If you offer people something that is too good to be true, you will always find takers. Ask Bernie Madoff. Or ask Barack Obama. He recently proposed an increase in the minimum wage -- an idea that suits the natural predilections of many people enough to distract them from the unsentimental and unwelcome logic of economics.
One poll found that 63 percent of Americans favor raising the federal floor from the current $7.25 to $10.10, as the president recommends doing over two years. The reasons are obvious. Wages have stagnated, low-income Americans are getting a smaller share of national income and many working people are stuck in poverty despite their best efforts. A higher minimum wage is the obvious solution.
Obvious, but wrong. The proposal rests on the assumption that the government can decree the price of a commodity -- in this case, labor -- in defiance of the dictates of the market, without ill effects. But that view requires a heroic suspension of disbelief.
When stores want to move slow-selling merchandise, they cut prices. When customers clamor for more of an item than sellers can provide, they raise prices. Lower prices result in higher demand, and higher prices do the opposite.
This is not exotic free-market dogma but elementary economics. Any CEO who proposed to boost sales by jacking up prices would see the company's stock price plummet in response to this lunacy.
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