Guest Post by John Stossel
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was just disrupted by campaign workers demanding the same $15 per hour that Sanders demands the government force all employers to pay.
It serves him right.
Years ago, the activist group ACORN faced the same problem. After fighting for a higher minimum wage, it tried to convince a judge it should be granted an exception when paying its own workers, since it was involved in such important and productive work.
Government telling employers what to pay people creates nasty side effects.
Five years ago, Seattle won fame by becoming the first American city to mandate a $15 per hour minimum.
“Fifteen in Seattle is just a beginning. We have an entire world to win! Solidarity!” vowed City Councilmember Kshama Sawant.
New York state and many cities followed in Seattle’s footsteps.
But now the results from Seattle are in:
Some people who already had jobs are being paid more. They’re the winners under the new law.
But the losers are needier people: people who are looking for jobs.
After Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15, entry-level job growth stalled. Job growth continued in the rest of Washington state but not in Seattle.
The $15 minimum helped some people while hurting even poorer people.
“It’s presented by minimum wage advocates as a win-win … no negatives”, complains a skeptical Erin Shannon of the Washington Policy Center in my latest video.
Shannon points out the negatives. For example, stores that once hired inexperienced kids and trained them, giving them valuable starter experience, stopped doing so once Seattle raised its minimum wage.
“Politicians,” one store owner told my video producer, “have no sense whatsoever about what it means to small businesses like us.”
Today, for companies with more than 500 workers, Seattle’s minimum wage is $16 per hour.
It’s as if the politicians never learned about supply and demand. They think prices can be set wherever government decrees, with no consequences.
But there are many bad consequences.
Twenty-year-old Dillon Hodes understands that. He’s a winner of the video-making contest run by my charity, Stossel in the Classroom. Hodes saw what happened to his friend when the Kroger she worked at raised its minimum wage to $12 an hour.
“She was getting paid $12 an hour, but slowly, they started cutting her days, her hours. She was (eventually) regulated to only working on Sundays. That’s because she was young and inexperienced,” explains Hodes. “She’s worth the world to me, but she wasn’t worth $12 to Kroger.”
The $12 minimum wage took away her job. How much more damage will a $15 minimum do?
Rigel Nobel-Kosa, another sitc.org video contest winner, pointed out that many high employment “countries such as Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland” have no minimum wage laws.
They do not end up with impoverished workers making a penny an hour. Wages, like all prices, are a function of supply and demand. Switzerland has much less unemployment than the U.S.
Esther Rhodes won our high school essay contest, pointing out that America’s first minimum wage laws were racist. At the time they were passed, blacks were more likely to be employed than whites. Blacks were paid less — but they had jobs.
Congressman Miles Clayton Allgood, D-Ala., then said he hoped a minimum wage law would stop “cheap colored labor in competition with white labor.”
So, explains Rhodes, although Americans now think a minimum wage was meant to help the neediest people, “it was meant for the opposite: to keep the poor and the minorities from getting jobs!”
She also understands that the law now makes it harder for her to get a job.
“I’m 14,” says Rhodes. “My labor wouldn’t be worth $15 an hour!”
All government’s workplace rules have nasty unintended consequences.
If only the politicians were as smart as the sitc.org kids.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
$15/hr for a kid to sweep the floor.
Yeah.
Like it or not, good or bad, right or wrong, this will continue. As well as cries for free education, healthcare etc. We will have a third world country if only a small % reap the gains going forward. It is a garuantee.
Competition at all levels and in all things is what’s needed. There is no competition with government, large corporations (no, there is not sufficient competition with the amazon, walmart and megabanks types) etc. Best to break up, imo, large companies that are choking out competitors and innovation.
“Today, for companies with more than 500 workers, Seattle’s minimum wage is $16 per hour.”
I’m not so sure this isn’t a decent idea. I’d rather have 10 business owners with 50 employees than 1 business owner with 500 employees. Big picture. Think BIG picture.
I’m afraid one day Acme will own all production at some point. You’ll kill for choices then.
Anyone know how I can post directly to site?
In the months leading up to the 2016 election I had been predicting a Trump win based on a particular theory which I believe still holds true today — namely the theory that the global banking elites in power were allowing so-called “populist” movements in the U.S. and Europe to gain political traction near the very end of the decade-long “Everything Bubble.” Once populist groups were entrenched and feeling overconfident, the cabal would then tighten liquidity into existing economic weakness and crash the system on their heads. Populists would get the blame for an economic disaster that the central banks had engineered many years in advance.
Once enough suffering had been dealt to the populace, globalists and extreme leftists would arrive on the scene to offer anti-populism as a solution; meaning the centralization and socialization of everything on a scale never before witnessed except perhaps in the darkest days of the Bolshevik Revolution.
This theory allowed me to predict well in advance the success of the Brexit vote in the U.K., Trump’s entry into the White House, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and balance sheet cuts into economic weakness, and now it is looking more and more like my prediction of a “No Deal” Brexit will turn out to be correct. So, I continue to stand by it.
By extension, for a couple of years I have been examining the strange correlations between the background and policies of Donald Trump and the background and policies of Herbert Hoover; the Republican president that oversaw the great crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression.
Dangerous Words from a Dangerous Man
In 1977, Lloyd Darland did such of good job of revealing the government’s most secret and frightening scam that he was arrested and jailed for writing this book. It was quickly banished, but when I found an old copy, it was clear why his lost book had been suppressed. It will certainly shock you, and could anger you.
Click Here to Read Chapter 1 Now…
One of Hoover’s first actions as president in response to the fiscal tensions of 1929 was to support increased tax cuts, primarily for corporations (this was then followed in 1932 by extensive tax increases in the midst of the depression). Then, he instituted tariffs through the Smoot-Hawley Act. His hyperfocus on massive infrastructure spending resulted in U.S. debt expansion and did nothing to dig the U.S. out of its unemployment abyss. In fact, infrastructure projects like the Hoover Dam, which were launched in 1931, were not paid off for over 50 years. Hoover ended up as a single-term Republican president who paved the way socially for Franklin D. Roosevelt, an essential communist and perhaps the worst president in American history.
It was Hoover and his “protectionist” policies that were blamed for the Great Depression (along with the gold standard), yet it was the Federal Reserve which created the entire calamity. The Fed’s policy easing in the 1920s led to the extensive bubble in banking and stock markets, and the Fed’s rate hikes and liquidity tightening in the early 1930s exacerbated the crash and extended the depression for many years. Former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke even openly admitted that the Fed was responsible for the Great Depression in a speech made in honor of Milton Friedman in 2002. He stated:
“In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn.
Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”
Of course, the Fed is doing it again. For over a year and a half the Fed has been instituting liquidity tightening into economic weakness at the onset of the crash of one of the biggest financial bubbles in the history of the economic world. It is a bubble they created with the intention of deliberately imploding it, and the process has already begun. As I have noted in numerous articles, the crash in fundamentals is well underway, with almost every sector of the economy in retreat except the three indicators that the Fed and the government statistically manipulate: GDP, employment and stock markets.
Trump is not innocent in this scheme, either. After months of rightly criticizing the Fed during his campaign for inflating a fake economy and stock market, Trump pulled a 180 on his supporters after becoming president and has now attached his administration so completely to the Everything Bubble (and stock markets in particular) that it is assured he and his conservative followers will take the blame as it collapses.
I am also not the only person noting the comparison between Trump and Herbert Hoover. Trump’s similarities to Hoover are being mentioned endlessly the past year in the mainstream and leftist media with a particular focus on the trade war. Trump’s trade conflicts are providing the perfect cover for the banking elites to pull the plug on the economy, while escaping any blame. The narrative is being set up for a crash and the plan is to make populists, nationalists and sovereignty activists the scapegoats.
So, the question is, if Trump is playing the role of a modern day Hoover, and the current crash in fundamentals is set to become even worse, then who is the next Franklin D. Roosevelt; the next communistic president or political group to push America into the socialist fold?
It is hard to say at this time if Trump, like Hoover, will be a one term president. If the economic crash continues on its current pace then it is unlikely that Trump could secure a second term in 2020. That said, the advent of a shooting war with a country like Iran could conceivably change the dynamic even in the midst of a financial crisis. Whether in 2020, or 2024, I believe Trump and the populist revolt will be replaced with a socialist fervor beyond anything we saw during the Obama administration. Just as conservatives surprised the world in 2016, I believe the hard left will surprise in the next 1-5 years.
I find it rather suspicious the amount of media attention hard leftist politicians with little experience are receiving in the mainstream media these days. I am also suspicious of the amount of attention Donald Trump is paying to these same politicians in what appears to be another scripted wrestling match for the benefit of the public. Yes, I’m talking about the “four horsewomen of the Apocalypse” and the ongoing soap opera dramatics between them and Trump that continually keep these junior politicians in the spotlight despite all reason.
It is perhaps very hard to notice right now in the middle of Trump fever, but I see the beginnings, the root or the seed of a massive narrative change in the elevation of political extremists like Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, also known as “the squad.” Yes, they seem to be universally hated right now, and the abject failure of AOC’s “Green New Deal” makes it appear as if there is little support for their ideas, but again, look at how much attention these nobodies are accumulating.
I am reminded of the early hints of Barack Obama’s run for president even though he had little political experience compared to his opponents, most of it as a state senator. People running against him during his early career on the Democratic and Republican sides seemed to keep dropping out of the races due to sexual scandals. Then, Obama received overt attention from the mainstream media and even the Daily Show before he ever announced his run for president. The buildup was obvious for analysts that knew the signals.
Today, Democratic presidential candidates for 2020 are falling all over themselves to promote “the squad” and get their political approval and support. It is clear that hard line leftists are dictating the conversation on America’s future governmental path, and that path is one of extreme centralization, globalization, and bureaucratic tyranny in the name of fraudulent environmental panic.
It is important to remember that public sentiment is fickle and can change so swiftly it boggles the mind. With the advent of a major economic disaster and maybe even a kinetic war that the U.S. cannot sustain or win in the long run, the predictions of globalists and leftists that populist movements are a “crisis waiting to happen” would be fulfilled. Trump has no real control over the economy, of course, and the Fed determines when and how a financial bubble will pop; but that will not stop the majority from laying the blame on the feet of Trump and his political base. The introduction of hardcore socialism as the pre-eminent American ideal would be a much easier sell at that point.
In the middle of societal catastrophe that which we once thought impossible becomes probable. I predict that the “four horsewomen of the Apocalypse” and their ilk are chosen by the globalists to take control of the U.S. after Trump and the populists are fully discredited in the eyes of more than half the country. To be certain, there are many of us who will not accept open socialist/communist governance and all the tidings that come with it (including disarmament of the population), and I have no doubt civil war would erupt.
The point is, we should expect this outcome as one the globalists will force. The signs are visible now. The policies of these women, which are utterly insane and bankrupt of logic, are going to become the prevailing ideals of the next political revolution. Count on it.
To truth and knowledge,
Brandon Smith
Admin’s address is in the right sidebar. Rather than posting an article in the comments, ask him if he wants to post it.
My mentally retarded relative was making seven something at a plastics plant popping items out of the grids. He loved that job. He liked popping stuff apart. He loved feeling productive. He often got 50 hours a week. But when the government raised his wage to 11 bucks an hour on the way to 15 bucks, his job was eliminated.
Minimum wage and benefit package for full time employees should be the same as the minimum starting wage and benefit package for a full time federal employee . Anything less becomes indentured servitude to employers and the state . Cannot afford that you say , a strange comment considering all working tax paying citizens pay for government employee salaries and benefits why should private sector employees make less only to be taxed and indebted to supply benefits for a privileged group of people living a parasitic existence from labor others are forced by law to supply !
Employer your argument is not with wages you pay to employees or me it’s with the parasites we elect and their minions they hire giving them and themselves benefits and salary you cannot make for yourself !
Socialism is alive and well for the privileged few ? don’t tell anybody blame the poor sap who can’t afford to stop on the job to piss at Amazon
Not a bad comment.
I agree if you’re proposing raising the private sector worker’s wage & benefit package, but if you’re are proposing lowering the federal worker’s package I’ll have to disagree. I just don’t think its a good idea to lower air traffic controllers compensation to that of a Wal-Mart greeter.
Last year I had the misfortune of eating at a restaurant in Seattle where the wage had risen. It was the worst service I had ever had. Go figure. As a rule, service in US restaurants is the world’s best, and I have traveled extensively. The reason is simple – service people in the US make their living via tips. Bas service = bad tips.
But raise the minimum wage for waiters and waitresses, and almost immediately you get what I saw: some of the worst service in the world.
So job losses occur, and service/productivity fall when shit-for-brains lefty politicians interfere with the open market.
Who could ever have guessed it?
You aren’t wrong. It also is not wrong to say that if the economy excludes too many people, we will turn into a turd world shithole and that doesn’t bode well for anyone.
The economy does not do the excluding. People generally exclude themselves by refusing work that they consider beneath them, failing to get skilled, by being slothful, entitles, etc. The economy is responsive, not proactive. It responds positively to positives, and negatively to negatives.
L,
Just want to point out that I do not disagree with you. When I say the economy, of course it doesn’t make decisions. I’ll ask you…what is the answer as more and more people cannot keep, for whatever reason, with society financially? Turd world.
The only answer I remember you giving was something like…fuck them, let them die. Of course my memory could be off on that tidbit.
My grandpa shovelled coal for pennies a day in the depression to feed his family. People nowadays have no idea. I do not care what they have to do to survive. No one has a guaranteed right to any standard of living. They have to earn what they get. Taking by force what I have earned to give to parasites is bullshit. People unwilling to do what my grandpa did to survive, instead preferring to steal from me, can die as far as I am concerned.
My father told of how his father worked all day unloading a train. His pay was 1 sandwich. He took it home and split it with his wife.
Question: if that was his pay, how the hell did he have a place to live? MUCH has changed. MUCH.
L, you and I have gone back and forth on this for years. My sole purpose of taking the stance I do is because I don’t want to see America become a 3rd world shithole. How do you think the masses will vote when they have overwhelming numbers to vote taking your money? MUCH has changed. MUCH.
Next up:
$33 minimum wage.
You have to wonder if robots are secretly pushing this, to get more jobs for themselves.
Let’s do the maff:
$33 an hour times 24 hrs/day time 365 hrs a year (that is the total work time available for a robot or robots) times say 1.4 for payroll taxes, overheads, inefficiencies, etc., etc plus let’s say ($10,000 per employee per year for insurance = $42,000) = $447,000, so let us call it $450k.
So, if a company replaces its workers with a robot, it has potential savings of wages, overheads, insurances, etc. of $4450k a year, for each 4.2 employees (52 weeks times 40 hours a week times 4.2 = 365*24).
Gee, I wonder what incentive companies will have with that kind of payback on replacing workers with robots.
I think I am going to go out and invest in some robot manufacturing companies. They are going to be busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.
Let’s just rid of any working people paid well enough to be considered fair compensation in our society . Robotics wow what a future right up to where AI controllers crush your face in your sleep. They can be police judge jury and executioner !
The reason there was an organized labor movement in this country was due to the huge wealth , health and living standard divide where a huge mass of Americans lived and worked in deplorable conditions and we as a nation are deteriorating fast . When average working people can no longer make it with some modest pride and success a revolt will begin and god just may sit this one out for our Republic !
Anon – I am sorry for your mother that you were born such a moron. It must have been quite a challenge for her. I doubt it surprised her you became a Luddite.
The purpose of business is to make money. Employment is a by-product, and is only such so long as the employed create profit for the business. When that ceases – and be assured when they start charging $33 an hour for busboys it will – business either goes out of business, or finds alternatives.
No one is owed a job. No one has a “right” to a job – because that confers onto me as an employer, and onto productive taxpayers, the obligation to provide jobs. And if anyone tries that, no one will provide jobs, and everyone will instead sit back and wait for the job they have a “right to” to be provided by …. someone, and that someone does not exist. How people like you do not understand that is a wonder of the universe.
By mandating ridiculous wages, you confer on business the obligation to provide such. And of course, business cannot and will not do so in the long run. They will go out of business, or they will automate.
There is no such thing as “fair compensation”. That is bullshit created by lefties to support their welfare state agenda. “Fair” has zero to do with anything. There is market rate, and that is it. There are times I have had to pay way beyond what any sane person would think “fair”, because that is the market rate. Maybe I should get a refund – it was not fair!
Any fucking attempt to dictate “fair” wages slowly but surely ends in disaster. Who determines fair? You? Bernie? Fuck that shit. Business can ONLY pay wages where they can generate profit. If they pay less than their competition, their competition will steal the best employees. And if the pay too much, they will go broke. The market dictates. Supply and demand.
You idiot Luddites have said this shit forever. And you have never been right even once. but hey, maybe this time, right? You and AOC can hope that your socialist Utopia has better success than Venezuela. Maybe this time it will work.
There is no right to a fair wage. None. A person can only be paid their worth as judged by the market. If their worth is enough for a mansion, great. If it is enough for a cardboard box by the side of the bridge, well, there it is – those individuals need to increase the value of their work. You cannot impose these things on business, because business is only alive to create a profit. If you poison it by creating severe obligations on it, it dies.
truer words……..
Taxes on robots are coming. Count on it.
Wall laws and regulations should apply to everyone equally. No exemptions no carve outs especially for members of congress.
Every ladder MUST have a bottom rung. On good ladders, the bottom rung is appropriately close to the ground, so everyone can reach it.
The ladder of success is no different. It too has a bottom rung. Before the minimum wage was forcibly imposed upon the US, it was the decision of the employer AND the employee as to how high that rung was. The more experience you brought to the table, the more VALUE you could add to the employer’s bottom line, the more he/she was likely to offer. Constantly hiking the minimum wage is the equivalent of constantly breaking off rungs from the bottom of the ladder of success. One must forever continue to be tall enough (with skills, experience, VALUE) to be able to reach the new level.
Great analogy. Really.
Flip a burger for 15 dollars an hour? Man a cash register for 15 dollars an hour? Many companies saw this coming and have decided to replace the people that do these task with self check out lanes and automation. Kroger already has self check out lanes. Walmart does as well. Walmart is slowly phasing out the greeters for their stores and replacing them with open surveillance. Smile you are on catch you stealing camera. McDonalds has a pilot store in Phoenix, Arizona that is completely automated. Human hands never touch the food. The only people in the store are there to maintain the supplies and equipment. The store opened on the 4th of July. How is that for celebrating freedom?
Government always makes the situation worse. It does so by design.