What do you mean by history not treating Friedman well?

Friedman won basically every contentious macroeconomic debate against the Keynesian orthodoxy of his time. Scott Sumner makes this point. http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=22875

I don't even know what the person is trying to say about Ayn Rand and Hayek or how Hayek and Ayn Rand are even connected.

You can present all the evidence in the world in a well thought out post and he will just reply with nonsense. I stopped wasting my time.

Whether min wage goes up or not doesn't affect him either since he lives in another country. Where he is from, there is a 67% higher min wage ($7.25 v $10.70) and 37% higher unemployment (5.1% v 7%).

Obviously there are other factors, but I found it fun to cherry pick those stats.

Quoting Art Laffer certainly doesn't lend much credibility when making a point. He's probably the most influential charlatan in the field full of influential charlatans.

In a field like economics, which attempts to present itself as hard science but is really a social science with some numbers, you can always come up with a list of big name economists to support your viewpoint. The trick is to conceal the fact that you're sampling from the list of big name economists in a highly selective manner.

I named highly credentialed people from across the political spectrum. I only named Laffer because I remembered watching his segment on Fox Business saying what is indisputably true. I linked a widely cited paper that looked at all the studies of the minimum wage to date. Economic theory says a minimum wage causes unemployment among low skill workers. The overwhelming majority of economists say wage hikes hurt low skill workers and even more would say having a min. wage in the first place harms the lowest in the labor force.. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/...sts-agree.html

Theory and evidence are are as conclusive as you can possibly get in a social science. You can argue the tradeoffs of a minimum wage and say the positives outweigh the indisputable negative. Many people make that argument. That isn't the argument being made here. The argument I see is "LOL, you aren't for a minimum wage? LOLLOL." I have seen no evidence to refute my point, because there is none. Even the people who argue for a minimum wage don't dispute what I am saying about minority unemployment.

Yea, if you wanna win a debate, just take BJ's advice and do what he does - type LOL and start spewing insults. With that tactic, we can all see how much we value and respect his opinions.

None of my last few post have been insulting, I'm not really sure what you're talking about.
Calling something idiotic isn't an insult when that thing is actually idiotic.

Why would you say quoting Laffer doesn't lead to credibility?

This statement pretty sums up why you don't get it.

The fact that you still try and argue with me shows that you don't understand that I don't care what you think 'it' is, or about anything you might have to say.

i derived my number by the fundamental laws of physics and economics. it was 3.50 * bout 3.50 rounded up (because bout) which came to $14 which just coincidentally is a round number.

casual observers note: only non-whole numbers were used to derive the final total

I'm reminded just how high real estates prices/values are where I live. The phrase "normal $150,000 house" would be met with great laughter in my town. #goofycalifornian

How is it possible that the guy referring to himself as Capitao and the guy who argues with everyone about everything make the most sense in this thread?

The fact that you keep answering me shows that you care what I think.

Small business has been subsidized by cheap labor. I understand the pros and cons of raising the minimum wage. Mainly because raising the wage a $1 really costs the employer a lot more than $1 an hour because of taxes and Social Security. However, the wages have not been increasing to match the cost of living increases. If the wage kept going up gradually then businesses should have been able to adapt. But they wanted the wages to remain stagnant. That means that many Businesses have been taking advantage of the fact there is an abundance of cheap labor. This cheap labor though is not as cheap to the tax payers. They end up getting many government programs that costs the tax payers over $150 billion a year. The question is should the tax payers have to pay for low wages?

Part of the reason could cost of living increases so much is because of MW increases. The average American is still better off today than they anyone average person at any time in any country in the history of the world.

The reaseon wages haven't kept up with whatever metric you want isn't because business just decided to not let them (or because they were greedy). Businesses don't just decide what the price of labor should be - the market does. LOL blaming government assistance on businesses and/or thinking they would decrease w/ an increase of MW.

1. Wages haven't kept up by any metric. It's not disputable that your purchasing power today is significantly less than it was twenty years ago. It's rare that this happens and might be cause for alarm. A skeptic might argue that there is less need to have the security of earlier purchasing power. I think that argument is immediately wrong. Quite literally, many people cannot work enough to escape poverty and they are almost certainly relegated to live in it for their remainder of their lives. Their children are likely condemned to the same fate considering the strong predictive power that one's parents' income has on their future income. I also wonder if you would go to the many towns and cities in the United States and tell the millions who struggle to buy food for their children, much less themselves, that they live in a period of extraordinary plenty. Just because it might be better than two hundred years ago hardly means it's "good," and that value is so incredibly dependent upon culture and the expectations wrapped up in it that it lacks real meaning. "Good" in Manhattan is very different than "good" eighty blocks north, and that is different than "good" in Peoria which is very different than "good" Newark, Oakland, or many cities abroad.

2. Using the market as an all-knowing actor that decides upon perfect prices and wages is myopic at best. There are many reasons why coercion can drive wages down and the unequal positions of bargaining power between employer/employee certainly contributes. In fact, this is part of the argument behind libertarian socialism/socialist anarchy and anarcho-syndicalism. Consider how the structure of capitalist labor and governments that support it neuter and suppress the worker.

Many of the people that work and are also on public assistance know how to play the system. If you give them a raise, they will simply work fewer hours so that their benefits stay the same. I dealt with this constantly when I managed restaurants.

Me: Can you cover a shift/work later tonight?
Employee: No, if I work any more hours I won't qualify for food stamps (or some other welfare program).

I had the above conversation dozens on times. In other words, it isn't the government subsidizing small businesses in many cases, it is the government hurting small businesses by giving people a reason to turn down extra hours at work.

There are also tons of people that aren't on these programs that literally work 2-3 jobs. I've had the opposite conversation a lot of times. "Can you cover a shift?", "No, I have to go to work.".

Maybe you should ask if covering one or two shifts makes up for losing food stamps in a pure dollar to dollar comparison, and if it does, if losing food stamps for one month to make marginally more money is worth the hassle of reapplying when those shifts aren't available in future months.

The only compelling argument for doing away with welfare programs is that it could move the large portion of the country receiving it to action in the gravest sense possible. People are annoyed by groups of protestors, but I wonder how annoyed they'll be when that group is fifty times as large and puts down the placard and picks up the brick.

And don't forget how many work jobs where hours aren't consistent from week to it. It is literally impossible for many people to hold down two jobs consistently when hours shift.

But that's beside the point. Nobody should have to work 60 hours to live.

Oh yeah, it's definitely not easy. I bet more people would be doing it if they could find the right hours.

So your solution to make a boat go faster isn't to take the anchor out of the water, but to throw another one in the water? Oops, I meant to say that your solution to fix the problem that purchasing power is going down for some is to raise the MW and cost of goods?

I still can't believe you are blaming business for holding down purchasing power. If it weren't for entrepreneurs starting businesses we'd all be out on the farm right now making sure our families had enough to eat.

I understand some people don't have it good. I'm just saying as an average Americans have it better than they used to.

The market doesn't believe the lowest wage any should earn is $15/hr because the market believes there are too many unemployed people that will work for less.

It wasn't just future months. Employees also wouldn't go from part to full time work or accept promotions on the same concept. A friend of mine had a similar experience trying to open his business for lunch. His night employees wouldn't work more hours because of food stamps. He had to hire and train new employees. I don't think any objective person can think this scenario is acceptable.

I agree we can't pull the rug out from handouts, but the way the system is broken. The whole point is to help people when they are down, not to discourage working and advancement. That is really for a different discussion though. I was really just responding to the absurd comment that govt subsidizes small businesses when it hinders it.

Another big problem is when these welfare recipients have a family to raise as well, which is good portion of them. A lot are among single parent homes, where working another job or more hours cuts into raising their children. They need that extra bonus without adding more to hours, it can be a brutal system for most. When you add a child to the mix it makes it near impossible to escape being poor on your own.