Monday, May 5, 2014

Barbara Lee Wants A $26 Minimum Wage

In California, supply and demand doesn't apply to wages, according to California Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee. You can raise the minimum wage to $26 without causing any unemployment of marginally productive workers---as a side note, she also thinks such a minimum wage would increase diversity. (RW note: Perhaps diversity on the unemployment line.)

Lee and Republican congressman Andy Harris appeared Friday on CNN’s “Crossfire,” hosted by former Obama advisor Van Jones and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, reports The Daily Caller. The panel discussed the proposed increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour.

“Let me ask you this question, you’re a good advocate for this,” Gingrich asked Lee. “The mayor of Seattle is proposing that the minimum wage ought to go up to $15 an hour.”

“Good for him,” Lee responded. “In California — more than likely, from what I remembered — a living wage where people could live and take care of their families and move toward achieving the American dream was about $25, $26 an hour.”

“So would you support that as a minimum wage for California?” Gingrich asked.

“Absolutely I would support it for California. I think the regional factors –”

“And you don’t think that’d have an effect on unemployment?” Gingrich interrupted.

“No, Newt, trust me, believe you me,” Lee replied, “you’d have a more productive workforce, you’d have people who could afford to live in areas now where they cannot afford to live. You would increase diversity in certain communities where you don’t have diversity anymore. You would have economic parity and the income gap would begin to close.”

(ht Travis Holte)

17 comments:

  1. Go for it!! Why stop at $26/hour? Why not go for say $500/hour then everyone with a full-time job could be a millionaire!!! They'd live better and it would be more tax revenue for the guberment. What a buffoon!

    And shock of shocks, her district is Oakland!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is one way of keeping 190th Street in Torrance permanently underdeveloped once Toyota leaves...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Come on, Barbara! Why stop at $26? Go whole hog and really get this economy going. How about $260/hour? I see green shoots!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I watched the entire clip. I was more shocked with the intro which was about as unprofessional and creepy as you can get. I was waiting for an official seal of the government to be displayed like they use to do in Communist China to let you know the news was approved by the state. I will say one thing for Lee, she is consistent with her ignorance. Newt probably could have said $50/hr and she would have thought it a great idea. What is sad, is that no one on the opposing side could adequately argue against the minimum wage. She and the slanted moderator put Harris in a box right out of the gate. Newt made her look stupid which was amusing but rather than take her out, he just moved on.

    ReplyDelete
  5. These people are mental midgets. A few chapters of Hazlitt would literally blow their feeble little minds. California will get exactly what it deserves, and Lee, head of the People's Republic of San Francisco, is only fast tracking that course. How bankrupt in economic common sense do you have to be to get elected in CA? Apparently pretty darn bankrupt.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rent (and Mortgage Payments) Are Too Damn High For Many Americans (Stagnant Incomes, Rising Prices)

    Remember Jimmy McMillan in the New York Gubernatorial debate uttering his famous “Rent is too damned high“?

    Perhaps he was correct. Given the stagnation of wages since 2007 both rents and mortgage payments may be too damn high for some Americans.

    http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/rent-and-mortgage-payments-are-too-damn-high-for-many-americans-stagnant-incomes-rising-prices/#respond


    ReplyDelete
  7. She's right, I would have a more productive work force if they raised the the minimum wage to $26/hour, because I'd fire half my workers and replace them with automation and make those left help institute and run said automation. Anyone that didn't tow the line would get dumped as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every time I see these characters, I keep thinking that they must be putting me on. How could it be possible to get cause and effect so backwards?

      So apparently in Lee's world, an employer is not willing to pay one worker more than another because that worker is more productive. Rather, in her mind, the less productive worker would magically becomes more productive if the employer were to pay him more.

      It is hard to believe that someone could be so out of touch with reality.

      Delete
    2. "How could it be possible to get cause and effect so backwards?"

      My belief is that she has ZERO business experience at higher executive levels or ownership level, or she would inherently understand her claim as having no basis in reality.

      Delete
  8. Ah, yes. Another complete idiot who thinks that simply issuing a command like a Soviet commissar will magically make everything better. Heh.....shit. Some people are a just complete waste of flesh. You can only be so stupid but they have exceeded the limits here somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Pray that this happens. It's the only hope of ending support for the minimum wage. The turmoil would be short-lived (because intolerable) and the idea of minimum wage as free lunch would never again be taken seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  10. “No, Newt, trust me, believe you me,” Lee replied,

    Yes, Newt - trust her. It's not a matter of having the facts or the economic knowledge. It's just a matter of trusting a politician's word.

    “you’d have a more productive workforce,

    Of course, because you would end up hiring only those people whose production is worth $26.00 and not less. The economically-illiterate people at the Center for American Progress has come out with that canard so that economically-illiterate Democrats like Rep. Lee can parrot it ad nauseam as if it were true.

    you’d have people who could afford to live in areas now where they cannot afford to live.

    You see? Easy! If you artificially increase the cost of labor for everybody, cost of living will still remain in the same spot! No increase in prices for goods or services! And why would it be not? Businesses are swimming in money!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "“No, Newt, trust me, believe you me,” Lee replied,"

      Yes, she knows. How? Her feeeeelings told her so. I sometimes think socialists and statists period are born with some type of mental defect. Hell, come on! $26 an hour minimum wage? Please!

      Delete
  11. So some guy who wasted his life partying and gets a job should make the same as a guy who slaved away through years of studying and school to become a doctor? The insanity of this minimum wage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You hit it on the head though - the doctor's pay will go up as well.

      It won't be instantaneous, of course, but with all these fast food workers with so much extra cash, it won't take long for it to begin to distribute into the same types of income gaps that currently exist.

      So, as everyone here knows, the end result is general inflation. Woo hoo.

      Then in a decade they can raise it to $45 an hour...

      Delete
  12. Can anyone find what 300 employee business Barbara Lee said she owned? I can't find any info on her former company.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't see that she's made that claim, but I do see that one of her sons runs a large "insurance benefits" company, so maybe she's glomming on to his company as some time of credibility building exercise.

      Most people running a business is a relatively free market(I know, sad how many disclaimers I have to make now) would immediately recognize her bullshit for what it is.

      Delete