Tag Archives: Economics/Finance

The Huge Economic Productivity of Divine Monarchs

Republished from The Unz Review When I first began investigating the minimum wage a couple of years ago, one of my early surprises was its sharp decline across the decades, having fallen by roughly one-third in real value since its … Continue reading

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Raising the National Minimum Wage to (Almost) $12 per Hour

Republished from The Unz Review Earlier this week unfortunate Americans were shown the advantages of a functioning political system as the German government announced it would establish a minimum wage of $8.50 Euros or almost $12 per hour. In the past Germany … Continue reading

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Pelosi vs. Boehner on the Minimum Wage?

Republished from The Unz Review House Speaker John Boehner, the highest ranking Republican in America, has famously declared that he’d rather commit suicide than pass a minimum wage increase.  Meanwhile, California’s own Nancy Pelosi, his opposite number, is a strong supporter … Continue reading

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Banquo’s Ghost as a Minimum Wage Initiative

Republished from The Unz Review In all respects except one, the last week couldn’t have been better for my California initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $12 per hour, the highest in the America. NPR broadcast a remarkably long … Continue reading

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Understanding the CBO Analysis of a Minimum Wage Hike

Republished from The Unz Review Three weeks ago the powerful political momentum favoring a large minimum wage hike received a major setback as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its report indicating that the Democratic goal of raising the minimum wage to … Continue reading

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A Moderate Democratic Billionaire and a Moderate Republican Billionaire

Republished from The Unz Review An important story ran Saturday ran in the Los Angeles Times: Bid to hike L.A. minimum wage gets pair of powerful backers As the L.A. City Council examines the ‘living wage’ issue, philanthropist Eli Broad and … Continue reading

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The Conservative Case for a Higher Minimum Wage

Republished from Fox & Hounds Daily Over the last couple of months the minimum wage has moved into the political headlines, but most of the arguments for raising it have come from liberals.  That’s fine, but since I’m not a … Continue reading

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Higher Minimum Wage Would Help Immigrants, Taxpayers

Republished from The San Jose Mercury News Millions of California immigrants work in low-wage service industries. They would be among the greatest beneficiaries of our ballot initiative to raise the state minimum wage to $12 per hour. Latinos, many of … Continue reading

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Raising the Minimum Wage Isn’t an “Anti-Immigrant” Idea

Republished from The Unz Review Simple ideas buoyed by a tidal wave of popular sentiment are difficult to oppose, and subterfuge is one of the favored methods. National support for raising the minimum wage runs between 70% and 75% in … Continue reading

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The Minimum Wage and Illegal Immigration

Republished from The Unz Review Although our school textbooks claim we live in a democracy or a representative republic, a more accurate formulation might label our polity a “mediocracy.” Our views and votes as well as those of our elected … Continue reading

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Rightwingers for Higher Wages

Republished from The Unz Review In my last column I had noted that the national debate over poverty and inequality had drawn a peculiar response from mainstream conservatives. Whereas liberals advocated making work pay by raising the minimum wage, their conservative counterparts … Continue reading

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Open Borders, American Elites, and the Minimum Wage

Read at The Unz Review Last week I took a brief break from two months of concentrated software development effort on my new publication The Unz Review to travel to NYC for a debate on a hypothetical “Open Borders” proposal for private … Continue reading

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NR on TNR on Unz on Minimum Wage/Immigration

Over the weekend, a leading financial voice at National Review—central ideological pillar of the mainstream American Right—gingerly endorsed my suggestion that a $12.00 per hour minimum wage be required as part of any Congressional immigration legislation. Perhaps miracles do indeed sometimes … Continue reading

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American Pravda: ZeroHedge

For years futurists have been regularly prophesizing that the power of the Internet will level the playing field between the mighty and the weak, and one more nugget of evidence that this day is finally dawning has now come to … Continue reading

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No Immigration Amnesty Without a Minimum Wage Hike

No Immigration Amnesty Without a Minimum Wage Hike Salon, May 18, 2013 Congress is currently considering bipartisan legislation providing an amnesty for America’s 11 million illegal immigrants, probably combined with extra visas for skilled workers and an agricultural guestworker program. … Continue reading

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Oops!!

With all eyes and all headlines fixed so intently upon Boston’s two Caucasian Bombers, hardly anyone has been paying attention to revelations of a far more devastating disaster that unfolded close nearby, but which were generally buried on the inside … Continue reading

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A Minimum Wage Hike as Amnesty-Killer?

My Friday Aspen Institute panel in DC on raising the minimum wage went well, though the discussion underscored the somewhat insular thinking of many of the policy elites who dominate life in our capital city. As an example, although the audience … Continue reading

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Resurrecting Our Intellectual Past

As many may know, I have spent most of the last decade or more producing a content-archiving website that provides convenient, readable access to over 500,000 print articles from the 19th and 20th centuries, together with hundreds of thousands of … Continue reading

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Undoing the Minimization of Wages in America

The front page of this morning’s New York Times carried a story highlighting the growing discontent of working-class Americans whose “wages have floundered” over the last few years despite the “record levels” of corporate profits. Although this discontent may seem somewhat … Continue reading

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The Minimum Wage, Immigration, and Affirmative Action

Earlier this week Washington Post Columnist Matt Miller published an excellent piece making the case for a large increase in the federal minimum wage, including arguments drawn from a wide range of prominent business and political figures, as well as … Continue reading

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Unz on Meritocracy: Picking Our Elites at Random?

Given the enormous length of my Meritocracy package—over 35,000 words including sidebar, endnotes, and appendices—it’s hardly surprising that certain parts have received a great deal of discussion, while others have not. For example, my suggestion that our top universities now … Continue reading

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Paying Tuition to a Giant Hedge Fund

Now read “Paying Tuition to a Giant Hedge Fund” at The Unz Review From its 1636 foundation Harvard had always ranked as America’s oldest and most prestigious college, even as it gradually grew in size and academic quality during the first three centuries … Continue reading

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Raising American Wages…by Raising American Wages

Now read “Raising American Wages…by Raising American Wages” at The Unz Review With Americans still trapped in the fifth year of our Great Recession, and median personal income having been essentially stagnant for forty years, perhaps we should finally admit … Continue reading

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Unz on the Minimum Wage – Bloomberg Editors Say “Let’s Make a Deal…”

With our chattering classes now totally focused on the overriding question of whether the political contributions of Romney’s Wall Street cronies or those of Obama will first reach the billion dollar mark, only a few scattered voices have focused on … Continue reading

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Unz on Immigration – Politics and CNN/Fortune

As everyone is well aware, the last 72 hours have seen an astonishing transformation in the American political landscape, with a pugnacious Newt Gingrich coming from far behind to crush Mitt Romney in South Carolina, and now take a substantial … Continue reading

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