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Good Lord: the death of the work ethic is upon us

Which shouldn’t be too big a surprise, as it is most famously being displayed by our current President.  [DOG WHISTLE ALERT!]  To that end, here’s what White House Economic Adviser Gene Sperling had to say about the glories of raising the minimum wage (courtesy CNS News):

Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 will help “people who just want to work hard,” but it also will help those who want to “work less,” White House economic adviser Gene Sperling told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.

He argued that Americans support raising the minimum wage because it will lift “struggling” families out of poverty:

“But they also know what it’s like to see a friend, a neighbor, where one spouse goes back to work, who would prefer maybe not to work. Maybe they’re working part-time just to supplement the family’s income. And they think, if that family member is making that sacrifice — spending less time with the child — then they should be making a decent living or be able to work less because they’re getting a decent wage.”

Of course, the premise here is that one spouse who would prefer maybe not to work shouldn’t have to — that the rest of us should be supporting these people through wealth redistribution and government manipulation of labor markets.  That is, price control.

But what Sperling doesn’t mention is that there are those — believe it or not — who really do want to work, who really don’t feel comfortable living of the labor of others, even after its washed clean through the government, and that those people will not be able to find jobs, because minimum wage increases are job killers.

But Sperling wasn’t done merely with twisting sloth into nobility.  Now, nobility is also granted those who are content to remain in jobs meant to be temporary, low-wage stepping stones to future employment opportunities.  Says Sperling,

“These are people who just want to work hard and support their family. That’s why Americans support increasing the minimum wage — that’s why the president supports it.”

— And yet were this the case, they would be looking for second jobs, or to move on and up, either within the company or outside of it with a new employer.

As I reminded the Democratic Congressdouche from NC yesterday, the number of people trying to support their families on a minimum wage income who don’t also receive other types of government benefits or “earned income credits” is about nil.  So this is a straw man argument.

The President supports minimum wage increases because they are a sop to the unions.  They will increase unemployment among the young, among minorities, and among the already working poor.  And they will also be paid for by the public, both through higher taxes and the higher cost of products produced by labor that costs more per hour than a free market would determine it should cost.

This isn’t even capitalism.  It’s a command and control economy. It’s Marxism made emotionally palatable to a charitable people who really do want to help their neighbors.

And it’s disgusting and immoral.

 

33 Replies to “Good Lord: the death of the work ethic is upon us”

  1. The choice left to us seems to be going Galt or going Mouch.

  2. Shermlaw says:

    As Krauthammer says, raising the minimum wage merely transfers wealth between segments of the poor. That is, at $10.10 per hour, employers will fire some employees to make the raise “revenue neutral” to their own bottom lines. Thus, some will be benefited at the expense of others in the same class. Leave it to Progressives to wage Class Warfare against the lowest 1%.

  3. leigh says:

    This isn’t even capitalism. It’s a command and control economy.

    It actually took longer to arrive here than I had anticipated.

    OT: Has the number of hit pieces on Ted Cruz been mentioned? Two in two days in two different publications by Thomas Sowell accusing Cruz of selfishness. Commenters aren’t buying what Sowell is selling.

  4. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Why do you hate positive liberty Jeff? Our Kanamite political overclass just wants what’s best for us.

    So eat up. There really is such a thing as a free lunch.

  5. Ernst Schreiber says:

    lo and alas for the lack of linky love leigh

  6. dicentra says:

    employers will fire some employees to make the raise “revenue neutral” to their own bottom lines.

    Or they just raise their prices to compensate, making the cost of living rise at the same rate as the minimum wage increase, and so their earnings don’t go any farther than before.

    Red-queen’s race is what it is, all to fill the coffers of the unions, who are the biggest donors to the Democrat party.

  7. Ernst Schreiber says:

    dankah shane [stet] baby

  8. leigh says:

    Bitte sehr.

  9. Who purchases the products and services of those making minimum wage? By and large, those on the lower end of the economic scale. So, once again, #WARONMIDDLECLASS.

  10. McGehee says:

    If they really want to resurrect the one-income household they could try lowering taxes and cutting the regulatory burden.

    Costs of regulatory compliance far outdo taxation when it comes to suppressing the economy.

  11. Pablo says:

    Is anyone surprised at more Cloward-Piven? Just keep loading people into the wagon. Then BOOM! Utopia.

  12. TaiChiWawa says:

    And if you’re currently making a few dollars more than the minimum wage and the minimum jumps up significantly, are you going to stand by as your skills / experience premium is proportionately devalued?

  13. Libby says:

    Leaving aside who made this ad and the product it endorses, this vision of America has become an anachronism: American exceptionalism and pride, RIP.
    http://tinyurl.com/l8pyrus

  14. dicentra says:

    That actor played a creeeeeepy dude on Justified a few seasons ago. He was a Mob Enforcer whose kink was to kidnap young men and tie them up in the bathroom for days on end, kind of on retainer, so he could beat them into a pulp. For starters. Then when they’re dead, get another one.

    I have a hard time unseeing that.

    Then I read that he refuses to do nude/sex scenes as to not violate his Catholicism.

    Hewwww. It’s true they didn’t get explicit about his captives, but the implication was clear enough to make you wanna take a shower.

  15. In the Thomas Sowell column at The American Spectator that Leigh linked to, this comment by someone named Butch sums-up the situation rather well:

    Cruz is the guy trying to win the game when all the other players have been bribed to throw it.

    http://spectator.org/articles/57871/cruz-control-part-ii#comment-1252356840

  16. newrouter says:

    >Cruz is the guy trying to win the game when all the other players have been bribed to throw it. <

    too true

  17. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The fallacy in Sowell’s NRO op-ed is in his assumption that the GOP is actually interested in “undoing the disasters that Barack Obama has already inflicted on the nation[.]” That assumes facts not in evidence. As they say.

    The AmSpec piece was better, in that Sowell acknowledges that the phenomenon that is Cruz, with all his faults (if indeed that’s what they are) is ultimately the product of the GOP establishment’s failure to provide effective leadership.

    But again, that points us back towards the fallacy inherent to the NRO argument: the reason the GOP leadership/establishment can’t articulate their positions is that they don’t actually believe their own rhetoric.

    I’m all for unity, if unity is to be had, but I’d like to know what exactly we’re uniting over.

    Somehow, I doubt keeping the Clintons’ grubby mitts off the white house silver they didn’t grab the first time around is going to be enough.

  18. dicentra says:

    Ernst

    +100

    I can’t bring myself to Poorly!Seasoned!Sowell. Like seeing Lawrence Olivier in a reality show.

  19. dicentra says:

    Poorly!REASONED!Sowell

    Though if his seasoning is off, he won’t make for good eatin.

  20. newrouter says:

    >The fallacy in Sowell’s NRO<

    old guy with a phone and a pen;) he is establishment when a revolution is needed.

  21. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I think he’s acting as an honest broker here. On the one hand, he’s telling the populist/tea-party wing of the GOP to be wary of smooth talking hucksters on the make telling us what we want to hear.* I agree with him. And on the other hand, he’s telling the Team GOP types that if they don’t like what’s going on in their locker room, they’ve only themselves to blame for it. I agree with that as well.

    *I’ve got my eye on Rubio, personally.

  22. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Revolutions very, very rarely end well, NR.

    What we need isn’t a revolution. It’s an opposition party that’s willing to oppose instead of seeking to co-opt.

  23. newrouter says:

    >*I’ve got my eye on Rubio, personally.<

    hairy i hope

  24. newrouter says:

    >It’s an opposition party that’s willing to oppose instead of seeking to co-opt<

    that is the revolution. viva cruz!!11!!

  25. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I think a real revolution would look more like a case of the professional political punditocracy promoting the candidacy of a Christie type as the most viable liberal l candidate who’s still acceptable to the conservative mainstream media during the Democratic presidential primaries.

    And then he gets his fat ass kicked in November.

  26. newrouter says:

    >I think a real revolution would look more like<

    alot of rethugs getting picked off in the primaries

  27. BigBangHunter says:

    And then he gets his fat ass kicked in November.

    – If we can’t awaken enough of the Conservative voter base to cast off the shackles of the ruining class, that will be the results in ’16, once again, no matter which RINO gets the party nod. Only this time, falling for the same old BS will get you the Hildebeast.

    – Ready for that, after 8 years of the first overtly racist president?

  28. Ernst Schreiber says:

    BOHICA

  29. McGehee says:

    Only this time, falling for the same old BS will get you the Hildebeast.

    ‘Cause she’s Inevitabubble! Just like eight years ago.

    The Eledonkeys want us to fear the Hillary. Fookm, sez me.

  30. Pablo says:

    I’d prefer the Hildebeast to a more energetic and passionate ideologue. She’s more interested in Hillary than fundamental transformation. Better her than, say, an Andrew Cuomo.

Comments are closed.