A Batshit Crazy New York Times Editorial on Wages

First, it was Larry Summers at the Washington Post, see Why Did Larry Summers Just Write a Batshit Crazy Lefty Op-Ed for the Washington Post?

Now The New York Times takes the economic ignorance to an entirely new level not seen since Karl Marx promoted his confusion of what drives wages.

Summers approves:

Very powerful ⁦@nytopinion⁩ on the same themes regarding need for more worker power that ⁦@annastansbury⁩ and I stress in our recent writings. It’s crucial to make sure that policy transfers rents rather than reducing hiring. https://t.co/DV9HZGUtHC

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) July 1, 2020

Some snippets from the "very powerful" opinion":

American workers need a raise. But it is not enough to transfer wealth from the rich to the desperate...

 [T]he revival of broad prosperity — and the stability of American democracy — require the imposition of limits on the political influence of the wealthy. It requires the government to serve the interests of the governed...

Americans especially need to confront the fact that minorities are disproportionately the victims of economic inequality — the people most often denied the dignity of a decent wage. That inequity is the result of historic and continuing racism, and it should be addressed with the same sense of fierce urgency that has motivated the wave of protests against overt displays of racism...

Americans need robust minimum standards for employee compensation and benefits, and the revitalization of institutions to safeguard those guarantees. The federal minimum wage needs to be raised to $15 an hour, with regular adjustments for inflation. Corporations have long warned that raising the minimum, now $7.25 an hour, will force companies to get rid of workers...

In 2016, [Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a civil-rights leader,]  was arrested in Durham, N.C., while protesting for a $15 minimum wage. He said that he was pursuing the fulfillment of the language written into the state’s constitution by freed slaves more than 150 years ago.

The injustice remains. So does the opportunity.

For the record, the stumbling blocks faced by minorities are generally stumbling blocks in the inner city where government education does not provide basic skills, or lessons on civility, coupled by minimum wages which are already too high and which prevent young black teens from getting that all important first job, see: How to Smash Slick Lefties Who Advocate the Minimum Wage.

The racism crutch is a terrible crutch that just provides young black youth with an excuse for not succeeding. Black youth with proper motivation can succeed. I believe in them more than those who think that government hustlers are somehow going to give black youth an edge.

-RW