The debate over a $15 an hour
minimum wage continues.
All of these companies that
are having a difficult time luring
workers back to the workplace
because they refuse to pay a living
wage, continue to whine and
cry about
the difficulty of finding labor.
And so Fox News, a reputable news
organization, decided to tackle
this difficult issue by bringing on
a former Reagan economics adviser
who, of course, said the most
disgusting and deplorable things.
Let's watch.
>> For those people, Sandra,
who are coming into the labor force
brand fresh, not old timers who've
been around for a while, the poor,
the minorities,
the disenfranchised, those with
less education, young people
who haven't had the job experience.
These people aren't worth $15
an hour in most cases.
And so therefore when you
have a $15 an hour minimum wage,
they don't get that first job,
they don't get the requisite skills
to earn above the minimum wage.
And after a few years they
become unemployable.
And after becoming unemployable,
they become hostile.
And that what you'll find happening
is this technology has created an
underclass of people who are really
just bid out of the labor market
and will remain out of the labor
market for most of their lives.
And this, I think,
is just a tragedy.
>> What he's talking about toward
the end there is what automation
is doing.
And he talks about automation
essentially leading to unemployment
as a good thing, right?
Because this is how the market
works, guys.
This is the free market.
I mean, you got bid out.
I mean, you've been working at this
job, you've been underpaid, and
then you get screwed over with
automation.
And that's just how
the free market works.
It's just that we need government
intervention in the, quote unquote,
free market when these corporations
commit fraud or they fail, and then
they need some liquidity from the
Federal Reserve to bail them out.
That's when the free market isn't
the talking point that
they'd like to use.
But when it comes to wages,
that's when they love to talk about
the free market and, of course,
who does and does not deserve a $15
an hour minimum wage.
Which at this point,
in most parts of the country,
isn't even a living wage, okay?
That's how much inflation has
basically destroyed the current
wages that we're earning right now.
But further made it unlivable,
really, even at $15 an hour.
>> But let's not bury
the lede there.
He just said not only the poor and
the young, but
that minorities aren't worth $15
an hour.
>> Yeah, yep, but
I'm not surprised.
>> He just said it,
you can rewind the tape and watch.
>> I'm not surprised at all.
>> Minorities are not worth
$15 an hour.
And if you don't know who
Art Laffer is, that's not just some
rando dude that they found on Fox
like, hey, who can we find to yell
at minorities today, right?
But that's Art Laffer.
He's the author
of the Laffer Curve.
That's the basically supply
side economics.
And the Laffer Curve is
appropriately titled because it's
a total joke.
And the thesis there is,
if you tax rich people too much,
then you'll get less revenue for
the government.
That's not remotely true, it's
been disproven a thousand times.
But it is very convenient.
It just needed one, I don't want
to say idiot because they're all
making money off of it, right?
But you just needed one guy to make
up an economic theory.
And then because the Republican's
don't care if it's true,
they've never cared
if it's true, by the way,
neither do corporate Democrats.
But mainly the Republicans of
Reagan all relied on the so
called Laffer Curve to say, no, no,
no, don't tax the rich.
The rich are the beloved.
Now they need all of the money,
they deserve all of the money and
we cannot tax them, but the poor,
they don't deserve any money.
They don't even deserve $15
an hour.
Minorities, young people, no,
they don't deserve anything.
And no, think about,
look the guy has never made sense
in his entire life.
He's always been a useful tool for
the wealthy and corporations.
But think about how little sense he
made in the middle there.
He says, okay,
these minorities are useless and
worthless and so
are the young, etc.
But they were not going to earn
enough skills to earn more than
that.
But wait a minute,
if the minimum wage is $15,
you can't pay less than that.
So if you're going to move up to
a manager or to a different
position, by definition, it has to
be higher than that, right?
And he's like, no,
nobody will hire.
Why would nobody hire them?
That doesn't make any sense at all.
If you start at $7.25,
the current federal minimum wage,
and you work your way up,
and as a lot of you know,
you work at Walmart,
after a decade or more,
you might be up to $8.75.
But if you start at 15, you would
work your way up to 16 or 17.
So he says, no, no, magically,
the markets are not going to work
anymore.
No one's going to hire anyone at
$16 and they're all going to
fall out of the market and
become hostile.
But okay, now,
if we're talking about economics,
none of this makes any sense.
But they're going to
become hostile, what does that have
to do with economics?
Now you're just making stuff up.
>> No, I think that what he's
referring to there is the obvious
class divide in this country and
the fact that people have, in fact,
become hostile.
And they should in fact become
hostile because we've been going
along with this insane economic
system that pits workers against
one another.
And I think workers are starting to
realize, hey,
maybe we need some solidarity.
And maybe we need to focus our ire,
our aggression,
our frustration toward people like
Laffer who thinks that he's worthy
of being paid well, even though he
has clearly failed his way upward,
right?
Yeah, there's hostility, and
guess what?
If this continues, that hostility
will only continue to grow.
It'll only continue to grow.
And for all the people out there,
I want to be clear about something,
all the people out there,
especially corporate liberals, and
at least some never
Trump Republicans that I've seen on
social media.
It's real easy to be negative and
insulting toward, let's say,
conspiracy theorists
like the QAnon people, right?
But do you understand why it is
that these conspiracy theorists
believe what they believe and
refuse to believe anything,
any argument that's made
on corporate media?
The reason why is because they lie
to them, right?
They lie to them over and
over again.
Tell them you're poor,
it's your fault.
You're in a terrible situation with
your medical bills,
it's your fault.
Pick yourself up by the bootstraps,
you get no help.
This is the way the system is.
We're the greatest country
in the world even though we
have literally hundreds of
thousands of homeless people
in California alone, literally
children living out on the streets.
All of these issues, by the way,
as dumb as you might think,
QAnon believers are,
are issues that are evident to
conspiracy theorists, but they keep
getting told over and over again
that it's not the system's fault.
It's not this rigged
economic system's fault.
It's their fault.
It's their fault and they're on
their own if they're suffering.
People like Laffer have led to
the current political and economic
climate that we're experiencing in
this country today, period.
That's just the fact of the matter.
People like him have destroyed
this country and continue to do so
with their disgusting greed and
corruption.
>> But I want to make an important
distinction because you're talking
about a different hostility than
he's talking about.
So you're talking about people that
are making $7.25, they can't take
a single day off from work.
I've said this a thousand
times because no one else in media
says it, because they're all giant
millionaires and they don't give
a damn about you, right?
At $7.25, the current federal
minimum wage, you're going to make
$15,080 a year if you don't take
a single day off, okay?
>> It's insane.
>> No sick days, no vacation days,
40 hours a week.
You have to work every
day the whole week and you get just
a tad over $15,000 a year, right?
And now if you go to $15 minimum
wage, that's what Art Laffer
is arguing, I guess, you can make
a little over 30,000 a year.
And he says that's way too much for
minorities.
>> They don't deserve it.
>> It's not just minorities, okay?
He specifically said poor people,
minorities, young people, he's
saying all these different groups.
This isn't about various racial
groups or various gender groups.
This is a class struggle, period.
What he's referring to there is
workers, period.
When he says the poor,
he means everyone, right?
He doesn't think that anyone in
this country deserves a living
wage, period.
That's what he's really saying at
the end of the day.
>> Yeah, and again,
remember this is the guy who said
we should not tax the rich, because
they deserve more money, >> Right.
>> Okay, so, but getting back to
the hostility point, you're saying
now that people making between 7.25
and 15 bucks or even more,
making 15 to 30,000 a year or etc.
They're becoming hostile because
they realize
the system is rigged against them.
>> Yes. >> And they are right,
whether they're right wingers or
left wingers, it doesn't matter.
They are right, okay?
The system is rigged against you.
So and we can show you and
we will show you even on this show
exactly how it's rigged against you
through taxes, laws, regulations,
fees, etc, right?
But he's not talking about that.
He's saying, if we pay them $15,
which they're not worth, obviously,
they'll eventually drop out of the
workforce because they're useless.
And then they will become
hostile towards us.
What he's saying is they're bums
and they're not going to
work if we pay $15, and
they're certainly not worth it.
And eventually we're going to fire
them all and then they're going to
get hostile because they're
not making any money.
because they didn't earn it like
the rich, the rich earn and
deserve everything.
And these bums, these black people,
these brown people, these young
people, these poor people, these
bums are going to get hostile.
Okay, first of all, if they're to
driven hostility at all,
if anyone is, it's because of
comments like that, where you
antagonize them to the nth degree
after they've all ready suffered
all that they have suffered.
Okay, but the heart of his comment
is, they're savages.
They're not going to work.
And then they're going to get
hostile because you know poor
people, violence is the only thing
they understand.
And that's always what
they say right before they're about
to commit violence upon you, okay?
So it's that is sick and
disgusting segment,
as you will see on Fox News, and
that is saying a lot.
That is what they think of poor and
middle class people in
this country.
>> Yeah, I'm just really curious
what he thinks failing corporations
are when they need to be bailed out
by the government.
What does he think about them?
Because I would argue that those
failed business owners are the real
bums that need to
be held accountable.
But there's a two tiered system,
right, when it comes to government
help, when it comes to this
type of commentary,
when it comes to ordinary people,
when it comes to workers, the very
people who generate the revenue for
these corporations.
They're bums if they're just asking
for decent working conditions,
a decent pay.
But for corporations that fail,
the corporations who have this
entire system backing them up,
ensuring that they succeed, but yet
they still fail and
need to be bailed out
by the federal government.
They're not bums, right?
I'm sure they're not bums.
>> Well, look, I don't know what
Art Laffer's position was at
the time, but I can certainly guess
it, but I'm not going to because
let's stick with the facts here.
Fox News, when the banks crashed
the world economy in 2008,
who did they support?
They supported the banks.
They pretend to be populist.
And what do they say?
They said,
because we're covered on the show,
now my god, these poor bankers, you
still have to pay their bonuses.
How else could we help them?
Have them help these companies get
back to solvency.
What do you mean there? We'll help
them get back to solvency by giving
them billions of dollars,
trillions overall when you
add them all up, and they said but
we need their expertise.
No, we don't do that to guys
who cries in the first place.
But Fox News said, no, you must pay
the bankers their giant bonuses
even if they're complete and
utter failures.
Now they bring on Art Laffer
to laugh at the poor and
the minorities and everyone else,
and go, they're not worth anything.
They're not even worth $15.
By the way, who agrees with them?
Joe Manchin and eight Democrats
that voted with every
single Republican in the Senate.
They all voted no on $15 minimum
wage.
Joe Biden had his two best
friends in the Senate.
The two Delaware senators vote no
on minimum wage, $15 minimum wage.
So you might get mad and you
should get mad at Art Laffer and
at Fox News, but understand that
a lot of corporate Democrats.
And this is important, the entirety
of the Republican Party, every
single one of them are corrupt
crooks who hate poor people or
middle class people,
who only serve the rich.
And yes, those corporate Democrats,
I don't care what any kiss ass
establishment says,
are same exact people as them.
They vote no on your higher wages
and they say, no, no, but
press don't criticize us.
When the Republicans do it,
they're bad guys,
when Democrats do it,
they do it out of principle,
principle of what?
No, when you see Art Laffer talk
like that, that's the same exact
thing Joe Manchin, Kystern Sinema,
Chris Coons and so
many other Democrats think.