Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The Left eats its own
Fellow Maryland Law grad and MBA-blogger Crablaw recounts a recent excursion into an economics discussion about the Minimum Wage:
“A poster on a major liberal group blog commented, in a somewhat different context, about how the problem of illegal immigrant labor competing with native citizen/lawful labor would be eliminated if higher minimum wage laws were passed.” Crablaw's Maryland Weekly: Liberal v. Libertarian
Yeah, I know that’s moronic…and so did Crablaw:
“That comment is on a blog on which I no longer participate, but it got copied to a blog I do respect. I commented that the poster was, well, a ------- idiot to think that an increase in the minimum wage was going to stop competition from illegal workers, and that I wondered if I was the only liberal left who had passed economics.
“The counter-strike from the Taliban wing of Keynesian economics was swift and vicious.”
Well Bruce – welcome to our world; Trust me, I’m laughing with you, not at you.
For the record, I oppose minimum wage laws because the record for the government – any government – correctly anticipating the market for anything is so pathetic that the tactic should be presumptively off the table. If all it takes is a bunch of legislators and a compliant executive to successfully raise wages then why stop at a mere $7 or $8/hour? Hell, why not just decree that all workers have to be paid at least $50,000/year? We can end poverty with just a stroke of the pen…and the most maddening aspect about such legislation is that the entrepreneurs out there who actually create the jobs don’t get the credit – no, instead the credit garners to the benefit of so-called public servants like Ted Kennedy.
“A poster on a major liberal group blog commented, in a somewhat different context, about how the problem of illegal immigrant labor competing with native citizen/lawful labor would be eliminated if higher minimum wage laws were passed.” Crablaw's Maryland Weekly: Liberal v. Libertarian
Yeah, I know that’s moronic…and so did Crablaw:
“That comment is on a blog on which I no longer participate, but it got copied to a blog I do respect. I commented that the poster was, well, a ------- idiot to think that an increase in the minimum wage was going to stop competition from illegal workers, and that I wondered if I was the only liberal left who had passed economics.
“The counter-strike from the Taliban wing of Keynesian economics was swift and vicious.”
Well Bruce – welcome to our world; Trust me, I’m laughing with you, not at you.
For the record, I oppose minimum wage laws because the record for the government – any government – correctly anticipating the market for anything is so pathetic that the tactic should be presumptively off the table. If all it takes is a bunch of legislators and a compliant executive to successfully raise wages then why stop at a mere $7 or $8/hour? Hell, why not just decree that all workers have to be paid at least $50,000/year? We can end poverty with just a stroke of the pen…and the most maddening aspect about such legislation is that the entrepreneurs out there who actually create the jobs don’t get the credit – no, instead the credit garners to the benefit of so-called public servants like Ted Kennedy.
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but it can be of use to people who use the minimum wagw as a base of sorts to set their own wages or to make their own wages suddenly more competitive...but you're right: the poor don't stop being the poor because we set a higher minimum wage
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