2008 Woodie Awards
Reply to Andrew Tamburin
Debating wages and economics
Jerilyn Gashi
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Opinion
How kind of Andrew Tamburin to respond to my guest column in the Mar. 8 issue of the Lumberjack; I was hoping for a scathing rebuttal, although I admit I had hoped for a more intelligent one.
However, since not even an Andrew could induce me to postpone the enjoyment of my Spring Break, he's had to wait for my reply.
On one point will I thank Mr. Tamburin for making a genuine correction: I had inadvertently quoted the price of a cake pre-MW-raise as about $6, and the post-raise price as about $8; this is an increase of about $2, not $1.50 as I stated. An error of detail that does not lessen the weight of my overall argument, which is that if we really want to help people, we shouldn't be taking actions that hurt them.
I must also thank him for correcting me for writing to an audience far above what my target audience should have been. It's unfortunate that Andrew graduated this great institution and yet can't read effectively. I did not, as he claims, base my entire argument on one anecdotal story; rather, I used the story of the Ramone's cake as an illustration of yet another chapter in the already well-established evidence against the effectiveness of the minimum wage. Andrew calls me a "would-be economist," but William Buckley seems to have agreed with me: "[v]iolating free-market allocations…is not theologically sinful, but it is wise to know…that the consequence of taking such liberties is to undermine the price mechanism by which free societies prosper." And Milton Friedman agreed with both of us: "the substitution of contract arrangements for status arrangements was the first step towards the freeing of the serfs in the Middle Ages." So, if "the poor fools that have to take minimum wage jobs due to the lack of economic opportunities," as Andrew calls them, would like to improve their lot, perhaps they should canvass for determining their own contract conditions instead of assuming the status of serfs. Or, you could take the California Chamber of Commerce's version: ""Instead of working to make California less competitive by mandating that the state's minimum wage be the highest in the nation, the California chamber believes the focus should be on removing the barriers to productivity and wage growth."
However, since not even an Andrew could induce me to postpone the enjoyment of my Spring Break, he's had to wait for my reply.
On one point will I thank Mr. Tamburin for making a genuine correction: I had inadvertently quoted the price of a cake pre-MW-raise as about $6, and the post-raise price as about $8; this is an increase of about $2, not $1.50 as I stated. An error of detail that does not lessen the weight of my overall argument, which is that if we really want to help people, we shouldn't be taking actions that hurt them.
I must also thank him for correcting me for writing to an audience far above what my target audience should have been. It's unfortunate that Andrew graduated this great institution and yet can't read effectively. I did not, as he claims, base my entire argument on one anecdotal story; rather, I used the story of the Ramone's cake as an illustration of yet another chapter in the already well-established evidence against the effectiveness of the minimum wage. Andrew calls me a "would-be economist," but William Buckley seems to have agreed with me: "[v]iolating free-market allocations…is not theologically sinful, but it is wise to know…that the consequence of taking such liberties is to undermine the price mechanism by which free societies prosper." And Milton Friedman agreed with both of us: "the substitution of contract arrangements for status arrangements was the first step towards the freeing of the serfs in the Middle Ages." So, if "the poor fools that have to take minimum wage jobs due to the lack of economic opportunities," as Andrew calls them, would like to improve their lot, perhaps they should canvass for determining their own contract conditions instead of assuming the status of serfs. Or, you could take the California Chamber of Commerce's version: ""Instead of working to make California less competitive by mandating that the state's minimum wage be the highest in the nation, the California chamber believes the focus should be on removing the barriers to productivity and wage growth."
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