[IgorPartola]

I meant it as the EU has imposed regulations on big co and it hasn’t immediately ruined the EU. In the US we have this notion that if we impose even a tiny bit of common sense regulation that it will instantly ruin the economy and the country will fall apart as a result. Take minimum wage for example. Loads of economic research shows that federally mandated minimum of $15/hour would be good for the economy. Yet fully half the voters will scream bloody burger at that idea labeling it as radical. They would rather continue the government supplement the incomes of Walmart workers than having Walmart pay a fair wage because what if this hurts Walmart too much?

[SllX]

I was hoping for some more concrete examples of what the EU has done right, but I’ll address the minimum wage.

> Take minimum wage for example. Loads of economic research shows that federally mandated minimum of $15/hour would be good for the economy.

In what ways has it been shown it would be good for the economy?

How does it address the fact that the minimum wage is actually zero and unemployed is the real minimum wage? How does it help small retail stores that need a minimum number of bodies behind the counter when the store is open in order to stay in business?

I live in a place that did implement $15/hour minimum wage, and ultimately what is been slowly doing is making some businesses unviable. Even before the pandemic forced its closure, one of my favorite shops, one I used to work at in fact when I was younger and I’ve kept in touch since, was slowly going out of business because the owner needed two bodies behind the counter to ensure timely service and his costs were greater than >$30/hour once you factored in mandatory insurance costs and taxes in addition to the usual operational overhead of just being open 16 hours in the first place. What was once a perfectly viable business was already dying just from the extra labor costs alone, with the owner who had been in the business for over 30 years putting in longer hours and making less money just because he wanted to keep his crew employed. He also had to raise prices every single year to keep up with the additional costs. He kept it going, but by the end he was putting in more money than he was taking out, and the pandemic forced its closure when his insurance company wouldn’t pay out for the spoiled product.

The new owner changed business models, rather than freshly made on-site lunch, you get whatever was pre-made at her other business, no customizations, and the product and experience are completely different. The business under the original owner and the business under the new owner share a name, but they are essentially entirely different businesses.

And you know what? That’s business. That’s how things go sometimes, but could he have remained in business if his labor costs weren’t so high? I think he wanted to, and it’s not like he never issued raises. Each generation of staff typically had one or two people who were earning a lot more than the rest of the crew, greater than what the minimum wage eventually became even, because the earned it by making him more money.

The entire economy isn’t Walmart and Apple Stores, but the more costs you impose on businesses and the higher you raise the floor, the sooner it will be. It doesn’t matter if everyone ought to be able to afford 4oz of ice cream at $5, if fewer people are willing to pay for it at that price to cover the additional labor costs.

[IgorPartola]

Ugh. Ok. I don’t have time to understand this for you, but think about it this way: if a Walmart employee makes $7/hour but where he lives he needs to make $15/hour to not fall below the poverty line, you know who pays the extra $8/hour? The government. With all of its overhead of managing a social safety net program. Do you want the government to tax you so that Walmart can underpay by $8/hour? In what way does it benefit you to be taxed for that money? And remember that Walmart has plenty of money from their current prices already to pay $15/hour. Their prices need not go up to pay a living wage to their employees. So really if you are for small government, you are for raising the minimum wage and letting the market sort itself out rather than running social programs for those whose employers fail to pay them.

Small businesses will have to raise prices. But owning wage slaves isn’t justification enough for someone to run a small business.

Lastly, why this is good for the economy: you are free to do your own research but here is why this works. Give a billionaire an extra $1000/month and he will put it into his offshore account and never think about it again, let alone spend it. Give a poor person $1000/month and he will instantly put it back into the economy. This is why trickle down economy doesn’t work but stimulus programs do. If it was the other way around all the US government would have to do is hand over a few billion dollars to like five rich guys instead of negotiating stimulus deals every time there is a crisis. If you think that every time the working class is suffering the best thing to do is to prop up the rich then I, again, cannot understand for you why that’s wrong.