Labor and Wages

California’s draconian fast-food minimum wage law is bad enough, but it turns out a company can avoid the trouble if it has ties to the governor.

California’s draconian fast-food minimum wage law is bad enough, but it turns out a company can avoid the trouble if it has ties to the governor.

While modern academic and media culture portray black Africans as victims only of Europeans, the history of the African slave trade is much more complicated than historians and journalists want us to believe.

For the past fifty years, Nigeria’s government has required young people to “serve” for a year under the National Youth Service Corp. This more resembles slavery than service.

According to mainstream economists, the question of whether increasing the minimum wage also increases unemployment is empirical. However, the logic of economic analysis says otherwise.

The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture. Sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed.

New York City’s government has imposed draconian rent controls. The natural outcome, as economists note, has been massive shortages, as apartment owners no longer have an incentive to rent empty apartments.

Recorded in Tampa, Florida, on February 17, 2024.

Since Adam Smith, economic thinkers have failed to understand that profits in a market economy are not extractions of wealth from laborers. In truth, profits lead to higher wages and higher living standards for those workers.

Economist Peter St. Onge summarizes some of the major financial and government news stories of the day.