Minnesota Cafe Charges “Minimum Wage Fee,” Liberals Outraged

It's surprising though how many people don't realize that. Yesterday morning, a caller on C-Span's Washington Journal was all upset about gas taxes in that she thought they should be spread around to everyone; not just to drivers. Her argument was that everyone benefited from roads, so they should be taxed too. She didn't seem to realize that businesses passed on all those fees to the consumer when they purchased products.

card591.jpg
 
One thing for certain, (If my figures are correct.) is that if you not getting the power of $45.90 out of your minimum wage the power you've lost has been transferred to someone else since the sixties.

Even if my figures are off some they are closer to any others I've heard tell of. It's the only way the devaluation of the dollar adds up.

They've been allowed to counterfeit their way to power.



^^^click here for an alternate reality.
 
Last edited:
One thing for certain, (If my figures are correct.) is that if you not getting the power of $45.90 out of your minimum wage the power you've lost has been transferred to someone else since the sixties.

Even if my figures are off some they are closer to any others I've heard tell of. It's the only way the devaluation of the dollar adds up.

They've been allowed to counterfeit their way to power.



^^^click here for an alternate reality.

Rolling Stone said Minimum Wage was supposed to be $21.72, but that was last year too... Close enough for "Govt work".
 
mad cow has it 100% right.

Some things have gone up in price more, some things have gone up less. $1.60 an hour in 1968? and $7.25 currently?

Let's say 5x in the last 45 years.

Some things have gone up more than 5x, other things might not have.

Here's something. CPI seems to track food very closely. Food hasn't gone up much. Everything else seems to have gone up much more.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...ee-in-u-s-soars-12-fold-chart-of-the-day.html

The above chart tracks from 1978 to 2012. The minimum wage was $2.65 in 1978. So, the minimum wage has gone up approx 3x in that period.

College educations went up 12x in that period. So, clearly some things are getting much less affordable for minimum wage workers.
 
Last edited:
It seems high as well to me. I'm hung up on how much the devaluation of the dollar shows in Robert Sahr's chart below AND the way it is backed up by the rising Dow Jones Industrial average. The money is in play somewhere out there and we really need to watch out. I'm thinking we are being took like never before in the history of man kind.

I think part of the problem of trying to track such things is getting a big picture of just how much the counterfeiters are are making off with.

While you have us looking at our little lives and little bills they seem to me to be able to manipulate the appearance of our economy remaining somewhat stable.

At the same time their economy is raping and pillaging behind the scenes.

While we are watching out for the tiny pile of stuff in our personal control much of the rest of our wealth that was once held in trust for all of us is finding the way into the other economies pile of things.

How do you figure the value of your cash when the counterfeiting allows its value to be manipulated so easily? While you and your friends may decide to do something with your money for your mutual benefit there are others that can print up what ever it takes to get their way. It might not be so easy to see just how much value you lost but as long as others can fire up the fake money presses the value of your money will be worth less.

We are working our way down the road of life and by the time we get where we are going we are finding the destination has been bought out from under us. How do you put a price on being looted on the road for a lifetime?


Anyway $45.90 might seem high but my figures show that's an honest minimum wage if the wages of the sixties ever were. That is the power a man should be receiving if he gave up the occupation he's worked a lifetime learning and packed it up to try something as starting wage in a new field.

Anyway that is certainly the power we've lost over the years.

More power to the restaurant owner doing what he wanted in the original post. It is such a tiny gesture in the big scheme of things.

I noticed the prices at a barbecue place I go to went up. I ask the guy if the workers were getting anything out of it. Once he figured out what I was talking about he perked up and said, "Actually we do!".

Seemed like a good thing to me. Maybe someday I'll get off my ass and do something about pulling myself up a little.

Or just say Phuckit.

Random-witty-humorous-pics1.jpg

I'm generally in agreement with you, but I still think that $45 or so is high. I think min wage needs to be raised, I think it should track inflation, whatever number is used. It hasn't been doing that.

Things are awful and getting worse, and Phuckit, or something along those lines, is the most reasonable alternative.
 
I'm generally in agreement with you, but I still think that $45 or so is high. I think min wage needs to be raised, I think it should track inflation, whatever number is used. It hasn't been doing that.

Things are awful and getting worse, and Phuckit, or something along those lines, is the most reasonable alternative.

A part of me dies every time I see someone on this site say something like this. I mean, if we cannot convince the people who have woken up that setting a price floor on labor is a bad idea, how can we convince the rest of America? Also, why raise the minimum wage with inflation? how about just getting inflation down down and not raising anything at all? if you don't create inflation then there wouldn't be any need to raise the minimum wage. Its also funny because the same people who run of raising the minimum wage also support the fed policies that punish the bottom earners in the economy by diluting their wages

I say abolish the minimum wage, quit trying to create 3% inflation every year, this way students, low skilled workers, old people, person recently released from prison etc etc who need someone to give them a chance would not be shut out of the workforce. And people who want to save their money are not forced into the casino house called the stock market just to maintain their wealth.
 
Last edited:
There should be no minimum wage.It is none of the Government's business what somebody wants to buy or sell an hour of labor for,any more than it is anybody but the buyer and sellers business what somebody wants to buy or sell a 1985 Ford Pinto (runs good,slight body and rust damage,fair tires) for.
 
The above chart tracks from 1978 to 2012. The minimum wage was $2.65 in 1978. So, the minimum wage has gone up approx 3x in that period.

College educations went up 12x in that period. So, clearly some things are getting much less affordable for minimum wage workers.

Lol. Stafford loans account for the tuition surge, medicaid/medicare for the medical cost surge.

aktaT89.jpg
 
Lol. Stafford loans account for the tuition surge, medicaid/medicare for the medical cost surge.

aktaT89.jpg

Are you arguing with me, as if I disagree with you? Housing prices too, they've outpaced food price inflation / CPI, due to government policies. Do you have a point?

Or does everyone just have a package of ideas they share with others, and they assume that the ideas of others also fit into nice packages so that every conversation can pretty much go the same way.

My point was just that if the min wage only goes up 300% in 35 or so years, and college education goes up 1200%, it's much harder to pay for a college education today for minimum wage workers.

We don't live in a free market. The government takes half our money. And spends it where it wants. Usually Washington DC. Everybody else gets screwed. Free markets aren't like that. A town with just a mailman isn't getting their money back. Their money goes to Washington DC. Plenty of economic growth there, Not to say I want that fed gov money around. Keep those people away from me.
 
Economics in One Lesson is available at an inflation-adjusted price of FREE.

https://mises.org/books/economics_in_one_lesson_hazlitt.pdf

See Chapter 18 on Minimum Wage Laws.

PS: This would have been a link to FEE but those idiots want Facebook promoted instead of their own brand. Fuck 'em.

We don't live in a free market. When the government takes half your money, the markets are fked. In a free market wolrld, things are balanced. When the government takes half your money, they become unbalanced.

A free market, not socialism, or corporatism, works. We don't live there, and none of us alive have ever lived there. Take Econ 101 and the first day, they lay down the presuppositions, and they're all complete BS.

How many hikes in the minimum wage has the $1 McChicken withstood? Some. You know, in a free market, prices of goods are based on the prices of inputs. Prices rise and fall immediately. Because if the prices don't fall quickly, a competitor will just jump in and sell that product at the real price. None of us lived there. John Marshall might have lived there but we don't and nobody alive ever did.

I don't need anybody to tell me that if you raise the cost of labor, prices should (in a free market where we don't live and never lived) rise, which would (in fictional free market land) cause demand to fall, which would cause workers to be fired or their hours cut. Is that the brilliant insight you were planning on telling me. Before I graduated from law school, I was an Econ major. We didn't cover the Austrians much if at all.

The minimum wage is the safety net for decent Americans who might be lazy or stupid or persecuted by the Government. Government taking half our money and spending it on sht we don't want (hey, what's the latest on cops shooting dogs) really fcks with the balance there. The free market works because there are a lot of pieces working together - almost like an invisible hand is guiding the process. When the invisible hand takes half the money away, it doesn't work. It's broken. And the minimum wage is what the Government does to remedy the problems that their own bad actions are causing.

If the Government wasn't taking our money, people in the towns would have the money to buy stuff. From the stores where there are minimum wage workers. People would so much money, that there would lines in stores. Good cashiers would be in demand. If you could move people through the lines at lightning speed, you could get $10 an hour. If the government wasn't taking half our money. People are buying half the stuff, because they've got half the money, because the

I lived in DC and worked in NVA. When I was there, all of Northern VA was new new new, lots of growth. New convenience stores are opening all the time. Perhaps cashiers are in demand there. People move there, because that's where is the government is, and the government never stops hiring.

Most little towns don't get their money back. The money you'd spend in your convenience store is being spent by the government workers in the DC metro area.

If you're going to make arguments including supply and demand curves, and relying on the internal coherence of the free market, you really have to make sure that all of the assumptions are in the real world true. They aren't true, none of them are.

Free markets work. We have any of those anywhere. I don't think minimum wage workers should be getting the shaft.
 
The minimum wage is the safety net for decent Americans who might be lazy or stupid or persecuted by the Government.

On behalf of the 1%, allow me to thank you for reinforcing the mythos of the so-called "useful idiot". You help make it a lot harder for people to compete with established businesses.

Yes, I agree this is not a free market. That is not an argument to keep it that way which is EXACTLY what you are promoting in your post. It is not my business you will hurt. The minimum wage sets a minimum level of productivity below which the usefull idiots cannot be legally employed. Typically, you must produce a multiple of your compensation to be worthwhile (e.g., 1.5 to 5 times your hourly rate). It is not my job to teach you this or to hold your hand until you become a profitable employee.

I don't need anybody to tell me that if you raise the cost of labor, prices should (in a free market where we don't live and never lived) rise, which would (in fictional free market land) cause demand to fall, which would cause workers to be fired or their hours cut. Is that the brilliant insight you were planning on telling me. Before I graduated from law school, I was an Econ major. We didn't cover the Austrians much if at all.

What I need to tell you is that you are promoting statism and encouraging more people to work in the grey and black markets which will only increase tax burdens on those who remain legit. Thankfully, I don't compete with lawn care, babysitters, housekeeping, or drug dealers.

What is the specific order for freedom to be restored to prevent you from promoting more statism? What steps must be taken before ending the drug war? Who must we bribe to end social security? How many years do we have to suffer to ease you off the teat of Obama(care)? You want to bitch that we need a minimum wage because we don't live in a free market. When people like you promote the minimum wage, it makes it very hard to take steps in that direction. EVERY single program will have millions just like you defending how their bread gets buttered. Thank goodness we have you to navigate us safely from the backwaters of servitude. We wouldn't want to be too free too fast.

If you're going to make arguments including supply and demand curves, and relying on the internal coherence of the free market, you really have to make sure that all of the assumptions are in the real world true. They aren't true, none of them are.

I did no such thing. This is about freedom. You're the one throwing out razzle dazzle to convince a hostile crowd we need government to protect our miminum wage. That thing a trifling small percent of Americans get:

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/28...got-to-mention-during-the-state-of-the-union/
"1) Only 1 Percent Of The U.S. Labor Force Earns The Minimum Wage"

I don't think minimum wage workers should be getting the shaft.

People at the margin are exactly who you are fucking with. Hard. Someone getting $20/hr may get scaled back and find employment at $15/hr. The guy at $10/hr has no opportunities at $5/hr. His job is offshored or automated or just not done anymore. You specifically are messing with these people.

If you want to do the wrong thing, just promote a CD and be done with it. What is it with illiberal progressives like yourself fixated on the notion of employer as god? Instead of merely conducting business with people as honest agents, you expect the mythical employer-kings to take full care of the employee, their family, their healthcare, retirement, etc. I get that you have needs and go after the deepest pockets you see, however, it keeps your type down.
 
On behalf of the 1%, allow me to thank you for reinforcing the mythos of the so-called "useful idiot". You help make it a lot harder for people to compete with established businesses.

Yes, I agree this is not a free market. That is not an argument to keep it that way which is EXACTLY what you are promoting in your post. It is not my business you will hurt. The minimum wage sets a minimum level of productivity below which the usefull idiots cannot be legally employed. Typically, you must produce a multiple of your compensation to be worthwhile (e.g., 1.5 to 5 times your hourly rate). It is not my job to teach you this or to hold your hand until you become a profitable employee.



What I need to tell you is that you are promoting statism and encouraging more people to work in the grey and black markets which will only increase tax burdens on those who remain legit. Thankfully, I don't compete with lawn care, babysitters, housekeeping, or drug dealers.

What is the specific order for freedom to be restored to prevent you from promoting more statism? What steps must be taken before ending the drug war? Who must we bribe to end social security? How many years do we have to suffer to ease you off the teat of Obama(care)? You want to bitch that we need a minimum wage because we don't live in a free market. When people like you promote the minimum wage, it makes it very hard to take steps in that direction. EVERY single program will have millions just like you defending how their bread gets buttered. Thank goodness we have you to navigate us safely from the backwaters of servitude. We wouldn't want to be too free too fast.



I did no such thing. This is about freedom. You're the one throwing out razzle dazzle to convince a hostile crowd we need government to protect our miminum wage. That thing a trifling small percent of Americans get:

http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/28...got-to-mention-during-the-state-of-the-union/
"1) Only 1 Percent Of The U.S. Labor Force Earns The Minimum Wage"



People at the margin are exactly who you are fucking with. Hard. Someone getting $20/hr may get scaled back and find employment at $15/hr. The guy at $10/hr has no opportunities at $5/hr. His job is offshored or automated or just not done anymore. You specifically are messing with these people.

If you want to do the wrong thing, just promote a CD and be done with it. What is it with illiberal progressives like yourself fixated on the notion of employer as god? Instead of merely conducting business with people as honest agents, you expect the mythical employer-kings to take full care of the employee, their family, their healthcare, retirement, etc. I get that you have needs and go after the deepest pockets you see, however, it keeps your type down.

You live in fantasy land. We've had the minimum wage since the 1930s. It serves a useful function. It wouldn't be needed if the Government didn't take half our money. But they do take half our money. That means the free market is broken.

If the Government took all our money, there would be no demand for labor at all, and everyone would be broke and then starve.

I notice that you refuse to understand the critical importance of the Government taking half our money.

Your arguments are based on living in a world where the Government doesn't take our money.

The supply of labor is more than the demand for labor, that drives the price of labor down. You should know this.

The invisible hand works, but only when all the parts are working together. The government takes half our money. We don't have a free market.

Process that in your response.

I want the government to stop taking our money. They aren't. If there isn't a minimum wage, labor prices will fall dramatically, and that will make more people more poor. And that's a bad answer.

Until the government stops taking our money, we need to keep the minimum wage, and the minimum wage should keep pace with inflation.

I want less government spending. You don't seem to care about that. You just think that the poor people aren't poor enough. And your attitudes are what keep people from liking libertarians. Because you're too stupid to understand that the minimum wage is a necessary government solution to a government caused problem.

I'd like tariffs again. It's hard to compete with Chinese slaves and we shouldn't have to.

The more I read from people like you, who refuse to process the fact that Government taking our money completely fks the free market, the more I want to completely write off libertarians.

What's the name for people who just want the Government to stop spending money but don't want poor people to starve?

I want massive cuts in Government spending, I want fewer laws, I'm not a statist, but I don't want working people to have to compete on wages with the Chinese.

The min wage law is from the 30s. Do away with everything after that, and you still are left with that. I also like the Sherman Anti-Trust act. I'd like to see that used more often. The more recent the law, the more likely it is to suck.
 
Are you arguing with me, as if I disagree with you? Housing prices too, they've outpaced food price inflation / CPI, due to government policies. Do you have a point?

Or does everyone just have a package of ideas they share with others, and they assume that the ideas of others also fit into nice packages so that every conversation can pretty much go the same way.

My point was just that if the min wage only goes up 300% in 35 or so years, and college education goes up 1200%, it's much harder to pay for a college education today for minimum wage workers.

MY point is simply that more government is not the solution to the problems it creates.
Employers raise prices to offset mandated wage increases.
 
I was thinking more about my outlandish claim that a minimum wage in the sixties had the same purchasing power as $45.90.

Some of you have rightly pointed out that there hasn't been that much inflation. I have countered that with the amount of counterfeiting and devaluation of the dollar what we can't account for has ended up with someone somewhere. In the earlier times it was always wars that were sucking up the counterfeit. After the wars we always worked the fake money out of the system.

RobertSahrcurrencyvalue.jpg


Maybe now we have gone so far out of reality, where reality is, is hard to put a finger on. It's like we have embarked on a drug binge of epic proportions and things won't truly become clear until the morning after.

Man and it looks like we're headed for a hangover like never before.
 
You live in fantasy land. We've had the minimum wage since the 1930s. It serves a useful function. It wouldn't be needed if the Government didn't take half our money. But they do take half our money. That means the free market is broken.

There is nothing about the free market that can break in this context. It is society with a problem, not an abstraction.


I notice that you refuse to understand the critical importance of the Government taking half our money.

The government takes more than half of mine (an s corp thing ... I don't count chickens not in my henhouse).

Your arguments are based on living in a world where the Government doesn't take our money.

Of course, because the issue is minimum wage and you believe that abortions in Florida justify the latest Iraqi bombardments. Scratch that... I don't know what the fuck you believe only that there is no rationality to your thought process.


I want the government to stop taking our money. They aren't. If there isn't a minimum wage, labor prices will fall dramatically, and that will make more people more poor. And that's a bad answer.

The arguments against the minimum wage relate specifically to how they keep the poor unemployed and not earning an income. You tell the people here with a straight face that poverty will increase by not mandating the wage that 1% earn while totally ignoring that 10-20% of the potential workforce are kept from the labor market because they don't cut it?

Until the government stops taking our money, we need to keep the minimum wage, and the minimum wage should keep pace with inflation.

With giant ass statists here, it is doubtful that government will ever stop taking our money. For some, that may be the de facto definition of government... the assholes that take our money.

I want less government spending. You don't seem to care about that.

I value freedom more than the droppings of our Federal Reserve and US Treasury. I am deeply ashamed of my fellow Americans that have traded freedom for easily inflatable currency.

You just think that the poor people aren't poor enough. And your attitudes are what keep people from liking libertarians. Because you're too stupid to understand that the minimum wage is a necessary government solution to a government caused problem.

This is a litmus-type issue. You have to be *this* tall to ride on the liberty bus. You don't make the cut.

I'd like tariffs again. It's hard to compete with Chinese slaves and we shouldn't have to.

...

I want massive cuts in Government spending, I want fewer laws, I'm not a statist [YES YOU ARE YOU! YOU WANT STATE FORCE TO MANDATE UNEMPLOYMENT FOR THE LEAST 10-20% PRODUCTIVE AMERICANS!] , but I don't want working people to have to compete on wages with the Chinese [DON'T WORRY THE POOR AMERICANS ARE ON THE COUCH NOT COMPETING EXACTLY AS YOUR MASTERS HAVE DECREED!]

For the love of Paul, read the damn chapter 18 from Hazlitt. The argument against the minimum wage is mostly focused ON HELPING THE POOR PEOPLE. Like Hazlitt states, if you want to help them, THE LEAST HARMFUL APPROACH IS NO-STRINGS-ATTACHED WELFARE (or "relief" as he calls it in their ancient language).

You cannot mandate their work to be worth more than it is. You can't stop competing with China or Chinese workers by government fiat. If government had the powers to which you ascribe it, we would indeed live in that fantasy land you mentioned way above. Government can't do those things which is why smart people don't want them trying.

Anyway, it is laughable that you try to defend the poor via the minimum wage. It is the economic equivalent to the war on drugs except it is the war on work and this war, the government is winning. Big time!

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=minimum+wage+harmful
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=why+do+unions+support+minimum+wage&revid=161106961

WANT TO STAB THE POOR AND HELP THE LABOR UNIONS

LewRockwell.com ANTI-STATE•ANTI-WAR•PRO-MARKET
The Minimum Wage Law

By Walter E. Block

January 17, 2014


The minimum wage on its face is an unemployment law, not an employment law. It does not compel anyone to hire anyone else. It only stipulates who CANNOT legally be employed: no one may be hired for less than the amount stipulated by law. If the minimum wage law is set at $10 per hour, the law does not require any employer to hire any employee at that wage level. It only FORBIDS employment contracts set at $9.99 or below. This is not a matter of empirical evidence, not that there can be any such thing in proper, e.g., Austrian economics; this conclusion is a matter of pure logic. We repeat: the minimum wage on its face is an unemployment law, not an employment law.

www.lewrockwell.com/2014/01/walter-e-block/want-to-stab-the-poor-and-help-labor-unions/
 
Back
Top