I had a chat with a liberal...
I had the joy of taking a plane trip the other day for work (joy? yea right) On the first leg of a two stop return flight I sat next to a woman in her mid 60's named June. She was very nice and we chatted the entire time of our 1 hour 30 minute flight. After talk of job and family, the conversation turned towards politics in a way.
June was against the Vietnam war and was a member of many protests during that time. Now, we covered many topics that relate to hers and mine view of politics but I wanted to discuss one with you here.
At one point the issue of high prices of commodities and the stagnation of wages came up. June exclaimed that she loved Obama and her greatest wish was that he would follow through on his promise to bypass congress with his executive orders. One order she wished he would pass was one that would mandate all companies raise their minimum wage to over $10/hour so that people would have more money. Sounds simple enough right?
I am a fan of the free market system, so I paused at that point, looked her in the eyes and explained the following. "June, if companies are forced to raise minimum wage how are they going to pay for that? They are going to either raise the price of their goods or they are going to lay people off. Now you're paying even more for their services which negates the wage increase, or they're firing people, which hurts the economy even more."
She then responded, "Well, COSTCO has raised their minimum wage already! And they are hiring people. "Yes" I said, "because due to their operating expenses or business model they decided they can afford to do that so they freely did it." She then said "Well, if they can do it other companies can do it as well, and if they don't then they won't be able to hire workers and they'll go out of business."
"EXACTLY!" I said, "that is how the free market works!" "You don't force companies to do it because you wind up hurting everyone. You allow the free market system to work by limiting regulations and ending smothering oversight and companies thrive. The workers are out there and they'll work for business that pay the highest wages so companies will have to compete to hire labor, thus raising the minimum wage naturally. Everyone wins"
After a couple seconds pause, June mouthed a disappointing "huh..."
Another poor liberal has been awoken.
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June was against the Vietnam war and was a member of many protests during that time. Now, we covered many topics that relate to hers and mine view of politics but I wanted to discuss one with you here.
At one point the issue of high prices of commodities and the stagnation of wages came up. June exclaimed that she loved Obama and her greatest wish was that he would follow through on his promise to bypass congress with his executive orders. One order she wished he would pass was one that would mandate all companies raise their minimum wage to over $10/hour so that people would have more money. Sounds simple enough right?
I am a fan of the free market system, so I paused at that point, looked her in the eyes and explained the following. "June, if companies are forced to raise minimum wage how are they going to pay for that? They are going to either raise the price of their goods or they are going to lay people off. Now you're paying even more for their services which negates the wage increase, or they're firing people, which hurts the economy even more."
She then responded, "Well, COSTCO has raised their minimum wage already! And they are hiring people. "Yes" I said, "because due to their operating expenses or business model they decided they can afford to do that so they freely did it." She then said "Well, if they can do it other companies can do it as well, and if they don't then they won't be able to hire workers and they'll go out of business."
"EXACTLY!" I said, "that is how the free market works!" "You don't force companies to do it because you wind up hurting everyone. You allow the free market system to work by limiting regulations and ending smothering oversight and companies thrive. The workers are out there and they'll work for business that pay the highest wages so companies will have to compete to hire labor, thus raising the minimum wage naturally. Everyone wins"
After a couple seconds pause, June mouthed a disappointing "huh..."
