There are also rigorous studies done by many academics that agree the effect if existant, is tiny.
Well yes, if you make a small change, you'd expect a small effect. I read your post several times, and I'm still not really sure what point you are trying to make.
I think people vastly overestimate the ability of the free market to meet consumer demand, in cases where the demand is for something that can't be easily quantified.
Oh no sir, the market filled your demand perfectly here. You asked for a cheap phone, and that's exactly what you got.
But despite what those terrible commercials show on TV I didn't see throngs of hopelessly miserable Children.
True, the hopelessness is in the adults. And it's usually not a matter of being in an impossible situation, it's a matter of lacking the knowledge of how to improve their situation (I'm more familiar with latin america, so Africa could be completely different, I don't know).
Anyway, why are you going to Africa? I've wanted to go, but I don't really have a reason, and I'm not going to go just to stare at people.
just because people are poor, doesn't mean they are hopeless.
You should visit (really visit, not do the touristy thing) a third-world country and feel the hopelessness. Not all countries are like that,but a lot of them are.
I've no doubt that some of them are good by whatever standard you choose to measure with.
I have doubts
I was being intentionally inaccurate to draw attention, in the same way that ads do it.
I guess it worked
and more importantly opportunity than 95% of the people in the 3rd world
Yeah, this is what is sad to me, the hopelessness people have.
But the point of the article is that the argument that 'raising the minimum wage will kill jobs' has been disproved.
No it isn't, the point of the article is to help people who already agree with that feel good about themselves. If you have any logical sense at all, if this were an article about a topic you disagreed with, I'm sure you could find logical holes in it.
The fact that you haven't tried to poke holes in an argument you agree with shows a cognitive bias on your part. Now the question is whether you'll fix that cognitive bias, or remain the way you were before.
Correlation != Causation, always.
Oh oh, this is often a sign that someone is about to say something stupid.
When a company does an advertising campaign they very often persuade shopkeepers to stock more of their stuff "Because there is going to be a big demand for it when the public see our advertising". Therefore, someone buying at random, like I buy soap for example, is more likely to pick up the item in question just by chance.
Right, so you, without looking at data, with a half-minute of speculation, think they could be wrong because you found a way they could be wrong. You don't think people who spend all day looking at this kind of data, might have already thought of that?
You argue that advertising doesn't work, although there are studies that show it does, because you're an idiot. You didn't think about what you were going to say before you typed it, and idiocy spewed forth from your fingers.
Let's reach for the stars again!
Sure, but how?
"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"