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January 12, 2016 If I Really Hated the Poor ...

In my inbox today … I badly want to go argue for the “Pro” side:

Hi _________:

I am a librarian in the Business Division at the Central Library.   We will be hosting a debate on Thursday, February 25th from 5-7pm on the $15 minimum wage issue.  I am looking for one more person to be on the “pro” side and I was wondering if any of your economics professors agree with this and would be willing to speak.  I’ve looked through the department’s webpage and still don’t have a good sense of research interests.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Best,

XXXXXXXXX

Central Library of Rochester & Monroe County

Elsewhere in my inbox:

SOTU

I am reminded of this piece from Kevin Williamson. Hey Kevin, tell us what you really think! Here is the beginning:

The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, a black Mass during which every unholy order of teacup totalitarian and cringing courtier gathers under the towering dome of a faux-Roman temple to listen to a speech with no content given by a man with no content, to rise and to be seated as is called for by the order of worship — it is a wonder they have not started genuflecting — with one wretched representative of their number squirreled away in some well-upholstered Washington hidey-hole in order to preserve the illusion that those gathered constitute a special class of humanity without whom we could not live.

It’s the most nauseating display in American public life — and I write that as someone who has just returned from a pornographers’ convention.

"2" Comments
  1. OMG, yes. Please, please, please go argue “pro”. And take video.

    Troll them. Troll them all.

  2. I seriously think you should consider arguing the “pro” side, but use the strategy that Bryan Caplan did when he went on Neil Cavuto’s show to talk about why he was “in favor” of the gas tax holiday proposed by Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary campaign.

    His argument was essentially that the proposed measure would not have much of an effect, but would give the impression that Congress was “doing something” about the problem, thus potentially forestalling more intrusive, distortionary and authoritarian measures down the road. Now, one can argue whether a $15/hr. wage floor would end up being more consequential — it certainly could, depending on whether it is being proposed at a national, state or local level, but it might be small price to pay to avoid the wholesale socialism and economic control regimes of nihilists like Sanders.

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