> For example, McDonalds doesn't price a hamburger based on costs, but the best price point for a variety of factors, where raising the price will tend to lose profit.
McDonalds doesn't sell hamburgers at a loss. As its costs increase, the price where it maximizes its profits is affected.
> In other words, raising minimum wage doesn't mean Bob won't get a job
That's simply wrong. Things that can't be produced profitably aren't produced voluntarily. There are lots of goods that aren't produced because they can't be produced profitably. The folks who would have been employed producing them are either unemployed or doing something else, displacing someone else from that job.
Of course, good people are welcome to pay folks more than the value of their labor, price things below cost, or set their prices for reasons other than profit maximization. If their economic theories are correct, everything will work out well for them and they'll have significant economic advantages over folks who do otherwise. Those advantages will cause economic harm to said other folks.
Yet, good people don't actually act on their convictions. Instead, they try to coerce others to act on those convictions. Curious.
> Things that can't be produced profitably aren't produced voluntarily
If for good x to be produced profitably, it needs for the human labor component to work for less than livable wage, then it shouldn't be produced. Period.
There are a great many examples of differences in minimum wage (even within the U.S., the minimum wage has gone up and down) and I assure you, an Armageddon of unemployment does not ensue when the minimum wage is raised.
Your "good people don't act on their convictions" argument is plain silly, anamax. Listen, there are rules for everything. If we don't "coerce" businesses not to put toxins in kids toys and lead in drinking water, they will. If we don't say, "you can't economically rape your employees," they will. Look at what happened in the late 19th century: company town, company stores, child labor. We keep learning; we keep forgetting. It makes me sick.
McDonalds doesn't sell hamburgers at a loss. As its costs increase, the price where it maximizes its profits is affected.
> In other words, raising minimum wage doesn't mean Bob won't get a job
That's simply wrong. Things that can't be produced profitably aren't produced voluntarily. There are lots of goods that aren't produced because they can't be produced profitably. The folks who would have been employed producing them are either unemployed or doing something else, displacing someone else from that job.
Of course, good people are welcome to pay folks more than the value of their labor, price things below cost, or set their prices for reasons other than profit maximization. If their economic theories are correct, everything will work out well for them and they'll have significant economic advantages over folks who do otherwise. Those advantages will cause economic harm to said other folks.
Yet, good people don't actually act on their convictions. Instead, they try to coerce others to act on those convictions. Curious.