I don’t know anybody earning minimum wage who is worried about job security. Finding a another minimum wage job is just a matter of walking into the next store. No big deal.

as for the small business owners, I don’t know any small business owner who can’t afford to pay their minimum wage earners more money. If you say you can’t pay then your business is not sustainable or you just aren’t willing to give up some rounds at the gold course.

As for yacht taxes. you bring up a reason why trickle down policies never worked. The rich have a tendency to send large quantities of money overseas in one swoop. Yes, minimum wage earners can buy made in china products but that product needs to be purchased in a us store that employs minimum wage earners living in the us and so and so on.

Roosevelt’s new deal showed us that providing good jobs that paid good wages is one of the few things that will help a depressed economy. Minimum wage was finally enacted at the end of the great depression. Generally it’s accepted that the first world war ended the great depression. However, with the formation of unions and minimum acceptable standards for employments people were finally forced to realized at that time that an economy can not be sustained by continuously pushing the low level workers. If you want to throw out this knowledge and support the corporations (guess who the owners are!) then we will be doomed do repeat history over again. frankly, I don’t think we have the luxury of making the same mistakes.

Here’s another article from the Cato Institute about Hong Kong being the World’s Freest Economy. http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-28-04.html They label themselves as a liberal think tank.

As for your criteria of objective data, what would that be?

Exactly, in Germany, minimum wages if it exists for the industry, is determined by the MARKET. A worker union negotiating a minimum wage is completely different from a fixed price floor set by the government!

Instead of continuing here, if you would email me your criteria of objective data, and what exactly your argument is, I’d gladly write up a short piece on my website (about the pros and cons of the minimum wage).

This way, more people can be educated and informed about this issue. You can find my email in my blog. I hope to hear from you soon.

I agree with you 100% that government should only encourage fair competition and should never get in the way of business. However, I think the us government has failed to do this. Microsoft is a perfect example. The european union fined microsoft for monopolistic practices but the us government found no problems in the way they do business. I think the problem is that the us government is way too pro-business at the moment. I have a feeling the 13 billion dollars used to lobby the government has something to do with this. Why would companies spend so much on lobbying if it didn’t work? http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/steven_thomma/13568129.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp. I think the only way to avoid this is giving the people more power in the government. Right now the balance is way too much into the corporations’ favor.

Justanotherblogger,

I think you are misunderstanding me. First off my post was about the downside of a market driven economy. I think I provided many good points to how the incumbents would have too much power in this situation which would weaken the country. Why creativity is eliminated due to the small pool of talent to choose from. Sorry if my examples don’t involve statistics and numbers from a lobbying group like “The Heritage Foundation”.

I’ve noticed you are using data from a politically oriented conservative group “The Heritage Foundation”. Here’s a book about this lobbying group http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0915463776/103-6125275-3051829?v=glance&n=283155. As for their “Index for Economic Freedom”, it’s interesting but is this objective data?

You know in Germany (I am not claiming to be an expert on the country), and probably the other European countries, have very strong worker unions that set the minimum wages. It’s funny that the German worker union sets the minimum wage. In a way the Germans are telling us that they have no faith in letting their government or businesses set the minimum wage. You know it just occurred to me that it’s ridiculous that we Americans let the government set the minimum wage. Might as well let the corporations set it. But I digress. As for there not being any monopolies in these countries. In Germany there are “the big three”, Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, and the Commerzbank, that controls nearly all the companies in the Germany http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-4951.html.

Btw the 1 in 1000 number is just used to add color to my post. In the future I will sure to use the “The Heritage Foundation” as my source for all my posts.

Since you did not offer any statistics or numbers to back up your statements, I really can’t refute what you have speculated on. However, I can offer some statistics to dispute your “monopolies win” theory.

Hong Kong does not have a minimum wage (except for foreign laborors, a tiny % of the population). Hong Kong consistently ranks as the World’s freest economy. (12th year in a row) http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm

However, monopolies do not run rampant as you suggest. Having no minimum wage or less government intervention in the economy does NOT mean that companies are able to collude or engage in fraud. Antitrust laws still exist.

Also, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, all don’t have government imposed minimum wages. Yet none of those countries are over run by monopolies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage#Worldwide_minimum_wages

Please do some research before you throw out numbers such as “1 in a thousand chance” compared with “1 in a million chance”. Where did you get those numbers anyway?

I don’t agree with your basic assumption. You pick up any economics book and the general meaning of market driven economy is a place where the competition is without the hindrance of the government but (note this) the role of the government is to ensure that there is fair competition in the market. No monopolistic policy.

In my view the government should ensure that there is a fair competition in the market and that’s it. When govt comes in picture all kinds of bad things happen to market ( think of controller rent, think of subsidy, think of rationing system, think of taxes).

Not all big companies will be there forever. They have their weaknesses and small companies have their own strengths. If a small company wants to take on big companies then they should do based on service/product not because govt is pushing them against the big companies. I do admit that the big companies tend to change the rules because of their heavy lobbying power and voters should punish politicians who are swayed by the big lobby groups.

You may not believe any of the above but how about this example. A market driven economy would be like major league baseball or nfl or nba without a salary cap. Do you think the salary cap or the strict way these organizations have been governed hindered competition? Of course not, these organizations are good examples on how to get the best and the brightest players playing their respective games. Of course the analogy is not perfect since the couching staff and owners are largely “old money” territory.

As with all things in life there is a need for a balance between control and freedom.

Now what’s dumb about what I wrote, Alex?

Minimum wages is like subsidy ( think of sugar subsidy). It’s a waste and ends up hurting the very people it was meant to help. Wage is a supply and demand issue and government should be out of it.

Of course politics come into picture and event smart people who become politicans ends up voting for it. That’s just how democracy works.