From cb07b3d317566c801ac1f6c05c4e3c16c6226083 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Preston Pan Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2022 16:16:36 -0800 Subject: add 404 page --- build/website/economics/source/minimum_wage.ms | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 66 insertions(+) create mode 100644 build/website/economics/source/minimum_wage.ms (limited to 'build/website/economics/source') diff --git a/build/website/economics/source/minimum_wage.ms b/build/website/economics/source/minimum_wage.ms new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3adc1f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/build/website/economics/source/minimum_wage.ms @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ +.TL +The Minimum Wage +.AU +Preston Pan +.AI +Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry +.LP +.I "Ludwig Von Mises, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, and Richard Wolff enter a room; they are invited to an international conference about the minimum wage and its effects on the economy" + +.LP +.B "MC:" +Now let's start International Conference of Economic prosperity! Our first panel topic is on the impacts of the minimum wage. +We'll let the guests introduce themselves. + +.LP +.B "Mises: " +I am very honored to be invited to this conference. My very simple stance on the minimum wage is that it tends +to hurt the poor, decreases total production by businesses, and tends to hurt small businesses. +All of this is known from fundamental laws of human action; people make purposeful decisions and the +sum of the purposeful actions makes up the entire economy. Prices reflect actions of those individuals; +they aren't a tool to opress people, it's an emergent system's way of allocating resources, making +decisions, and contributing information in a decentralised way, in the same way that hormones do in +the human body. For this reason, I am confident that the minimum wage is a bad idea economically. + +.LP +.B "Milton Friedman: " +I am very much the same as Mises. I do not support the minimum wage as a policy; I think it hurts the poor, +specifically black americans, where the minimum wage does not allow black americans to take low wage jobs +and gain work experience which would eventually allow them to take higher wage jobs. We know this from +model of basic supply and demand, and we have confirmed this model time and time again. We have even +confirmed the model specifically for minimum wage from a study that my student conducted, +solidifying my confidence in this claim. + +.LP +.B "Paul Krugman" +Well, I respect Milton Friedman but he's a little old school in his thinking. As for Mises, +everything that he said was ideology and not falsifiable. It's just not the way we conduct +science anymore, and any respectable economist would agree. We use the tools of empericism +in economics in order to come to conclusions because that way we can run numbers, do studies, +and essentially overcome internal bias and ideology. Anyhow, I do respect Mr. Friedman and +he is one of my heros, but his old school thinking leads him to not believe in the minimum +wage being beneficial. Many more recent studies were published basically replicating +the Card and Kreuger study and I find this result to confirm that every economist should agree +to a federal minimum wage of at least $12. I think the proposal to raise it to $15 would +work as well. + +.LP +.B "Richard Wolff: " +In the capitalist system we have now, it would be good to increase the bargaining power +of workers. It seems like both Mr. Friedman and Mises don't understand the concept +of a labor monopsony, which means that there is a sole purchaser of labor in a given +region. This happens often and monopsonies in our country are exploiting our workers +today. Mr. Friedman and Mises are both going to be lost in the march of history; +before it was slave owner and slave, then it was the monarch and the peasant, and +now it's the captialist and the employee, yet they are defending what is the logical +extension of unfair and arbitrary power hiearchies that have been present throughout +history. I am afraid that the capitalist system will logically be swept under the rug +of time, and that Mises and Milton Friedman both will be remembered as dinosaurs are +today. + +.LP +.B "MC: " +Thanks for the opening statements! Now the floor goes to our participants. + +.LP +.B "Mises: " -- cgit