Comment by oatmeal1
3 years ago
> If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close.
The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! And whether you personally find a business model morally "valid" is not a good reason to make economic changes. People deserve a cost-benefit analysis before their livelihood is taken away. The economic consequences of increasing the minimum wage will be just the same as previous attempts. More automation, less customer service, more unemployment among low-skilled workers.
> The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy!
Where the line that separates goodwill custody of the commons like roads, public education, enforcing contracts and laws and "interference"?
That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation.
Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many are) is just that free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.
> free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.
I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions? Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods?
> It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit
Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states
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