Funny…but Sad…Look at How the Minimum Wage Destroys Opportunity

My Cato colleague, Mark Calabria, recently explained how the minimum wage destroys jobs, and I’ve written on several occasions why government-mandated wages can create unemployment by making it unprofitable to hire people with low work skills and/or poor work histories. And I’ve attacked Republicans for going along with these job-killing policies, and also pointed out the racist impact of such intervention.

But this cartoon may be a more effective argument for getting government out of the business of interfering with market forces. It’s simple, direct, and gets the point across. I’m not sure that always happens with my writing.

My former intern, Orphe Divougny, also did a very good job in explaining why politicians shouldn’t interfere with the right of workers and employers to enter into labor contracts.

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Some Good Political Jokes

Here are the best jokes in the past couple of weeks from the late-night comedians and talk show hosts. This list includes a one-liner from Craig Ferguson that definitely elicited a good laugh. Share it widely. The Conan jokes about Newt also are pretty brutal.

From Conan:

Newt Gingrich says he does not support gay marriage. He says marriage is a sacred sacrament that should only be between a man and his first, second, and third wives.

A tea party group is running a summer camp for kids. It’s the only camp where the kids sit around a bonfire and hear scary stories about taxing the richest 2 percent.

Most of Newt Gingrich’s campaign staff quit on the same day and some people are blaming Newt’s third wife. When asked about it, Newt said, “I’ll win them back with my fourth wife.”

Experts are predicting that in the first Republican debate, Mitt Romney will face his fiercest ideological opponent: himself from four years ago.

From Letterman:

Anthony Weiner is back in the private sector now. When he was a congressman from New York, I think it was his private sector that got him in trouble.

Have you seen these Republican presidential candidates? I bet Obama is sorry now that he spent all that money on the new birth certificate.

From Craig Ferguson:

Whitey Bulger’s brother was a politician. So one brother was operating in a world with no morals, dealing with the lowest of the low, and the other one was a mobster.

From Leno:

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner played golf this weekend. Obama’s handicap is Joe Biden.

The team of Obama and Boehner beat the team of Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. When they tallied up the score, they were 14 trillion over par.

Officials still can’t say what happened to $6.6 billion that was sent to Iraq for reconstruction. That’s money we could have wasted and mismanaged right here at home.

From Jimmy Fallon:

Alabama just passed a tough immigration law that requires schools to find out if students are in the country illegally. Fortunately, schools know what to look for when identifying foreign students: high test scores.

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