I wish there was a magic wand that somebody could wave and all of us would have more money. Or maybe Santa Claus could play that role, or some version of the Tooth Fairy.
And if that magic person only had limited powers, I would want more money specifically for those with modest incomes.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in this fantasy world. As a society, we can’t enjoy output unless we first go through the toil and trouble of working, saving, and investing.
Heck, even some leftists have admitted that you can’t redistribute unless somebody first produces.
But that doesn’t stop some politicians from practicing free-lunch economics. They tell us, for instance, that government can impose a higher minimum wage with no job losses.
And now the Obama Administration is claiming that it can expand overtime eligibility rules without any adverse impact of base pay, hours, or employment.
In my role as the designated bad guy who has to inform people there’s no magic wand or Santa Claus, here’s what I told the New York Times.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” said Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, who warned that employers might cut pay or use fewer workers. “If they push through something to make a certain class of workers more expensive, something will happen to adjust.”
I also shared my putative wisdom with the International Business Times, underscoring the principle that government shouldn’t intervene in labor markets.
“Our view is pretty straightforward,” Daniel Mitchell, a fellow at the libertarian CATO Institute in Washington D.C., told International Business Times by phone on Wednesday. “From a philosophical perspective the government shouldn’t get involved with labor contacts between two consenting adults. You can’t impose more labor costs and have them magically disappear.”
I also pontificated on this issue for CBS News radio, but the “highlight” of the day was having to dispel economic myths in a series of TV interviews.
In this debate for Nightly Business Report, I had to explain that faster growth was the only effective way to improve living standards, but my opponent somehow thought we should go back to the glorious 1970s.
And in this interview with Ali Velshi on AJ, I’m stunned that he blames today’s weak job market on free markets.
Last but not least, I made what will probably be my last appearance on Larry Kudlow’s great show on CNBC and used the opportunity to say we shouldn’t copy Europe’s failed welfare states.
Larry is retiring at the end of the month and he will be sorely missed.
