David Henderson offers a crystal-clear example of why a hike in the minimum wage might destroy no jobs today but will do so tomorrow – or, stated differently, why an expected hike in the minimum wage tomorrow might prevent the creation of jobs both today and tomorrow. (More generally, as George Stigler explained 70 years ago in the pages of the American Economic Review, even if existing employers refuse to alter their production arrangements and their labor contracts in the wake of a minimum-wage hike, competitive forces will ensure that over time jobs for many low-skilled workers are nevertheless destroyed.)
An entrepreneur responds to Bernie Sanders. (HT Elizabeth Higgs)
On the same general topic is Shikha Dalmia.
Barry Brownstein asks if tribalism is the worst idea in history.
Giacomo Lev Mannheimer explains how China went capitalist.
George Will has yet more on the truly loathsome and dangerous Donald Trump. Here’s the opening:
Donald Trump’s distinctive rhetorical style – think of a drunk with a bullhorn reading aloud James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” under water – poses an almost insuperable challenge to people whose painful duty is to try to extract clarity from his effusions. For example, on Friday, during a long stream of semi-consciousness in Fort Worth, this man who as president would nominate members of the federal judiciary vowed to “open up” libel laws to make it easier to sue – to intimidate and punish – people who write “negative” things. Well.
Trump, the thin-skinned tough guy, resembles a campus crybaby who has wandered out of his “safe space.” It is not news that he has neither respect for nor knowledge of the Constitution, and he probably is unaware that he would have to “open up” many Supreme Court First Amendment rulings in order to achieve his aim. His obvious aim is to chill free speech, for the comfort of the political class, of which he is now a gaudy ornament.
