Minimum Wage

The Caveman Minimum Wage Argument

rafifarber Economics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Here’s an original approach to debunking wage minima.

Imagine that in 10,000 BCE, when humanity was just beginning to learn how to farm crops, that the minimum wage was $15 an hour in today’s value numbers.

Would there be a human race today?

The surprising answer is yes, because whatever government that may have existed back then would not have had the resources to enforce a minimum wage.

How much resources does it consume to enforce a minimum wage? How much money is minimum wage enforcement erasing from the incomes of the earners of minimum wage, e.g. those with skills JUST high enough to make it over the employment high-jump?

“Minimum Wage, so stupid, even a caveman wouldn’t do it.”

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How Obama Just Exacerbated Income Inequality With His Overtime Meshuga’as

rafifarber Economics , ,

In a fit of absolute genius the likes you wouldn’t see from a highly evolved muskrat, Obama today is forcing buyers of labor to pay more for that labor at any rate over 40 hours per week. He thinks this will mean that more workers will make more money. As in the total number of dollars spent on labor will rise because of this law.

What he doesn’t understand is that less workers will be making more money and the remainder will lose, because laws cannot magically increase the amount of money people are willing to spend on labor. Less people will make more money in order to equal out the total dollar amount spent. The others will either be cut to part time or fired.

What happens is we go from a situation of relative equality, where say:

100 people make $100 overtime, for a total overtime dollar amount of $10,000

To a situation of less equality where:

90 people make $111.11 overtime for a total dollar amount, again, of $10,000, and the other 10 people have zero.

Therefore, overtime legislation creates income inequality. 

Obama doesn’t think. Therefore he isn’t.

The Secret $30 Minimum Wage for Jews Only

rafifarber Economics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Note to the economically illiterate: This is a joke. None of it is true.

Gentiles always want to know why Jews are so successful. The answer is, higher minimum wage. By Jewish law, Jews must be paid at least $30 an hour regardless of what they do, meaning that even Jews who sweep the floors of McDonald’s (without eating any of the Big Macs of course) can afford to buy humongous houses after only a few years of savings, while other floor sweepers can barely afford a crawl space.

Since Jews are not allowed to work for anything below $30 according to Halacha, employers are forced to pay Jews higher wages, which is why Jews are so rich. Even though non Jews who are not subject to the $30 Jewish minimum wage Halacha could theoretically undercut expensive Jewish labor, that never actually happens. Employers are glad to spend enormous sums of money on Jews just because what the hell.

We all know employers are rich enough to pay anything Jews tell them to. They own a business for God’s sake! How can you own a business but not be able to afford to pay more than your workers produce? If you own a business, you’re rich. You should pay your Jews more.

The secret to wealth is not production. It’s law. The only reason the Talmud didn’t jack up the Jewish minimum wage to $1,000,000 an hour, even though that would certainly work fine (business owners are rich after all) is that the Rabbis had pity on non Jews who wouldn’t be able to afford anything if all the Jews were earning $1 million an hour.

There would be no more Shabbos goys. It would be a terrible problem.

So, if America wants to fix its economy, all it needs to do is put people who work for and employ others at $29 an hour or below, in jail. That way, everyone will be rich, just like the Jews.