Ben Weingarten

Reader. Writer. Thinker. Commentator. Truth Seeker.

Tag: Minimum Wage

Dennis Prager on the Self-Righteously Suicidal West and False Morality, the Disaster of Jewish Leftism, Intentions Versus Outcomes on the Left and Right, Western Values and Immigration, Social Media Censorship and PragerU


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My Guest

Dennis Prager (@DennisPrager) is a nationally syndicated radio host, columnist, author of numerous books, teacher, film producer and co-founder of Prager University — and these titles barely scratch the surface of his tireless and impactful efforts.

In a word, he has dedicated his life to advocating for Judeo-Christian and American values and principles across every medium almost daily to millions of people around the world with uncommon common sense, moral clarity and courage.

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When Progressive Policies Cause Creative Destruction

Be sure to check out my latest article over at The Federalist, where I examine the collision course we are on between technological advancement/automation and progressive policies that are ironically causing technological advancement/automation to accelerate, low-skill progressive voters be damned.

Here’s a taste:

For years now, we have seen headlines foretelling a doomsday scenario in which mass numbers of Americans are thrown out of work, replaced by computers, robots, and other time-saving, liability-minimizing machines. Human capital is not static, and not all process changes will happen all at once. Different industries evolve at different speeds, and human beings are adaptive. Yet it is only natural that businesses need continually seek ways to lower costs to profit and survive, and automation is a key means by which to do so.

In an age in which the “deadweight loss” attributable to taxes, compliance, and hyper-regulation is massive, automation will become far cheaper than having to hire, train, and pay severance to human beings. Since regulation is the mother of innovation, so artificially high costs from other forms of government intervention will force businesses to innovate by first replacing full-time workers with temporary ones, and eventually with cost-effective machines that do not require health and welfare benefits and pensions.

This presents an interesting conundrum for a Progressive coalition that relies in part upon the very poor. To the degree to which large-scale Progressive reforms like Obamacare and the recently popular $15 minimum wage raises the cost of doing business, the move to automate will only accelerate, hurting most those lower-skilled, generally poorer constituencies, which happen to be politically Progressive. This “creative destruction” will be an unwelcome development to many manual laborers, a betrayal to the Progressive political class.

Read the whole thing here.

The Left’s Minimum Wage ‘Compassion’ Actually Reflects Contempt for Entry Level Workers and Entrepreneurs

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Steve Caldeira, CEO of the International Franchise Association, alerts us to the latest plan to ensure “economic justice” through raising worker pay by government decree.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, believing that the Empire State is free from the strictures of supply and demand curves — or more likely that he must appease Big Labor — is promoting a plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour from $8.75 an hour for workers in fast-food restaurants with 30 or more locations.

Supply Demand

(Image Source: Danieljmitchell.wordpress.com)

Such a plan may be politically astute — how can anyone be so heartless as to oppose higher pay — but its practical effects will illustrate that as with most all such policies, progressives hurt most those those they purport to want to help.

As Caldeira notes, when prices are set by fiat, you get adverse consequences. Under Gov. Cuomo’s plan:

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