I support a higher Minimum Wage but what about the fact that even if you can live on a higher Minimum Wage the Employers will ju

This is a lack of understanding about minimum wage. A company will always employ the amount of labor it needs, regardless of price (otherwise it'll go out of business because it won't be able to meet the needs of its market). Minimum wage means they don't have to go cheap to be competitive, because their competitors will live by the same rules. Of course, Free Trade is a wrinkle in the system that must also change.

Bingo! Another right wing talking point busted by Comman Man Jason..

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

Of course, the prospects of 'free trade' in light of the 'globalized market' means that any one nation's minimum wage laws will mean nothing when all that multinational corporation has to do is go to a cheaper labor market country where the minimum wage doesn't count.  

In light of the present 'globalized market', I think a better law to implement would be the 'egalitarian quotient'--meaning that the highest paid worker (the CEO) gets paid only a set multiple over the lowest paid worker (the janitor) in any corporation over a certain number of people.  This regulation works in many industrialized countries such as Japan and Germany where the ratio of the lowest paid to highest paid is something on the order of 1:11 in Japan and 1:40 in Germany.  And, it used to work in the United States until Reaganomics and globalization took over--now many corporations pay their CEO's 400 to 500 times more than the lowest paid workers--and that's just counting American workers with the present minimum wage--if you factor in the lowest paid workers in the lowest paying countries, you are probably now in the order of thousands to one as the ratio.   An 'egalitarian quotient' would have it set as to how much the highest paid worker can get paid with respect to the lowest paid worker--something on the order of 1:40 could be set (which is where it was in the United States before Reaganomics and globalization took over).

That way, if a company believes that it would be in their interest to go to a country that pays $1.00/hr., then the CEO of that corporation couldn't be paid more than $40.00/hr. by the 'egalitarian quotient' decree.  In our present state of globalization, I think it might work better in establishing and maintaining a middle class than a 'minimum wage' in any one nation would do....

Kerry, that's probably a really good idea....and something would have to be done to address bonus pay....which is often much greater than the CEO's salary.

Bonuses are also based on a short term gain in stock price...often leading CEO's to do things that in the long run are damaging to a company.....and as we've seen from the financial meltdown, can damage the nation as a whole.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease".

.

Well, the two things aren't mutually exclusive.   And I would make the penalties for excess executive remuneration, be equal to the Present Value of the excess amount and paid into a fund that provides college scholarships to the lowest income applicants. 

After Katrina, I went to Louisiana for a couple of weeks and stayed half a year.  One thing that struck me was how much the Fast Food Owners in Louisiana complained about government interference in their business and were having trouble "keeping their doors open" (since they had to pay their employees the federal minimum wage).

I'm from Oregon and in 2006, our minimum wage was about 50% higher than Lousiana's.  But since it is the nature of National Franchise, Fast Food places to all have the same menus (and pricing) - complaints from owners in States that pay the least, are clearly disingenuous [hoarse hit].

A congressman from CA introduced legislation. Anything over 25 times the line level employee wage in executive compensation would not be allowed to be posted on the books as operating expense, and thus be tax deductible. A company can pay anything they want, but it would not be subsidized by tax breaks once it exceeded 25 times the line level employee's wage for the company.

George Miller, I believe introduced this.

To believe this you would have to believe that price does not affect market size.

Higher wages lead to higher prices leading to a smaller market leading to fewer jobs. I can sell more pizzas at $10 then I can at $15. The more pizza I can sell the more people I need to hire.

The marketplace tends to equalize these factors based on what individuals are willing to pay for a product/service. Government regulations tend to distort this equalization  process.

How many pizzas would you sell at  $15 if the minimum wage was $16 an hour  as it is in Denmark?

How many pizzas do you sell when it takes nearly double the U.S. minimum  to buy one at $10?

I'll bet you would sell more pizzas at a higher price if wages made them more affordable. I'd probably buy one once a week. I love pizza. My grand nephews could live on them.

50 years ago, I bought my first new car earning minimm wage....and a house the same year. How many minimum  wage earners are in those markets today? Indeed, how many earning even double the minimum wage are in those markets today?

The race to the bottom wage purchasing power still has a ways to go. Just how far should we go?

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

In 1960 the minimum wage was $1 hr or $2,080 a year at 40hrs a week. Around the same price as an entry level car. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/60scars.html

Today the minimum wage is $7.25 hr or $15,080 a year at 40hrs a week. Around the same price as an entry level car only what the person is getting for a years wage is exponentially more efficient, comfortable and safer.

In 1960 the median new home was $12,700.00(6yrs wage). Today it is $204,000 (13 1/2 yrs wage) http://www.wsjprimerate.us/new_home_sales_price_history.htm

Of course houses are much larger then they where in 1960.

But this does not tell the whole story since when you look at costs of other necessities, food and clothing, these two things fell greatly as a percentage of consumer expenditures. (you'll have to do the math as I could not find a corresponding graph)

http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/1960-61.pdf  (page 6)  Here we see that clothing and food taking up a combined %34.7.     Add food, housing and clothing together and you get %64                     

Here is 2008 average annual expenditures.                                                           http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm

If you do the math you'll see food and clothing added up to %17, a marked decline from what it took in 1960. If you add food, clothing and housing you get %50, a decline from the %64 it took in 1960.

Minimum wage earners comprise less then %3 of hourly workers
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2007tbls.htm#10
And are largely young folks just starting out in the labor pool
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2007.htm

When you consider the small size or the minimum wage work force
it does not seem logical that raising the minimum wage would increase
demand.

Minimum wage is not about increasing demand.It's about preventing people from being exploited for profit. When it's done right, it is set at a price that the market can't handle, in fact market forces influence the desired rate.

You've already pointed out as much, as the population of minimum wage earners is pretty small and has never shown to hurt a market.

At what hourly rate would you suggest that a worker is no longer "exploited" ?

I am suggesting that at a certain wage point some of the jobs that pay minimum wage will no longer be viable, I am suggsting that an excessive minimum wage would lead to fewer entry level job opurtunities.

One thing that I found surprising in the link I provided was the huge decline in the percentage of people making minimum wage that began in the '80s.

John Galt wrote: n 1960 the median new home was $12,700.00(6yrs wage). Today it is $204,000 (13 1/2 yrs wage) http://www.wsjprimerate.us/new_home_sales_price_history.htm

Of course houses are much larger then they where in 1960.

But this does not tell the whole story since when you look at costs of other necessities, food and clothing, these two things fell greatly as a percentage of consumer expenditures. (you'll have to do the math as I could not find a corresponding graph

poly replies: And your statistics don't tell the whole  story. Statistics seldom do. The median income in the U.S. today is above $50,000 a year. No poverty in sight ..Big joke.

My first house in Los Angeles was in the $8,000 range. It took about a week's minimum wage earnings to make the payment. Today's weekly $290 wouldn't even get an apartment in a slum.

My parents bought a new 2 bedroom house in Denver in that time period for under $9.000. . My cousin recently bought a new 2 bedroom house in Tustin. Calif....over $200,000. Sizes of the homes are nearly equal.

My phone bill was $3....and included the phone. Now it's $30, and I buy the phone. A ten-fold increase.

Electric bill averaged $4 a month for a 2 bedroom home.. Now it's $40 for a one-bedroom home.. A ten fold increase. Wages haven't increased 10 fold.

My parents water bill was $1.25 a month. Now its above $40 for one month. a 30 fold increase. Wages haven't increased 30-fold..

An inexpensive pair of jeans would last 3-4 years. Now about a year.

My new sports car was $1,200.. Four gallons of gas for an hours work. That's cut in half. Now it's two gallons of gas for an hours work. The min. wage earners where I live now ride bicycles.

A cup of coffee was 5 cents. Twenty cups  in any restaurant for an hours work. Today you get 7 cups for an hours work...if you buy on the cheap..

My re-occurring Dr. bills for  tonsillitis were $3...and included the medication., a shot of penecillin .3 hours work at min. wage to pay for it. Now the Dr. without medication takes  7 hours work at min. wage...medication extra. .

Tonsils  finally removed...$300.......300 hours of work at min. wage to pay for it.. Today the cost is $4,0000 to $6,000....... 600-700  hours of work at min. wage. to pay for it. http://www.costhelper.com/cost/health/tonsil-removal.html

Min. wage is a floor that all other wages have a correlation to.

Someone earning double the min. wage of 1960 could plan on quickly buying a new two-story, 4 bedroom home.. Today they can rent a modest apartment.

Rather than working an hour to pay their water bill as in the 60's...a double the min. wage worker. now has to work  5. hours..Tell me again how the low wage earner, indeed all labor,  is better off. today than 50 years ago.  Maybe I'll buy into it.

I lived it as it was...not according to statisics in a book. The purchasing power of labor has declined. The methodology used to gather the data attempts to prove otherwise.

In the 60s, a week's work at min. wage would make a house payment. Today's $290 weekly min. wage won't even rent an apartment in a slum. Earning even double the min. wage today makes life still a struggle.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease" 

You know that bum you always pass on the street? That's a guy who no one will hire because his productivity is lower than your minimum wage. Great job preventing his exploitation.

Your problem is that you're not looking at it from the employers point of view. He hires workers if what they add to his bottom line is greater than the amount he has to pay to employ them. And if he pays them much less than they're worth, his competitors will outbid him and hire the worker for more. So workers tend to be paid roughly what their productivity is.

By introducing a minimum wage, a minimum price control on the labour market, you are just creating unemployment. The easiest way to see this is to just imagine what the consequence would be if a minimum wage of a thousand dollars an hour were introduced. Obviously, mass unemployment would be the result. Only a few people currently employed would still be employed.

The current minimum wage, in the U.S., affects workers with the lowest productivity, teens, homeless, unskilled workers, minorities, ect by keeping them out of the labour market. The real beneficiaries are skilled workers (especially unionized) and professionals. The minimum wage prevents employers from substituting skilled labourers with larger numbers of unskilled labourers. The minimum wage is fundamentally anti-egalitarian, hurts those worst off in society, runs contrary to the principles of freedom of contract and personal freedom, and is just plain evil and vicious.

Also, people learn new skills and better habits when they're employed. By preventing them from entering the workforce, you are preventing personal productivity growth, which would eventually exceed your minimum wage. That's why the bum on the street can never get himself off the street.

Only a total economic ignoramous, or the morally perverse would ever advocate a minimum wage.

$15/hr is peanuts. We should just raise it to a $ million/hr. Imangine how many pizzas you could sell than.

Can you explain to me how anti-racist, egalitarian progressives can consistently oppose foreigners gaining higher wage rates at the expense of lowering American wage rates?

I mean, here is a prime example of the market creating "fairness," and you have a problem with it.

Austro, would a total economic ignoramus use your same logic to set tax rates, since revenue increases with tax cuts, gosh you solve the deficit issue by just eliminating taxes altogether.

Many of the homeless that Reagan dumped on the street, have mental illness. Many of the bums you say cannot be paid their productivity level are veterans, denied medical care because mental illness is considered not real enough, because you can't see it. How productive can you be with no home, your belongings in a shopping cart [if you're the lucky kind of homeless], no laundry, no shower, one change of clothes. Yeah it's the damn mean ole gov't.

Austro wrote: "Can you explain to me how anti-racist, egalitarian progressives can consistently oppose foreigners gaining higher wage rates at the expense of lowering American wage rates?"

poly replies: Probably, foreign wages should rise out of the profits of their own transnationals....rather than from the outsourcing of U.S. jobs by American transnationals.

If destroying one nation's economic base to build anothers makes sense to you...I suppose that explains .the philosophical differences pretty well.

Probably the better way to go would be to build them both. I've no problem with U.S. firms manufacturing products in China to sell to the Chinese. IF they have excess capital not required at home to do that..An addition to global production rather than just a shifting of it.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarian

I think it's obvious that outsourcing jobs has advanced economic inequality, which is not egalitarian in nature.  Wealthy Americans have gotten richer while working Americans have lost their jobs (gotten poorer).  Working people around the world would be better served if Americans can develop an egalitarian economic system which they could then use as a model.

Unfortunately, that isn't how neo-liberalism, embraced by both political parties, works.

It's purpose is to create enough wealth at the top so they can run things efficiently without the constraints of democracy and a strong middle class.

Wolin refers to it as "managed democracy"....an "illusion of democracy".

"Democracy, Inc -  the Spector of Inverted Totalitarianism" - Princeton Univ. Press.

You may vote for the Dem wing of the Corporate Party or the Republican wing. Take your pick of the vetted candidates..Maybe taking control back of at least one of the major parties should be attempted.

The One Party Corporate State under the illusion of two parties is pretty disheartening. Debating who can marry who is really of no consequence to that, is it? Sideshows illustrating a supposed "difference"..

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

I can smell the teargas already :)

I believe you are refering to the laffer curve and Reganomics. Of course, you are being somewhat vague, so I'm not sure. Anyway, I don't see how "my logic," a recognition of the consequences of price controls, has anything to do with the logic of setting tax rates. The easiest way to solve the deficit, is to just repudiate all government debt.

You're totally missing the point. If someone can only add $2/hr to an employer because they have dirty clothes, poor hygiene, and are homeless, and the minimum wage is $5/hr, nobody is going to hire them and they'll remain is the same situation they are in. If there is no minimum wage, at least they can make a little bit and slowly improve their situation. Plus, they'll learn skills and habits on the job and their productivity will rise over time.

You're only taking the U.S. into account instead of the whole world. Internally (to the U.S.), it may (in fact probably, but not necessarily) lead to greater inequality. Globably, it will lead to less inequality. Some foreign workers will gain higher wage rates. Some Americans, who are far wealthier than those foreigners will have lower wage rates. Some shareholders (Many rich, many not rich) will gain. The effect will be far larger for workers than for capitalists, since labour almost always (except in rare cases) is an expense far in excess of the profits that a capitalist earns. So the overall effect is a decrease in inequality.

Nice try.

Oh, I see. If a have you hate loses to have-not you are indifferent to, it's cool. If a have you like loses to a have-not you are indifferent to, it's not cool.

If free trade raises the wage rates of some Mexicans and Chinese labourers (and american shareholders) at the expense of overpaid (mostly white, unionized) American labourers, that's evil capitalist exploitation. If the government uses affirmative action to raise the wages of blacks and Mexicans in the U.S. at the expense of white American labourers, its correcting the social and racial injustice of the market. Can't the market do anything right?

That's just a non-sequitor followed up by a personal attack. But hey, you are a Marxist after all. It's not like you can constuct a clear logical economic argument.

That's one of the benefits of free trade. It builds economies.

See Human Action , Mises

and here:

Your ideology is the disease.

Austro wrote:If free trade raises the wage rates of some Mexicans and Chinese labourers (and american shareholders) at the expense of overpaid (mostly white, unionized) American labourers, that's evil capitalist exploitation. If the government uses affirmative action to raise the wages of blacks and Mexicans in the U.S. at the expense of white American labourers, its correcting the social and racial injustice of the market. Can't the market do anything right?

poly replies: Probably ,most Americans workers don't see themselves as over-paid when they are struggling with an American mortgage  payment. or being foreclosed on...... 8,000 familes a day (tens of thousands of individuals making up the families) are hitting the streets...locked out of what was once their homes.

The so-called free trade has displaced millions of farmers in Mexico with U.S. subsidized corn. Less pay or zero ...not more. The effect has been to reduce over-all Mexican purchasing power with real wages declining because of an increasing  surplus labor force...and some have done well..

I'm not a corporatist. I abhor the Corporate State, and want my democracy back,  I seldom address Corporate State lackeys for any length of time. That's like debating Goebbels. A progaganda machine is a propaganda machine.

After these twits bring about a total economic/environmental collapse...flee to your gated community where private security services can keep the rabble from raiding your refrigerator.

Americans are hurting. Enough of your nonsense in justifying it.

We're resonsible for our country. The Chinese are responsible for theirs. We're responsible for our country, Haitians are responsible for theirs..

If the elites  that other nations have in power keep them destitute, it isn't our place to fix it. by impoverishing ourselves for the gargantuan profits of a few...... under the propagandic notion it's "doing what's right." 

 We have to deal wiith our own increasing poverty. and our own impending economic collapse. To do that, outsourcing has to cease. Instead, the fools are expanding it as though creating one job with the left hand and outsourcing two jobs with the right makes sense.! Exactly what a Corporate State would do...corporate interests/profits over everything else....and somehow, justified..

"Let them eat cake". Month-old cake can be found at the food bank.

Retired Monk - "Ideology is a disease"

duplicate of my post deleted.

Austro, it would be nice if I could believe that you actually read my post before replying.  Once again, workers around the world will be better served if Americans can develop an egalitarian economic system which they (workers around the world) could then use as a model.  I'm not going to argue with you for days on end.  It seems from your posts I've read that you thrive on the conflict.  This is evidenced by your statement to douglaslee: 

Maybe they should be renting. The reason why mortgages are so high is because housing prices are so high. The reason why housing prices have become so high in the states is because the Fed's easy money policy set off a speculative housing bubble. Anyway, Americans are still making far more per capita than most of the globe, and certainly more than the countries were jobs are being outsourced to.

Whoopty-doo. So Mexican consumers get cheaper crops at the expense of Mexican farmers and American taxpayers. Alot of automobile manufacturing and similar jobs have been outsourced to Mexico. Overall, wage rates are higher in Mexico than they would have otherwise been.

BTW: I agree that NAFTA has nothing to do with free trade.

The overall decline in Mexican purchasing power and declining wages is the result of their central bank inflating (expanding the money supply). It has nothing to do with trade. Trade increases productivity, and therefore real wages (what a worker can buy per hour worked). In large part, its the same in America. Alot of inflation, more regulations, more taxes, all contribute to capital consumption and capital flight, which lowers productivity and therefore wages.

Free trade (somewhat) cannot be blamed for the erosion of wages in Mexico or America. Protectionism will just lead to further impoverishment. The easiest way to see this is to imagine every household abandoning trade with every other household. Everyone would work from dusk till dawn and still not enjoy even close to the same standard of living standards. To be sure, everyone would have plenty of work, but few consumer goods. We don't want work for the sake of work. We only work to produce things we can buy. And no argument can be advanced in favour of trade restrictions between nations that couldn't be advanced in favour of trade restrictions between households. Trade restrictions, can benefit a minority of special interests only. The overall result is inevitably a loss in real income for the majority of Americans, in the form of higher consumer prices.

I am also not a corporatist. I also hate the corporate state, though I think you mean to imply that I am a defender of the corporate state. As a matter of fact, I hate the state in general. But, you wouldn't admit that, because all you Marxists specialize in is smearing, lying, and obfuscating. You couldn't come up with a clear, logical consistent argument or refutation if your life depended on it.

My gated community is Canada, and luckily for me, we don't have an insane (at least relatively less so) government as you do. But it's still gonna hurt us when the U.S. goes down. I'm not justifying the current American demise and its not my fault if you fail to recognize the actual cause of it. I feel sorry for decent Americans being pulled down by guys like you. And you do no service for your fellow countrymen by smearing and obfuscating. If you think I'm wrong, refute me with plain logical arguments, so everyone can see how I'm wrong.

Even better is every individual is responsible for themselves. After all, if Americans are not responsible for Chinese, why should whites be responsible for blacks, or rich for poor? This still doesn't explain the inconsistency. And I thought Marxism was supposed to be internationalist. This was one of the main ideological differences between the Marxists and the Nazis. The Marxists have always been international socialists and the Nazi's were national socialists. Or is this just another inconsistency on your part?

I agree that it's not the U.S.'s place to fix it. But I don't think you understand the role of profits in a market economy.

Human Action:

It's not just government subsidies and grants of privilege to corporate welfare bums like Goldman Sacs, Lockheed Martin, and GM that's the problem. It's government intervention in general. And corporations in general are not the problem. Only corporations in bed with government. All exchange that is voluntary, market exchanges, is mutually beneficial for the parties involved. All compulsory exchanges, government interventions and criminal activity, benefits one party at the expense of the other. The only way Americans are going to climb out of the economic hole they are in, is by drastically reducing government spending and regulation, and rebuilding savings and investments.

So basically you're annoyed that I addressed part of your post but not the whole thing. K, fine.

I don't think Americans developing a more egalitarian economic system would benefit Americans. By and large, egalitarianism is an ideological doctrine which functions as intellectual cover for state elites (rich men who obtain their wealth through political connections or the current political institutions), to rip off natural elites (rich men who obtain wealth independent of the government). Of course, some of this does go to the poor, but most of it is just siphoned off to rich beaurocrats, public servents, politically connected corporate executives and politicians. Now, this is the effect of egalitarianism currently.

I'm sure that's not what you have in mind ideally. But, I don't see any other way it could work. Obviously, someone has to be in charge of taking the funds and distributing them. There will always be an incentive to skim. There will always be a ruling class that benefits itself from the process.

Now lets say it could work, for the sake of argument. Equalizing everyone's income would completely destroy the market economy. Production would count for nothing, since it wouldn't change your income at all. The most essential function, that performed by the entrepreneur would be impossible to do even if people wanted to do it. Without profit and loss, entrepreneurs would be unable to allocate capital to lines of production valued by consumers, and misallocation and waste would result. The capital stock would become wasted and depleted, and the entire economy would be thrown back into a state of barbarism. And any step towards compulsory equalization of incomes is a step in that direction.

Well, the easiest way to avoid getting into long drawn out discussions is to stick to the central topic, which is minimum wage, and avoid going off on tangents like egalitarianism. Here, I'll start by not responding to any more responses that are not on topic. Happy?

Well if you are a Canadian, no wonder you want the USA to fall. 

Always been a bit jealous up there of your richer, smarter cousins to the south...

You see, now everything you have written makes perfect sense.

 austro wrote:

"I'm not justifying the current American demise and its not my fault if you fail to recognize the actual cause of it. I feel sorry for decent Americans being pulled down by guys like you"

poly replies:

Guys like me have never been in office. If we were, outsourcing never would have been allowed, banking de-regulation never would have happened and the banking system would be more like the model of the State Bank of N. Dakota....a state with record surpluses rather than plunging into insolvency like the rest of them.. 

.If guys like me were in charge, most would own their own workplace....and government would provide loans to accomplish that...paybacks out of profits. ..which is what I advocate and you seem to identify as Marxist. Don't tell the self-employed they are all a bunch of commies....., they'd laugh in your face. At our nations founding, most non-slaves were self employed..

Guys like you have been in charge...... market ideologues.. We have the results of that..So far, the "cure" has been to apply even more of the same and it's bringing about an economic collapse..More outsourcing agreements,  regressive tax structures., and more trickle down. The money supply on Main St. has shrunk 6% in the past year and continues to decline..It's disappearing into financial paper. while the real economy continues to decline and continues to be outsourced..

Collapse is around the corner if market ideologues don't change course....quickly.The invisible hand of the free market, is as Nobel Laureate J. Siglitz puts it,  "a myth...a religion.".

For the record, the price of Mexico's staple food...corn...has risen with American dumping. It drove Mexican farmers into bankruptcy and out of production.. The corn supply is now down...not up. Prices reflect that. Mexicans aren't benefiting from "lower "prices as you stated. They now have higher food prices. Big Ag now owns the farms...and produce products  for export while Mexicans become malnourished,... unable even to buy their basic food staple.

Mark referred to an egalitarian society...not an equal outome society. You're mis-construing what he said and attacking a straw man. Against board rules.. Stop doing that..

I'd suggest you begin adhering to this:

"This isn't a Libertarian free market message board here on The Thom Hartmann Program. There are some regulations. They are posted - here. If as a conservative you come in and flood the boards with comments dissecting in longform progressive comments you don't like  - you will be blocked from this forum.

If as as a conservative you want to come and hang out without flooding, without personal attacks and tediously dissecting & derailing threads - you are welcome. You know the difference. If anyone feels that a member here is harming your abilities to be a welcome community member here let me know louise@thomhartmann.com. If you are one of the conservative posters and choose to email me feigning outrage - I would recommend against it."

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2010/06/isnt-libertarian-free-market-message-board-here-thom-hartmann-program

Retired Monk - moderator 

"Ideology is a disease"

.

Austro, to repudiate debt [it's good you separate that from the request for Poly to refute, though refudiate is fun] to repudiate debt is to default, and never has the US not paid their debt. For every war, every military adventure- except the current ones - were acknowledged as a debt to be paid [Reagan didn't care either, GHW Bush thought it right] Debt includes all social security recipients,  will they  be fine when the US defaults?

One other thing re: Laffer curve, if it worked, a legislated tax increase now would be spur economic activity, as long as the increase is a date certain in the future, and specifically targeted at the investor class. The same legislated increase would reduce both current deficit [because of the surge in economic activity] and deficit projections [arithmetically, because more revenue would be projected to be coming in per increased rates]. Satisfying both current and future deficit concerns would also remove the political bullet.

The real problem with the miminum wage is that it is an immoral affront to the rights of our neighbors.  We have no right to interpose in their peaceful activities.  Minimum wage laws are simply authoritarian, and thus cannot be supported by anyone who wishes to defend individual rights or does not wish to be seen as a tyrant seeking authority over his neighbor.

austro-libertarian- are you aware that the theories that you derive your arguments from are statist theories? and yet you claim to be anti-corporatist in order to appear consistent.

aside from my personal distaste at the anit-egalitarian etc. roots of your argument, I find that libertarians in general never recognize the historic necessity of the New Deal, other than mischaracterizing it as "Marxist". I think you know that it is not.

BUT TO THE POINT OF THE SUBJECT UNDER DISCUSSION:

I would like to float the idea that government controls on the price of housing are a more effective means of ensuring the economic well being of the proletariat (in the braodest sense of the term, we will see if current socio-cultural divisions will yield to economic reality). The minimum wage cannot be raised to infinity, but price control has its limit set at zero.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy simply to state that businesses will still produce at the same rate despite the minimum wage. But the reality that we will be living with some sort of capitalism through the foreseeable future debunk's A-L's argument that employers will compete for more productive workers. Recent trends indicate that productivity as it is currently defined has increased, meaning same or greater output with less labor cost. So I think that we should see the origins of the financial crisis/blackmail as being brought about through manipulation of aspects of the financial system related specifically to the housing market. We must acknowledge that global competition between labor is inevitable and work to ensure a decent standard of living by setting a reasonable minimum wage, yes, but perhaps more importantly by recognizing which government interventions are directly related to the manipulation of the financial system.  

Sorry everyone, one last thing.

Austro, this is you presenting the argument that progressives should support outsourcing jobs because it is egalitarian on a global level.

This is you fortifying your belief that outsourcing is egalitarian.

This is you denouncing egalitarianism which contradicts your premise that outsourcing being egalitarian is a reason to support it.  Don't come back at me about your use of the word compulsory because that can be used to describe the advancement of outsourcing (our corporate owned govt. or corporations themselves calling it required) or the stopping of it (a govt. of the people calling protecting American workers required).  In fact, don't reply at all.  Your self-contradictory approach proves that you wish only to argue.

I believe many here have tried to explain that to you.  And, you are glaringly (again) missing a point here.   'Equalizing the workers' salaries' all over the world still does nothing to reining in the obnoxiously lucrative salaries of the CEO's controlling it.  That is the point behind the egalitarian quotient....

And, since the cost of living does vary with countries, 'minimum wage' I believe can be seen as a static answer to a dynamic process.   I thought all you were against 'linear thinking'.   The egalitarian quotient is, by its nature, 'comparative'--not 'linear'.....