My Undeserved Raise; Courtesy of the Federal Government

On July 24 the American minimum wage will increase by 70 cents to an arbitrary rate of $7.25 an hour.  Since I work for the minimum wage, I’ll be seeing a fairly large chunk of change being added to my paychecks.  However, I don’t see the increase as necessarily beneficial to me, or to my fellow Americans.  

First of all, relatively few Americans actually work for the minimum wage.  I believe the number is less than five percent.  So already, we have a law that only benefits a relatively small amount of people.  Second of all, increasing minimum wage will increase inflation on the already struggling dollar.  

Perhaps Congress thought they were being nice and giving minimum wage earners a better shot at achieving the American Dream; but do the pros outweigh the cons? 

I’m going to have to say a most emphatic no.  Minimum wage earners are not the only people being affected by this law.  This law has huge consequences for business owners.  They have to pay their workers that 70 cents more and still make a decent profit off their product or service.  In order to do this at a steady rate, they’re going to have to make some cuts, or more likely, increase prices.  When prices increase, you’re going to see a decrease in customers, and when customers stop coming…well, you understand basic economics. 

Business owners should be free to decide for themselves how much they pay their employees.  You might say; “But they’ll just take advantage of their workers and pay them an unspeakably low wage.”  This is not very likely.  Competition between businesses will ensure that workers get paid fairly, without the inflation caused by a minimum wage increase.  If a worker is dissatisfied with one employer, he can find another that will pay him more. 

Letting businesses decide their own employees’ wages is a much more practical way to ensure economic growth.  Businesses will be free to grow, unrestrained by federal regulations. 

Do I really deserve this 70 cent increase at the expense of America’s economy?

Is Pirating Music Wrong?

According to most of the people I’m around at school, there is nothing wrong with downloading music illegally.  The artists that make the music and the labels that market the music are already rich.  They try to sell us cds for ten or fifteen bucks a pop.  If they think anybody can afford that, they are pretty much asking the public to pirate music online.

I agree that most price tags on cds are astounding, and can defer the general public from making purchases.  However, this does not make it ok to steal the music.  Maybe you don’t consider it stealing; you’re just copying someone else’s files and moving them to your computer or ipod.  You say, ‘how is this different from making someone a mix tape of your favorite music?’

It’s different because when you upload your music to internet sites, you’re giving music to strangers.  These are people you don’t even know, and you’re giving them the music you payed for.  You know that other people will provide the songs that you want, so you think it’s a perfectly rational thing to do.

But whatever, it doesn’t matter how you try to justify it, it’s still illegal to pirate music.  Does stealing become less of a crime when you steal from someone rich?  No!  The artists and music companies that get rich make their money honestly.  They earn it.  Making and producing music is what they do for a living.  If you don’t want to pay fifteen dollars for a cd, then don’t buy it.  I’m sorry, but you are not entitled to other peoples’ goods or services unless you pay them the price that they want.

When you pirate music, all you are doing  is driving up the costs to put music on the market.  Isn’t that obvious?  Thousands of songs are downloaded everyday illegally.  Someone is going to have to take up the slack somewhere.