Many of those states have been raising the minimum wage every year to keep it pegged to inflation. Where's the gloom and doom? The rhetoric has claimed there would be an instant and devastating downturn. Where's the long line of businesses leaving those states? Where's the pictures of the ghost McDonald's

So your theory is that he's a kook bitching about something that had literally zero effect on anything?

I was aware of that incident, but he voluntarily accepted the risk. I am more concerned about people who have a risk thrust upon them.

Currently, hobby RC craft are under a recommendation from the FAA but according to the courts, that lacks the force of law.

Probably a lot of people got scammed. In my capacity as 'that guy who does internet stuff' I have explained to quite a few that the letter was a scam.

Perhaps the resorts in Geneva were closed for renovation.

One huge beneficiary of food stamps is WalMart. Without food stamps, their workers would be half dead from malnutrition and would frequently die right there in the store (bad for business). That would force them to raise pay. Thanks to food stamps keeping their worker units alive for them, they don't have to pay so much.

So since WalMart isn't real commerce (being a huge welfare recipient), we should jettison it. Fortunately, by raising the minimum wage, we may yet salvage it as an actual contributor to commerce.

As for the comment about cleaners, good luck selling food in a filthy restaurant that gets closed by the health inspector. The fact is, you would be forced to stop mooching off of the food stamp program and actually paying a living wage if you want to stay in business.

That means the rest of us are subsidizing their employer's payroll.

So you firmly believe people's lives should suck? (presumably not your own, of course).

That suggests we should cut CEOs way back and increase minimum wage even more.

Russia jettisoned their mockery of Marx decades ago. How are they doing now?

One thing is perfectly clear though. Since employment didn't go down, those who were earning minimum wage have more money now than they did before.

By that argument I can claim that had they not raised minimum wage, they would have plunged into a new dark ages populated exclusively by roving bandits. But hey, we'll never know so I am safe from ever being disproven. How nice for me!

You missed the part about the people with more money will now spend it. Where, you might ask will they spend it? Mostly at the same sorts of businesses that pay minimum wage, since they still won't be wealthy by a long shot.

And what will more customers mean? Gotta hire more staff to handle the load.

I should point you out in the thread above as evidence that it is the conservatives who think it's a negative sum game where the more it is spread the less there is to spread.

Many libertarians re-define slavery to mean paying taxes or putting people in chains and literally whipping them until they work. They ignore the constructive slavery of being forced to work for next to nothing because that's what the offered wages are in the vain hope of not starving long enough for a miracle to happen.

In some ways, the modern minimum wage slaver is worse than the literal slave owners of old. The slave owners of yesterday HAD to provide food, clothing, shelter, and health care to avoid losing their investment. The modern ones palm that responsibility off on society.