No, but my health insurance (individual, not through my small-business employer) goes up about 30% per annum...
That would be about a 400% increase in a 6 year period..
Remember that PCI-DSS is a fairly new standard. A quick search got me a VISA document that listed january 1, 2008 as the date for phasing out old payment systems that didn't manage card numbers securely.
The plain text credit card number was apparently used in a transaction from 2005. Still a bad idea to use a plain text card number. But ompanies doing stupid stuff like that.is kind of the reason why PCI-DSS became mandatory in the first place.
My issue is that you dont want a free market
The very core of free market theory is consensual trade. Without mutual consent you can't have a free market. And that is why the low end labor market is in no way a free market. The worker is not consenting to work, he is figuratively forced at gunpoint.
So the only negative impact the minimum wage has on the free market is imaginary as there wasn't a free market to begin with. Well, unless you had some kind of basic income to remove the figurative gun from the picture.
Anyone calling the current economy a free market is spouting bullshit. The core of free market theory is consent between seller (employee) and consumer (employer). But you can't have proper consent when the seller is under duress.
Unions are kind of a solution, but that is essentially fighting duress with duress which is a negative cold war strategy. Not what I would call a free market.
The better solution in my opinion is an unconditional basic income, that directly tries to solve the problem of sellers being under duress to begin with. All without having the government doing any extra regulations of the market. In fact, with a proper basic income you can even remove regulations such as the minimum wage.
Taxes real have four purposes for the federal government. or any other sovereign fiat currency owner.
The first two purposes are similar, namely to manage inflation and create a base demand for currency. You do those with general taxing and failure to do it leads to inflation and a devalued currency.
The third purpose is to punish externalities. You could outlaw things instead, but that is a very blunt solution. It is better to punish excessive usage via taxes. The gas tax is one such tax. Failure to properly implement these taxes makes the society as a whole worse off thanks to people exploiting externalities.
The final purpose is to ensure money circulation. This is done via wealth, land and progressive taxes. Failure to properly do that forces the government to issue more and more money as the existing money keeps accumulating in the top 1%, Since most modern countries use a bond system, that is equivalent to subsidizing the top 1% and going into an ever increasing debt.
Oh, and as technology improves, the return on capital will as well, causing money to accumulate upwards even faster. The most extreme example is when one person owns all the capital and can press a single button and produce enough for the whole population. In that case, that person will have to be taxed at nearly 100% if you want to keep the economy functioning.
Them as has, gets.