[noduerme]

That's not my argument. My argument is that the market adjusts to value labor accurately, and no matter what you do, someone picking onions is going to earn a wage that's difficult to live on once all the prices adjust. Yes in the short term they can buy more Big Macs, but then the price of Big Macs will go up, and they'll be back where they started. You're correct that this is not what triggered the waves of inflation in Argentina. But if the government then steps in and prevents retailers from raising their prices, in an attempt to make sure the worker's wages can buy what they bought yesterday, you end up with Argentine- or Venezuela-style purchase limits and shortages on basic foodstuffs, and ultimately a black market for those as well as a blue market for hard currency.

If you want to make the argument that the middle class can afford to pay more for the goods they buy, and that money should find its way to the laborers who produce the goods, I think that's a worthy moral goal. But I think if you look at the price increases and the housing crises going on around the US, it's pretty clear that "livable wages" have aggravated those things rather than make anything more livable. All it's done is essentially made the money the middle class had in the bank less valuable than it was last year. The main beneficiaries of inflation, and the people who have maintained or increased the value of their assets, are landlords and investors. Minimum wage increases and price controls are two sides of the same inflationary coin, and they both serve to funnel value upward to the top 10%.