| Sergeant Brinn went to Stanford. Steve Jobs went to Reed. Can you articulate an even somewhat critical relation between these examples and the minimum wage? I’m just not seeing it, but open if someone can connect the dots. I was unable to go to college without massive student loans and now I can’t afford to have children despite working obsessive hours. > I am of the opinion that consumption is what drives the modern economy (for better or worse). What about having a productive and efficient economy? I was looking at this recently: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-partic... Our labor force participation rate is drastically lower than Europe’s. Not sure why but I remember a post on HN a few days ago where a homeless American programmer was asking for advice and more people than not recommended that he not take a minimum wage job because it would barely help and take all his time. True he had programming experience but this is a homeless person. If being homeless is not enough to justify a low-end job, it seems like a stretch to think this is an economy that can work. Again, what am a I missing? Are you not worried that you’re wrong? Economics is difficult stuff which is why i am asking. > The production is then typically figured out from that. Poor people consumer almost entirely cheap-labor made imports, often made in free-trade manufacturing zones (sweat shops) so this is not computing at all for me. This is at least not the left I signed up for when I was in high school. We hated sweat shops. |
Regarding student loans, I am sorry to hear that, frankly situation in the U.S. is messed up. I honestly think you should support Bernie Sanders and his ilk if you want to change that.
What I am saying is pretty much standard Keynesian view of the economy: The economy can produce less than it potentially could (and have full employment, although that is tenuous) when there isn't large enough demand, that is consumer buying things and services.
This has not much to do with minimum wages, although in fact, raising minimum wage can most likely help to stimulate demand.
Regarding the cheap-labor made imports, these in fact hurt the foreign economies more than yours (because of the trade deficit, which most likely won't be equalized). The only way to prevent them (to some extent) would be to impose some form of import tariff.