What do think or feel about proverty,class,minimum wage, an economics? How does it reflect in this day an age?

Question

I was told to write an essay on these topics and I need you the people the voice of this country to voice your opinion on how you feel about these topics. Don't be shy about it, tell all. Even the out come you think this country will be in 2010.

Answer 1

In short, minimum wage increases unemployment, inflation, and lowers real wages.  To point you in the direction of a quick read that covers a lot of material try to get a copy of Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.  It was originally written while these policies were being enacted and takes you step by step through the logical economic outcomes of their long run effects.  A little more advanced reading would be Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.

Governments are incapable of effectively dealing with economic problems because any "solution" they come up with will either redirect resources from privately determined, efficiency focused investment that is fundamentally accretive to economic growth (ie poverty/class programs) or create unemployment and inflation through creating artificial demand and raising the cost of employing people (ie minimum wage).  In the end, it is in the interest of corrupt bureaucrats to fill their payrolls and create an uninformed class who will look to the government to "solve" all of their problems by "punishing" owners.  

I like Lincoln's quote: You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You can't help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.  You can't help the poor by destroying the rich.  And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could, and should do, for themselves.

That being said, every society has people who are either physically or mentally unable to take care of themselves.  Accommodations should be made in those cases.  First by private charities, then by government as needed.  Inability should not be confused with laziness or ignorance.