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Steve Landsburg’s tolerance for watching politicians perform for the public seems to be no higher than my own.

Mark Perry expands on the observation that employers of low-skilled workers adjust to minimum-wage hikes along a host of different margins, nearly all of which adjustments make many low-skilled workers worse off as a result of minimum-wage hikes.  A slice:

That is, to the extent that minimum wage increases are completely offset by employers naturally reducing the non-wage attributes offered to their employees to remain profitable, even unskilled workers who remain employed will not necessarily be better off from a minimum wage hike. Their total compensation could stay the same, or maybe even be reduced if the reductions in non-wage attributes more than offset the artificial increase in monetary wages. In the same way that a tenant who is able to find a rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan will pay a below-market rent, but will also have to live in a necessarily reduced-quality housing unit, the unskilled worker who manages to keep or find a job following an above-market minimum wage hike will likely work in a reduced-quality work environment with significantly reduced non-wage attributes.

Also from Mark Perry is this additional contribution about some ugly consequences of the minimum wage.

Rich Lowry highlights some of the many facts of reality that must hold if Bernie Sanders is correct that the U.S. economy is “designed” by the “billionaire class” for the benefit of billionaires.

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, ask yourself – following Warren Meyer – if you’d rather live in a low-income household in America or in a low-income household in Denmark or Sweden.

Steve Horwitz productively expounds upon a point that was a favorite of the late Armen Alchain – namely, in Steve’s words, “Competition is not a product of living in a capitalist society — it’s a product of not living in heaven.“

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