Some Non-Covid Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley reminds us of the minimum-wage’s racist origins. A slice:

Mrs. Pelosi’s reference to female workers is also misleading. Democrats have long held up single working moms as the typical minimum-wage earner, but that’s a myth. A 2014 analysis by economists Joseph Sabia and Richard Burkhauser found that the vast majority of workers who would benefit from a minimum-wage increase live in nonpoor households. According to Mr. Sabia, “only 13 percent of workers who would be affected live in poor households, while nearly two-thirds live in households with incomes over twice the poverty line, and over 40 percent live in households with incomes over three times the poverty line.”

Such findings would seem to underscore the limits of using minimum-wage laws to address poverty. Most workers who earn minimum wages are not a family’s sole breadwinner. They tend to be teenagers living at home or senior citizens working part-time to stay busy in retirement. According to Mr. Sabia, single mothers made up less than 5% of those who potentially would benefit from a minimum-wage hike.

Amelia Janaskie explains why government isn’t romantic. A slice:

One recent example is when former President Trump instated a 50 percent tariff on washing machines in response to Michigan manufacturer Whirlpool’s complaints that domestic producers were being endangered by foreign competitors. Because of pressure from Whirlpool and the focus on protecting US producers, government intervened, breaking up the market romance between consumers and foreign producers of washing machines.

Pierre Lemieux asks if Joe Biden will be a dictator.

Ben Zycher decries the Biden administration’s plan to revive Operation Choke Point. A slice:

That is why Choke Point and similar gameplaying in the capital market is ideal for the political left: No formal rule is being violated, the banks are in no position to resist, and the borrowers have no recourse. Equality under the law is thrown out the window because the left fundamentally believes in nothing as much as its own political power, while the bureaucracy—much ignored in the reality that it is an important interest group—is left to enhance its own powers at the expense of market forces.

Nick Gillespie talks with Conor Friedersdorf about the importance of taking a stand against both left-wing and right-wing P.C.

“Julian Simon’s worldview.”

Tim Worstall isn’t impressed with Biden’s scheme to ‘revive’ manufacturing. A slice:

If any industrial plan is based upon a commonly believed falsehood, then it’s unlikely to do the job of benefiting the republic.

Now, even if such a plan were intended to help, I’d still be against it. I believe in Oren Cass’s ability to decide what is good for us just as much as I do that of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That is, not at all. The best — I would insist only — way for free people to create society is that we all do our own stuff and see what happens at the national level. But people don’t go into national politics to leave us all alone, do they? National destiny as something emergent from personal liberty isn’t going to please those who’ve made all that effort to get to where they can tell us to do stuff.

GMU Econ student Dominic Pino remembers Rush Limbaugh.