Robert Reich writes:
"The nation could create millions of jobs tomorrow if we eliminated the minimum wage altogether and allowed employers to pay workers $1 an hour or less. But do we really want to do that?"That's quite an admission. Most lefties (that I read, at least) won't admit that abolishing the minimum wage would unleash an environment where a wave of job creation could take place.
But first thing's first....
"The nation" would not create millions of jobs. This imagery of a thing called "the nation" that thinks and acts like a human individual is a complete fiction. Only real and authentic individual human beings, who are also business owners and entrepreneurs, would be the people creating the jobs.
"The nation" would remain in the fantasy-entertaining minds of people like Reich.
Next, abolishing the minimum wage would create jobs at every price level ($9, $8, $7...all the way down until everyone who desires a job is employed. Markets clear.
Could someone be paid $1/hr? I don't know, and neither does Reich. Is it possible that some will be employed for $1/hr? Of course it's possible, but the two parties to the contract obviously don't have an issue with it, and no one is ever forced to make a contract.
If someone does not want to accept a $1/hr job (that's at least available) they have the option of either upgrading their skills or staying out of the labor market. The alternative (i.e., having a minimum wage that is higher than $1/hr.) guarantees that this person will be forced into unemployment.
Remember, the only thing that the minimum wage accomplishes is to outlaw all jobs that could be performed for less than the government's arbitrary minimum. It creates nothing.
Finally, the Grand Finale...
Reich says, "But do we really want to do that?" That is, do we really want a free market where supply and demand match up buyers & sellers of labor.
If by "we," Reich means the two parties of each and every employment contract...YES!!...They do really want that! Otherwise they would have avoided entering the contract.
However, let's remember that Reich's mental construction of our world consists of the fictional "nation." When he says "we," he means no one in particular. Does he mean the author of this article? Am I included in that "we"? He doesn't want to know my view, which is that no one has the right to force themselves into anyone else's business. I don't care if two people make a contract for 2 peanuts per hour! It's their business, not mine.
Reich surely means 'The Overseers' when he uses the word "we". And I'm sure he considers himself as one of those privileged 'Overseers'. For it is "they" who must decide what is best for every unique individual.
Sadly, too many people have fallen under the spell of their fantasy.
Chris Rossini is on Twitter, Facebook & Google+
Reich opposes $1/hr jobs, but probably has no problem with $0/hr unpaid internships. Strong logic.
ReplyDeleteYou're suggesting that Reich is OK with someone selling their services to McDonalds for either nothing or the minimum wage?
DeleteThat's not Reich's position. He is only OK with an unpaid internship when it gives a young person a chance to sample a certain kind of work. Comparable to when your daddy takes you to work so you can see what he does for a living.
He is opposed to interns being used as "free help" to do menial tasks.
“The purpose of unpaid internships should be to give young people a chance to sample certain kinds of work,” said Robert Reich, a UC Berkeley public policy professor and former U.S. secretary of labor. “All too often, employers view unpaid interns as free help to do menial tasks.”
And what these Austerity-o-tarians don't understand is that the government is creating more much needed jobs by establishing offices of commissars and deputy commissars to investigate the secret motivations behind each and every inter-personal business relationship in the entire society that might be construed as an "internship".
DeleteI am a graduate student at the FDR/JFK/LBJ School of Public Administration and am torn between continuing my public service in the Attorney General's Office of Determining Whether Unpaid Internships are Crossing the Red Line Between Giving Young People a Chance to Sample Certain Kinds of Work and Giving Young People MORE Than a Chance to Sample Certain Kinds of Work Which Would Be Against the Latest Interpretation of the Statutes or I might continue my public service as a Special TSA Behavioral Agent Specializing in Detecting Bitcoins in Passengers Anal Orifices or I might possibly also serve the public working for that Volusia County Florida Sheriff in his department making the fine judgements about whether the bikinis on the beach violate the visible butt-cheek regulations.
And another thing. Regardless of which of the 3 paths I choose to serve the state, it is important to realize that unlike the jobs performed by regular mundanes, this ferreting out that I will be doing--these determinations and judgements that I will be making for the public good--whether it be:
DeleteA. calling the full police force of the state upon those:
- with too much butt cheek showing, or
- with more than $10,000 worth of microscopic bitcoin stuck up their asses, or
- who've crossed the red line and given young people more than a chance to sample
or
B. pulling on the reigns of the police and not interfering further (once my determinations have been made) upon those:
- with a modest amount of butt cheek to show, or
- less than $10,000 worth of microscopic bitcoin stuck up their asses, or
- who've not crossed the red line and given young people more than a chance to sample
--all of these judgements--must be made by the government and backed up by the full force of its police and guns because if:
- too much butt cheek shows, or
- more than $10,000 worth of microscopic bitcoin is stuck up some mundane's ass, or
- somebody crosses the red line and gives a young person more than a chance to sample
well..then only an Austerity-o-topian anarchist would not see the need to escalate to a Waco-style-inferno.
That's why its so important to have a well paid cadre of public service professionals to monitor the precise levels of butt cheek-age, bitcoin-up-the-assage, as well as that thin red line that separates giving young people more than a chance to sample. If the mundane crosses the line and thumbs his nose at the rest of society, it can not be allowed to stand. The whole system would crumble otherwise. Young people would be given more than a chance to sample.
JW: Troll.
DeleteIf the minimum wage were abolished, someone could afford to pay Obama $1 per hour at a starter job and he could learn the fundamentals of what it means to be an American worker: since he has no useful skills he'd start at the bottom, learn how to please the boss by doing a good job, and pretty soon he'd be making $2 per hour. If he really wanted to move up he might improve his skills, get a better job, etc. Eventually I think he might be able to make $20/hour (say at a union job with some affirmative action help).
ReplyDeletePresident of the United States has no useful skills? Good one. At a minimum he could show someone who to run a successful presidential campaign. Ron Paul obviously does not know how to do that. How many times has he run for president and lost? 3?
DeleteJW is right! Obama does have a skill, he is really good at killing people with his drones! He even said so himself.
DeleteYou presuppose that running a successful presidential campaign is a useful skill. Apart from the candidate and the coterie of sycophants and parasites which surrounds the campaign, few others benefit from its success.
DeleteREICH IS WRONG.
ReplyDeleteA HIGHER MINIMUM WAGE CREATES JOBS. IT PUTS MORE DISPOSIBLE INCOME INTO THE HANDS OF THOSE THAT WILL SPEND IT, INCREASING DEMAND. THAT IS WHERE JOBS COME FROM, DEMAND, NOT RICH PEOPLE. CONSUMERS ARE THE JOB CREATORS, PUT MORE MONEY INTO THE HANDS OF CONSUMERS AND THEY WILL CREATE MORE JOBS.
STUPID REICH.
I thought you were wrong spouting that keynesian nonsense but the ALL CAPS changed my mind.
DeleteCool. Let's just raise minimum wage to $100 an hour and we'll be rich.
DeleteReich is such an ass. What if we "allowed" employers to pay $1 an hour or less.
ReplyDeleteRe: "But do we really want to do that?"
ReplyDeleteReich is actually asking that rhetorically because, the implied logic is that if businesses were allowed to pay people only $1/hr they would do so, causing 'exploitation', and as the overseer and guard against the exploitation of the working class, he thinks government must step in to prevent it. This is what most socialists view as the imperative behind the minimum wage, which is held to trump the freedom of contract between people, in a similar way as one would outlaw certain work contracts between employers and vulnerable people such as children and the mentally ill.
The fact that employers have to compete for labor - any labor- by raising wages is completely misunderstood and ignored by them, as they usually hold a love-hate relationship with large businesses, both as evil for their labor practices and good for the work they provide. More importantly what is also ignored or misunderstood is how the fall of wages leads to the fall of prices, although many socialists understand the reverse direction of rising wages, rising consumption and rising prices as a natural consequence of Keynesian consumption stimulus.