The Morning Roar: CA Lawmaker Wants a $26 Minimum Wage, Derrick Grayson Travels To The Bundy Ranch, And The Danger Of Libertarianism
Welcome to your Monday edition of The Morning Roar! Happy Cinco De Mayo!CA Lawmaker Wants a $26 Minimum WageCalifornia Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee appeared on CNN's "Crossfire," hosted by former Obama administration Czar of "Green Jobs" and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The panel was discussing the proposal to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour. Thing got interesting when Gingrich asked the congresswoman about Seattle's mayor raising the minimum wage to $15. The Daily Caller reported on what happened next.
“Let me ask you this question, you’re a good advocate for this,” Gingrich asked Lee. “The mayor of Seattle is proposing that the minimum wage ought to go up to $15 an hour.”“Good for him,” Lee responded. “In California — more than likely, from what I remembered — a living wage where people could live and take care of their families and move toward achieving the American dream was about $25, $26 an hour.”“So would you support that as a minimum wage for California?” Gingrich asked.“Absolutely I would support it for California. I think the regional factors –”“And you don’t think that’d have an effect on unemployment?” Gingrich interrupted.“No, Newt, trust me, believe you me,” Lee replied, “you’d have a more productive workforce, you’d have people who could afford to live in areas now where they cannot afford to live. You would increase diversity in certain communities where you don’t have diversity anymore. You would have economic parity and the income gap would begin to close.”
A little over a year ago we addressed the topic of a set minimum wage in an installment of our weekly feature Mondays With Murray. The article includes an excerpt from Rothbard's book Making Economic Sense:
In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period. The law says: it is illegal, and therefore criminal, for anyone to hire anyone else below the level of X dollars an hour. This means, plainly and simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed and hence that there will be a large amount of unemployment. Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result.All demand curves are falling, and the demand for hiring labor is no exception. Hence, laws that prohibit employment at any wage that is relevant to the market (a minimum wage of 10 cents an hour would have little or no impact) must result in outlawing employment and hence causing unemployment.If the minimum wage is, in short, raised from $3.35 to $4.55 an hour, the consequence is to disemploy, permanently, those who would have been hired at rates in between these two rates. Since the demand curve for any sort of labor (as for any factor of production) is set by the perceived marginal productivity of that labor, this means that the people who will be disemployed and devastated by this prohibition will be precisely the “marginal” (lowest wage) workers, e.g. blacks and teenagers, the very workers whom the advocates of the minimum wage are claiming to foster and protect.The advocates of the minimum wage and its periodic boosting reply that all this is scare talk and that minimum wage rates do not and never have caused any unemployment. The proper riposte is to raise them one better; all right, if the minimum wage is such a wonderful anti-poverty measure, and can have no unemployment-raising effects, why are you such pikers? Why you are helping the working poor by such piddling amounts? Why stop at $4.55 an hour? Why not $10 an hour? $100? $1,000?It is obvious that the minimum wage advocates do not pursue their own logic, because if they push it to such heights, virtually the entire labor force will be disemployed. In short, you can have as much unemployment as you want, simply by pushing the legally minimum wage high enough.
The minimum wage eliminates jobs by making employing people below a certain rate illegal. There was a time when most gas stations had attendants, many hotels had bellhops, and there was no such thing as self check-out at the grocery store. The reason these things have changed can in large part be attributed to the minimum wage. The wage rate where these job functions add value to a business is below the minimum wage, so rather than raise the pay rate for these jobs, companies have adapted by eliminating the position or replacing the role with a technological substitute.Derrick Grayson Travels To The Bundy RanchRecent Lions of Liberty Podcast guest and Georgia Republican Senate candidate Derrick Greyson, aka TMOT, is heading out to Nevada to show support for rancher Cliven Bundy. Bundy's dispute with the Bureau of Land Management came to a head last month when the agency attempted to seize Bundy's cattle off of the federally-owned land the cattle had been grazing on for 100 years.The BLM backed down, for now, but since the stand-off with federal agents Bundy has gotten himself into hot water with the mainstream media over some comments on race that were at worst racist and at best not politically correct. Ben Swann pointed out that only a portion of Bundy's exchange with the media was blasted over the airways, the full context of what Bundy said was not reported on.This begs the question: why would Derrick Grayson, a black minister (he hates the term African-American) that is running for Senate in Georgia, travel to Nevada to meet with a man that may think he is superior to Grayson based purely on skin color? And why would Derrick Grayson go to Nevada now, when the Republican primary for Senate is only a little more than two weeks away?Well thanks to the wonders of social media we can hear directly from the Derrick Grayson for Senate campaign on the official campaign Facebook page. The following message was posted on Saturday:
Ok, we shall make this official. 3 of #TEAMGRAYSON are 30,000ft over the Santa Fe, New Mexico, headed into Vegas. I know it was said that I would visit Mr Bundy if the people who resist the overreach of the BLM presists. Well, Harry Reid's threat of "This isnt over" is VERY real. So, my team and I bought our own tickets to head out and support our own, Jason Patrick, who has sacrificed 2 long weeks of his life to be there. Time to put my words into actions. I dont run from the fight for the people of our nations. I run TO the fight!
Video of Derrick Grayson speaking with Cliven Bundy was posted on bambuser.com (the wind is bad at the beginning of the interview, but Mr. Grayson is speaking truth throughout.)Do you think the media will cover a black Senate candidate from Georgia traveling to Nevada to speak with a presumed racist? No, they won't. Because, much like Ron Paul, those in control don't want you to hear the message of liberty carried by Derrick Grayson.I do not know if Cliven Bundy is a racist or just a politically incorrect speaker. I do not know what's in his heart. What I do know is that Mr. Bundy and Mr. Grayson have something in common. They are both challenging the State. The two of them sitting down and having a conversation provides evidence that the message of liberty brings people together from all walks of life. Liberty unites, the State divides.Lions of Liberty Podcast Ep. 31: Derrick Grayson aka TMOT!Why Is Libertarianism So DangerousI came across this video on my daily liberty interwebbing. It is an extremely powerful video that starts by answering a simple question: What would happen if the State ceased to exist tomorrow?I don't want to spoil the video, it was put together by the "School Sucks Podcast" (not the most eloquent name for sure), but it is a great video to share and to use as a communication tool with those that do not understand how libertarians can view the State as a gang of thieves.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbNFJK1ZpVgRead The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
