Government at its finest

Does this mean that at higher (mandated) wages, the "service" industry moved from underpaid uneducated drones to skilled previously laid-off workers that were displaced by "outsourcing"?

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

That's how it worked in Texas, some twenty years ago. Raising the minimum wage vastly improved the profits of shops selling coffee and doughnuts and the like - the waiting jobs suddenly paid enough to be worth hanging onto,, so that waiters and waitresses started paying attention to their customers and putting some effort into making the customers want to come back another day (when the same waiting staff would still be around to profit from the repeat business).

Any of the small business people who hired and paid the waiting staff could have done better by paying above-minimum wages before they were required to do so by law, but cheapskate capitalists don't think that way.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

=EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF= =BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD ...Jim Thompson

"service"

I'd like to see a reference to that Texas coffee shop story. Minimum wage increases always cause job loss at the bottom level hurting the very people they want to 'help'. Some jobs are not _worth_ even minimum wage BUT would prove that the employee gets in on time and is a chance to prove his worth and get the pay increase. At the very least it's another line on the resume.

G=C2=B2

This is why you are so successful in the restaurant business?

I think a number of things happened this past summer:

Some small shops, like a nice Cold Stone Creamery ice cream place near me, with a single employee, simply closed down.

Some, like Quizno's Subs, became more automated... only 2 employees now required to run the whole show.

And I believe you're right... if I have to pay higher wages why not hire an adult... like all the retirees that need an extra buck ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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So would I. I heard it from a Cambridge economist at a (very) local Labour Party meeting in Cambridge in the early 1990's.

Google got me this

and it gives a reference on page 13 (of 144) to a study by Card and Krueger (1995) which shows up in the list of references as

Card, D. and Krueger, A. B. (1995) Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press

which may serve to straighten out your somewhat over-simplified ideas on the subject.

-- Bill Sloman,Nijmegen

I enjoy doing business in good restaurants, but strictly as a customer.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

I perfer to prepare my meals so I know what is in the food. Of course, that is another form of work, isn't it?

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And cooking for yourself is cheaper than eating out, especially if you restrict yourself to restaurants where the chefs can do significantly better than I can manage at home.

If you construct your meals as carelessly as you construct your arguments, you could well be short-changing yourself on vital nutrients - which might explain both the cognitive deficits you exhibit in constructing your arguments, and the persistent poor health about which you so far frequently complain.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

I was taught to cook before I left for the service. My mother believed that everyone should be able to prepare good meals, and not live on snack food and burgers. She was an excellent cook, like every other skill she had.

Sigh. I reviewed every meal I prepare with the VA dietitian. She told me I was 50 calories of carbs low, but the diet was exactly what I needed. She also told me that no one else had ever come in with so much detail and wanted to know who prepared the diet. I explained that I have problems with some foods, so I carefully kept records after meals to see what I could and couldn't eat, then prepared the menus from the list of what I can eat. The only disagreement we had was over salt. I went with her recommendations, until they raised the dosage for my diabetes medicine and started getting pressure sores that wouldn't heal. I tripled the salt, and within three days, they were healing. Once again you are damning me out of hand, because you are speaking out of ignorance of my life.

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

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if the longer link doesn't work.

Checking the stats, unemployment in general (not just teens) was 3.7% in Jul 2007. In Jul 2008, the unemployment rate is 5.1%. So unemployment is up all over, not just for teens. That is a 38% increase. So teens are doing better than the rest of the population.

Thus the problem is the Bush economy, not the minimum wage.

I was citing AZ stats which are historically quite a bit better than the US as a (w)hole ;-)

...Jim Thompson

The problem is the world economy and the housing/construction bust. Neither are a "Bush economy" thing. No individual runs the economy.

John

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My mother was less careful - I learned to cook when I finally got around to moving into my own flat, but I lucked onto a copy of Beck, Bertholle and Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" fairly early on in the process, and never looked back. Once I'd worked out what I was doing (which wasn't that hard after a post-graduate chemistry) I picked up a few of my mother's recipes (and she nicked a few of mine).

old

I wasn't damning you out of hand - I was merely putting forward a hypothesis which would be falsified by the facts you adduce, if one chose to believe them.

Since you don't believe that sort of evidence when I put it forward about my career and home life about which you are no less ignorant, I'm under no obligation to believe your claims, though in this case I do - in fact - believe you.

If you can take that much care about the food that you put in your mouth, why can't you be a little more careful about about the logic underpinning the claims you post here?

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

No. It was the funky loan bubble; which drove the real estate bubble.