Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for March 30, 2014

…no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. - Franklin Delano Roosevelt-Watch out for the trolls today.

Didn’t they use up all the fairy tales for the climate change hoax?

Thank you Garrrrrrry for calling the kettle a fake.

Since we believe raising it to $53.91/hour would probably hurt the economy, at what level would a higher minimum wage cease to help the economy?That’s what I want.

@Night-Gaunt49That’s why he was a Democrat.

US currently ranks 11th among nations with a minimum wage. Australia is first at 15 AUD, 13.87 USD at the current exchange rate.

I’m sure they still exist. They’re just called “traitors” more often.

everybody eventually loses when people work full time and live like serfs while the government picks up the tab for the oligarchy to keep the serfs from starving – though the oligarchy seems to benefit for the short term, that is until the return of the guillotine.

Let’s have a maximum wage not to exceed POTUS.

Gee, I taught economics for 20+ years, wages have only a small effect on prices. Perhaps a ‘refresher’ course in econ would help you.

How about CEOs earn no more than 20 times the lowest paid employee? That would still let them live pretty high on the hog and would surely still be sufficient incentive to encourage people to aspire to climb the employment ladder if they wished to.

The only “fantasy” is in the minds of the Democrats. They call us “trolls” for telling them truth they can’t handle.

Why does anyone care what the minimum is as long as the CEO makes 10,000 times the lowest paid worker?

He was considered a traitor to his class even then

United States had a cold winter, but this was not true elsewhere in the world. Climate change is a global phenomena.

Only a very minimal amount of increase in hamburger prices could allow a huge wage increase at mcdonalds.

Back when high salaries for sports stars were relatively rare, one of them had it pointed out that he made more money than the president of the United States. He replied, “well, I had a better year than he did.”.A comic book version of “The Forgotten Man” by Amity Shlaes, a revisionist history of the Depression which claims that government programs like the minimum wage actually prolonged the economic malaise, is out soon. I review it here: http://www.skjam.com/2014/03/30/comic-book-review-the-forgotten-man-graphic-edition/

By huge, I mean about 50%, which would still be no princely sum! just enough to get by. Costco pays a decent wage, unlike walmart. Since Walmart pay is so low, taxpayers end up paying more to keep walmart workers on food stamps so they can work at Walmart. What a great deal for Walmart.

Implying that only the ignoble need apply. A fair description of todays Democratic party.

I notice that Trudeau can offer no proof that raising the minimum wage does help the economy, unless you believe that fostering inflation really grows the economy.

When middle class and poor folks get more $, they spend it, since they need things. This is empirically obvious and has been shown to be true by many economic experts. If you don’t need things, you tend to not spend the $. Rather, you would just hold on to it. It isn’t that tough to see that. Pretty simple really.

Both GT and FDR and JFK and many others have been both wealthy and politically liberal. It is their right to hold liberal beliefs while being wealthy. One doesn’t have to give up all one’s earthly belongings in order to be a Democrat or left winger of any type.

They became Democrats.

Higher wages spread out the wealth and help the entire economy. When a person gets a raise he spends it, and buys things that other people make, consequently creating an overall improvement. The current system puts most of the wealth in the hands of those who don’t do the actual hands on work. We need a maximum wage tied to the minimum wage. No one should make more than about 15 times what the lowest paid full time worker gets, with no loopholes for someone only being allowed to work 39 hours a week at the lower level, or calling stock options, bonuses etc something other than income at the higher level.

Don’t worry about your Republican fairy tale being credible. As a look at other comments show, people will leap to defend it and besmirch anyone who questions it.

Uhm, raising minimums to so-called living wages to meet the ‘cost of living’ only increases the cost of living as business charge more to cover the increased wages (called ‘inflation’).

It’s a fairy tale to believe there won’t be a negative affect. Business may not cut jobs but it will reduce proposed hires as well as increasing the cost of goods and services provided.That’s Econ 101, agreed to by basically every economic theory hundreds of years.

There’s a REASON why Economics is called the dismal science: conservatives can’t prove raising the minimum wage causes inflation any more than progressives can prove it doesn’t.

It’s all a question of your religious belief. That’s what it’s called when you believe something is obvious when it can’t be proven.

If the GOP had real numbers they wouldn’t have had to lie. That they did lie says it all about their economic argument.

@Ray Thomas-http://globalwarmingsiren.com/wp-content/gallery/polar-ice-caps/greenland-ice-melt1.jpg

According to Michelle Obama, we shouldn’t be eating at McDonald’s anyway. How are they going to pay their workers anything when people stop buying their products?

Also, I worked at McDonald’s when I was in high school, and it gave me enough incentive to go to college, get an education, and not work for minimum wage for the rest of my life.

A maximum wage is an interesting concept. Say a woman earns the maximum in two weeks and then either works for free for fifty weeks or doesn’t work the rest of the year. Surely that would be good for everybody.

Hello, MyFacts, I’d like to prove that increasing welfare leads to more jobs, lower taxes, more services, and a higher standard of living for all.MyFacts: We can try but I make no promises. You are paying, right? You’re not on welfare, we don’t take food stamps as payment?Hello, MyFacts, I’d like to prove a private insurance-lead health care program that limits care and has no sealing on costs to taxpayers can be called ‘universal’ or ‘like single payer’.MyFacts: Oooh, tough one, that’ll cost you extra. We can’t make up facts forever.Hello, MyFacts, I want to show my friends that I’m right about diplomacy. It has no place in the 21st Century world, drones, economic warfare, murder are key, you have to dictate policy, not negotiate at home or abroad.MyFacts: We may have to dredge up some arguments from Germany in 1934 and shine them up, but that’s doable. Credit card number please.

True. Now the moderates are being drowned out by Libertarians and Utilitarians. Disgusting.

Prices can go up for any reason, not just for wage “hikes”!!!!!

Many of the workers at mcd’s and walmart are not college or high school kids. Many of them are working for their own kids.

Oh. Pardon my ignorance. I did not know that every thing in the U.S. economy is the same as in Sweden except for the minimum wage. To pick just the first thing that pops into my head (since I was a teacher), don’t you think the differences in education are terribly significant? Don’t you think there are dozens of significant differences between the countries? I don’t see how you can think that the different minimum wages can be provably connected to any other difference, unless your religious beliefs compel you to think so. As soon as someone tells you they can PROVE anything at a national level in Economics, you can be sure a religious point will follow. Regardless of whether they follow the Conservative or Progressive religion.

FDR didn’t make it into the Libertarian or Republican party of his OWN day. FDR was a Democrat.

Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters.- Adam Smith

“They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.” - Adam Smith

finally somebody gets it

to anyone who has been out of work for more than a year, this strip is not funny.

and not everyone who falls off the rolls of the unemployed does so because they found a job.

@artegalAccording to McDonald’s, you shouldn’t eat at McDonald’s:-http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/12/24/mcdonalds-employee-site-advises-workers-to-avoid-eating-fast-food/

No minimum wage is needed. The market works best when it has the least amount of government interference. If somebody wants to work for peanuts, they should have that option. Good employees make more than minimum wage anyhow. Higher minimum wages have provably made getting first jobs tougher for people and that delay on entering the workforce does cost them money.

if you are talking about the oil spike and crash of Spring-Summer 2008, then we are talking about a situation that was caused by speculation. During that spring demand was down yet the prices skyrocketed, peaking at over $147 on July 11. And just as suddenly, they crashed. The speculators sold there shares and walked away with their profits.-http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1859380,00.html-The contractions of airlines and oil companies has been going on since the end of WW2. There is no more Marathon Oil or Amoco. There is no more National Airlines or Eastern. To claim that this is something that has only happened in the past 5 years is a blatant lie.Oil is currently at $101.47As for how great things were in 1982, the unemployment rate was 10.8%.

@Jon L-skiDid the harder working slaves make more than the lazy ones?

Economy states that prices are set by market values. If you could sell a DVD for $25 why would you sell it for less even if it costs pennies to make? Since price is set to the max the market will allow how will production cost change price? It can’t. The bussiness owner will need to find a way to sell more not raise prices. Prices may even go down so more can be sold and profits will remain the same.

Ah, yes, in a leftist’s perfect world…

@K MYup, that Adam Smith sure was a commie.

I think the fact that they have not proves his point. If minimum legal wage were ten cents per year, that does not mean anyone would be able to hire at that rate.

@DavidHuieGreenI picked the sushi place because servers in NY are known to make a good salary mostly on tips. In order for this restaurant to keep there staff with tips out of the equation, the wage they are being paid has to be at least a “livable wage.”

The trolls are the ones who refuse to admit simple facts like supply and demand or the notion that an unskilled labor job is a career!