In March of 2005 the Colorado Supreme Court voided the death sentence for a murderer on the basis of the fact that a juror during the penalty phase – when the decision of what sentence to impose was being debated – had copied down a verse from the book of Exodus and quoted it during […]
Union representative William Seay (letters, 7 March 2005) hypothetically trades off a $50,000/year wage for Wal-Mart stockers/checkers/baggers/greeters with “a 12 percent discount on Gummy bears and barbecue grills” for Wal-Mart shoppers — implying, of course, that any rational and compassionate society would take the hit on their Gummy bears if it meant a decent standard of living for those poorest of employees.
But Mr. Seay’s analysis is corrupted by the same “all other things being equal” assumption that pervades so much of the economic reasoning in our political debates — the assumption that in coercing a significant change in wages nothing else would change as a result.