First, have you ever been to one of the many bad fast food places? Ever asked a Walmart employee for help? Ever felt like you wouldn't trust the high school kid working the register with a nail clipper? Not all these types of places have bad employees, but horrible employees are everywhere, still employed with companies still in business. Once you're past the small business stage, bad employees don't mean bad sales. The chain of bad employee to bottom link has too many links.

Second, with the way things are right now, each big corporation could cut their wages in half across the board and still find people to fill in the gaps. Businesses worry about profits, period. People worry about making money. The minimum wage (a one size fits all deal right now sadly) was intended to protect the vulnerable people from the profit seeking giants. We could easily allow employer/employee negotiations, but we know how that would turn out in reality. People with nowhere to turn, and companies with lots of options. We do not desire that as a society.

With all its flaws, minimum wage is a valuable idea. The theory of unhindered wage contracts has a nice flow that makes sense. The reality of wage contracts does not fit the theory. Greed (an unmathematical human factor) (that even a capitalist can agree is a bad thing) keeps the model from being applied.

P.S. The Star article said the study only looked at part time jobs. Could this mean companies are being more efficient with employees and using less part time work? Could companies be scaling side projects that require part time work? The fact that full time was not considered makes this a hard study to generalize.

The trick is that we don't live in a perfect world. Thus the need for a minimum wage (and government, traffic lights, and all other types of regulation).

While I'm no fan of the minimum wage, I also don't think that turning wages entirely over to the free market works well either. There's too much risk of collusion to hold wages down in local areas or perhaps in certain kinds of jobs. I think there needs to be some protection against that.

The employee performance would likely improve, too, as they discover they can get more money by doing more/better work. As it is, they are guaranteed that minimum no matter their level of incompetance.

The employee who wants to do a good job could find employers willing to pay them substantially more than 'minimum' too, because the employer would not have to pay all the lazy ones more than they are worth by government mandate.

Why should the government tell me what I would have to make per hour to work for you? People all over the net said that this would cause more unemployment but would you listen? NO. There use to be very few jobs that paid by the min. wage. Most paid more. Now that is all the people can find with the wage set higher. Now they want to upgrade the highway system and of course that would mean a tax increase. At least we would have to approve it before it will happen. I say less government in our lives makes things work better for us.

I'm kinda pleasantly surprised by the comments already.

I read the study by this group. It is heavily weighted toward youth labor, and that's certainly fine, but please don't elevaste this study to a serious level. it's not peer-reviewed, and its assumptions are, in some instances, flawed.

MinWage is a popular study topic. Everyone has their agenda to push. I've read this group's studies before. They'd be better housed at Hudson or some other similar conservative think tank. They're certainly entitled to their opinions.

The nail clipper McDonald's citation above made me laugh. It's spot-on.

I wish I tweeted, Abdul.

Ron Gibson for Mayor of Indianapolis. Hilarious. I see he hasn't lost his sense of grandeur.

Foolish. Self-important. Dillusional.

Mr Howard, you assume that a company would pay more for better quality work. Again, that would assume that one can follow the work from the employee to the end results. What is better quality and how do you measure it when you have 10k employees.

Without that direct link, why would a big company pay more to have the work done? Good or bad work, big companies would pay the cheapest way to get things done.

Maybe one size fits all is the problem. Maybe small businesses and large companies need different rules to accommodate their different positions.

Typical republican activity. Let's see how we can get away with paying people less. Bigger profits for the corporate giants!!

By the time one has completed the first two weeks of econ 101 –the same conclusions of this study should be quite expected. By week 4 one should understand the put down of employers will always seek the to pay the least amount of wages should become a two sided point—lowest feasible wage is not always the same a low wages. Putting aside social issues—it is best practices for an employer to seek the most efficient and most dedicated employee possible consistent with cost-benefit ratio. The current “economic adjustment period” will very likely result in a better alignment of utilization of efficient labor practices–this said admitting some seniority issues will likely protect some workers the company would be better served if they could be dismissed. Very likely it will be a slow process of employment level recovery simply because this is a direct controllable cost. Interesting that some would endorse the idea of “free entreprise” but only if controlled by many government mandates—just not consistent. As to minimum wage jobs, are usually extremely repetitive low skill jobs and would experience large turn over even if they paid more. Disclosurer: do have degree in economics from a conservative university, politically likely either liberal conservative or conservative liberal on the 1-10 scale whatever that is. Just believe that every time there is an attempt to “fix” the system it has ripples that should have been predicted ahead of time. Now as to excessive management pay—not comfortable with the practice but also very uncomfortable with any “fix-it” rules that might be put in place except by the market place. Okay—said enought to bring down the wrath of the gods upon me.

This is a pretty simple topic to understand.

Minimum Wages set by law are, in fact, government price supports for labor product. This intervenes in the market to artificially prop up (or psychologically undercut in some cases) wage rates rather than let them float to meet the supply/demand for labor resources.

It essentially says that a small business who has (at present) $5.00 an hour they can spare to hire somebody must not create that job, must not get the help they need and that somebody willing to work for that $5.00 (as many might currently) is barred from having that opportunity because it is a crime. So, the employer's business doesn't get the resource it needs, the out of work person who would be willing to work for that sum so they could at least buy food for their family doesn't get what they need either.

It completely overrides two adult people negotiating and coming to agreement between themselves for what is in each of their best interest. It is not only an intrusion in individuals' rights to contract but it is very, very bad economic policy.

NOW. Historically, minimum wage increases have rarely affected the immediate job market. BUT, that is because Congress is careful to raise it to only something less than the typical unskilled labor wage rate is already. An exception to this might be in the early 90s when, in fact, there was (if memory serves) a significant impact to the teenage labor force primarily as the wage increase occurred around the same time as a minor economic downturn.

Also, if memory serves, only about 2% of the work force actually works for “minimum wage” and the majority of those are usually teenagers who receive it as a “starting wage” for their probationary period.

It is worth noting, that over the past few years the minimum wage has been going up and that could contribute to the current unemployment situation by some small percentage.

As someone who has owned a business while also being the lowest paid person working there, I chuckle at everyone who thinks they know so much about companies, and “greedy business owners” just being out to take advantage of their workers. For a big faceless corporation that may happen from time to time as people become “just a number” in the organization but for the majority of enterprises, small to mid sized businesses who employ well over half of all people.

Who makes a criminal out of someone willing to give somebody else money for work? Ridiculous.

It turns out businesses & people “worry” about the same thing, profits. No profits, no business, no income.

Minimum wage is a joke that true progressives “get” (self determined, task relevant / oriented people who show up for work). Questions naturally arise about those “working hard” on “behalf” of minimum wage earners; experientially, a fluid, short wait, express station in the free market, where turnover is an expense that can render a business inviable. The lower the wage, the higher the turnover. Upton, Sinclair & Silkwood are at the ready, to represent employees & their issues.

The study methodology is funky, like another study done by the same university on property tax “caps;” in which, this publicly funded place of higher learning, ignores a counterfeit underlying premise, that a variable can be “capped.” Does the university have a minimum wage problem, is it turnover, or…?

Abdul's on the money / economy, lower taxes on employers & can the minimum wage.

God help us another worthless study! Just another reason that there should be funding cuts at all the major colleges. Up until the bottom fell out of the economy it was almost impossible to find a job paying under minimum wage. The wage isn't the problem, the problem is government regulations and trying to provide health care benefit to workers. I have four friends that own their own businesses and before the recession hit they all had problems finding good workers who would show up everyday and do the work. My friend who owns a computer business canned his secretary and uses a service up north to answer his phones. No worry about the person coming in late, being sick or just plain doing a lousy job. The other owned a roofing company and he couldn't find any American's who wanted to do roofing (he was paying good money) because the work was to demanding. My other buddy owned a small manufacturing company and he couldn't find good people to work for him. They would call in sick and not show up on time. The fourth friend did carpentry work and the guys he would hire would drink and do drug and wouldn't come to work or come messed up. There's your real world study boys and girls the American worker just doesn't want to work hard for a living.

guy77, you're just, well…wrong. On so many fronts.

Sean, those are some interesting points. I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, for a look at percentage of wage-earners who are on MW. Not very good data. But what they do have suggests today's workforce is closer to 7-8%. And, during all noted recessions, the ratio increases dramatically.

I suspect that includes seasonal, older and younger workers, heavily part-time influenced. But I can't tell.

But thanks for the brain tug.

As a small business owner I can tell you — I positively can longer employ people with out skills since the minimum wage went to $7.50. When I started my business mw was $4.85. At that cost it was doable to bring in someone to train and teach them a skill. Typically it takes me 6mos to 1 year to train a truly valuable employee. And guys we are the ones out here hiring and employing people far more than the big “greedy” corp. And by the way I've worked for a far number of those retailers the management has as much to do with the culture as anything.

….and a typical Democrat who thinks being paid a 'fair' wage is a right, regardless of performance.

If you know, going in, that Hicks is bought and paid for then you don't need peer review, after all he is just a cost accountant posing as an economist. Those of us who are real, practicing economists, existing outside the ivory tower don't require an academic imprimatur to bolster common sense. As a free gift to readers of this blog I will tell you what will happen to the minimum wage. When the USA was a closed economic system our dirt bag politicians were able to tell and get away with a great number of economic lies with the dumbocraps telling the whoppers. When we opened our markets to the world, in order to destroy trade unions, the middle class, and our manufacturing sector we went too far. You have X gadzillion folks in China who have been getting by for thousands of years on a bag of rice a day who are now offered the opportunity to compete with obese Americans who haven't competed for 80 years. When you compete with X gadzillion very low wage folks what is likely to happen to your own wages when they who earn them are but in the millions? The “hollowing out” process is well underway. The minimum wage business aids China, India, and near all of Asia in taking employment away from Americans. We should have remained wise from what we learned when we built the transcontinental railroads about competing with Chinese.
There, and no one even needed to read the hired gun.

Why don't you try and get along on a bag of rice a day. The first thing to go would be your computer which would automatically increase the I.Q. average of the readers who post on this blog.

TA – I suppose it is potentially 7-8% of “hourly workers” if you exclude the salaried folks? I'll do some digging as well just to make sure my numbers are good. I haven't researched this much since early 2008.

I do remember Andre Carson calling for a $12 an hour minimum wage at a forum though. Same thing as calling for a 20% increase in unemployment. ;-)

I suggested that if it was just that easy, why not make it $25, $50 or $100 and every employee gets a Lexus? You can't wave a magic wand like that and suddenly everyone's standard of living goes up. There is a cost at the other end of the equation. “The equation must balance” so to speak.

There is a point to be made, sometimes, that a “poor person” in America still often has a car, at least one television, often a cell phone, clothes to wear, etc… whereas a “poor person” in other countries might live in a mud hut, with no running water, no electricity and surviving on, indeed, a bag of rice a day.

Everything is relative isn't it?

Just called to get my mortgage payment/escrow prop tax payment update, and a guy named “Hank” tried to help me. The language barrier was so severe I asked for a supervisor. Three times. Turns out my friend “Hank” was in India.

I'm not a Xenophobe, but this exercise cost me 25 minutes of time, and it should've taken 3. I am quite certain he was hired, along with a huge room of fellow Indians, because they will work for a fraction of our minimum wage. He did not understand the word “escrow” for instance. I spelled it three times. It became comical. Thanks, Citibank.

So, I am mindful that these min. wage increases do have back-end costs, some not so pretty. Is the end-result worthwhile? I'd apperciate hearing good thoughts or reading good studies about that impact. The Ball State study is sadly not one of those. It's one step above Herman Kahn's Hudson crap…get the answer and work backward.

Thanks again for the potent thoughts, Sean. A Lexus awaits you in your driveway, along with a gauranteed $50 an hour job.

Andre is right on lot sof issues. He may be right on this one, but I doubt it.

Why Sean, only libertarians sorta believe in total relativity. Even Adam Smith didn't believe in this Bill Clinton NAFTA, free trade b.s. What I am suggesting is that the American poor as they now are is nearing an end and we will see real poverty currently being masked by 99 weeks of unemployment compensation using funds borrowed from China. Duh media are complicent in turd gilding the economic picture or did you miss the supplement in the back of the Star today noting the victims of our government's theft of homes thru transfer payments disguised as property taxes? The collateral for borrowing from China (40% of the Obama spending is borrowed from China) is, of course, your property. The reflection of this hammering away at our jobs is, of course, reflected in Indiana tax reciepts which are falling monthly and will continue to fall with the Obama policies leaving our 150 idiots to either live with attempting to prop up their dead horses (education-so called) or trim back to the basics that we will be able to afford. I think Mitch saw this a long, long time ago but no dumbocrap has seen it yet and probably ought not clue them in.

Pascal, where do you get this stuff? The collateral for deficit spending is NOT our property. The collateral for deficit spending, via bonds and debt, is the Good Faith & Credit of the US of A. The bonds actually say that.

I don't even know where to start….

One of us needs meds. And I think I'm current on all of mine.

First, pascal, I would pay could money to buy you a keyboard with an “Enter” key on it. Paragraph breaks are your friend. ;-)

I see where you're going with some of what you typed. Yes, we currently have an unemployment figure that, not only is calculated differently post-Clinton era than it was prior but probably doesn't accurately account for people who have dropped off the benefit rolls. AND, you're right, we're borrowing money from other countries to pay for our wars, our entitlements, federal unemployment benefits, etc…

Some would say, “well then, we need to raise taxes” but local, state and federal governments already constitute the equivalent of 65% (or so) when compared against the private sector. Another $1 trillion would put it over 75% and that also is not sustainable and we all know politicians would just spend the extra money and then some more like they do already. They make promises they can't possibly figure out how to pay for.

The debt bubble we're creating is massive. And as the interest rates we have to pay to sell the treasuries is going to go up for several reasons (default risk and inflation risk [default by proxy] tops amongst them) at the same time we're adding $1 Trillion+ a year. In 2007/08 interest on the debt ($5-6 trillion cash debt / $9+ trillion total) was around $420 billion. Total personal income tax revenues were $1.1 trillion. Total corporate income tax revenues were around $400 billion I think. $1.6 trillion total (approx).

We're at around $13 trillion in debt now (would have to look up the cash debt but it's got to be $8 to $10 trillion). So INTEREST ALONE is going to very quickly consume 100% of personal and corporate income tax revenues.

Can't raise taxes on corporations. Already 2nd highest in the developed world, sends jobs and businesses overseas PLUS only people pay taxes because corporate taxes get buried in the cost of the products we buy (corporations don't have printing presses that magically print up dollars to cover their tax burden – we pay them when we buy their stuff).

Raising personal income taxes? We're already, on average, slaves to the government for 4-5 months. That will further kill the job market and demotivate the productive class and stifle economic activity.

As for Bill Clinton (and many Republicans as well) and NAFTA, CAFTA, blah, blah … those are “managed trade” agreements with winners and losers being selected by government not “FREE TRADE” agreements.

The media can find dozens of minutes to talk about the Super Bowl but not a one can find 60 seconds to point this kind of stuff out to the American public? This always amazes me.

TA,

Money IS property. The “government” is spending money (property) like poo before a colonoscopy. The “government” has NO money (property) of its own, it extorts money (property) from us, in the form of taxes. If one becomes addicted to the barium kool-aide, as the “government” has, the obituary will read: “Shat to death” –as the “government” is attempting to do.

Hey I work at CITI Bank/Group as a contractor and let me tell you one thing….. <VERY LONG PAUSE> ok, I got nothing……move along, nothing to see here…. =)

God you make me dizzy. Grab the Tylenol.

When you always have to think again it is solid proof that you were not thinking correctly to begin with, and, knowing this can make you dizzy. Before you owe your whole paycheck to Haiti follow the dots. “Against the euro, in the George W. Bush decade, the dollar lost close to half its value.” True or False? Happens to be true according to Pat Buchanan and anyone who travels to Europe often enough to notice. When the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913 a twenty dollar bill could purchase how many 20 dollar gold pieces? Ans. One. How many $20 Federal Reserve notes does it take today to acquire a genuine $20 American Gold Piece? Ans. 50 of them. Fact check at any coin shop in town. So far, so good, even hector is following around looking for something racist about the discussion.
Today, and for some time the American government has been bankrupt. T or F? The current debt and unfunded liabilities of the US government exceed $120,000,000,000,000.00. Better to write it all out than to let hector think 120 trillion is a managable number and that he understands it. So, what are the assets against this? The way China sees it, the total amount of all of America's private wealth is less than $60 trillions. When you can't pay off when the bank calls its loans you are bankrupt. Ans. T which rhymes with P which calls for tea and Tylenol. The Tea Party “gets” it.
Have to make it clear for hector. If the Democrats stole every penny from every American (as they have been hell bent on doing for decades) they still wouldn't scrape up enough money to pay the bills they have run up or fund the promises they have made. So, you can bet that Uncle Sam will repudiate these debts in one way or another. What worries the Chinese is that the current running of printing press money IS NOT SUFFICIENT to get them paid off in any timely fashion before the “sound as a dollar”(currently worth $.02 each in 1913 purchasing power) falls to Weimar levels.
NB to R's the Congress and GW conspired to drive down the dollar vs the Euro by 50%. Don't folks wish GW had been conservative instead of?

WTF????

TA have you ever worked for a company not associated with the government?

I don't know your vocation and not trying to hurl stones. Just trying to understand why your posts/opinions seem to be in favor of increasing fees/taxes/government/costs. I have family that worked (meaning compensated) for the Obama campaign and we politely disagree on many issues BUT I know her background and her set of beliefs. I am asking for yours.
Thanks,
PB

You'll discover soon enough, Bill, that TA is our resident expert on all things earthly. He (she, it) has held virtually every position known to mankind at some point or other.

Anyway, the only answer Dems ever have is to increase the size of government(adding to our collective debt) by raising taxes while simultaneously getting more people on the public dime. It's lose, lose, lose!

“Who makes a criminal out of someone willing to give somebody else money for work?”

Government

“Ridiculous.”

Yes. Most government is.

Ok this is for all of you CEOs,CFOs andCOOs….

If you make more money than you spend…you get to stay in business

Isnt this fun..A bunch of lawyers telling us how to run a company and make money.Seems to me that this country is being run by you all.You guys are doing so well. Nice job.

But here is a tid bit of business logic for you.

If you take in $1.00 and you spend $1.15 you will not be in business.

“If elected officials wanted to really jump start this economy they would cut taxes on employers and get rid of the minimum wage.”

As I said on Abdul's show this morning (Robert-NW Side), to get the government to stop 'regulating' wages, the Supremes needs to reverse decades of bad decisions (bad 'law'), and hold that the federal government has overstepped their bounds in using the Commerce Clause to unconstitutionally usurp power.

Of course, Abdul disagreed, citing that “about 90 percent of CC legislation enacts anti-discrimination laws.

Guess what? I don't care !!!

What I DO care about is this: if the federal government wanted us to surrender this power to them, then they could present it to We the Scorned as an Amendment to the federal Constitution.

Even the Supreme's (aka SCROTUS) have admitted their wrongdoing (see US. v Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).

This was the first United States Supreme Court case since the Great Depression to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Quoting Chief Justice Rehnquist:

“To uphold the Government's contentions here, we have to pile inference upon inference in a manner that would bid fair to convert congressional authority under the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States. Admittedly, some of our prior cases have taken long steps down that road, giving great deference to congressional action. The broad language in these opinions has suggested the possibility of additional expansion, but we decline here to proceed any further. To do so would require us to conclude that the Constitution's enumeration of powers does not presuppose something not enumerated, and that there never will be a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. This we are unwilling to do.”

Similar decisions are contained in United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000), and Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers (“SWANCC”), 531 U.S. 159 (2001)

I don't agree with Lopez in toto, but it was at least a step in the right direction. But more needs to be done.

The Supreme's need to explicitly repudiate many of their previous holdings that expanded federal Commerce power beyond what was envisioned and ratified by the States.

Abdul said that he knew what he was talking about, 'cause he went to law school.

Clearly, this infers that all of us who didn't attend law school cannot read nor understand ANYTHING unless it's explained to us by lawyers.

Sorry, but we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

If a business is forced to cut jobs because of a minimum wage increase, then it wasn't operating efficiently to begin with. Such inefficiencies would push those businesses out of business eventually; a minimum wage increase only hastens this death for failing establishments.

You must not be a lawyer, because I can tell from your post that you do not understand what the Lopez and Morrison decisions were all about. Also, shortly after Lopez and Morrison, the Supreme Court handed down Raich, which pretty much made it clear that the older commerce clause jurisprudence you think needs to be repudiated is alive and well. All Lopez and Morrison said is that the SC is not going to be so deferential in commerce clause cases involving noncommercial activity (in Lopez, guns in schools; in Morrison, violence against women) (sorry if I got that backward, I am writing this from memory). Now, considering this is blogpost is about the minimum wage, are you suggesting that Congress does not have the authority under the commerce clause to set a minimum wage?

All them people who work for min. wage already get top-notch healthcare insurance from their employers and have cush jobs to begin with, so why should those ingrates want more? Obviously, they don't appreciate “Compassionate Conservatism.”
If people don't want to work for min. wage they should just bargain with the employer for more. No laws prohibit it and they are on equal footing with an employer. My guess is that most people who work for minimum wage do so because they enjoy the job, not that they need the money (or health insurance, paid vacation, or retirement benefits.) The min. wage provides more than enough for gas money, lunch, and occasionaly dinner. What more do those greedheads need?

And, so goes the case against the expense of lobby, docu-pile & enforcement of a “standard” for a minimum wage…

Compassion requires no qualifier. “Compassionate conservatism” is idiomatic of fauxgressives & the clown punching media circus.

While I might take some small nuance exception to a few of the numbers (like $105 trillion instead of $120 and $67 trillion instead of $60 even) there is truth to much of what is said here.

While I don't know about China eyeing our property as collateral (other than our wages / cash property) and I don't necessarily believe there is some grand conspiracy to blow up our economy or anything else (mostly I chalk it up to people following Keynesian economic teachings which are horribly flawed but popular because they allow politicians to rationalize the crap they support).

And, let's face it, China (or anyone else) would have a hell of a time collecting physical property from Americans to pay any debt. So I don't put a lot of stock in that particular angle to this line of thought.

I don't think that kind of blanket statement applies.

BUT, I will add that sometimes an increase in the cost of labor is good incentive to just automate. If you can employ three people for $70,000 a year or buy a machine to do their jobs for $210,000 than, excluding cost of capital or future value of money and other factors, your payback is 3 years and then you just start putting that $70k back into the business or owners/stockholders pockets.

Maybe at $50k and payback of 4 years that decision doesn't get made or doesn't rise to the level of other priorities but at $70k savings it does? Each situation is different.

Now. Some people would suggest it was a horrible thing to do that to those workers. Perhaps. BUT, by that same argument every accounting department should do away with their computers and go back to pencils and paper ledgers. Every bulldozer should be replaced by men with shovels and on-line brokerages should be shuttered in favor of feet on the street stock brokers.

“are you suggesting that Congress does not have the authority under the commerce clause to set a minimum wage?”

They do not have the authority as it was understood at the inception and ratification of the federal Constitution. The States and the People never would have willingly surrendered so much unchecked authority.

Nope. It took a lawyer in a robe (LiaR) to give us 'case law' that said that Congress could 'regulate' in such and such.

But, playing the word games that LIEyers are wont to do, then yes, since the Supremes have tortured the meaning of our Constitution, Congress has authority as granted by the LiaRs on the bench.

“the Supreme Court handed down Raich, which pretty much made it clear that the older commerce clause jurisprudence you think needs to be repudiated is alive and well.”

Ah, yes…Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), handed down nearly six weeks after Lopez. It certainly takes a pack of LiaRs to determine that the growing of a plant for personal use is somehow tied to Interstate Commerce, and thus under federal purview. You LIEyers are great at twisting things around.

Where else did these federal LiaRs say that growing ones own food for personal consumption violated some federal law? Wickard v. Filburn. Guess we were not allowed to grow our own food (property) on our own land (property) to feed our chicks (property).

Which clearly proves that LiaR and LIEyers speak with forked tongues. We all KNOW that a LiaR is not immune to politics. Hell, look at what these a LiaR goes through during confirmation hearings.

Also, we certainly don't want to forget FDR's 'court packing' scheme, and the infamous 'switch in time that saved nine'.

Yeah, those nine LiaRs on the USSC caved to FDR's threat, and went along with his New Deal legislation….legislation they would have repudiated BUT FOR the threats issued by that socialist FDR.

Let's see…I quote a LiaR (Rehnquist) that speaks of how LiaRs have let Congress get away with usurping power for decades, and you tell me that I don't know what Lopez was about!

I wonder how humanity ever migrated out of the caves without LIEyers to tell us what to do every step of the way.

I can't believe that I survived education without a LIEyer to explain everything that I read…'cause certainly, none of us Great Unwashed are competent enough without a LIEyer to tell us what to think.

Dick the butcher had it right in Shakespeare's play.

The Supreme Court is generally known by the acronym SCotUS, either scotus or SCOTUS. Using other acronyms is unnecessarily confusing.

The “Court Packing” scheme of FDR was a failure (in fact, it backfired on him during the next midterm election cycle), and the SCOTUS actually was constantly negating FDR's initiatives.

Where do you get this stuff?

Patrick, you must be new here.

Please, don't EVER engage Aires in a Constitutional discussion. He's figuratively drunk. Perhaps literally, too.

And it looks like he has the same skewered eye with regard to Shakespeare.

Prospector: at the ripe old age of 62, I have never ever earned a paycheck from the government. I have generated all my own income since I was 14. And, I've supervised large staffs which generated money for shareholders, owners, and and/or me.

Another unfounded Rico swipe. You're ahead of last year's pace, Rico. Not that anyone pays close attention.

I gotta learn this tweet thing, because I am still laughing over yesterday's Ron Gibson for Mayor post.

For the record. I'm not a lawyer. Don't even play one on TV.

In regards to the Commerce Clause and Federal Authority.

It is true that FDR packed the courts and in 1942 there was a court decision “Wickard vs. Filburn” in which the decision allowed the Commerce Clause to be usurped beyond it's original intent.

The original intent of the Commerce Clause was for the Federal Government to regulate trade between the states in as much as ensuring (for example) that Illinois couldn't put tariffs on imports from Indiana. Things like that.

This court decision said that a farmer, growing wheat on his own property, solely for consumption by his own family or livestock was subject to the commerce clause because – get this – by not engaging in interstate commerce, he affected interstate commerce.

Translation: By not engaging in interstate commerce, you are affecting interstate commerce and the government can now do whatever they want to you.

SO … for someone to say that the Federal Government can dictate the agreed upon wage rate between two private parties because of the Commerce Clause mostly just brings chuckles to those who understand original intent, limited “Federal” government, sound economic principles and other things.

The same thing happened with the Welfare Clause, which was originally intended to only pertain to the 19 (or so) specifically delegated powers granted the legislative branch [usurped via Steward Machine Company vs. Davis (1937 I believe?)].

The Supreme Court of the early to mid 20th Century probably did more to undermine our system of government than any other that I can think of. The foundations were laid during this time for complete surrender of any pretense of restrained government. Of course, restraining government was the whole point of the Constitution. You'll note that it doesn't tell what We The People can or cannot do, it tells government what it can or cannot do.

Constitution, ha, how funny that the lawyers here still do the double talk walk. Guess what it it does not matter. It's another government issue that we as business owners have to deal with. Kind of like what Bobby Knight said about rape. For the history impared like TA, he was a basketball coach here once up on a time.

As you observe in paragraph #4, the supreme distort triggered an era of interstate coerce.

The Constitution is defined; by the presence of type divinely (IMHO) fashioned into meaningful words & perfectly coherent ideas of individual liberty, for a literate public. No rights can be found in the abstract white space surrounding its print or margins (the legal profession is wrong & credibility challenged on this notion).

Sean, I understand original intent. Read most of Madison's writing. Ditto Franklin, Hefferson, and some of the monetary scholars of the day. And the Commerce Clause decisions/debate of FDR's time, or today, do not bring chuckles to me.

Minimum wage is absolutely an acceptable function of the federal government.

ibviral: history-challenged indeed. LMAO. I was in school when Knight ruled. That last undefeated season was spectacular. His personality started wearing thin a few years after that. He's come full-circle now, and is an excellent TV commentator.

“Where do you get this stuff?”

Uh, probably the same place others get their information….books, papers, the internet, etc.

“and the SCOTUS actually was constantly negating FDR's initiatives.” Well, I can provide a lot of info that collides with your assertion.

It is undisputed that the Supremes have been very liberal with their interpretations of the Commerce Clause and Enabling Clause. Hell, even the Supremes admit to such. New Deal-type legislation exists to this day.

“The “Court Packing” scheme of FDR was a failure” Others hold that is was moot when Justice Roberts switched in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, and the death of Senator Joe Robinson.

As former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist observed:

President Roosevelt lost the Court-packing battle, but he won the war for control of the Supreme Court … not by any novel legislation, but by serving in office for more than twelve years, and appointing eight of the nine Justices of the Court. In this way the Constitution provides for ultimate responsibility of the Court to the political branches of government. [Yet] it was the United States Senate – a political body if there ever was one – who stepped in and saved the independence of the judiciary … in Franklin Roosevelt's Court-packing plan in 1937.
(Rehnquist, William H. (2004). “Judicial Independence Dedicated to Chief Justice Harry L. Carrico: Symposium Remarks”. University of Richmond Law Review 38: 579-596.

Further, the early cases that went before the court are generally held to be favorable to FDRs administration:

Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, Nebbia v. New York, Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, The Gold Clause Cases (Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. and United States v. Bankers Trust Co., Nortz v. United States, and Perry v. United States).

The FDR administration suffered a setback with the holding in Railroad Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co.

However, I never stated that FDRs 'court-packing scheme' was ever successful without cost. I repudiate FDR for even wanting to engage in such machinations.

On June 14, 1937 the Senate Judiciary Committee issued a scathing report that called FDR's plan “a needless, futile and utterly dangerous abandonment of constitutional principle… without precedent or justification”. (S. Rep. No. 711, 75th Congress, 1st Session, 1 (1937).

Many argue that Presidential Executive Orders, such as E.O. 6102 (requiring the surrender of all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates) do not embrace anyone outside of the Executive Branch of government.

If President Obama issued an E.O. that said the F.B.I. could kick anyone's door in that they wanted to, without any sort of warrant, would you be comfortable with that ?????

“Please, don't EVER engage Aires in a Constitutional discussion. He's figuratively drunk. Perhaps literally, too.”

Hmmm….I notice that you don't accuse me of inaccurate citations of the Constitution.

I suppose I'm 'guilty' of not drinking the 'case law' Kool-Aid. Rather, I opt for the written words, and the intent of those who crafted those words; and, in the case of Constitutions, those who ratified those words.

IC 1-1-2-1
Hierarchy of law

Sec. 1. The law governing this state is declared to be:

First. The Constitution of the United States and of this state.

Second. All statutes of the general assembly of the state in force, and not inconsistent with such constitutions.

Third. All statutes of the United States in force, and relating to subjects over which congress has power to legislate for the states, and not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States.

Fourth. The common law of England, and statutes of the British Parliament made in aid thereof prior to the fourth year of the reign of James the First (except the second section of the sixth chapter of forty-third Elizabeth, the eighth chapter of thirteenth Elizabeth, and the ninth chapter of thirty-seventh Henry the Eighth,) and which are of a general nature, not local to that kingdom, and not inconsistent with the first, second and third specifications of this section.
(Formerly: Acts 1852,1RS, c.61, s.1.)

Odd….I don't see anything about a duty to obey 'case law'. Do you??

“Minimum wage is absolutely an acceptable function of the federal government.” Which of those many fellows you quoted would support your unsupported view? Are Right to Work laws also absolute(not that it matters since China and India are returning Indiana to economic freedom)? I suspect real wages have been falling for some decades and, at some point will cross the minimum wage line when then the only option will be to fire employees rather than break a stupid law.

The meaning and implications of that (Commerce) clause have been in dispute from the beginning. More recently, as then Justice Rehnquist noted in Hodel v. Virginia Surface Min. and Reclamation Association, 452 U.S. 264 (1981) (at 307), “(i)t is illuminating for purposes of reflection, if not for argument, to note that one of the greatest fictions of our federal system is that the Congress exercises only those powers delegated to it, while the remainder are reserved to the States or to the people. The manner in which this Court has construed the Commerce Clause amply illustrates the extent of this fiction.”

When the minimum wage person gets laid off does that person collect $390 a week in unemployment compensation ($9.75 per hour on a 40 hour week FOR NOT WORKING). Our 150 idiots seem to be very generous with their weekly compensation and are now, what, $1.2 billions borrowed to support their generosity? Let's raise taxes ?

Survey says, “XXX” [HONK] thanks for play'n.

To borrow from some other sources:

“The very purpose sought from the insertion of the words. Moreover, the answer to this question has always been without controversy to prevent one State from laying imposts or duties on another States imports as it transits through its limits.

In other words, it was inserted as a preventive measure and never as any kind of authoritative power.

Finally, the truth behind what the regulation of commerce means can easily be discovered by how the colonies and other nations regulated their commerce with each other. The truth will be uncomfortable, even embarrassing under current commerce precedent but truth will always be more rewarding than judicial fiction.”

…and from CATO (or “STATO” as a lot of true libertarians have started to call it):

n a nutshell, the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states, arose out of concern that the free flow of commerce among the states might break down if states, as under the Articles of Confederation, had the power to erect protectionist measures on behalf of indigenous enterprises. Thus, its principal aim was to ensure the free flow of commerce by giving Congress the power to regulate, or make regular, such interstate commerce. Not remotely did the Framers intend that the clause would be converted from a shield against state abuse–its use in the first great Commerce Clause case, Gibbons v. Ogden(7)– into a sword, enabling Congress, through regulation, to try to bring about all manner of social and economic ends. Yet today, following the Supreme Court's reversal in 1937,(8) that is just what has happened as Congress claims power to regulate anything that even “affects” interstate commerce, which in principle is everything.

The General Welfare Clause of Article 1, section 8, was also intended as a shield, to ensure that Congress, in the exercise of any of its enumerated powers, would act for the general rather than for any particular welfare. Here, however, Hamilton stood opposite Madison, Jefferson, and others in thinking that the clause amounted to an independent, enumerated power–albeit limited to serving the general welfare. But as Congressman William Drayton noted in 1828, if Hamilton were right, then whatever Congress is barred from doing because there is no power with which to do it, it could accomplish by simply appropriating the money with which to do it.(9) That, of course, is precisely what happened, which the Court sanctioned when it came down on Hamilton's side in 1936,(10) then a year later went Hamilton one better by saying that although the distinction between general and particular welfare must be maintained, the Court would not itself police that distinction.(11) Congress, the very branch that was redistributing with ever-greater particularity, would be left to police itself.

With the Court's evisceration of the doctrine of enumerated powers, the modern regulatory and redistributive state poured through the opening. One result of the subsequent explosion of federal power, of course, was the contraction of state power where the two conflicted–and the attendant federalism dilemmas. At the same time, individual liberty contracted as well–the preservation of which was supposed to be the very purpose of government. And finally, questions about constitutional legitimacy never did go away. As government grew, the idea that a Constitution designed for limited government had authorized that growth of power became increasingly difficult to sustain.

Pascal wishes to make “jobs creation” a bit more plain. As an employer I'm looking to hire help because I have worked hard and found work that can be done. Potential employee is not interested in my job opening because it pays only $10 per hour and he is getting $9.75 per hour for doing nothing. Indiana has a minimum wage, also (which could be repealed with little to no effect-if we are to believe TA and other non-federalists). Under Indiana “rules” if I want the services of potential employee I have bid up wages to somewhere in the area of what he had been making in his overcompensated former job (at least that used to be the rule-it may have been reformed). But, I can't pay those wages to him so long as existing loyal employees who know how to do the work right now would be paid less. So, 150 idiots can screw up anything, and will.

Anyone who believes in (a) Freedom of Association and (b) that people should be the final arbiter of what they pay for a product by voluntarily surrendering their money in exchange for it cannot support minimum wage, right to work laws and all kinds of other things.

I agree that real wages have been falling for some time AND although because of technology our standard of living may not have noticed as much, I believe that (peaks and troughs notwithstanding) a careful review would show that economically we've been going backwards since the 1970s. Massive increases in government and consumer debt combined with artificially low interest rates have covered it up to some extent but the drag is now unmistakable.

I should clarify. “Right to Work” by itself isn't so much a problem as much as laws that give labor unions or other groups of people rights that elevate them above any other citizen or that infringe on, direct or interfere in the rights of any person or group of people voluntarily choosing who they transfer money to in exchange for labor product.