If You Support Higher Minimum Wages, You Hate Bookstores

[Valin]

Washington Free Beacon:

You don't hate bookstores. Do you?

Sonny Bunch

February 3, 2015

 

When you increase the minimum wage, a business is forced to do one, or both, of the following things in order to continue earning a profit.

 

The first thing they can do is decrease the amount of labor they purchase and squeeze more efficiency out of said labor. Oftentimes, this is accomplished by automating work. This is why most fast food joints “allow” you to pour your own soda and bus your own table: They are getting you to perform the labor rather than paying someone to do the same. Similarly, this is why some burger joints are experimenting with machines that literally make the burgers automatically. Fewer people in the kitchen means less labor purchased. This is why the CBO projected that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 could cost half-a-million jobs.

 

After all the excess labor has been trimmed/replaced by mechanization, there’s a second thing that businesses can do: increase their prices. This is easier to do in some businesses than other. Starbucks adds 20 cents to everyone’s order, et voila. (Fast food outlets are in a slightly tighter spot than gourmet coffee shops; the whole reason to go to McDonald’s is because it’s quick and cheap.) Some businesses don’t really have that option, however. Consider, for instance, your friendly neighborhood bookstore.

 

Now, book stores are a dying breed in general thanks to stiff competition (read: low prices) from Amazon, the digitization of books, and the revitalization of urban centers, which has caused rents to climb in recent years. They’re operating on pretty tight budgets as it is. So what happens to a book store when, on top of genuine market pressures, the government foists a costly—and entirely artificial—mandate on it?

 

Gee, you’ll never guess:

 

 

(Snip)

 

 

[Cyber_Liberty]

The Capitalist pig. He's just being mean to his employees. Because he can.

[Pepper]

@Valin

 

Excellent spokesman for the little man, Mr. Alan Beatts.

 

He leads off with, no I am not against paying minimum wage - but I am against paying that minimum wage.

 

 

Also, do the math: at the worst Mr. Alan Beatts, the store owner, is going to be paying $30,000 a year EXTRA

 

(3 minimum wage employees x 2000 hours a year x 5 dollars an hour increase)

 

 

And listen to the one feminista dim bulb Mika Brzezinski state with such a know it all attitude and condescension:

 

$15 dollars more an hour

 

"that shouldn't put you under"

 

She must not have taken basic math within the past decade.

[Draggingtree]

Yes, Minimum Wages Still Increase Unemployment

FEBRUARY 9, 2015Andrew Syrios

 

Raising the minimum wage has become the cause célèbre for many on the progressive left. Most notably, Seattle has passed a$15 per hour minimum wage. In addition, California lawmakers are trying to pass a state-wide $13 per hour minimum wage and President Obama is supporting the increase of the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10.

 

The general public has generally been pretty ignorant regarding economics, so it’s understandable that many would fall for hollow populist appeals. However, a series of new studies on the minimum wage purport to show a low or non-existent impact on unemployment. Seventy-five notable economists evensigned a petition to President Obama to raise the minimum wage.

 

This would seem at odds with basic economic theory. After all, demand curves are downward sloping, aren’t they? At some point, an increase in the minimum wage has got to cost jobs. If the minimum wage was increased to $100 per hour, obviously that would cost a lot of jobs. No one would disagree with this. So in that case, why wouldn’t increasing it to $10.10 per hour cost some jobs, right?

http://mises.org/library/yes-minimum-wages-still-increase-unemployment

[Valin]

Yes, Minimum Wages Still Increase Unemployment

FEBRUARY 9, 2015Andrew Syrios

 

 

 

Obviously Andrew forgot to factor in the amazing properties of Pixie Dust!

"All you need is a little faith, trust, and pixie dust."

Peter Pan....world famous economist.