"
Minimum-wage laws date to the 1930s, and supporters in Congress at the time were explicit about using them to stop blacks from displacing whites in the labor force by working for less money. Milton Friedman regarded the minimum wage as “one of the most, if not the most, anti-black laws on the statute books.”
When you artificially increase the cost of labor, you wind up with surplus labor, which takes the form of unemployment. Younger and less-experienced workers—a disproportionate number of whom are black—are more likely to be priced out of the labor force when the cost of hiring someone goes up. Prior to the passage of minimum-wage laws—and in an era of open and rampant racial discrimination in the U.S.—the unemployment rate for black men was much lower than it is now and similar to that of whites in the same age group.
Today, unemployment stands at 7.9% overall but is 13.8% among blacks (versus 7% among whites), 14.5% among black men (versus 7.2% among white men) and 37.8% among black teens (versus 20.8% among white teens). Yet Mr. Obama has proposed increasing the minimum wage by 24% to $9 an hour to placate his union supporters who want less competition for their members. A higher minimum wage might lift earnings for existing workers—provided they keep their jobs—but it also reduces job opportunities for millions of people out of work.
Out of political expediency, Mr. Obama is putting the interests of Big Labor ahead of the urban poor.
"
—
Jason Riley: Minimum Expectations
As a member of a Hollywood union, I face a sort of minimum wage hurdle of my own. The next step up in my career is a substantial one - and one in which I am more than capable of making (a position I held - with, in fact, greater pay - on a number of non-union reality shows). But because of the union, I cannot take that position without being paid the union minimum for that position. In other words, the studio and producers would have to pay me the same rate they would pay a multiple-Emmy winner with 30 years of experience. I cannot offer to work for less as an opportunity to prove myself. I have no leverage - I cannot offer any incentive - for producers to hire a [relatively] young and eager talent over a reliable veteran. And indeed, I have missed out on multiple jobs precisely because of this artificial price floor.
Related:
(via laliberty)
(via laliberty)
…but perhaps the most unsettling, is witnessing the very slow transition of political bloggers unfolding like this: Republican/Democrat—>something under the Libertarian umbrella—>some form of Anarchist—>”Mutualist”/some form of Marxist—>”Hey guys, let’s start a violent revolution!”
It’s some scary shit.
"As the costs of producing laboring powers of different quality do differ, so must differ the values of the laboring powers employed in different trades. The cry for an equality of wages rests, therefore, upon a mistake, is an inane wish never to be fulfilled. It is an offspring of that false and superficial radicalism that accepts premises and tries to evade conclusions."
—
Karl Marx
[Marx would likely say the fundamental problem is wage-employment relation, … is private property, money. This isn’t Marx saying that he is for having different wages, as I suspect he would prefer a wholly different structure, based on no ownership (as opposed to “common” ownership).]
(via freemarketliberal)
"If we were genuinely concerned with honouring those who have died in war, we would make it our sacred task to eradicate the causes of war. Of course, many Americans — including most notably our leading politicians — couldn’t care less about truly honouring those whose guts have been ripped out, whose limbs have been bloodily and painfully mutilated, whose minds have been destroyed. For the state and its enablers, the war dead are props used to purify and sanctify the ongoing and future campaigns of slaughter, in an endless procession of slaughters throughout history. The war dead are especially useful, since they have been rendered forever mute; they are unable to tell us the truth of what they endured, or about the lies for which they died."
— Arthur Silber (via anarchei)
(Source: powerofnarrative.blogspot.com, via anarchei)
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
—
James Madison, “Federalist #51” (via politicalprof)
LOL yeah because the government is not made up of teh eviel menz, government is an omniscient God, amirite?
Silly ISU professors…
Anonymous asked: So in your delusional world view there can only be 3 possibilities: liberal, conservative, libertarian. Cool beans, bro.
LOL
So in your delusional world view I said the words, “There can only be 3 [political] possibilities: liberal, conservative, [and] libertarian.”
That post which I reblogged, BRO, was meant to exemplify the narrow-minded/ad hominem/non fact-checking/mainstream political dabbler, BRO, the majority of which identify with the two prominent political ideologies: Conservatism and Liberalism, BRO. [That BRO thing is really annoying, huh?]
Since Ron Paul openly holds many Libertarian convictions, and I believe Libertarianism is an exponentially superior alternative to Conservatism or Liberalism, I tagged it “Libertarian”.
Don’t like it? There’s a button that will solve that problem for you, BRO.
