The only exception to the rule is the IRS and audits, so you were just unlucky with what you chose to extrapolate from, I guess.

Showing you proof that I paid an illegal immigrant $10/hr, would prove two things: (1) I did not violate min wage laws, (2) I violated employment laws by knowingly employing an illegal immigrant. Therefore, being forced to show this document would incriminate myself, even though it absolves me from your charge.

> In other words, the employer is not guilty just because someone claims they were working for them and they had no records of payment. There's still the need to prove that the employer was in on the deal.

All that suggests is that I employed an illegal. It doesn't say anything about what I paid them. Just because I cannot prove I paid them more than min wage does not get me into trouble for violating min wage laws. I do not understand why you think the absence of evidence is evidence of wrongdoing. That is only the case if evidence is destroyed by the person it's assumed to incriminate (e.g., if Lois Lerner destroyed her hard drive, it can be assumed its contents were bad for her), and even then the judge has to give that direction. Otherwise, juries are explicitly told they cannot view absence of evidence as negative.

Governments abuse their power. I did not come to this conclusion from this incident. This incident is yet another example of innumerable examples in history. You think this new scenario is an exception based on... I don't know what.

If you have a model showing warming, you still have to show that it's due mostly to man, and you have to show that making a given change would slow, stop, or reverse it. That is all very difficult to do. But the current state of the science is that they can't even reliably predict the warming. That doesn't mean they are wrong. I have my method of study be flipping a coin and I could end up with the right conclusion. But the burden is on those who want to radically change energy consumption habits and/or cost structure, and that's where people, including me, aren't convinced. Trying to turn it around as if the burden is on "the deniers", as you say, is an old enough trick that I don't think anyone will fall for it.

That's called being employed.

Yes, non sequitur indeed. I'm sure government abuses of power are limited to the NSA.

So, do you believe abuses like those described here do not happen as a regular course of business: "NSA Employees Routinely Pass Around Nude Photos Obtained Via Mass Surveillance" http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...

I find that naive. Now, do I care? Not really. But I understand why some people might, and I don't consider that privacy purity.

There is some education going on in higher ed, but that is not why people go to college. They go to college to get away from their parents, to live "on their own", to black out from alcohol, to get laid, to get a diploma, get a job, and then supposedly get rich. There is very little impressive thinking going on at the undergraduate level. It is not a mecca of intellectualism by any means.

The cost of course delivery is not the reason for higher ed price inflation. The only way these resources could fix the problem is if they cause people to route around the higher ed system. That said, there is very interesting thinking partially along these lines at places like the http://saxifrageschool.org/

This reply is probably the only thing you could have said at this point to save some face. But I doubt anyone but you and me is reading this far down, so you come off a bit paranoid. Nobody knows everything; the trick you have yet to learn is to avoid asserting yourself beyond where your knowledge can support. In order for people to be fooled, they have to know less on the subject in question than you.

Thanks for talking about temporary welfare. I asked how much does an unemployed person make. The correct answer is $0.

Your scenario is no possible. What happens is that there will be a sub-optimal balance between automation and jobs, and the cause of this will be idiot voters using government for things that does not make sense.

Oh, right. I forgot that the main reason people buy biz class tickets is so they can check in with a human and not have a line.

> The employer wouldn't be prosecuted based on their evidence so there would be no 5th amendment issues.

You are clearly talking out of your ass, so I'm not going to waste too much time here. Outside of explicit immunity for employing an illegal immigrant and defaulting on payroll taxes and other various responsibilities, it absolutely would be protected by the 5th amendment.

> If you can't provide evidence of legal employment, then you suffer the consequences of illegal employment.

Are you a complete moron? If I go to the Feds and tell them I worked for you and you paid me less than min wage, can you prove I didn't? Is your failure to produce documentation proof that you paid me less than min wage? I never worked for you, so obviously you can't produce documents showing that you paid me more than min wage.

> At least in my fantasy land :).

At least one part of your comment was correct and logical.

It's well-known representative example and is not meant to be the best example.

Your premise is pretty egocentric, though. We are living through a relatively quiet period with new innovation, compared to the industrial revolution and the 1990s. If the social order didn't collapse then, I'm pretty sure we'll be fine.

But if you want to slow down even more the automation of jobs currently filled with humans, then stop adding to the price of employing humans while the price of buying automation falls. That means: no min wage increases, no Affordable Care Act, no payroll tax increases, no gas tax increases, no new family leave benefits, no new mandated paid sick leave, etc.

I won't hold my breath. Most people who sigh over automating away human jobs are the same people accelerating the process through idiotic policy prescriptions.

Employers do not need to prove they are paying minimum wage with illegals. You cannot force an employer to produce documents that would incriminate themselves by saying they employed illegal workers and avoided payroll taxes. 5th Amendment protections. Furthermore, there would be no documents; they're illegally working! They are being paid under the table. If you insist on surprise inspections, all that will happen is construction companies, etc. will constantly rotate day laborers vs. having someone there for any length of time. That would limit their exposure to a single day, and perhaps eliminate it altogether if they are paying at the end of the day (thus after the inspection opportunity has passed).

The only way this would work is literally planting an investigator to pose as an illegal and observe the transaction. It's just not a big problem relative to hiring illegals in the first place.