Some people think free trade is a winner by which we gain more in lower prices and boom in exports than we lose in wage drops in some industries.
Obama vs Bernie.
Adam Smith thought the opposite policy of protectionism good only for the people in protected industries and actually bad for their neighbors.
I think that view still dominates even among Keynesians.
The value of immigration to the recipient country varies with many factors.
Opponents say high immigration is needed to pay for Social Security and Medicare but simultaneously complain of the increased burden unskilled and low wage immigrants place on welfare, public education, and social services of all kinds not excluding police and prisons.
So immigration is good for Social Security and Medicare and other senior benefits but, by strengthening competing demands for the tax dollar, bad for them?
Do any economists think it makes sense to raise the minimum wage in a time of high unemployment?
Bernie complains unemployment is twice the official figure but demands a huge rise in the minimum wage.
But a rise in the minimum wage benefits only those who personally get a raise because of it.
Others face layoffs, joblessness, or higher prices.
If Hillary weren't so personally repulsive and such a hawk I might favor her.
Similar questions pertain to the social impact of unions, with their ludicrous wage demands, Luddism, and feather-bedding.
Compared to her Bernie sometimes seems a bumper-sticker radical.
The real minimum standard of wealth and well-being is determined not by the minimum wage but by the aid provided the unemployed without means of their own.
The vagabond's wage, if you will.
Failing that, society's worst off would be absolutely destitute.
African or the worst Asian poverty is not yet that bad.
It is so bad naked Indians of Amazonia are no worse off.
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