[DougShrapnel]

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Sorry for another thread, delete if you want... I'm bored of seeing the same arguments rehashed over and over again.

ok my question:




I have 50 acres of land in the middle of the desert. I cannot build on the land as it is too unstable and there is no value in planting crops.

There are billions of pennies hidden throughout my land. The fastest and most economically efficient method of retrieving these pennies is by hand. One person can retrieve 500 pennies per hour.

The minimum wage is $6 per hour.

Many people have come to me looking for work. Should I be able to hire these people who want to work for me? I cannot afford to operate at a loss.

[/ QUOTE ]3 things.
We should deprecate the use of the penny.
You should depend on private charity for your 50 bucks an hour. Private charities are better than lack of government programs to assist starving capitalists.
What if it wasn't a minimum wage law that prevented profitability for your product. But a safety regulation imposed by a business bureau. Do you demand the right to be listed favoraibly in the business bureau's directory? By owning 50 arces of land in the desert you agreed to terms of the nation containing the land. This voluntary transaction is the cause of your delema. You assumed the risk that the venture of penny extraction would be profitable when you purchased the land. You should not be able to pass the lose for your slight miscalculation on to the employee. Bad business decisions should be paid for by the capitalist. after all that is the only reason why I can see the capitalist deserving any money. It's the assumption of risk.

I do believe you should be able to get the goverment to subsidize the extra cash needed for your business to meet the minimum wage requirements.

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Assume that he acquired the land when the min wage was $4.50. When the gov't raised the min wage to 6.00 (by tacking it onto the Port Security bill?) it effectively took $1million from him (his anticipated profit on the $10M in pennies). It also took $9M in wages out of the economy.

[/ QUOTE ]Basically, but how much extra consumerism does a minimum wage law put in the economy? It's a tricky calculation. In order for me to be consistant, I must believe a couple of things. Minimum wage workers are unable to negotiate a "fair" market value for thier labor in a "free" market. The minimum wage is set at a fair market value. An EIC or a maximum wage law is not feasible. Both would do better than a minimum wage. Any of those being different and the minimum wage harms the economy. If you find minimum wage laws bad for the economy what about maximum wage laws? Those would be good right. Like a max buy in NL table.

As far as the government changing the mw law. He should have anticipated cost of living increases and inflation into his calculations. I'm concerend with just how much money I need to spend in terms of crime prevention and social programs when people that are working can't afford the first 2 of maslow's needs. It's hard to anticipate what a turned down worker will do if his job is downsized becuase of minimum wage laws.