$20 Min. Wage In California To Bring Higher Prices, Layoffs & Automation
The minimum wage outlaws jobs. The only question is which jobs are outlawed. In California, any job that can be done for less than $20 are illegal in fast food chains. Naturally, prices for consumers will go up, workers are laid off (thanks to a law!) while automation, kiosks and robotics replace them. Smaller businesses go out of business, or are never started; while big businesses adapt with much greater ease. Sounds a lot like the policies that were imposed under covid, doesn’t it? But this time, the tool of choice is the minimum wage law.
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today we have Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you again, Dr. Paul.
Good.
And we'll talk about those usual things.
Maybe an economic problem that we're facing.
Oh, an economic problem.
We have a lot of economic problems.
We have budgetary problems and people are getting frightened.
They're starting to buy gold more so than they used to.
So there is a lot of activity and that's what we do generally.
We get a lot of that in on Fridays.
And that to me is important because we talk a lot about what's going on in the political world, the social world, the legislative world.
But ultimately, I guess I have over the years looked at one of the indicators all the way back to 1971 when things were stirring.
It was reflected in the price of gold.
And, you know, it looks like something must be stirring because the price of gold actually has been stirring and has been up significantly.
I was impressed with the fact that people are buying silver.
Of course, I've heard about the silver boom coming for years and years and years, but it was always going to be gigantic, but it never arrived.
And I keep wondering, maybe we're at that point because it's gone up significantly.
But the precious metals is where people go when they have concern about what's going on.
It's also the reason that I have partnered with Birch Gold Group because that's what they do.
They try to help people find a way to be protected because the dollar denominate items are not protected if you don't have something else.
Because you have a Federal Reserve that is manipulative and they're more likely to protect the incumbency of a president than anybody else.
So we do partner with Birch Gold and what we do is I pass on an invitation, an offer from Birch.
So if you text Ron 989898, they'll send you some free material.
It will help make a decision or give you some urging to get some precious metals.
And some people, as I've mentioned before, they'll say, oh, it's a little bit too late, especially after this week.
It's gone up.
It's over $2,000.
And I was probably too late.
And, you know, my answer to that has been, well, if you think it's too late to buy gold, that means that the politicians have solved the spending problem.
And we're not going to have deficit.
And we're not going to have a Fed printing money.
So if you believe that, you could probably say, we don't have to think about gold or buying gold.
Not that that means that gold only goes up because it isn't quite like that.
And that is why I think getting some help on how to look at all the different ways you can invite in gold is a good idea.
And that's why I do work with Birch Gold.
And once again, if you want to get some material from Birch Gold to learn more about investing in gold, go to Ron 989898, and they'll send you material.
And there's no charge for that.
Because I keep thinking about how much I've thought about gold and money and politics and spending because I was really enlightened a couple years before 1971 when there were predictions that the Bretton Woods would break down.
And all those concerns that I had and had been reading about were confirmed On August 15th of 1971, because that is when we had to admit we were really bankrupt and we would never honor our dollar with gold again.
And that is where we are.
And that is why it was very easy for many economic professors that came from the Austrian school could predict what's going to happen.
Government's going to get bigger and it's going to go huge spending and huge deficit till it's uncontrollable.
And that's where we are.
And I think what we're witnessing now is the warm-up session for what really might be on the doorstep, the exact time when we think there's going to be a real explosion and a real big monetary problem.
That date is unpredictable, but there's enough nonsense going on now to make people a little bit nervous.
So there's more talk about gold and precious metal in the main media, not just in the conservative media and the gold and silver articles.
Now, one of the quote one article on that subject, it has to do with a quote from Thomas Hoening, who was a Federal Reserve Board executive.
And he said, quote, this is short.
He said he was in the Federal Reserve.
He's sort of in the mainstream business community now.
He has his head on his shoulders thinking this through.
He says, our money is dying.
And I think he's right there.
I think it's been dying.
Maybe it's on its deathbed.
But you know, one thing, though, that I have accepted, but we don't know what will happen.
The dollar will remain.
The dollar stays around, just like the pound had stayed around.
But the pound was king when the British Empire had control of the reserve currency.
But once the pound lost its reserve currency status, you know, then everything changed.
But there's still a pound today, and we prop it up all the time.
But that is the case.
And that's what I think will probably happen with the dollar.
It's going to be hard to just erase everything that's done in dollars because it's so big.
But it doesn't mean that the iterum of reaching that point of no return is going to be difficult because even though we know exactly what the politicians could do, it wouldn't be that hard.
If they did it, things would get better rather quickly.
And it wouldn't be that bad.
But it's not going to happen because that little thing that I talk about is the people have to accept the fact that we spend less money in Washington.
But there's a lot of people out of Washington that says cut spending.
At the same time, they always have one item.
They say, but, you know, what if it involved refinancing something in Social Security?
No, you mentioned that I'm a politician.
He can't get elected.
So there's pressure from the grassroots, pressure from the business community, pressure from the special interest group.
But it leads to this concept that here we have a Federal Reserve, former Federal Reserve executive saying, our money is dying.
Minimum Wage Shock00:14:52
And Chris, I believe he's right about that.
We just don't know when that dying is going to end.
Chris?
Chris?
That's right, Dr. Paul.
And yeah, so for those who haven't done so, definitely check out Birch Gold.
And you won't be disappointed.
At the very least, you'll get some good information.
Now, today we're going to actually discuss the minimum wage, which, you know, if you're a libertarian, you'll never stop talking about the minimum wage.
It's one of the biggest economic fallacies, I guess, would be a good word.
And we're here to debunk the fallacies.
And over in California, there's now a $20 minimum wage law for fast food places that have over 60 places.
So, well, to start with, I understand the attachment to the minimum wage from the average person's perspective.
There's terrible inflation, and that's due to government spending and Fed printing money.
But the average person really doesn't get that or understand that.
And they're not going to stop spending and inflating the money supply.
So the average person thinks, well, force them, force my employer to pay me more.
That will help solve my problems.
Now, the job of a good politician, a statesman, would be like, you know, that would do more harm than good.
I know it sounds good.
We'll raise minimum wage, but it creates a lot of harm because the minimum wage, the bottom line of the minimum wage is it outlaws jobs.
That's it.
That's all it does.
And the question is, which jobs are outlawed?
Well, in the case of California, anything that could be performed for less than $20.
So if a teenager goes in and says, listen, I need my first job.
I'll sweep the floors.
I don't need $20.
I'll do it for $10.
You know, I live with my parents.
I'm just trying to get some skills.
The place has to say no.
It's illegal.
It's outlawed.
Even though I would pay you $10, I cannot.
So by law, you must stay unemployed.
Same thing with senior citizens, people that are older.
A lot of older people are working these days because the Social Security checks do not go as far as they used to.
They could go in, listen, I can't do a lot of things because of my age.
I could be a greeter.
I could bring joy into this place by being nice to people.
I'll do it for whatever.
It doesn't have to be $20.
Again, has to be turned down.
Illegal.
Illegal.
Even though both parties agree to the price, that is what the minimum wage does.
The higher you raise it, the more people you, you know, the more outlawed jobs there are.
Raise it to $100 an hour.
Think of all the unemployment that would create.
So we'll talk more about this, but that's the basic gist of it from my point of view.
You know, even in this area, you'd think people would grasp the truth and understand it a little bit better.
Well, what Chris just said, that makes a lot of sense.
But to some people, they say, well, it might make sense, but we have to refute it anyway because we don't want them to get ahead of us.
And there was an article in the USA today.
I want to quote a little bit from that, just a sentence.
It says, this is a spin, you know, to make it sound like, oh, wage and price control is no big problem.
And this minimum wage isn't a big deal.
The negative effects of a higher minimum wage are minimal.
When wages increase by 10%, production costs in the restaurant, the industry usually adjusts.
So that's no big deal, you know, and there's no consequence.
Chris has already mentioned a lot of consequence from it, and there are.
And the answer to all this is not complicated, but the politics of it is.
And that is, you know, when you have less debt and less effort to just print and take care of all the special interests, you know, this would end.
But this whole thing that the businessman will take care of, and that's what they argue.
You know, they charge too much for hamburgers.
Oh, okay, we raise the wages to $20 to serve a hamburger.
And the company starts losing money.
What do they do?
Well, if you want the businessman to adjust and stay in business, he has to get rid of half of his crew or a bunch has to be fired.
But this article was alluding to the fact that they're smart and they can cut costs and do these other things.
Take less profits is really what they're talking about.
So it's all fake stuff that does not solve the problem.
Here's another one that they've rationalized, the minimum wage.
This one says the higher minimum wage also means employees will pay more payroll taxes and employees will pay more income taxes.
So the state of California can expect a significant increase in income tax revenues this year, especially if higher incomes disqualify some of those workers from getting tax credit.
That's the type of spin that they have out there.
They're looking to the positive side.
But actually, even if they were doing that, that would be the wrong thing to do.
But it won't do that.
Chris has already mentioned what happens to these people.
A bunch of them are going to get fired.
They won't be paying any.
So the revenues are going to go down, not up.
The unemployment rates are going to go up.
And that is what's happening.
But they still try to spin this thing that things aren't all that bad.
There was one article also that talked about the public school need for people to work.
And they say, well, now with this change, the school people who wouldn't be under this law, I don't think, they can compete with the people that's working at the hamburger places.
And that in itself is going to boost prices elsewhere.
So it has a spin over.
But they think, a lot of people think, well, that'll be good.
If it's good for the people in the fast food places, that should be good for everybody.
But it's just a bunch of hocus.
It's a shame, I think, that people buy into this.
It doesn't make sense to us, but I think some people sort of believe it, but this is not the time to do it.
I've heard that a lot of times.
I think it was in the early years when it might have been when Reagan was in and we had the, oh yeah, we had the comprollers, the controllers, their controllers go on strike.
And the airlines were losing a lot of money.
And so I heard really, really strict conservative.
Well, we caused that, and that's why they're doing this.
Instead of correcting the problem, what they said, well, what we're going to do is we're going to bail out the airline.
And what about COVID under COVID?
Republicans and Democrats and Independents, because even if they want to maintain a belief in fiscal conservatism, politically they're forced to change their mind or get up and leave.
Not many people can stand the heat of watching this and doing the right thing because there is no doubt the problem is big.
And if you wean people off, it's even worse because by that time the enemy gets organized and they come after you.
And that's why I say they're not going to cut the budget.
They're not going to balance the budget.
Prices are not going to come down.
They're not going to restore the gold standard next month.
So people should, you know, prepare for it.
But people should also know that if we do decide to change our tune, it really wouldn't be as bad as people say because if you did it in one year, which we did in 1921, the corruption isn't that bad.
Yes, one year it's bad.
But after the Keysians got control, nobody could watch it for a year and have things correct on its own.
What they want to do is make sure it lasts 10 years and 20 years or a generation.
And that's what we're facing today.
Chris.
That's right, Dr. Paul.
Yes.
And the minimum wage just may shock people.
But big business, it's a big blessing for them.
Now, you might think, no, no, we're getting them.
We're getting the man who's paying us nothing.
The government is helping us.
They're giving us a raise now.
You know, when it was Fight for 15, Fight for 15, that disappeared.
Now you go into all the fast food places, it's all screens.
It's all kiosks.
All the people are gone.
So it was a perfect way to get rid of the people and put screens and it's acceptable.
So it's great for big business.
It's bad for smaller business.
Now the smaller business is under tremendous pressure because he's not a big giant crony corporation.
He now has to find a way to survive.
And raising the minimum wage hurts him.
And a lot of small businesses won't even be started.
No, some will be closed because it's just too much, the minimum wage.
And others will be like, I can't start my business.
It's just too much to pay for labor.
I can't pay everybody $20 an hour.
Now, we know from experience and from being around for a while that the goal for these controllers is for it all to be big business.
We saw it during COVID.
All the policies were don't go into the small shops because there's COVID.
Go with hundreds of people into the big stores.
And they're still open.
We're going to close all the small shops.
So the goal is because they want these big corporations because they're controlled.
They all say the same things.
They all do all the woke things.
BlackRock and Vanguard owns all the share, the majority of the shares of them.
BlackRock doesn't own the little guy on the corner, so he can't control him.
And the minimum wage is a way to beat the small businessman again and get him out of the way so it's all big business.
But again, that's not how this is sold.
This is sold as we're giving you a raise, and it's just another scam.
Very good.
You know, what we're talking about is the foolishness of wage and price controls, how it hurts us economically, and sometimes it hurts the people they're trying to help, and other people who are supposed to help might not realize what they're supposed to do.
And the Fed works diligently to play the role of solving the problem that they created, and they make things worse.
But there's one principle that could be applied to all our activities in life, economic, social, as well as how we relate to other countries around the world.
And that is on individualism in economics as well as on personal matters.
Everything should be decisions made personally.
Who buys and who sells and what the price is.
Because to me, this is the only time I use in a very positive way economic democracy.
The democracy that you hear about all the time is just the dictatorship of the majority.
And if you get control of the government, where there's a tremendous increase in the desire to control the government and the funding, then that's different.
But for the control of this, we want personal choices.
So if you have a customer and a businessman, you really should have the businessman have no regulations on his prices.
And the individual coming in, he's in charge.
Every penny he spends, he's voting.
And if he had a sound monetary system, it would be of great value.
But what they do is they leave, and they still do that.
I mean, there's still data going about going on.
They used that choice business during COVID.
People got sick and tired of lockdowns.
So this is one thing.
If you had personal choices in economic and social matters, this would solve so much of this pricing business.
But of course, you'd have to get rid of the pricing by the Federal Reserve.
But the other thing that you need in a society that accepts this notion that all prices and conditions are voluntarily agreed to, how do you solve the disagreements, the big disagreement?
So if you're a laborer and you're going to work for somebody, you have an agreement.
You have an agreement condition.
And you say that, you know, we'll solve our problems this way, and this is what you're going to get paid.
And so they know what to expect.
You can even have, you know, where do you go if you have a dispute, a private place to go and do the dispute.
They say, well, what would you do with the union?
Well, the unions would lose all their power of forcing business people to do something, and the business people would lose all their benefits that come from the Fed and everybody else.
So they would have a condition.
But to sit down and talk to somebody, most of these things can't be controlled.
But just if you stop and think about it as the day goes on, how many times that a voluntary contract could have worked over the fact that you're dealing with a regulation?
What about this squatting in these houses?
I don't think government legislation has done a very good job.
It's made it much worse.
Yet there should be very strict rules and regulations about ownership and not to have the government come in and say, oh, squatting under all the conditions we want.
Matter of fact, we like squatting because we could put in illegals in there, and they can't get thrown out.
So that's the nonsense there.
You know, the other reason why the government so often people work for these regulations and wage and price controls is they're not admitting to the very important fact.
Regulations and Squatting00:02:12
They're dealing with inflation.
They're dealing with prices going up.
They're dealing with the debasement of the dollar.
But they're not saying that.
They're saying, well, the prices are too high for the goods and services.
And wages are too high.
So they don't come in and say, well, how do we change that?
And there is a way to change it, of course, it's through first an understanding and of a different definition for what the problem is.
It's not the inflation of prices that your real problem is.
It's the devaluation of your currency is the problem.
And not a lot of people realize that.
If they do, they stay quiet because then the cat would be out of the bag and they wouldn't be able to, oh, you'll be, we better check on the Fed.
You would have to audit the Fed and find out what they're really doing.
And that is what would happen.
So what we do and the complications of making things worse is usually a bunch of people coming up with regulations and usually the wage and prices will be regulated.
Prices aren't regulated as much right now, but in some areas they are, but they will not be hesitant.
So when the inflation gets really, really bad, then it becomes a capital crime if you start charging more.
That's the way it got to the dictatorship.
Once you went over and went into the real market, not the black market, black market becomes the government market.
So There's so much that can be done, but I say I put the blame mostly on misunderstanding.
And if you want to look at all this, the biggest misunderstanding is people think that inflation comes from how wages are too high, business people are gouging, not enough government regulations, and all this nonsense.
Instead of saying, you don't even ought to defend, they have the right to print money in secrecy to no ends and take care of all their special interest groups.
That is very necessary.
I hope we see the day that that happens.
Chris?
I do too, Dr. Paul, and we'll do our best to speak out against it.
I will finish up with my closing thoughts.
Addiction to the State00:06:10
Yes, the American people, the people in the land of the free, have a terrible, deadly addiction to the government and to the state.
Everything that happens, no matter what it is, the first question is: what will Biden do?
What will Trump do?
What will Obama do?
It's both sides, Republicans and Democrats, all are guilty.
All are addicted to the state.
Now, our early American ancestors would think that the country has gone nuts.
You know, what are you people doing?
You want the government to address the climate?
Do you hear yourselves?
What have you accepted as being true about the government?
But many generations have passed since then.
People grow up into this.
Their parents were addicted to the government.
Their grandparents, they're addicted to the government.
They teach their kids that the government is this and that, and they can take care of everything from cradle to grave.
It's a long time, long process, but this is where we are.
We have to deal with where we are.
Not where we were, not where we're going to be.
This is where we are.
Eventually, the smoke will clear from people's eyes.
All of the failures, all of the failed wars, the COVID nonsense, all of it starts to pile up in the consciences of the people, and they will eventually figure out that they've been duped.
We say get there faster.
Get there earlier.
See it quicker.
That's what we try to do.
And it's good.
Even though you can't change what goes on out there, it's good for you.
It's good for your family and anybody that you can influence or set an example for.
So while everybody unfortunately goes the wrong way, you can go the right way.
So it's helpful, even though you can't change what's happening out there.
So the quicker you get to that government is not a problem solver.
Every single problem that happens, you don't run to them.
They are a problem multiplier.
This faster you get to that understanding, amazingly, the easier your life gets.
Very good.
You know, the goal of some people throughout history, especially those on the side of socialism and communism and Marxism, said that, yes, there's remnants of capitalism and freedom around, but we have to get rid of it and we get rid of it by causing chaos in the streets.
And they did it literally, even though they had a policy was hurting the people they claimed they were eventually going to help, which was probably a flat-out lie.
But they would argue the case that they're going to have better times ahead for the average person.
And yet their whole goal is to bring about chaos in the streets.
And right now, I don't like to have to say, but they're winning.
You know, the chaos in the streets is growing right and left.
And in spite of all that, I still remain optimistic that our type of people and our ideas are growing.
They're not diminishing because people are waking up.
It's just they don't have that sounding board that where more people hear what's going on.
But anyway, if you think you want, well, who does this?
Well, the various groups do it, but there are some intellectuals that have been around, and it's passed on down probably more than 100 years through our universities, and they cause chaos, like the monetary system.
That causes the economic problems that we've been talking about.
What about the craziness on immigration laws?
Who invented these immigration laws and changes?
Well, that's a more recent phenomenon, and it's up in the end for a fight, but it's causing a lot of chaos.
And some people say we could end this could end up in a civil war if we're not careful.
But that would please the people who say we want to wipe the straight slate clean and rebuild in a perfect socialist system.
And they do believe that, and they've had a lot of influence.
And I happen to believe that Soros is involved in that part of the deal.
I think the wage controls, well, we're going to help people.
We're going to have wage controls, and we'll put price controls, and we'll settle this.
And that just causes more chaos, and the streets become more violent.
And also, you could just put into this: why do we do the ridiculous things with our foreign policy?
We're flat out broke, have no money at all, and we come along and some little fluffy problem comes up in some country six, seven thousand miles away.
Oh, it needs $20 billion tomorrow.
Oh, okay.
They say, We don't mind that.
Our printing presses have been watched, they're oiled, and they're ready to run, and they can do it now even faster than when we had to print it.
Now we just use a click and we get computer money comes out.
So, yes, the foreign wars and the foreign policy, when you think about a non-interference, a non-interventionist foreign policy, that means that we just stay at home, we take care of our homeland, and we don't try to police the world, and the world would become more peaceful.
If you look at all the skirmishes and small wars and big wars, especially since World War II, we've been involved in just about all of them, and certainly we were instrumental in starting that mess in Ukraine.
Yet, most people still think, oh no, Russia started that whole thing.
So, we have to change people's minds on what non-intervention means in economics, personal liberty, and internationally.
And a lot of people say, Well, some of the personal liberty sounds good.
Yeah, I don't want to pay income tax, I don't want to have people tell me how I should live my life.
But what they have to remember is you're also responsible for goofing off.
Because if you do that and you have your liberty and you don't do well, you can't go to the government and say, Take care of me, because I made this bet on something that didn't work out.
So, along with the non-intervention and more liberty, you have more responsibility.
And that's what we would like to see happen because I believe so sincerely.