Let’s Quit Fooling Around with the Minimum Wage

 

I propose that Amazon, Google, Walmart, Home Depot, Apple, Nike and any other large national corporation must pay their employees $300-an-hour, to include their janitorial staff. This would include the hot dog vendor at Dallas Mavericks games. Mark Cuban can afford it.

This would allow mom and pop businesses that will have to pay a government-mandated wage of $15-an-hour a chance to compete against the big guys. After all, that $200 hammer at Home Depot will not look as attractive as a $15 hammer at Pop’s Hardware store.

Instead of a $700 iPhone, a $5,ooo iPhone might increase some cell phone competition in the United States, they might even be manufactured in the States by a small business.

I call it Pain Equity.

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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    There ought to be a law.

    • #1
  2. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Doug Watt: “…a $15 hammer at Pop’s Hardware store.”

    Thanks, Doug, but it isn’t actually Pops’s Hardware store, in the legal sense.  I only work there.  The guys would have some wise comments on that sentence.  But they are not subscribers here.

    (If my grandson Jack has a chance to visit, I am sure that he will call it “Pops’s Hardware Store”.)

    • #2
  3. JamesSalerno Inactive
    JamesSalerno
    @JamesSalerno

    If minimum wage worked, we would not send aid to impoverished countries. We would just tell Guatemala to raise their minimum wage. Problem solved.

    • #3
  4. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    • #4
  5. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Proposal: companies with multiple locations pay the Big Minimum Wage; companies with single locations have no minimum wage.

    Challenge: improve this rule as you see fit.

     

    • #5
  6. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Proposal: companies with multiple locations pay the Big Minimum Wage; companies with single locations have no minimum wage.

    Challenge: improve this rule as you see fit.

     

    Proposal: respect the rights of every human being to self-ownership, except in cases where the survival of the government or the nation is threatened. In those cases, act against justice as little as possible, and with as little regard to person or class as possible.

    • #6
  7. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Doug, it sounds as if you may have a PhD in economics from one of our liberal think tanks.

    • #7
  8. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Proposal: companies with multiple locations pay the Big Minimum Wage; companies with single locations have no minimum wage.

    Challenge: improve this rule as you see fit.

     

    Counterproposal: Eliminate the minimum wage. 

    Wages actually paid will increase, as will productivity.

    • #8
  9. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Proposal: companies with multiple locations pay the Big Minimum Wage; companies with single locations have no minimum wage.

    Challenge: improve this rule as you see fit.

     

    Counterproposal: Eliminate the minimum wage.

    Wages actually paid will increase, as will productivity.

    The government should not have the power to tell a private business how much they pay employees.

    I’m sure the argument is something like: Employees get paid in dollars. Dollars are used in interstate commerce. Ergo…

     

     

    • #9
  10. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    Of course the real minimum wage is ALWAYS zero- unless you include unemployment benefits & welfare as a “wage”. The proposals that make outlandish claims about the positive benefits w/o assessing the negative (& typically unforeseen) effects always irks me- the great quote by Milton Friedman always comes to mind- he was in Red China watching the construction of a canal by workers with shovels & wheelbarrows- he asked why they did not use bulldozers and dump trucks- he was told so as to increase the number of workers on the project. He replied why don’t you give them spoons instead of shovels, then you would need many, many more workers.

    • #10
  11. Architectus Coolidge
    Architectus
    @Architectus

    Whenever a conversation starts about the minimum wage, I like to start by asking, “What’s the current minimum wage?” And after they spend time saying it’s this here, and that over there, and something else somewhere else, I say “No. It’s zero. That’s your wage when you’re unemployed, everywhere.” 

    That usually helps reorient the rest of the conversation on a firmer footing. 

    • #11
  12. Freeven Member
    Freeven
    @Freeven

    Steve C. (View Comment):

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Proposal: companies with multiple locations pay the Big Minimum Wage; companies with single locations have no minimum wage.

    Challenge: improve this rule as you see fit.

     

    Counterproposal: Eliminate the minimum wage.

    Wages actually paid will increase, as will productivity.

    The government should not have the power to tell a private business how much they pay employees.

    I’m sure the argument is something like: Employees get paid in dollars. Dollars are used in interstate commerce. Ergo…

    Perhaps someone, somewhere, is making that argument. But the most prominent argument seems to be some variation of Shut up, you evil racist, uncaring bigot!

    • #12
  13. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    MiMac (View Comment):

    Of course the real minimum wage is ALWAYS zero- unless you include unemployment benefits & welfare as a “wage”. The proposals that make outlandish claims about the positive benefits w/o assessing the negative (& typically unforeseen) effects always irks me- the great quote by Milton Friedman always comes to mind- he was in Red China watching the construction of a canal by workers with shovels & wheelbarrows- he asked why they did not use bulldozers and dump trucks- he was told so as to increase the number of workers on the project. He replied why don’t you give them spoons instead of shovels, then you would need many, many more workers.

    People who say that a project, such as the Keystone Pipeline, is “good for the economy” because it “creates jobs” should learn this story, and learn to apply it to every case.

    The project would be even better for the economy if the workers dug the trench with spoons, according to their Chicom-like value system and view of the world.

    • #13
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