Let's Abolish Minimum Wage Laws

[drdriveby]

LET'S ABOLISH MINIMUM WAGE LAWS

[originally posted somewhere else-preelection]

We anticipated this. Bill Clinton rises from the near dead to rouse 'African Americans' from their torpor so he might guide them through the Sea of Reeds to the welfare state on the other side that he and the missus taught them to die for. Black people adore him as their tribal King and Saviour. But the Clintons know very well they are puppeteers.

Nevermind Kerry Edwards, if they win that's fine. If they lose it can't matter; they are mere mortals while Billary Clinton will forever be there to rule African America. What is required to join these believers? A state of mind that is truly a waste.

Senator Kerry, Edwards, and the Clintons are no strangers to feasting on the sores of the less fortunate. Kerry acquired the down payment for his political career from the dubious currency of human suffering in Viet Nam that, he testified under oath before the Senate, was inflicted by Americans. Mr. Edwards is in the rapacious vanguarde of posturing litigants determined to destroy the insurance and medical industries based on his ersatz empathy with somebody else's accidental misery. One shudders before the spectre of this swine poking his trotter into the judicial selection pie. And Clinton? Remember the frequency of church 'arson' during the 90s? His highness assured benumbed 'African Americans' that he would confront this resurgent 'Klan' violence. As it turned out more white churches perished than black. When it became known that the ancient, desiccated wood in these structures was prone to combustion Clinton's sudden silence went unnoticed by his conceptually challenged worshipers.

The most recent toy the Democrats are inflating is the minimum wage issue. Whose suffering is exacerbated by this subterfuge? Urban and rural adolescents and young adults living with their parents who are priced out of the labour market.

True, these low wages merely supplement total family income but one must consider the alternative: Young people with no short term goals are 'entitled' to an 'education' involving longer school hours and years. This has nothing to do with acquiring knowledge and skills, this is social engineering* via indoctrination, the perfect excuse for taxing the literal day lights out of the rest of us.

What faction of Clinton/Kerry axis bootlickers is enriched for these public 'services'? Organised teachers 'administrators',and councilors who would otherwise remain unemployable. Who else are fattened by this largesse? 'Union labour' who benefit from delaying this economically attractive competition another seven years.

The disproportionate incarceration of young persons of colour contributes to the perpetuation of what 'unions' call 'their' jobs. Have a problem with crime? More policemen can hop on this gravy train, but that's okay because they too are 'union brothers'.

Thus one can readily perceive the nature of the Democrats' love for humanity, a love not unlike that of the quasi-dictatorial New Deal. Same poison, different can.

This is the bedlam which impel Kerry, Edwards, and the Clintons to exhort the electorate to genuflect and kiss their left behind.

*Salsman, Richard M., From The Intellectual Activist Volume 18, Number 7.

[BurgessLau]

LET'S ABOLISH MINIMUM WAGE LAWS[...]

The most recent toy the Democrats are inflating is the minimum wage issue.  Whose suffering is exacerbated by this subterfuge?  Urban and rural adolescents and young adults living with their parents who are priced out of the labour market.

[...]

For Objectivists the fundamental reason for opposing minimum wage laws is that they are immoral -- because they initiate force. Low-skill workers (young or otherwise) are indeed hurt, but so are rich employers. The rights of both are violated by the immorality of aggression.

[drdriveby]

For Objectivists the fundamental reason for opposing minimum wage laws is that they are immoral -- because they initiate force. Low-skill workers (young or otherwise) are indeed hurt, but so are rich employers. The rights of both are violated by the immorality of aggression.

I was deficient in not demonstrating the injustice done to entrepeneurs. Employers may be deprived but the worker who could have been fulfilled at two dollars an hour more frequently winds up a guest of the penal system. When attax was forced out of a lucrative business concession he recovered in months. His employee, however, survived on his previously dormant criminality. This is not a bone tossed to altruism; irrationality exponentialises misery. Period.

[dark_unicorn]

Another thing to consider, apart from the obvious immorality of minimum wage laws, is that they promote inflation. Everytime the minimum wage goes up and businesses hire less people, the government goes ahead and prints more money as if that would solve the problem.

If there were jobs out there that paid 2 dollars an hour, I would bet that $2 would come to once again be worth a bit more than it is now, as it was 40 years ago.

[konerko14]

Is there any chance that the minimum wage will not get raised in the very near future? The people and politicians seem to be getting fairly intense about this topic and most appear to think that this country "needs" the minimum wage up to $7.25.

This country keeps drifting further and further away from capitalism.

[softwareNerd]

While the nominal minimum wage has been raised since the 30's, the real minimum wage (i.e., minimum wage adjusted for inflation) has been on the downtrend since the late 1960s. (Here's a chart.)

Of course the law ought not to exist and it is good that some politicians fight the increases. However, in the grand scheme of things, it is not such a big deal. It appears that most U.S. politicians have given up trying to raise the real minimum wage. Instead, every few years -- once they see that inflation has wiped out part of the minimum wage -- they seem to raise it to "catch up" and often a little less than would be calculated a "catch up" calculation.

That is Federal law. I understand that some states have higher minimum wages. I don't know about the history of those state-specific laws.

[hunterrose]

LET'S ABOLISH MINIMUM WAGE LAWS

Salsman wrote that stuff? Hrm.

There's little point in tarring Dems solely for this. I don't know of any elected Republican leader who's taken a stand for eliminating minimum wage laws, and Venus will be terraformed by the time a majority of citizens get behind such an abolishment.

I understand that some states have higher minimum wages.

On a sidenote, I think Kansas has a lower minimum wage, though I don't know whether there is any type of employment it applies to that isn't covered by the federal minimum.

[Constans Augustus]

My state (Michigan) has a minimum wage of $6.50 an hour now. That's going up to $7.10 soon.

[Enterpriser]

Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennesse and South Carolina do not have minimum wage laws.

I live in Canada, and I guess in the Nunavut Territories, where maybe 10 people live there is a minimum wage of around $20. That is so sad. The province of Alberta un-arguably the most pro-capitalist province used to have the lowest minimum wage up until last september and had and still has the highest economic growth in Canada. Coincidence?