1:20PM

KJack
About ten years ago we spent a week at the Outer Banks. Most of the employees at the supermarkets and restaurants were from eastern Europe, South Africa, and Russia. I spoke to some,and they all were having a great time.

At the Jersey shore, one restaurant had employees from Brazil. The Wildwood and Ocean City boardwalk stores and restaurants all have Russian/eastern Europe employees.

It is a great opportunity for them to work, earn money, improve their English. If it was not worth it financially they would not do it.

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 3:06PM

We vacation at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware each summer and most of the kids that work at the various stands on the Boardwalk and also at the hotel are from the Ukraine and Russia. I speak Russian so have had some really great conversations with them. To a person, and most are girls, they love the experience and you would be surprised at how many talk, somewhat wistfully I might add, about emigrating to the States for college and then becoming citizens. It is ALWAYS an uplifting experience for me.

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 3:19PM

KJack
Albert goes to Avalaon. I usually go to Avalon in July or August. We need to coordinate a meeting. You are not far from Cape May by ferry.

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 4:37PM

Who knows? Maybe a bunch of us will get together at Ricky's farm this summer.

Joellen| 2.19.13 @ 5:04PM

CJW - include me in. Would love to drink wine, eat bread and shoot the breeze with you and yours.

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 6:26PM

Joellen
It was a given that you would always be included!!

loulou| 2.19.13 @ 7:24PM

I love Rehoboth Beach.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 2:16PM

Dude, you have gone WAY off the deep end. I used to think you were a conservative. Now I just think your brain is addled.

Take a course in logic, please.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 9:20AM

"Transgender Badminton Studies Degree that you've been slouching toward for the last seven years"

Also - HILARIOUS.

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 10:36AM

I understand he's on track to graduate with honors. Something about his excellence on the backhand.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 2:17PM

Thank you, TLP.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 5:42PM

You earned it.

merlin| 2.19.13 @ 9:26AM

Arnie, being a brilliant idiot myself, I'll attempt to answer your question. Listen carefully.
What does the government produce with the money it extracts from producers? If the money is left with the producers, what will they produce? If you answered "Nothing" and "Something the consumer wants" you are correct. And with the money that the auster government does not take the producer may be able to hire more producing workers. Net gain to the economy. If your non-auster government takes the money, and gives it to a non-producer and/or hampers production by regulation, what has the economy gained?
Production is Wealth.

Arnie| 2.19.13 @ 9:33AM

"And with the money that the auster government does not take the producer may be able to hire more producing workers."

Merlin, this did not happen. The money was borrowed, don't you guys complain about this all the time? And, in fact taxes were lowered with the stimulus. So you are not accurately describing the situation here.

So again, How does the government, practicing austerity as any cutting jobs and wages, supposed to make an economy rebound (during an economic downturn)?

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 10:38AM

Yeah Merlin.

How stupid are you?

Everybody knows that, after Running up $6 Trillion in New Debt, Adding a Million New Regulations, Hiring Thousands of New Government Unionized Workers, Forcing Job Killing Healthcare Mandates on Businesses, Pissing Away $900 Billion in Stimulus/Slush Fund Money, and you haven't moved One Inch farther forward from where you started FOUR YEARS AGO, in fact you're starting to Backwards?

The obvious answer is to redouble your efforts: Rinse and Repeat.

It's all right there in The New York Times, so it has to be True.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 12:50PM

Merlin should get a laugh about this sob story from CNN, written without irony, about two poor (sarcasm on my side) government workers laid off:
www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/13/minn.....?hpt=hp_c2

Twofer lesbians were laid off of state desk jobs and now their sperm bank produced daughters have to make do without... organic food and eat NORMALLY GROWN FOOD. The horrors!

Hahahaha!

In answer to your question Arnie, most government workers are largely highly paid welfare recipients. Here's the plan to make austerity "work": When the office chair warming government bureaucrat hits the Real World of production, they suddenly start to see what makes a real economy work and might not favor massive immigration anymore and this will result in less crime, welfare, etc. to make the rest of the country similar to the white suburbs that they used to commute to from their inner city government jobs. It removes the isolation of the leftist government worker from the real world.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:41PM

They don't have to borrow that money, any more.

Idiot.

Stephie| 2.19.13 @ 1:40PM

Arnie, how about not giving Zuckerberg the gazillion dollar kiss on his ass?

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:43PM

Are you using my "Google ass kiss" now?

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 3:11PM

And, Stephie, let us not forget Jeffrey Immelt. It must be great to be a FOB.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 5:48PM

We go to Rehobeth Beach, every other year. Last year we stayed at a Stupid 8 Hotel in Dover.

Have you been to The Air Museum at DoverAFB?

It's Fantastic.

They've even got my old C-141 there. They got a B-17 in the Hanger. A Globe Master. And a lot more. And Flight Simulators you can screw around with.

If you haven't been there?

Go there.

You won't be disappointed.

CJW| 2.19.13 @ 6:27PM

Tim
When do you go?

KennesawJack| 2.19.13 @ 7:02PM

Tim, I haven't been to the museum. We drive up from Georgia and haven't gone further north than Rehoboth. We're planning on going there again this summer but it depends on our oldest son's schedule. Probably a 90% chance we'll be at the beach, though. They're building an air museum at Dobbins Air Base about 10 miles from my house so I've been dropping by there to watch progress. They, too, have a 141. I flew in one of those from Karachi, Pakistan westward to Saigon. Great plane.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 9:14AM

Arnie: "But I can't be overdrawn! I still have checks!"

HILARIOUS.

Solo| 2.19.13 @ 10:53AM

Arnie....please identify the Bush policy or policies which precipitated this "economic disaster".

The seeds for this disaster were planted by the democrats during the Carter Administration (and then fertilized liberally by the Clintonistas) in the form of the Community Re-investment Act (CRA).

Forcing lenders to make bad or marginal loans in the name of "Social Justice"---and doing so during a Real Estate Boom--- was never going to end well.
The real danger of what was taking place was obscured by the "sugar-coating" placed on these loans by "laundering" them through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Quasi-Governmental agencies also invented and jealously defended by democrats (in particular, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who deliberately torpedoed every attempt to audit those institutions).

The Bush Administration made no less than 11 attempts over 8 years to conduct an audit of Fannie and Freddie and each time was blocked by one or both of these feckless bastards...who then, the poop having hit the fan, quickly got the Hell out of Dodge.

The Financial institutions holding these toxic assets did what they had to do in order to mitigate the damage done through this coercion by government.

Had the CRA never existed...had the Clintonistas not gone on a Jihad to expand its toxic influence, the economic collapse would have never happened....George Bush or no George Bush.

Those are the facts.

OregonBuzz| 2.19.13 @ 11:40AM

Wasn't Obama the "previous president"?

Appleby| 2.19.13 @ 6:49AM

The minimum wage rise is just as silly as Daylight Savings Time. Or, as the Indians say, cutting one end off the blanket and sewing it on the other end doesn't make the blanket longer.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 7:49AM

But you miss the point, Appleby - cutting off one end of the blanket and sewing it to the other doesn't make it longer, but it employers seamstresses! it's a JOBS program! Never mind that no value has been created! Those evil, greedy blanket manufacturers only refused to cut off one end of the blanket and sew it to the other end because they didn't care about the little guy.

What's that you say? Cutting off one end of the blanket and sewing it to the other would raise the blanket manufacturer's cost of producing blankets? Well, again, that's greed - perhaps the blanket manufacturer doesn't have to live in such a big teepee. Besides, the tribal council need only collect more wampum from the braves and the squaws and bail out the blanket manufacturer if he's a friend of the chief. Everybody wins! Is this a great reservation or what?

Duh. Haven't you read Krugman's books?

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 12:36PM

Regarding DST. Here's a thought: Why don't more employers implement flexible 5 day work week schedules to deal with rough commutes and maximize use of office space? Have workers come in on Saturday or even Sunday and take off on a particular day (such as Monday or Friday) and reduce time spent in traffic.

Oh, wait, that brings up another fun point: Why not suggest getting rid of the pesky 40 hour week and make us into a 3rd world Dickenson capitalist candyland? Let's have a 6 day workweek with 10 hours a day for the businesses that can get away with it (as many are doing so with the influx of H1B's willing to work such schedules on an unofficial basis.)

Yes, Obama and the leftists are usually full of crap and either slushing benefits to government union workers or their croneys but their points are still resonating with the public that Republicans need to vote for them nonetheless. Because capitalists have acted badly in the past and present, the populace distrusts them. Don't blame socialism for that.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:18PM

"capitalists have acted badly in the past and present"

What is a "capitalist"? You people use it as a dirty word, but what does it mean?

Capitalism isn't a policy. It isn't an ideal. It is a force. It exists, inevitably, regardless of your belief in it. The real world is not a cartoon where the character runs off the cliff but doesn't fall until he looks down, because gravity and physics are realities that exist regardless of your awareness of them. So too markets, market forces, and "capitalism".

This "bad behavior" you complain about - what caused it? Oh, I know - "greed and evil", right? The eternally convenient answer! Hogwash.

Everyone has, and should have, self-interest. The question is what went wrong when self-interest leads to "bad behavior". You people have your answer for that, too: lack of "regulation". Hogwash, again. Self-interest's natural path shouldn't be harmful to others. If government does only what it's actual job is - defending rights (by making the violation of others' rights cost more than it benefits) - then informed self-interest should not lead to "bad behavior". Yet it often DOES. Why? Because government is not doing what it should or, more often, is doing something it SHOULDN'T be doing!

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 1:36PM

In answer to your question, I mean by capitalist private company owners and managers. Note I didn't say all capitalists had acted badly but a great many of them had and gave the word a bad name. Don't blame the messenger. And regarding "force": Well, we can view capitalism as you probably define it as a small element in a greater universe including politics, race, and government power. Government becoming bigger is like a "dark energy". If you worship raw force, wouldn't it behoove you to become a Democrat voting socialist? Join the winners, Luke!

I have nothing against self-interest. Heck, I had an argument with a commie/leftist friend who bashed me as a problem for not allowing the left to throw me under the bus due to my race and gender for his cause. Yet, now you do the same accusing me of greed while worshiping crony capitalists who get tax breaks and donate money to the left and import illegals and H1B's who will vote Democrat. In my opinion, both sides are useful idiots.

The devil is in the details. So government should defend "rights" as you seem them and that's it. The problem is that term is now almost laughable.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:54PM

I don't even know what you just said.

It was a combination of utter failure to grasp my point, childish sarcasm, treating evil Leftism ("crony capitalism") as if it were right-wing, and then dismissing my beliefs as not workable not because they wouldn't work, but because you don't think America would ever implement them.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 9:19PM

How about if I just say your points are all the opposite of reality, you're an anarchist, and you can't stop insisting that capitalists cannot accept blame for anything.

Wow! That felt good! I can see what you get out of it!

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:04PM

Everyone is a capitalist. It's human nature. And humans sometimes act badly.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:08PM

Except government bureacrats, of course. They are all altruistic servants of the people who want nothing but the best for us and make all kinds of sacrifices. Why many of them are at work from 9 to 5 every day (except weekends, federal holidays, sick days and vacation days) and don't retire until they are 50. Government bureacrats are the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings I've ever known in my life. They are the true saints.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 9:18PM

I know many government bureaucrats who are in bed with crony capitalists. They brag about their ability to set up bids with favored companies and later get their relatives (or even themselves) choice high end positions in these companies when they hit retirement age.

The problem, Markenoff, is that crony capitalism and socialism fascism tend to mesh together and I love to tell my douchbag leftist friends this and watch their face light up in horror while the right appears in denial about it. "Well, if capitalists then seek favorable regulations and tax breaks via lobbying, it's not REAL capitalism so that doesn't count! In the ideal utopian world, capitalism works perfectly. Now why don't people want to vote for us while we talk about outsourcing and H1B's?"

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:25PM

The fact is that the "flexible week" you propose is a bad idea for most businesses, which need their workers to be in the office at the same time. Also, many workers would rather have "weekends" off than chaotic schedules. But of course, you weren't serious, that was just your lead-in to the old "we'll all be slaves of business if not for benevolent government!" Never mind the reality that there is no "us" and "them" of employees and employers - we're all frequently both as we both pay and receive money constantly. "Customer" and "employer" are synonyms; the latter simply refers to one who buys the product known as "labor".

There is competition for labor just as there is competition for other products. But the economy is global now (an inevitable evolution), and the fact is that there are people willing to work longer for less than we are, because the alternative for them is even worse. Leftists "combat" this with foolishness that makes everyone but the direct beneficiaries worse off.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 1:43PM

I'm reminded of a scene in The Godfather where Michael, before he becomes a monster mafioso, joins the military out of ideology while Sonny calls him a sucker. Why risk his life for others?

By the same token, if we're going for every-man-for-himself then why bother caring about the USA? So illegals can come and work for cheap, go on welfare, and then vote Democrat and piss on the American flag. That's CAPITALISM and "free market" thinking: Do whatever you can to make a buck no matter what.

Sadly, the left doesn't oppose this. They LOVE it when capitalists sell them the rope to hang them with. Si Gringo, we'll cut your lawn for cheaper than that GREEDY teenager is asking for 14 bucks an hour. Do you know where the welfare office is? Also, how do you print a utility bill so I can go vote?

Hahahaha!

Yeah, FREE MARKET at work. Don't ask me or my kids to volunteer to fight in the middle east unless a fair market wage is paid.

Hey, quick question: if illegals and H1B's are fair free-market game, how about bootleg DVD's from China and the recent espionage bust where China lifted billions in trade secrets? Someone wants to do it cheaper. It's a lot cheaper to use a flash drive than to invent it themselves. Looks like some of the rich white guys are going to have to leave the country club to make room for their Chinese masters...

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:51PM

I stated that government has a job - defending rights, but you couldn't argue against me honestly, so you ignored that statement and pretended that I'm an anarchist who supports theft. And then you pretended that I wouldn't eliminate the welfare that your Mexican stereotype would claim.

Can you debate honestly?

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 9:12PM

Yes, JD, you said the government should defend "rights" as you defined them just as the Wise Latina also defines them. If you want to play that game, the left and she will win.

Yeah yeah yeah, if someone disagrees with you then he's a 'leftist' and wrong and should agree he's wrong or else he's dishonest. Sheesh, I get that kind of thinking from leftists. It's quite dispiriting to hear that working and middle class just wanting to protect their interests against some of the ruthless business owners out there don't have a voice. They'd probably want to go vote Republican more often, but you are so smart and superior that you seem to not need them. So you win. Or at least here on this forum. Elections, another story.

Pecos Pete| 2.19.13 @ 7:04AM

Increasing the minimum wage will simply cause businesses to raise prices. Increasing the minimum wage will force a general rise in all wages, not just at the minimum wage level, all wages will ratchet upward. All prices will rise accordingly.

H Y P E R I N F L A T I O N is riding the rails on the train bearing down on the economy.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 9:49AM

I don't think that Companies can afford to Raise Prices. Their gonna Shed Costs. This is ANOTHER example of Market Forces vs. Forced Markets and Unintended Consequences. Except that......I don't think these inevitable Consequences are Unintended at all.

Dictatorship 101: Get rid of the Middle Class.

The Rich are easy to Control, because they have everything, and they'll do whatever they're told to, if it means keeping their stuff.

The Poor are easy to control. Because they have nothing, and they'll do whatever they're told to, if it means getting free stuff.

He's already controlling the Means of Production via his EPA, the NLRB, his Energy Department, IRS. Interior Department, and his Blacks Only Justice Department. (Standard and Poor's)

He owns more Blacks, now, than all of the Plantation Owners in the Olde South, put together. And, he's fixing to buy himself a buncha Browns, before the next Election rolls around.

He's got Warren Buffett and Jeffery Immelt lying at the foot of his bed, and he just gave Facebook Boy over a Billion $ Incentive to toe the line, and Kiss his Royal Ass.

This is the beginning of the American Great Awakening, which will be followed by a Great Purge, a Great Famine, a Great number of dissidents in Forced Work Camps, and a Great number of People's heads, with a bullet in the back of them.

By then, $9 a Month will be something a person Dreams about, but dare not Speak of.

Pecos Pete| 2.19.13 @ 1:39PM

Tim: A minimum rate increase of 24% accompanied by the ratchet effect on pre-increase rates will far exceed the ability of any company to cut enough costs. Yes, I agree, virtually all businesses will try to cut costs to offset wage increases, but at 24% plus the ratchet effect, businesses would have to raise prices. Minimum wage increases are a prime cause of inflation and, of course, printing money is another prime cause.

Many manufacturers and service organizations increased their costs of labor beyond the point of being able to cut costs and declared bankruptcy (e.g., steel industry), moved to other countries for lower wage costs (e.g., GE, furniture and clothing), or asked the feds for a bailout (e.g., USPS, GM).

And I agree with you that King O and his merry band of czars are working diligently to bankrupt the USA in order to create chaos which brings on martial law and the need to use their 2 billion rounds of ammunition to control riots in urban centers (e.g., Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc.).

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 1:48PM

Then, they'll go out of Business, or move to better Climes in Asia.

It's as predictable as Arnie writing something Stupdi.

It's a Global Market.

When push comes to shove?

They will Shove Off to China, Singapore, and South of the Border.

Capische?

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 2:17PM

"Stupdi".

That's gonna cost me.

Pecos Pete| 2.19.13 @ 7:22PM

Yep. You get to clean the horse stalls.

Von Mises Jr| 2.19.13 @ 7:32AM

The reason politicians offer up phony baloney rhethoric is that they realize many people do not understand Bastiat's "That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen." Bastiat lived from 1801 to 1850 and wrote several seminal works including "The Law" and "The Broken Window Fallacy."
To clarify Mr Crocker's article, Public Private Partnerships was origially called fascism and then crony capitalism.
The fallacy of low-income people spending money that wealthier people would save is disproved by the economic concept of "Capital Formation." A simple way to understand this is that one skilled operator with a backhoe or bulldozer earning $50 per hour can move more dirt that 5 guys with shovels making $10 per hour by many times over. The capital investment translates to productivity.

But for liberal elitist, it is easy to lie to those that do not read economics. That is why they don't teach it except in college and only to Business Majors typically teaching Keynesian or Classical Economic that is the former with graphs and equations.

Grzmlyk| 2.19.13 @ 8:04AM

Of course, capital ultimately comes from savings - that which is not spent.

To quote Barack Hussein Obama, "Savings? Savings? We don' need no stinkin' savings!"

It's all about aggregate demand! I propose we raise the minimum wage to $100 an hour. Think of the demand that would create just like magic! I know Purp (who, as he has claimed, owns his own business), pays his cashier $95,000 a year. Which I think is an insult, but it IS more than the current minimum wage. And purp simply curtails his own greed so that he can pay ALL his employees upwards of six figures. Now THAT'S CARING.

Of course the only business Purp owns is meth manufacture and distribution, which tends to skirt things like laws and taxes.

I had to laugh at the reference to the Broken Window Fallacy. For liberals, that which is not seen does not exist, and that which is not above the fold in the NY Times REALLY doesn't exist.

We will see the result of this economics as ever-increasing numbers of doctors under Obamacare will be driven out of business due to price controls - which will mean we will have to enslave an entire generation of people and force them to practice medicine.

Won't THAT be fun. Socialism: Misery for all (except the ruling elite)!

Von Mises Jr| 2.19.13 @ 10:05AM

I attended a couple meetings with American Association of Physicians and Surgeons. They are setting up free clinics for the poor since Medicaid pays about $0.13 on the dollar after reimbursements and cost of care. With an average of one lawsuit per career costing about $25K to settle, they must complete 1923 visits at $100 each to net the $25K to pay the settlement. So they simply refuse to take Medicaid.
Once ObamaCare is phased in, Medicare reimbursements will be similar to Medicaid. So instead of seniors going to the doctor for every ache and pain since it is a third party system, they won't be able to find a doctor.
But they can get a "Death Panel" special for free.

Von Mises Jr| 2.19.13 @ 10:48AM

TAS computer had a brain fart.

Von Mises Jr| 2.19.13 @ 10:05AM

I attended a couple meetings with American Association of Physicians and Surgeons. They are setting up free clinics for the poor since Medicaid pays about $0.13 on the dollar after reimbursements and cost of care. With an average of one lawsuit per career costing about $25K to settle, they must complete 1923 visits at $100 each to net the $25K to pay the settlement. So they simply refuse to take Medicaid.
Once ObamaCare is phased in, Medicare reimbursements will be similar to Medicaid. So instead of seniors going to the doctor for every ache and pain since it is a third party system, they won't be able to find a doctor.
But they can get a "Death Panel" special for free.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 11:01AM

Don't ya hate that?

You could memorize the first Thousand Prime Numbers, and then write them down, but if you double clicked it?

You'd still look like an Idiot.

loulou| 2.19.13 @ 11:24AM

That was the plan.

The non-parasites are already enrolling in concierge or boutique medical practices. No more welfare losers on their obamaphones taking up space and resources.

Mike G| 2.19.13 @ 8:58AM

I think the Federal minimum wage should be tied to inflation. That said, let's see what it should be according to our historical calculation.
It began in 1938 at $.25 (twenty-five cents). If we plug that in to any inflation calculator, it tells us that $.25 in 1938, is worth $4.07. That means that not only should the minimum wage be less than what it currently is, it is also responsible for driving up inflation!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 12:35PM

The minimum wage is always zero.

c. j. acworth| 2.19.13 @ 9:02AM

I don't believe Obama gives a damn about the economics of the minimum wage. Like everything he does, proposing an increase is just to give him something with which to distract America from his serial incompetence and beat the Stupid Party over the head through his auxillaries in the press.

Russel| 2.19.13 @ 10:07AM

Pelosi and Reid are simply socialist idiots while I give O'Bummer more credit . This may be a ' distraction ' , but I see it as yet another attack on business - yet another blow from government forcing business' further into the corner . And he will use it against the Pubs yet again , who'll vote for their country . He gets a toofer this time . Ps to anyone : how did government get into the wage dept . ? . It seems to me prob . about the first where the feds began making private enterprise THEIR business .

lost| 2.19.13 @ 10:08AM

You all are looking at this wrong. I think not only should there be a minimum wage there should be a maximum wage of $12. Just think, the cost of everything will go down, no more big salaries to pay and the disparity between those who can and those who will not/can not will be much smaller.
See its simple.

Solo| 2.19.13 @ 10:17AM

Obviously..the economic "wisdom" of Barry's latest step in our march to serfdom is revealed by extending this approach to its logical conclusion:

Let's simply end poverty once and for all by raising the minimum wage to $1 Million per year for all workers. How's that for a "living wage"?

We'll all be millionaires! Problem solved.

Solo| 2.19.13 @ 10:25AM

Oh...and the solution to our apparent lack of "investments" by government is just as easy to accomplish.

If we can't "cut our way to prosperity", then I suggest that we raise the tax rate to 100%. Just think of the jobs we'll create with all that "stimulus"!

Or....we can take Nancy "the Genius" Pelosi's advice:
If unemployment creates jobs (as she insists) then let us put everyone on unemployment and then everyone will have a job.

If we combine this with the $Million minimum wage and the 100% tax rate, just think of the bright future we'll enjoy!

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 11:56AM

All this arguments were made about a week ago including "if raising X by 10 percent is good, why not 100%?"

It's known as an argument of absurdity.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 12:35PM

Your side (you are a Leftist, no matter what you claim) makes arguments that do not include any reason to cap movement in your directions. There is nothing to stop YOU from taking your ideas to absurdity, so analyzing as such is completely valid.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 12:45PM

And one can go the other way as well: If regulations are so bad, why not eliminate all environment regulations and just let companies dump toxic waste into lakes? Or make children work in the coal mines again? Or if abortion is so bad, why not make rape victims give birth or outlaw all women of breeding age from being allowed to drink alcohol for concerns of harming the fetus?

What's funny about the latter argument-of-extreme abortion arguments is that the right themselves made them and blew two senate seats. It's one thing when your opponent makes them but when you shoot yourselves in the foot.

But sure, if being a leftist means having a concern other abortion, gay marriage, and keeping tax rates on the rich low then congrats, most people are "leftists". No need for Obama to steal the election when the thin orphan gruel of conservatism has so little to offer nearly everyone.

I'm a representative of the proletariat white men that the left has discarded but the right can't seem to get out of bed to vote to win elections. Disregard what I say, if you like. Good luck with getting hispanics and lesbians to vote conservative though!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:48PM

Straw men.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 2:23PM

What ever happened to "Everything in Moderation"?

Do you really believe that Hundreds of Thousands of New Regulations since Pharaoh came to power, is a good idea.

Again: Go ask George McGovern how his Dream of owning a Bed and Breakfast, worked out for him.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 2:40PM

"The thin orphan gruel of conservatism has so little to offer anyone"?

How about a Job?

Is that Small Potatoes to you?

How many Jobs would be created Today, if we got rid of Golden Boy's Illegal Drilling Moratorium, and his Refusal to allow the Keystone Pipeline to be built?

How many Jobs were Destroyed when President Solyndra shut down all those Coal Fired Plants?

How many Shovel Ready Infrastructure Jobs would have been Created, if he had actually used that $900 Billion Stimulus Money for Shovel Ready Infrastructure Jobs, instead of giving it to the States to keep their Public Employee Unions, on the Job, and still Paying Dues Money to Democrat Political Campaigns?

How many Jobs would be created if Obama's Soviet Style Government Healthcare wasn't hanging over the heads of Corporations?

The Orphan Gruel looks like a Thanksgiving Dinner at The Plaza Hotel, compared to the $9 an Hour Minimum Wage Jobs that President Let'em Die in Benghazi is offering, doesn't it.

That's how we get Hispanics and Lesbians to Vote for Us, even though it's you're belief that they'd rather sit on their Asses, and live off a Handout.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 9:01PM

One of the reasons why Romney lost was that Obama blasted Bain Capital bashing ads and "outsourcing" over and over again. If there is a decent high paying job, you can bet that Republicans will want an democrat-voting H1B to come in to do the work at 10% off (and to meet a diversity quota.)

Indeed, if jobs are the one thing that Republicans can do well, it would behoove them to not become poster girls and boys for outsourcing and H1B's as Carly Fiorina did when she burned HP into the ground and took off in a gold brick filled private jet.

Sure, you have a point about the rising boat and energy, blah blah blah and I agree but still: thin gruel. I'm not an oil roughneck. Thanks anyway.

Fiscal| 2.19.13 @ 10:46AM

While I'm not a proponent of the minimum wage, per se, the argument made by Crocker is not intellectually honest. The original purpose of a minimum wage was to make welfare payments lower. It accomplishes this by moving people who make a minimum wage from the welfare rolls. I have yet to see an honest, intellectual analysis of the total cost of this transfer mechanism. Anecdotal analyses as presented here are misleading and play more into ideology then the truth.

We have a long term decline in wages because of two major factors -- business globalization and information technology. Business globalization causes us to compete with low wage countries like China and Vietnam. Information technology enables senior executives to make more centralized decisions making the bottom level jobs much more labor intensive and much less thinking. These trends will continue and lower level workers will increasingly compete with new technologies in fields like robotics.

The decision on minimum wage needs to be done through total economic analysis that lowers the total cost of government and not on overly simplistic exercises like the one above or simplistic ideological ones. Those who are truly fiscal conservatives need to demand non-ideological analyses. Yeah, less fun, but certainly more filling.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 12:33PM

Fiscal,

In no way have you debunked the article's points. In fact, you've supported them. If the purpose of the minimum wage was to make welfare payments lower, how will reducing the number of low wage jobs, as raising the minimum wage does, help? It will put MORE people on government assistance!

You accuse the article of being "overly simplistic." How?

Moreover, you embrace the liberal tactic of demanding a summary analysis of exact money saved or lost by a certain policy change, when the entire essence of conservatism is that the economy is too complex, with too many players, for any central authority to comprehend and manage it all. That being the case, we know that we cannot predict "exactly what would happen" if a policy were different. It is Leftists who make such demands. They tell us that we can change nothing unless we first tell them exactly how it will play out, while for themselves they say "we have to pass the bill to see what's in it!"

We know the truth - that one can only do analysis using empirical evidence in hindsight. We do not share the ego of the Leftist, which lets him think that he can predict the future well enough to improve upon free market behavior.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 11:26AM

Folks, didn't we just have this argument a week ago? I'll put on my Trotsky beard and make these observations:

1) The same economic folly of paying minimum wage workers more to spend more and "stimulate the economy" makes about as much sense as these same businesses saving money by hiring illegals and then the illegals going on welfare and robbing the customers. (Why don't you hit an illegal riding a bike? It may be YOUR bike!)

2) Wages are already so low due to illegals that the minimum wage raise is moot.

3) The effect of raising the minimum wage on end prices for customers is minimal due to other factors such as overpriced real estate and material expenses.

4) Ergo, a "free market" capitalist economy would dictate that employers should pay LEGAL workers MORE than a minimum wage but where do we hear the outrage here? Oh, wait, F those workers and instead run on outlawing abortion for rape victims. That'll get those proles out to vote Republican!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 12:20PM

Like Obama and others cited in the article, you make these statements with such confidence despite the fact that they are all opposite the truth.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 12:29PM

Very well JD. Let's review:

1) Do you DENY that illegals are not effectively subsidized labor for unscrupulous employers via welfare and crime that the taxpayers and community must bear the brunt of?

2) Do you deny that illegals usually work for more than a minimum wage even for many redstate regions? Do you think the guys hanging out at homedepot are willing to cut grass for less than 10 bucks an hour?

3) Do you deny that minimum wages are a small factor for most businesses such as restaurants and hotels with other operating expenses?

4) Do you deny that a free market economy, without illegals and unnecessary H1B's and outsourcing would raise wages BEYOND the minimum wage?

If what I just said is all the opposite of the truth, please enlighten me. Deny all four points. Go ahead. I'm waiting.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:38PM

Funny. Your new list of four points is different from the first one. I wonder if you even realize that... anyway, I'll address the new foursome.

1. What makes illegals "subsidized"? The fact that employing them doesn't require an employer to pay the costs our government imposes for hiring low-producing citizens? Do you honestly think that I'm going to accept those government-imposed costs as an inevitable reality? Honestly? If you do, you're a fool. Leftists have their governments artificially impose costs, then act as though those costs are inevitable "market forces". Their stupidity is that they expect us to accept it!

The only problems with "illegals" are 1) we don't have a secure border 2) they're a net drain on society BECAUSE we have social welfare. We can fix both problems, at which point people should hire whoever's most cost-effective for them, regardless of nationality.

2. This is basically the opposite of your first #2, so I agree with it.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 1:55PM

Lessee: In both cases for number 1 I mentioned welfare. I do agree that my number 2's appear contradictory. It seems like you're obsessed with shooting the messenger.

Anyways, in answer to your question I have said so several times. Simply ignoring the nose on your face doesn't make it go away. If employers take advantage of the welfare system as an incentive for illegals to come and work for cheap for a small period of time to then dump the costs on the taxpayer, that's a subsidy. Saying you disagree with the subsidy doesn't make it go away. You can't worship free market capitalism while turning around and ignoring it going to bed with leftist fascists.

I view the secure border as a red herring. It's like arguing with a burglar robbing your house that you should have locked your door better. The capitalists paid for future welfare state leftists to come here. Deal with it. Own it!

2) Although the points appear contradictory, they aren't. Illegals are not subject to minimum wage laws by definition, yes? Yet, simultaneously many of them insist upon working for greater than the MW anyway. In either case, the minimum wage is moot. It appears complex, but I think you can get it.

In any case, quibbling over the difference between my first list and then me restating it doesn't mean that it's wrong by definition because you disagree with it. It appears I'm grinding sacred cows here. I get denial a lot from people when I do that.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 2:06PM

Really? That's your grand point? That when government creates a perverse incentive, we're to blame the people who follow it? Then where's your rage towards people who choose to not work and live on welfare when they could be working!

Again, the word "free" in "free market" isn't superfluous. There is a difference between "market" and "free market". "Markets" are an inevitable reality. "Free" markets are those not manipulated by governments stepping outside their mandates to defend rights. You use the terms interchangeably to blame "free markets" for the consequences of anti-free policies. You are wrong to do this.

By definition the "free market" cannot "go to bed with Leftist fascists" because Leftist fascism's introduction is the opposite of freedom.

Of course the minimum wage doesn't impact those whose market value is above it, unless it forces them to pay for it somewhere, but any argument that the minimum wage is below the level of making a difference is an argument AGAINST having the minimum wage, not FOR it.

As for "quibbling", your lists differed in many ways, and the reversal of #2 was only one example of how the second list was less false. You pulled a bait-and-switch, and now you have the gall to attack me for calling you on it!

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 2:27PM

So now you want a grand point. Whatever happened to your claim that my points were all "opposite to the truth?" You have yet to demonstrate one is wrong. Of course, you try to cast blame towards the leftists for capitalists taking advantage of illegal immigrant and the welfare state and even lobbying to continue the arrangement. Hmmm, sounds a lot like Obama blaming GW Bush, right? Socialism is perfect except that evil capitalists screwed things up. Howz that logic for you? Hmmm?

I can see you stomping your widdle feet right now in anger: "That slippery jerk! How dare he say things I disagree with! I want a forum where we lose elections and agree with other people here about how we're good and the other side is bad and we're always right!"

And if that suits you, enjoy it because you're probably going to have that go on for a while until a few rich country club elitists get hanged outside the city walls and their daughters sold into slavery. Maybe then they'll care about their electorate.

Anyways, hmmm, that would seem to be the grand point wouldn't it? I have to get back to work for our capitalist/fascist system so I'll address the rest of your points later (I promise. Well, as much as a CEO does to the workers and shareholders! :-)

Pleasure on my side discussing this with you. I don't think you'll agree but I judge people by what they do. If someone comes back, they must be satisfied.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 3:08PM

What I want in a forum is to test my ideas against the best that the other side can offer and to improve, if I find reason to. Unfortunately, in recent years I have found no one who can comprehend my beliefs but those who agree with them. The rest lie and use straw men. Never do I face genuine criticism, for my "opponent" always demonstrates comprehension error. Often that error seems willful.

Of course I blame Leftists for the consequences of their perverse incentives, including the lobbying for more of the same. What logical person wouldn't? You keep using the term "capitalists", even though I have already explained that the term is meaningless. What you're trying to do is to imply that it's "conservatives" playing ball, even though the definition of "conservative" precludes that.

When socialists complain that human nature screws them up, they complain about an unchangeable reality. They might as well be trying to fly by flapping their arms, and complaining about gravity! When conservatives complain that Leftism screws up society, we complain about something entirely optional and changeable. Yet you try to equate the two complaints!

Your posts require me to "accept" that my ideology supports Leftism, even though that is definitionally untrue.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 3:52PM

"Of course, you try to cast blame towards the leftists for capitalists taking advantage of illegal immigrant and the welfare state and even lobbying to continue the arrangement. "

The proper response to this is "DUH!"

You use the word "capitalists" instead of "people" to try to blame us for it, but "people" is the proper word in that context. And do we blame the Left for creating an environment where people take advantage of the welfare state and lobby for its preservation and expansion? OF COURSE! How can you possibly have thought otherwise! That was Jefferson's point when he cautioned against a state where people can vote themselves other people's money!

What insanity leads you to think that the state can "legalize" and support such behavior, and yet it is not the fault of the state when people act as it requests that they act?

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 5:48PM

But it's not just the state but the capitalists themselves selling the rope to hang themselves, so to speak. If capitalists wind up degenerating into democrat fascist cronies, then that's not the fault of the left. It's a flaw with capitalism itself. If you think about it, modern leftism is partly a product of capitalist cronyism. I tell my leftist friends too that they'll never get a socialist/marxist paradise since it too degenerates into oligarchy social and economic fascism. Obamacare? That's not socialism but fascism with crony companies getting to pig out on taxpayer dollars. Hilarious.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 5:50PM

It's funny that you make excuses for capitalists selling out society by using welfare state subsidies and then shriek at the notion of, gasp, paying working class people a little more so they can work and not go on welfare. Then you're enraged when they wind up doing that. How DARE someone care about their own self interests? Who do they think they are? Capitalists?

If you're going to overlook Captain CEO riding on his private jet while hiring illegals to piss on the American flag and vote Democrat, why do you not respect someone working hard to bring you a nice meal and pay their taxes and maybe wanting a buck or two more? Is that so hard? Especially when you're more likely to get loyalty from working class folks than from corporate cronies who are as likely to donate money to the Democrats!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 2:13PM

Like others on this site (Jack London comes to mind), you love straw men.

You think that "the Right" is hypocritical whenever a rich person participates in Leftist fascism. You think that if anyone claims to belong to the Right and does something wrong, "the Right" is guilty. Or if someone claims to be "conservative" and voices support for a Leftist ideal, then the Right "supports" it.

Absurd, on all counts. Ideals are self-defining. If a person claims an ideal, then violates it, it is not the ideal that has changed; only the person.

When a self-proclaimed "conservative" embraces a Leftist idea (know anything about that?), it is only the person who is a hypocrite, not "conservatism."

And also, if you and your wife disagree on which house to buy, then after you buy her choice (see what I did there?), must you refuse to live in it or pay for it? Of course not. Yet Leftists call conservatives "hypocrites" for claiming Social Security benefits after spending their lives paying into it. Or in your case, for following perverse incentives even as we oppose their existence.

Take the plank out of your own eye.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 5:44PM

The problem with being an anarchist or even free marketeer is that when you preach your dinner guests should be on "the honor system", it doesn't help your cause if the first thing they do is crap on the kitchen floor and steal your cutlerly. If capitalists act badly, it's going to make your cause for free markets all that much harder. Just saying.

In the case of perverse incentives, I was referring to companies hiring ILLEGALS. You know, breaking the LAW? And then these illegals then turn around and unsurprisingly stab their capitalist masters in the back. It's not just a matter of hypocrisy but STUPIDITY and a failure of the "free market". If they can't restrain themselves from shooting themselves in the foot, that's hardly the left's fault. Even if the left puts a bottle of whiskey that says "drink me" on it, they weren't forced to drink it.

In the meantime, these working class people are the ones most likely to vote conservative but you care little about them and that's why your agenda loses elections. Again, just saying.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 7:18PM

Ok, you are proving too dishonest to continue debating.

This is about the fifth time you've intentionally disregarded the difference between my position on government and anarchy. It is also at least the fifth time you've used the term "free market" to refer to a market perversely manipulated by Leftism. Like all Leftists, you, out of supreme arrogance, claim to know which choices are best for millions of people better than they do. And you claim that responding to perverse incentives is the fault of the victim, not the creator of the incentives.

You say we should not drink your hypothetical whiskey, but that is not the choice. You act as though we should simply decline your free lunch. The actual choice is to pay all of Leftism's costs while receiving the minor benefits it gives in return, or to pay those same costs and receive nothing. Millions of Americans cannot afford to pay, then receive nothing, so they take your deal. That is what we mean when we say that Leftists want everyone dependent on government!

We care about working people, and unlike you, we do not think that "caring" is all that matters. Overall, we do not lie despicably about nearly all things, particularly the motives of our rivals and the nature of our policies. That you do lie, and are so good at it, is why we lose elections.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 8:57PM

JD, you're such a victim. Boo hoo, you believe in free markets the ability for people to do the right thing but simultaneously, you claim that capitalists can't help themselves and will act badly with the slightest "perverse" incentive (perverse used twice) because it's all the leftist's fault. Later, you argue that leftists play the blame game but not you! No. If a business fails, it must be due to government. Yep. Because of leftists. And losing elections? Well, not your side's fault either since you're just so darn good and wonderful and right.

Yeah, sounds like you're so much more enabled than, say, a welfare mother.

In the meantime, when I had offered that in leau of being unable to eliminate the perverse incentive of welfare to instead maybe pay a low wage worker a few dollars more to transform them into useful, conservative workers, you threw that idea out faster than, er, pretty fast! Nope, can't have THAT much compromise. But on the other hand, can't judge capitalists for hiring illegals who go on welfare and then vote Democrat. That's ok. You're just so fair and blameless.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:40PM

3. Like most Left-wing weasels, you're slippery. You threw the word "most" in there to make your statement technically true, even though the argument you derive from the statement requires the "most" to be "always". Of course raising minimum wage won't kill "most" minimum wage jobs. No one suggested otherwise. But it will kill a sizable number of them. And every cent increase in wages will come from somewhere, and many times that cost will not be worth it. How can I say this with confidence? Because I know, most certainly, that every penny paid as a result of government mandate that would not have otherwise been paid is a deviation from market rates, which are the product of the intelligence of the people actually involved in transactions. Government ham-handedness is never wiser than that. You certainly don't make any such argument - you just say "the poor guy has more, and it probably cost the employer a Bentley". "Facts" pulled from your posterior.

4. There is nothing "free" about artificially restricting the employee pool. Your question is a contradiction. As for what wages will be, under any circumstances, the answer is that people will only be paid anything at all if their work is worth more to the employer than the wage. For those whose work is worth little, the wage will be little. If that means it's below your arbitrary threshold, then that's what it will be.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 2:15PM

I don't need it to be always. I agree that some businesses that are entirely labor driven by minimum wage serfs will see a significant impact from a raise. That's assuming they're paying minimum wage to start, of course. I wasn't being slippery but rather open. If I hadn't said anything about such exceptions, you'd have jumped me. Sorry if I don't make it easy for you!

And your claim that "no one suggested" that most minimum wages wouldn't be lost because of raising the wage increase is untrue. There are at least two posts here are of the "why not raise the minimum wage to 100 bucks and hour? NOBODY will have work!!!! In any case, that has nothing to do with what I said in point three which is that minimum wage labor is largely just a portion of overall operating costs for most businesses and this reduces the net negative effect on the employer. I see you didn't disprove my point even though you tried to dismiss it before. Nice try at a distraction though.

You then have the audacity to say: "There is nothing "free" about artificially restricting the employee pool." in regards to illegal immigration driving down wages. And you wonder why the right loses elections. Did you think about what you wrote? Ok fine. Open up the borders to save a few bucks. Don't cry to me about them voting Democrat though. Free market at work!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 2:50PM

The suggestion that minimum wage increases won't reduce employment requires you to say that NO business will feel their financial impact. If you allow that some businesses will feel the impact, you allow that some people will suffer. There's no getting around this, but you're still trying to have it both ways.

Pointing out that the "logic" you use to support increasing the wage does not break down if the minimum is raised infinitely is one criticism. That even a moderate increase will cause SOME job losses is another criticism. Making one of these criticisms does not preclude the other.

You harp on how forced wage increases are just a "portion" of operating costs as though that debunks me, but it debunks YOU. Many employers are low-margin. It doesn't take much to push them into insolvency. You have not proven that these losses will be outnumbered by benefits, nor do you try. You seem to think that you win the argument if you merely state that you won't lose it catastrophically. And you accuse me of using distractions!

As for your last paragraph, I correctly applied the definition of "free market", and correctly took you to task for getting it wrong. You ignored that context and tried to take me to task for supporting unlimited open borders. I support a secure border, but I do not support immigration restrictions provided that we eliminate social welfare. Social welfare's existence is anti-freedom in many ways, one of which being that it requires immigration restriction.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 4:39PM

"The suggestion that minimum wage increases won't reduce employment requires you to say that NO business will feel their financial impact."

For someone who lectures about free market economies, you really don't think these things out. Even net employment increases often have negagive effects for some while positive for most. One business may prosper while another business fails but add net employment. Requiring that NO company feel any financial impact sounds rather laughable to a free marketeer, doesn't it?

You wrote: "Pointing out that the "logic" you use to support increasing the wage does not break down if the minimum is raised infinitely is one criticism." Is this a referral to the raise the minimum wage to $100 and see what happens logic? Later, you had written:

"so you ignored that statement and pretended that I'm an anarchist who supports theft. "

Which appears to be that you what's good for the goose is apparantly not good for the gander. You should be allowed to take things to an extreme and ask others to defend them but it shouldn't be applied to yourself. And then you gripe endlessly over "strawmen".

My "harp" on a "portion" of operating costs somehow disproves me only works if margins are low and your free market business is on the brink of collapse anyway. (That's what: "It doesn't take much to push them into insolvency." means) Again, you don't think things through. You're blustering.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 5:38PM

What is the cap on how high the minimum wage should be raised?

Nothing in your argument suggests that there should be a cap. The logic you use does not provide one. My logic, on the other hand, DOES allow for a cap on how much government I will remove - I'll remove that which does not serve government's purpose of protecting rights (BTW, a "right" is something that must be protected, not provided, and can be violated only actively, not passively).

The reason I can take your argument "to the extreme" is that your argument does not preclude it. Mine does.

And again (talking to a wall, here...), the argument against minimum wage hikes is that it eliminates jobs that don't earn enough for the employer to support the wage. You attempt to refute this argument by saying that "most" businesses will be able to pay the higher wage. That is not a counter-argument. That is merely a focusing on the businesses to which the original argument does not apply. But the original argument never claimed to apply to all businesses. It only claimed to apply to a significant amount. You have not countered the argument, and you cannot.

Minimum wage laws do not make anyone's labor more valuable, nor do they create wealth, nor do they address any of the underlying realities that lead to "low" wages. They clumsily treat a symptom, not a cause, and they do so with many negative side effects, namely, the elimination of work which doesn't earn the wage.

The minimum wage is always zero.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 6:02PM

Now you want to play a semantic game. Your limit to your paradigm is that a right can be violated only actively, not passively. But this is about as legitimate as the Wise Latinas rationalizations for racial preferences not being racist.

Again, how do you rationalize not, say, allowing companies to dump poison into groundwater? How much poison is "too much" poison? There's always poision in stuff as you know and the EPA often exceeds their mandate.

Quite frankly, there's a lot to respond to and you can quibble about this if it pleases you but asking me to justify a $100 minimum wage is hilarious when you've said "strawman" here about a dozen times. Can't you at least prove the things I said in my list were untrue as you claimed first instead of just arguing against them? That would be a good start!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 7:10PM

I did not ask you to justify a $100 minimum wage. That would be asking the impossible. I have stated, repeatedly, that your rationale for having a minimum wage, and for raising it, supports raising it infinitely. I have asked you to explain how your rationale does not extend infinitely, since you claim it does not, but you don't seem to understand the question.

That you quibble with the definition of a right shows your absurdity, as the definition is about as basic as common sense gets. But Leftists the world over have sought to discard the definition, and common sense in general, to create new "rights" to get things for nothing, which require others to give things for nothing. Ayn Rand rightly called that slavery.

Leftism at its root has long required the redefinition of words and of basic truths. You defend your redefinitions by accusing me of doing it when I state truth. This is your only recourse.

How you went from the definition of a right to Sotomayor, I'll never know.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 8:15PM

One could say the same of any regulation (that it can be raised to an absurdity) such as, say, reducing EPA regulations would imply that it should be ok to dump poisons into public groundwater systems without limit or the opposite, that it's not ok to dump ANYTHING.

So what?

What you're now engaging in is an argument of abstraction. Don't deny the nose on your face but now make me define what a nose is. Have fun with that.

loulou| 2.19.13 @ 11:28AM

It doesn't matter what the minimum wage is.
The parasites still get more money being wards of the government. It doesn't pay them to work. Why work when you still can have your flatscreens, obamaphones, steak and lobster, etc?

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 11:42AM

If you increase the minimum wage by a dollar an hour the actual cash cost to the employer is more like $1.07 when you consider the employer's share of social security. So the employee must now be $1.07 an hour more productive in order for it to be worth the employer's while to keep them on the payroll. But the employee only gets $.93 of theat $1.07 once their share of social security is taken out. Liberal math, produce $1.07 more but get only $.93.

Better solution: make anyone making up to 110% of the minimum wage exempt from the employee's portion of social security. Immediate wage increase without costing the employer more. Most of those making wages that low are never going to see a return from their forced social security investments anyway.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 11:48AM

Already done Markenoff: Illegal immigrants. Employers don't pay their social security at all (at least unless the illegal engages in identity fraud with the OK of the ethical capitalist employer.)

"So the employee must now be $1.07 an hour more productive in order for it to be worth the employer's while to keep them on the payroll."

I should have added:

5) Employers now routinely layoff workers not because they "need" to but rather to make the workers more "productive" regardless of the minimum wage. Either the workers make do, or they don't (cut corners) which is ok with the CEO since they often have gotten their bonuses and moved on and let the shareholders, customers, and employees deal with the fallout.

TLP| 2.19.13 @ 2:58PM

Who are you talking about?

Obama's buddy and American Jobs Czar - Jeffery Immelt - who can's close up shop here, and move everything to China fast enough?

Obama's Buddy - Facebook - who just saved $1,000,000,000 on its IRS bill, to go along with a $423,000,000 Refund?

Warren Buffet who keeps shipping all of that Canadian Crude on his Trains, because Obama won't allow the Keystone Pipeline to be built?

I could go on.

But, do I really have to?

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:16PM

So let's build the wall. That's a shovel ready project. Somehow you assume that every business owner is just itching to hire illegal. Maybe you hire them to watch your kids, mow your lawn, clean your pool, or if your a Democrat politician, polish your knob but I prefer to hire those in America legally and I am more than happy to have our government build a wall on the southern border and start rounding up those here illegally. If we can put a man on the moon...but that was just a TV studio, right?

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:16PM

Fight human trafficking.....build the wall.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:17PM

Fight gun running....build the wall. (And prosecute Eric Holder)

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:17PM

Fight drug smuggling.....build the wall.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:17PM

Fight money laundering....build the wall.

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:18PM

Fight terrorism....build the wall.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 6:04PM

I could care less about the wall. Again, it reminds me of a burglar telling you "well, you didn't lock your door well enough. Now where's the mustard? I'm making a sandwich."

Take away their unwarrented legal rights first and climbing the wall will be unnecessary.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 7:49PM

Largely true, but even the removal of those rights won't stop the criminal from coming here to prey on our relative expectation of security. There are two problems - the burdening of the welfare state and the influx of criminality. Your solution fixes only one.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 10:44PM

And your solution (which appears to be allow anyone who claims to want to work for low wages) doesn't solve either. Criminals can simply claim to want to work for slave wages and enter the country and then go loose. As wages deflate and even if you got welfare abolished, you'd just have a standard third world hellhole of starving people on the streets who feel it's better than the starving streets of the place they left and even further criminality. But your capitalist buddies would be making an extra buck or two so who cares? You would most likely no longer be in the middle class and would also be lucky to have a hut and a right to crap on the street.

Control of citizenship and rights to collective assets are essential to a nation's prosperity. It's why nations were formed to begin with! Yet capitalists think that if you flood a nation with refugees you'll have prosperity because you can get a busboy for half price. Also, look at those great unregulated (or cronies looking the other way) factories where they dump the PCB's in the drinking water. Why can't we get that here? (Ok, soon enough... soon enough...)

George S| 2.19.13 @ 11:44AM

This has nothing to do with economics and getting stuck in minimum wage vs employment is a yawner that only sets the table for the Democrats.

This is about Santa Clause and the 2014 midterms: Democrats want to give you a raise, Republicans do not. Period.

Where do the voters go?

The correct analysis and response is to say repealing ObamCare will double everyone's salary within two years. It doesn't matter if you can prove it, you will get voters hoping it would.

Throw the hope and change right back at them.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 11:55AM

Romney was hit hard in battleground states such as PA and OH over "Bain capital" and with good cause: Not being aggressive enough about illegals and also H1B's and outsourcing meaning that "free market" capitalism and even free trade is a joke. Other countries can impose tariffs and quotas and the states will import poison cat food and baby formula and the Republicans say nothing about it. In addition, the right did nothing about race and gender quotas even as they needed white males to show up in PA and OH to vote for Romney.

It's not that Romney was the party of NO. I think that many Pennsylvanians and Ohioans probably wondered if he even had anything to run on. In that vacuum, the right gaffes over denying rape victims abortions and that filled the void.

Seek| 2.19.13 @ 12:14PM

The GOP needs a Pat Buchanan or Tom Tancredo-style economic populist with the guts to speak out against mass immigration from the Third World and affirmative action. Go easy on the old-time religion, and emphasize racial replacement as the animating trait of the Democratic Party and cheap-labor business advocates within the GOP.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 12:24PM

Don't forget to add feminism. And the divorce courts. And the marriage penalty.

Ralph Gizzip| 2.19.13 @ 12:50PM

Why stop at $9 / hr? Why not raise the minimum wage to $20 / hr or even $50 / hr? Nevermind the businesses that will close because they can't pay the wage, it's the principle of the thing. "We've raised the minimum wage to $50 / hr! It's for the children!"

What's that you say? Setting a minimum wage like that doesn't make sense? You're right. Setting a minimum wage at any level does not make sense. If a business can't get labor at some arbitrary rate they'll have to increase the rate until they do. That's a market force doing what it's supposed to do. It sets the exchange rate for supply and demand.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 1:07PM

Already addressed above, Ralph. Won't bother repeating.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 1:28PM

Folks, I took a deep breath and thought for a second and came up with this:

Here's a missed opportunity for the right to gain and get out votes from their primary electorate: working and lower middle class people that more than anymore resent the welfare state paying people not to work while they sweep floors for 10 bucks an hour.

Arguing against the minimum wage is perceived as a slap in the face to them. Do you really want to slap these folks in the face? Having worked in these jobs in the past (until I wised up and decided it wasn't worth it), I see that employers often treat these workers with a lack of respect even as the work is valuable and can't just be "eliminated" to save 2 bucks an hour. My wife worked as a waitress and they tried to get her to come in for 34 hours just short of full time benefits. They wanted her to do cleaning work in the back of the restaurant while being paid the waitress minimum of $3.50 (no tips.) They called her when she was supposed to be going to classes crying they didn't have shift coverage. I told her: F' em. Not her problem that they don't have enough part-timers or pay for full time coverage. The free market goes both ways: If they couldn't stay in business with proper staffing, let 'em fold. And the restaurant did after she left.

Say what you like about the Dems, but they at least recognize the value of a person's vote.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 1:46PM

Why does it make sense for employers to give employees 34-hour weeks? Because the government attached a huge cost to that 35th hour! Why do they struggle with shift coverage? Because the government makes hiring more expensive, and workers at that level are unreliable.

You have the audacity to call what killed that restaurant "free market", but it was anything but. There is a "market", but it is far from "free".

Government pioneered the paying for of health care with "insurance" and the association of said "insurance" with a job, then used the tax code to coerce the entire country to follow suit. Now you blame the horrible consequences on the victims.

Of course we of the Right talk about the insanity of the welfare state paying more to not work than to work. But Leftists respond not by cutting the pay to not work, but by trying to legislate increases in the pay to work. And you are one of them.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 2:45PM

JD, you really don't think this through: You complain that low paid workers are unreliable. Whose fault is that? You just said that it was cheaper to hire part timers. So hire more part timers then. This wasn't any fault of government but poor planning on their part. Not all business problems are due to government.

Regarding the 35th hour and full time. Whether the government mandated that or not, trying to get my wife to come in for 34 hours and deny her the benefit didn't encourage her to feel any sympathy for the employer. A free market goes both ways you know. Perhaps... if this employer respected their workers more they'd still be in business.

The customers noticed too. Because the waitresses also had to bus tables and were understaffed, the tables were filthy (it was an UNOS) It gave them a bad reputation. My wife found a business model in that the fewer tables she waitressed, the more money in tips she got. So she took fewer tables.

On a philosophical level you demanded before, if a "free market" is "whatever the hell you can get away with that you don't get thrown in jail for", then illegals coming in and working for capitalists and then going on welfare and voting Democrat and hanging those same capitalists from the side of the city while selling the daughters into slavery IS a "free market", isn't it? Don't expect me to save their skins though. I don't vote, or fight, for free.

Kapish?

That's it for now.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 2:58PM

I have stated repeatedly that it is government's role to defend rights. Being dishonest, you seem incapable of acknowledging that. When I advocate a free market, you call me an anarchist. If I talk about government's defense of rights, you'll call me a totalitarian. Because your ideals know no logical limits, you seem unable to deal with mine, which do.

It is government that makes it cheaper to hire a collection of part-timers than to use full-timers. Exclusively government. You simply stated, out of ideological need, that it is not so, but it is. You say that employers must "respect" employees more by jumping through all the Left's hoops for them, but doing so would raise their costs well beyond what would drive them out of business. They had no choice but to try to make do with the collection of part-timers because Leftism forced it on them.

Then Leftism blamed anyone but itself for the resulting failure. And that, more than anything, is what modern Leftism is about - making sure that others always get the blame.

"Not all business problems are due to government." - straw man. Of course they're not. We must analyze specific instances to see what causes failure. In this case, your own words tell me how government screwed that restaurant.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 5:34PM

I never "simply stated" that it's "not so" that government makes it cheaper to hire a collection of part-timers than full timers. On the contrary, I strongly implied that the company while trying to get my wife to work an almost full time shift without offering her the government benefits is why she insisted they not raise her hours to that limit. When they tried again, she left. Why should she work hours she didn't want to when the company wasn't paying? More on this later. The unreliable people stayed on because the company wanted to save money. How is it government's fault that the workers they paid the minimum to were unreliable and they understaffed? You conclude it's the goverment's fault that the restaurant went under yet there is no evidence whatsoever they ran out of money due to hiring full timers with more benefits since they didn't. They could have hired more part-timers but didn't. Again, not government's fault. My words give no indication on how the government screwed the restaurant. They paid low, provided lousy service, and didn't staff properly. Where is your defense of rights when you want full time workers with no incentive other than for the restauranteers happiness? Why should reliable people work full time for the same wages and benefits as part-timers? Hmmm?

I laughed as you said leftists blame others yet here you are crying that the restaurant must not be at fault.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 5:48PM

Your ideology prevents you from grasping a simple point, such that you make statements that I have already refuted in the post you're replying to.

The government makes hiring full-time workers more expensive. Thus the restaurant has two choices:
1. Hire full-time workers anyway; go bankrupt because payroll is higher than revenue.
2. Hire part-time workers and try to make it work.

You keep insisting that they could have made #1 work if they really wanted to. This is how Leftists work. Without crunching any numbers, or even having a clue what numbers are, they simply insist that "greedy evil capitalists" could "make it work" if they simply wanted to.

I did not suggest that the restaurant tried #1 and failed, as you accuse me of doing. I said, quite clearly, that #1 was off the table because of government, and so they failed trying #2. But being dishonest as a Leftist, you act as though the decision to go with #2 makes it entirely their fault and government can't be blamed for taking #1 off the table!

The free market, if it existed here, would have allowed full-time workers with less pay than what government mandates, but still better compensation than part-time work offers. In so doing it might have found a middle-ground between unreliable staff and inability to meet payroll. But Leftism precludes such common sense.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 6:28PM

Pardon me, but could you please show where I keep "insisting" that the restaurant could have made hiring full time workers with benefits work if they really wanted to? I know I'm the only one who writes strawman here, but I would love to know where I said that. Thanks.

Your claim is now that the primary reason the company went under is that they couldn't offer slightly better compensation than part-time work to get full timers. Yet, there was a middle ground: They could have offered my wife more money for her hours to work 34 hours. Yes? They didn't offer. Yes? There was a middle ground and they didn't take it.

Care to grasp for more straws?

The main problem for this company and your agenda is that the free market allowed my wife to leave along with other reliable workers because they didn't pay market wages. You claimed that I was strawmanning you (again, prove where I "insisted" above thanks) that you assume government is the culprit when it appears that this company was just run bad.

They had waitresses bussing tables and the tables were dirty. They understaffed the part-timers and this affected quality of service that gave the restaurant a bad rep. They were bringing in money, FYI. At least until they got a bad reputation.

Did it ever occur to you that sometimes companies can be greedy and lose out? It does happen.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 6:57PM

Incompetence causes failures at least as much as greed, and those two are not the same.

As for your claim that I put words in your mouth, your responses speak for themselves. I kept saying that government made hiring full-timers too expensive, and you kept saying "no, it's not government's fault". The fact is that there are drawbacks to hiring part-timers at any wage (even unaffordably high wages), and government prevents businesses from dodging those drawbacks by making full-timers unaffordable.

You proposed a senseless "middle ground" the same way Leftists always propose senseless "options" for the victims of their policies. Perhaps, in some instance, more reliability might have been had by paying part-timers more, but until this most recent post is the first time you've even claimed that a market wage for a part-timer wasn't being paid. Your delay in mentioning this makes me doubt its truth. My guess is that in fact it WAS a market wage; you just don't like how low a market wage was. But you want a new, higher wage, which you'll call "market wage" because you don't think words have meanings, and you propose that people simply pay it out of their vast "greed" reserves.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 8:39PM

"As for your claim that I put words in your mouth"

That's what "You keep insisting that they could have made #1 work if they really wanted to." means. So now your interpretation of what you think I said is the same as me "insisting"something.

Sheesh. Your wife must be SO happy. She wouldn't need to nag you at all! You'd imagine it for her!

So now you're playing games with pretending that I am somehow dishonest because I didn't mention the option of paying part-timers more until recently. What have you been smoking? I've talked endlessly about the option to offer more pay. From 4:58PM "Why should my wife have been overly reliable when the firm wasn't going to offer her more pay?"

Your red-herring of me "hiding" a fair market value of the offer (or not) doesn't make sense since Capitalism and Free Markets would have allowed the employer to easily hire someone else and avoid destruction at the hands of the Government, yes?

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:20PM

"You complain that low paid workers are unreliable. Whose fault is that?"

Maybe the public schools.

You confuse the cause with effect. The workers are not unreliable because they are low paid; they are low paid because they are unreliable.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 4:58PM

Wow! Markenoff. And the right wonders why they lose elections.

Many workers are low paid and reliable and to generalize about them like that. Wow. Some of them are uneducated, or perhaps they don't have better options at the time, or a number of reasons.

But sure, let's go with that claim of cause and effect for a moment. The workers DESERVE the low wages because they are unreliable, yes? But again, why should this have been my wife's problem that they hired unreliable workers at low pay and wanted her to work their shifts? Why should my wife have been overly reliable when the firm wasn't going to offer her more pay? Again, is this a two way relationship or what?

In addition, if they wanted more reliable labor they could have paid more for it. Whatever direction of cause and effect you buy into, the company had it's problems because they didn't pay to make them go away. Whose fault is that?

JD| 2.19.13 @ 6:00PM

They couldn't have paid more it, because contrary to your dogma, their owner wasn't a billionaire with 17 yachts.

Their taxes, regulatory obligations, and benefit obligations forced them to either pay what they did and try to get by or close shop without a fight.

You'll tell me I can't prove that, but in doing so you'll require me to believe your story, which involves the owner having plenty of spare cash. Why do you think I'd be inclined to take your word for it when you won't take mine? Mine at least makes sense - closing surely cost the owners more than paying better wages would have. There must have been a reason they didn't pay more to stave off closure. What could that reason have been?

You can't say "greed and evil" when "greed and evil" would have led them to want to stay open!

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 6:37PM

I never said anything about 17 yachts. Waaah! You're making a strawman! Waaaah! You're so unfair! Waaah!

Ok, seriously though, let's look at the logistics: They could have hired more part-timers. Without benefits, this was possible without the "poor" company going broke. They didn't either because they couldn't attract quality labor in the FREE MARKET or they just didn't bother. Either way, it's not the government's fault.

Your claim that they couldn't get full timers without offering benefits assumes that they could have attracted quality labor. That's just what it is, an assumption.

What _I_ know or at least from my wife is they were jerks in how they treated labor and didn't build a relationship of trust with their employees which wouldn't have helped to retain quality staff. If you want to call me a liar, sure. Who knows? Maybe I made the whole thing up!

JD| 2.19.13 @ 7:02PM

You are indeed making things up.

You assume they could have hired more workers without going broke. You call it a "free" market even when it's not free, for reasons I keep stating - taxes, regulations, hiring rules, benefits rules. And that IS government's fault.

Then you complain about MY assumptions, which are common sense.

Even if these people really were "jerks" (which might just be your label for people who don't pay what you think they should pay), the fact remains that many businesses that deserve to succeed end up failing because of Left-wing interventions, and that is what we were talking about to begin with.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 7:23PM

JD, you're simultaneously claiming that the government's rules and benefits requiring benefits for full time workers is why they tried to get my wife to work 34 hours part-time and then complain they went broke because they couldn't hire full time workers without giving benefits. If reliable workers will willing to work close to full time without benefits, why didn't my wife take the deal?

When I pointed out how the company had treated the workers badly or had money but chose not to hire, you then chose to cover your eyes and play "see no evil" and claim I can't prove it so who cares. OK, fine. In the end, if they wind up getting a bad reputation and customers don't want to go anymore, all the government regulations in the world are not to blame.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 7:58PM

Leftism wins elections precisely because it manages to convince dupes that its negative consequences are other peoples' fault. You're telling me to just ignore that. Of course that's what you want!

Your first sentence in that post is a long, incomprehensible run-on (second time you've done that). I say that not out of disagreement - it's honestly incomprehensible.

I have said, quite clearly, that government's rules prevent hiring employees full-time with compensation greater than part-time compensation but less than what government mandates for full-timers. I know there are many waitresses who would work more hours even at their current part-time pay rates, but cannot due to the law. Fewer employees working more hours tend to be more invested in their jobs and thus more reliable.

You act as though you win this argument by proving that anything but government bore any guilt at all. You don't. However, I do win this argument by proving that government bears any guilt at all. That is because the terms of the argument are your claim that government isn't doing harm. You attempt to put words in my mouth - the claim that private individuals never screw up. This has never been any conservative's claim, but it is perhaps the Left's favorite straw man.

Our claim is simply that government makes things worse.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 10:27PM

JD, as I said before, if the issue was"halfway" of offering greater pay for full time but less than that mandated by law, then the option exists to go for 34 hours and just offer more compensation for that rather than try to sneak it in as they did with my wife. In addition, as you complained about minimum wage laws hurting workers because of the opportunities lost, then why would you want to argue that the employer should pay MORE than that if these laws making him pay that much are hurting him from getting reliable, but cheap labor? Hmmm? Why were there few takers for the 34 hour deal? In addition, something to keep in mind is that I already had benefits from my employer and my wife might have considered simply waiving the medical plan since she already had one. Plenty of people do. Did you ever think about that?

Regarding not understanding my sentence. I agree and that was why I represented your point as that runoff sentence. You've put so many contradictory claims as to why the business failed and it must be the fault of the state that it doesn't make sense. I can't even argue against it with you because I have to clarify what I actually said while you cry about strawmen.

atilla| 2.19.13 @ 3:05PM

If obama wasn't running the military, don't you think he should be in its sights for what he is doing to this country's national security and its citizens that pay?….I sure do!!

markenoff| 2.19.13 @ 4:23PM

Hey now, Obama killed Osama bin Laden! Don't you know those SEALs were all just huddled in a corner weeping and quivering until Obama slapped them around, ordered them onto that helicopter and personally led them into the compound whre he shot Osama between the eyes before rushing back for a campaign fundraiser?

Obama has nothing but respect and love for the military, especially the corpsemen.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 4:42PM

I hate to defend Obama on this, truly, but he did order the military to go into another nation's territory without permission and conduct a raid. It was not an easy call. I personally think he should have called the Pakistani president personally and asked for permission to go into their airpace and conduct a raid (don't give too many details) but again, his call not mine.

I'm curious, Markenoff, what do you think? Would you have done it the same way (shoot first and then call and explain and happened?)

JD| 2.19.13 @ 5:55PM

It is widely believed that the Pakistani government quietly supported bin Laden. They would have approved the raid, but warned bin Laden to not be there. Also, they would have demanded billions in "aid" in exchange for permission.

Such is the lunacy of asking permission to defend oneself.

But don't credit Obama much. This was all arranged without his involvement, and he was only summoned to a room where a large group had assembled to say "we're ready to pull the trigger, and we put a LOT of work into this!" At that point, saying yes was easier than saying no.

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 6:42PM

JD, for someone who claims I was slippery you love to rationalize things and act like it's the same as the issue going away.

The USA invaded another country's sovereign territory without a declaration of war. It's just something to consider also if they want to retain that country's support in the future as "allies" if the rational for that action is that they're Bin Laden's buddies anyway.

Just something to consider.

JD| 2.19.13 @ 7:03PM

There's a reason that the word "rationalize" has the word "rational" in it. But some people call their statements "rational" when they are not.

1ConservativeUSA| 2.19.13 @ 3:59PM

Well done Mr. Crocker.

Leftist policies are not meant to solve problems, but to mollify the masses.

Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 2.19.13 @ 4:27PM

The working class doesn't need Barrack Obama. All we need is organizing and solidarity and we'll be able to make our own demands for wages and benefits. What Obama is doing is handing out fresh bread to the peasants. It's an elitist notion that we the working class need well intentioned liberals to meet our needs because we can't take care of ourselves. What we need is to reinvigorate the American Labor Movement and regain enough power and political clout that it will be the Republicans or Democrats who need us not the other way around. I have always disagreed with fellow trade unionists who believe that "we need" a Barrack Obama or Nancy Pelosi to do our bidding. If working class Americans rediscover the power of collective bargaining and use it to gain chips in the political game then we can do our own bidding free of the Democratic Party. I've always resented elitist liberals who believe that they are the ones who truly represent the working class when they have never been working class.

Pecos Pete| 2.19.13 @ 7:25PM

PolishKnight = scroll wheel

PolishKnight| 2.19.13 @ 10:45PM

Hahaha Sorry about that. I got into a fight.

homme nike air max BW | 2.20.13 @ 1:20AM

this will be good for business because “it would mean customers with more money in their

hrgfue | 2.20.13 @ 2:32AM

Kickoff to you with the online store 2013

NeilBJ| 2.20.13 @ 5:28PM

The minimum wage does not force employers to pay more. It makes it illegal to pay someone less than the minimum wage. In other words it prevents people who are otherwise willing and able to work from obtaining a job.

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