Minimum Wage

I am familiar with Thomas Sowell's and Walter Williams' work about minimum wages, how detrimental they are and, esp, how they target, in very negative not positive ways, minorities. I was reminded of this in a story about American Samoa. Apparently, thanks to an act of Congress, increasing the minimum wage there to what it is here ($7.25 an hour?), the scenario is unfolding the same way again. Star Kist Tuna had a canning plant there, employing about 2200 Samoans. 200 of them got nice hefty raises, while 2000 of them got laid off--Star Kist moved much of the plant's production to another place. So, let's see, the do-gooders (or should we say the do-do gooders?) really helped 200 Samoans. I wonder what the other 2000 think of the minimum wage law???? And, my guess is that the $3.20 an hour the Samoans made at Star Kist was a pretty healthy wage for them and their circumstances. This has happened over and over again.

There's a reason the young adult unemployment rate is about 25%, with the unemployment rate for young blacks almost double that. Who wants to pay some surly, unskilled, lazy, unconscientious kid almost $8 an hour????? Obviously, not many. I don't know if you remember a few years ago, without any help from our know-it-all elected officials, "the anointed," a Burger Doodle counter job was in excess of the minimum wage. Flipping burgs earned more money than the minimum. Gee, I wonder why. More, I wonder why our representatives know--or if they even thought about it.

This reminds me of a definition of a "liberal" that I heard once. If a man is drowning and a liberal walks by, he hurriedly runs to the dock, finds a life buoy, and throws it to the drowning man. When the man grabs it, the liberal congratulates himself, lets go of the end of the line, and walks away to do another good deed. Of course, the conservative must also walk by. He, too, rushes to find the life buoy, but throws it 20 feet away from the drowning man and then encourages him to swim to the buoy "for your own good." Hmmm....if the man could swim, why would he be drowning?

And these are the Bozos, of both parties, making decisions that will affect, if not dominate, our lives--and we continue to let them, with nary a peep of protest.