Category Archives: Economics

Jobs For Young People

Want to destroy them? Raise the minimum wage.

One of the reasons that I’m not a Republican is that they won’t argue over principle. They’ll concede it to the Democrats, and then just negotiate the price. They shouldn’t be arguing that it shouldn’t be raised — they should be arguing that it shouldn’t exist, on both principle of freedom of contract, and on its devastating effects on youth unemployment, particularly in the inner cities. The notion that there should be a single minimum wage applicable to all fifty states is both odious and ludicrous.

How Dare You?!

Daniel Hannan has a good piece on the NHS:

The elision of the “hardworking doctors and nurses” with the state monopoly that employs them is what allows opponents of reform to shout down any criticism. People who complain are treated, not as wronged consumers, but as pests. People who argue that there might be a better way of organising the system are treated, not as proponents of a different view, but as enemies.

Any organisation that is spared criticism becomes, over time, inefficient, insensitive, intolerant. It has happened to the United Nations. It has happened to the mega-charities. It happened, for a long time, to the European Union (though not over the past five years). The more lofty the ideal, the more reluctant people are to look at the grubby reality.

We can’t let that happen here. I’m sure that many of the people behind this legislative atrocity would love to jail its critics, if they could.