Author Topic: RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $14 AN HOUR USING THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK! by ANN COULTER  (Read 517 times)

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Offline mystery-ak

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http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-02-26.html

RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $14 AN HOUR USING THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK!
February 26, 2014




Democrats believe they've hit on the perfect issue to distract from the horror of Obamacare in the 2014 elections: the minimum wage.

Apparently, increasing the minimum wage was not important for American workers during the first five years of Obama's presidency -- least of all his first two years, when Democrats controlled Congress and could have passed anything. (And did!)

No. The minimum wage did not become a pressing concern until an election year in which the public's hatred of Obamacare is expected to be the central issue.

As The New York Times explained, Democrats see the minimum wage as an issue that "will place Republican candidates in a difficult position," and also as a tool "to enlarge the electorate in a nonpresidential election, when turnout among minorities and youths typically drops off."

(Unlike Republicans, Democrats consider it important to win elections.)

To most people, it seems as if the Democrats are giving workers something for nothing. But there are always tradeoffs. No serious economist denies that increasing the minimum wage will cost jobs. If it's not worth paying someone $10 an hour to do something, the job will be eliminated -- or it simply won't be created.

The minimum wage is the perfect Democratic issue. It will screw the very people it claims to help, while making Democrats look like saviors of the working class, either by getting them a higher wage or providing them with generous government benefits when they lose their jobs because of the mandatory wage hike.

Of course, the reason American workers’ wages are so low in the first place is because of the Democrats' policies on immigration. Republicans might want to point that out.

Since the late 1960s, the Democrats have been dumping about a million low-skilled immigrants on the country every year, driving down wages, especially at the lower end of the spectrum.

According to Harvard economist George Borjas, our immigration policies have reduced American wages by $402 billion a year -- while increasing profits for employers by $437 billion a year. (That's minus what they have to pay to the government in taxes to support their out-of-work former employees. Of course, we're all forced to share that tax burden.)


Or, as the White House puts it on its website promoting an increase in the minimum wage, "Today, the real value of the minimum wage has fallen by nearly one-third since its peak in 1968."

Why were wages so high until 1968? Because that's when Teddy Kennedy's 1965 Immigration Act kicked in, bringing in about a million immigrants a year, almost 90 percent of them unskilled workers from the Third World.

Our immigration policies massively redistribute wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest. It's a basic law of economics that when the supply goes up, the price goes down. More workers means the price of their labor plummets.

Unfortunately, politicians spend a lot more time talking to rich employers than to working-class Americans. And the rich apparently have an insatiable appetite for cheap labor.

Having artificially created a glut of low-wage workers, now Democrats want to artificially raise their wages.

It's win-win-win-win-win for Democrats.

-- Employees who get a higher minimum wage are grateful to the Democrats.

-- Employees who lose their jobs because of the minimum wage hike are grateful to the Democrats for generous government handouts.

-- Poor immigrants who need government benefits are grateful to the Democrats.

-- American businesses enjoying the deluge of cheap labor are grateful to the Democrats.

-- Democratic politicians guaranteed re-election by virtue of ethnic bloc voting are grateful to the Democrats.

Do Republicans have any principles at all? Why isn't the GOP demanding an end to this dump of unskilled workers/Democratic voters on the country?

Democrats show how much they love the poor by importing a million more of them to America each year. But then they prevent the last batch of poor immigrants from getting decent, well-paying jobs by bringing in another million poor people the next year.

You want a higher minimum wage? Turn off the spigot of low-wage workers pouring in to the U.S. and it will rise on its own through the iron law of supply and demand.

In response to the Democrats' minimum wage proposal, Republicans should introduce a bill ending both legal and illegal immigration until the minimum wage rises naturally to $14 an hour.

Australia has a $15 minimum wage for adults -- more than twice the U.S. minimum wage. Meanwhile, their official unemployment rate is lower than ours: 6 percent compared to 6.6 percent in the U.S. -- and that's with a lousy $7.25 minimum wage.

Sound good? Try immigrating there. Australia has some of the most restrictive immigration policies in the world. Their approach to immigration is to admit only people who will be good for Australia. (Weird!) Applicants are evaluated on a point system that gives preference to youth, English proficiency, education and skill level.

Similarly, New Zealand will soon have an official minimum wage of $14.25 for adults. Even our Democrats aren't proposing that! New Zealand's minimum wage hit $10.10 -- the Democrats' current proposal for us -- back in 2006. Their unemployment rate is also 6 percent -- up from several years of 4 percent unemployment a few years ago.

Like Australia, New Zealand's immigration laws are based on helping New Zealand, not on helping other countries get rid of their poor people, which is our policy.

Instead of training the citizenry to look at the government as our paternal benefactor, distributing minimum wage laws and unemployment benefits in important election years, why don't Republicans put an end to the artificial glut of low-wage, low-skilled workers being imposed on the country by our immigration laws?

Republicans could guarantee a $14 minimum wage simply by closing the pipeline of more than 1 million poor immigrants coming in every year.

Businessmen will gripe, but maybe the GOP could explain to their Chamber of Commerce friends that they will help them by slashing oppressive regulations, reining in government bureaucracies, passing tort reform, etc. They'll also be able to cut taxes because the welfare state will shrink, a result of Americans going back to work.

But if the plutocrats insist on admitting another 30 million Democratic voters in order to get ever-cheaper labor, then, soon, Republicans won't be in a position to help them at all.
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Offline aligncare

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Reading Ann Colter's commonsense makes me feel so good. Of course, then I feel bad when I remember there is no common sense in Washington DC. Kind of like, good news bad news.

Oceander

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Quote
The minimum wage is the perfect Democratic issue. It will screw the very people it claims to help, while making Democrats look like saviors of the working class, either by getting them a higher wage or providing them with generous government benefits when they lose their jobs because of the mandatory wage hike.

Very good point, particularly since a higher minimum wage is likely to be the jumping off point for raising the amount of the weekly unemployment benefit (after all, if today's minimum wage is unlivable, then today's unemployment comp payment must be unlivable too, right?).

Oceander

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Query:  are the dollar figures from AUS and NZ stated in US dollars or in AUS/NZ dollars, respectively?  The difference matters because of exchange rates.  Right now the AUS dollar is close to the US dollar - about AUS$1.12 to USD$1 - which makes AUS$15 roughly equal to USD$13.75.  Similarly, NZ$14.25 is equal to about USD$11.90.

In terms of immigration policies, there are a few problems with Ms. Coulter's comparisons with AUS and NZ: both are surrounded by the Pacific Ocean whereas the US has some of the longest land borders around.  Unless one has a fleet of stealthy mini-subs, it is rather difficult to sneak into AUS or NZ; not so in the US.  Why does that matter?  Because it means that AUS and NZ immigration policies are enforceable in a manner, and to a degree, not possible in the US.  It's substantially easier - orders of magnitude easier - to turn back a boatload of would-be illegal immigrants (they usually pose as asylum-seekers), or to even escort that boat back to the port from whence it sailed, than it is to try and nab small groups of individuals crossing the Rio Grande (or the Canadian border, let's not forget the Canucks) on foot, or even small groups of individuals holed up in trucks, etc, crossing the border:  every boat approaching the coast of AUS is spottable and once spotted, easily stopped; only a small percentage of the vehicles crossing the US/Mexico border at legal crossings can be searched without thoroughly disrupting the crossings for wholly legitimate crossers.

In other words, AUS and NZ can afford the luxury of strict immigration policies in large part because they can enforce those policies in ways that the US simply cannot.  Because of that, comparisons of the immigration policies of AUS and NZ viz. the US are fraught with peril and must be done very carefully, certainly with more care than can be accomplished as part of writing a daily (or even weekly) column.

Offline aligncare

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Spoken like a true lawyer. What's your subspecialty? Arguendo?  :beer:

Offline Bigun

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If you are unemployed it makes no difference what the minimum wage is!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
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Oceander

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Spoken like a true lawyer. What's your subspecialty? Arguendo?  :beer:

in this instance?  practicality