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It’s refreshing to find reasoned an cogent analysis of politically-charged issues.  On Chicago’s new minimum wage law, you can’t do much better than Gary Becker and Richard Posner.  Becker here, and Posner’s response here.

The New York Times has nothing constructive to add to the debate, just the usual platitudes.  Why do social reformers insist upon using ineffective and likely counterproductive tools such as the minimum wage and rent control?  Here’s an idea: just give the poor money.  Or better yet, give them an education.

A much better piece argues that theory should weigh more heavily than empirics, at least sometimes.

Read it here.

In hopes of a wider readership, I’m hereby “claim” my blog on Technorati:

 Technorati Profile

This is the most absurd immigration reform proposal that I have ever heard.  The proposal:

If we are really serious about turning back the tide of illegal immigration, we should start by raising the minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to something closer to $8. 

The Reasoning:

But if we want to reduce illegal immigration, it makes sense to reduce the abundance of extremely low-paying jobs that fuels it. If we raise the minimum wage, it’s possible some low-end jobs may be lost; but more Americans would also be willing to work in such jobs, thereby denying them to people who aren’t supposed to be here in the first place.

Now the debunking.  No matter what you assume about unemployment and compliance, raising the minimum wage to $8/hour will have perverse effects.

First, assume that no jobs will be lost and that all employers will happily comply.  In this case it will become more attractive for Mexicans to illegally enter the States.  There will be as many low-skilled jobs as before, but with a higher salary.  Low-paying jobs do not fuel illegal immigration; low-skilled jobs do.

Of course, in reality some employers will not obey the minimum wage law.  Whom will they hire on the black market for labor?  Illegal immigrants of course.  Raising the minimum wage serves to expand the black market for labor.

Now what about unemployement?  Such a large minimum wage increase will absolutely decrease the number of low-skilled jobs available.  Who will be hurt by this?  Not just illegal immigrants–who are probably more willing to sell their labor on the black market anyway–but American citizens as well.

In order for this plan to work, it must eliminate the low-skilled jobs that attract illegal immigrants.  Raising the minimum wage may well accomplish this.  I suppose Michael Dukakis considers mass unemployment of the working poor to be collateral damage. 

An excerpt from Alex Ross’s article on Mozart for the New Yorker:

One wonders what Mozart would have made of today’s musical scene, when “American Idol” contestants cover Elvis hits and university composers write super-complex, mathematically recondite works, and the happy medium seems, on most days, deserted.

The whole article is a bit long at almost 30,000 words, but well worth reading.

Read an enlightening debate over human gender differences here, and a very nice piece on rent-seeking here.

For anyone who argues that more government regulation will solve all of society’s ills, I offer this stunning example of regulatory incompetence. 

Well, not quite, but a new study suggests that intelligent people are more likely to have an economist’s world-view, after controlling for factors such as education. 

    brocen wurde.
Het þa hyssa hwæne         hors forlætan,
feor afysan,         and forð gangan,
hicgan to handum         and to hige godum.
þa þæt Offan mæg         ærest onfunde,
þæt se eorl nolde         yrhðo geþolian,
he let him þa of handon         leofne fleogan
hafoc wið þæs holtes,         and to þære hilde stop;
be þam man mihte oncnawan         þæt se cniht nolde
wacian æt þam wige,         þa he to wæpnum feng.

So begins the great Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon, the tale of Byrthnoth’s defeat at the hands of the wicinga werod (war-band of Vikings).  And now someone has set it to music; I’m incredibly excited to hear the result.