Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
A) There are fast food places that have fewer workers (maybe just the owner and family). They wouldn't have to worry about doubling wages. They could afford to keep prices low, thus screwing large chains out of business.
Unless the owner buys a humongous new restaurant and cyborg tentacles for his wife and himself, no, they would not do anything of the sort.

B) By doubling the cost of labor, you're making capital far more attractive. Fast food companies will rapidly attempt to replace most of their workers with machines. Some workers are obviously necessary, but one can significantly cut down if one is willing to buy expensive machinery.
Good so what you're saying is in fact that costs for companies would in the long term be maintained or decreased due to innovation and productivity would probably increase. The owner and his family from the foregoing example would likely be screwed out of business.

C) The least skilled workers (usually member of ethnic minorities) will be priced out of the market. They will be the first ones fired due to B, and they're not going to be hired by anyone at $15 an hour.
You're probably correct about this. Just so we're clear, btw, I was thinking of the miniscule minimum wage raise that's actually being backed by the govt., not the doubling being demanded by some McDonald's workers.

D) By paying fast food workers $15 an hour, you're going to encourage people to pursue fast food jobs instead of getting a college education. Why go to college for 4 years just to get an entry-level position that pays no better than McDonald's? In fact, this is what happened in Spain with the construction industry.
See above. Moreover, would you choose to work at McDonald's if your salary were $15/hour? I hear construction is extremely satisfying for some people. The ginger's dad started out in construction and stayed in that business for very many years before deciding to get rich.

E) Products are bought at the margin, not in the abstract "how much do I think food is worth". At the margin, there will be people who are priced out of the fast food market if prices increase too sharply. This is especially true for poor people, who literally can't afford to spend more on fast food.
This is also correct. However, you forget that there are basically no poor people in the US who can't afford more Big Macs by not buying lottos and cigarettes. But in general yes you're correct in that the poor would be priced out of the fast food market in which they used to work until rising costs made them lose their jobs

So as usual, lefties like you ignore all the inevitable side-effects of a do-gooder policy, side-effects that happen to be far worse than the supposed benefit.
So as usual you're so goddamned thick that you've failed to notice that I'm not casting substantial increases to minimum wages as being unmitigated awesomeness. What I have done is challenged some of your assumptions, in the interest of getting a clearer picture.

As for some facts:

"We found mean price elasticity estimates ranging from 0.27 to 0.81 (absolute values), with the highest price elasticities for food away from home, soft drinks, juice, meats, and fruit and the most inelastic demand for eggs. "

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804646/
As for facts, the authors noted that "We had limited statistical power to synthesize estimates for other foods of interest, including fresh fruits and vegetables, fast food, snacks, and candy." This is probably because only about two of the studies reviewed offered estimates for fast food. Of those, one noted that the demand elasticity of fast food was likely influenced by the availability of convenient foods, eg. from other fast food places and grocery stores. They could offer no solid conclusions about what happens when prices increase for everyone.