You have a good point that a sudden large jump in the minimum wage would be disruptive. I believe everyone understands that. Rises in minimum by more than small amounts are phased in. In the present case, the minimum is so far below where it needs to be for a sound economy that a rise to say 12-15/hr would have to be phased in over many months, but of course at a rate significantly greater than the inflation rate, or nothing would be gained.
Actually, the slave model is much closer to the model that you and bernie push. It's just that the employees are no longer the slaves. Under your system, the business owners would be the slaves.
you can't really believe that kabuki bullshit. he was lowering rates during a bubble so his bosses could make bigger bonuses and profits and so the FED cronies could place 1.5 trillion worth of crap seconds with China... and then well they blew up...convert them to tax payer backed treasuries. It was all so disgustingly greedly... almost blew up the world system and not for the moment was it due to naivete or Ayn Rand.
it's just common knowledge. If you are in business it is your job to keep all costs, including labor, and taxes and regulations and who knows what all as low as possible.
I agree, it's about the last tool we have to use. And you know what the British say about the Americans, "After exhausting all other options they usually do the right thing."
Well, that would be exactly my point! When you depend on your employees being subsidized by the taxpayer to maximize profits, you have "divorced" wages from what should be a sound capitalist business model and become a business partner with the government. We have done that to a damaging extent. We must correct that situation. I am a capitalist through and through, and I understand that for capitalism to maintain itself in the long run, against the forces that would want to destroy it, we capitalists must act responsibly against our baser instincts. We must avoid relying on taxpayer subsidized wages for greater profits, if we want to avoid the defects in capitalism that can lead us toward fascism. I have no interest in pursuing policies that can end at the Guillotine, to speak figuratively, I hope. From both the capitalist and the taxpayer's viewpoint, wages that are too low are a bad idea.
There is no "free" market, exactly. Markets need rules and regulations in place for commerce to exist. The question is, who writes the rules and whom do they favor? Think "lobby."
Greenspan blew bubbles by keeping rates to low and then bernanke did the same and now yellen. None of them are doing anything different at all. Except more. They're all subjecting this country to economic chaos. They are all guilty. Yet we have people on here that say greenspan's policies were bad and bernanke and yellen's are good. How can this be? The fed is doing the same thing it's done for decades. I'll tell you how. Because the left is filled with krugmans. Easy money under bush was horrible because it helped to prop up Bush. Easy money under obama is awesome because it props him up. And if hillary is elected, they'll be all for more easy monetary policy and if trump is elected, they'll do nothing but whine about the idiocy of printing money.