Mandriva Linux Was Allegedly Brought Down By Employee Lawsuits

[Luke_Wolf]

And to think people are complaining here because the recently elected provincial government where I live wants to put in the $15 dollar minimum wage that it campaigned on. They want us to believe that the entire economy will be crippled if it goes ahead and raises the minimum wage incrementally by a a few dollars over the next three years. Well, seeing as how France and Germany still manage to be economic engines with the laws here described, then the employers where I live really do have nothing to complain about in comparison.

That's a misunderstanding of the argument, just as people who think that raising the minimum wage causes people to get raises is a misunderstanding of what minimum wage actually is. Minimum wage is a system by which the government determines the minimum allowable kind of work based on pay rate. The current minimum wage is set below a "Living Wage" because the expectation is that those taking minimum wage jobs are students either in high school or college and so are living primarily off of parental support.

This understanding of the situation was valid until 2008 when the economic recession hit causing a flood of workers from higher level jobs into minimum wage positions, who then expected to be able to independently live off of said work. As the reality of the situation sunk in these individuals have now moved onto demanding a "living wage" as the minimum wage with the misunderstanding that they think that means that they'll be paid at $15/hour with the same number of hours as opposed to the reality which is that they're pushing things in favour of mechanization and self service, and will only push the 2nd wave of mechanization faster into place by doing so, which will result in the service sector of the job market being gutted causing mass unemployment. The market as a whole will absolutely survive (and even thrive as the machines make things more efficient), but you basically just killed the unskilled labour market. Now the market is going to cause this to happen eventually anyway, but that's why at a minimum public universities should be free.