eBay's new fees

A couple of comments on eBay changing their fee structure and the ensuing user outrage:

- The network effects of the online buying and selling market are huge; if all firms offered the same fee structure, only one firm would survive. Once a site got a few more people, it would be more profitable to sell there since there would be more bidders, which would attract more sellers, which would attract more bidders, etc. That's why all of the fledgling auction sites from the late 90s went by the wayside-- it's not about offering a lower price, it's about attracting the most people...and only one place can attract the most. A move like this would have meant death in 1999, so I'd say eBay's decision reflects its knowledge and comfort with its place in the market.

- That being said, a large enough shock to the fee structure could make it impossible for someone to sell at a profit at eBay but for profit somewhere else. In order for that to happen, though, you're going to need a lot of buyers to jump ship along with the sellers; otherwise, they're going to lose even more money at the new place because even though the fees are lower, the final prices aren't as high. Traffic is the name of the game in auctioning-- the more, the better. I just don't see that happening-- that's a massive coordination problem. I know the talk of a one week strike is an attempt to move down that path, but it's not focused on the buyers, it's focused on the sellers. They could try to act as a group and all move, and let it be known to the buyers where they are headed...first mover problem, anyone? Collective action problem, anyone?

- I am surprised at the modest success of the fringe/specialty auction sites that I've been reading about in the eBay stories. Then again, I nor many others hadn't heard of them prior to the story...that might be a problem in the long run. Maybe they can operate on a smaller scale and serve a dedicated niche.

- Was I the only one that found the threat of not selling for a week mildly humorous? Let me get this straight-- you're not going to sell for a while, but you're not going to leave, and while you're not selling you're hoarding your goods to sell when you decide to jump back on? A commitment to sell goods on another site for a week would have been more effective, but the funny thing about profit motives...

- Based on that, why didn't an emerging site offer to list every good from an eBay seller for free during that week? It might not work out, but the traffic would go up, and if you could get enough buyers to head over there (and the sellers, I'm sure, would be very active in letting previous buyers know about this) you might get the ball rolling. Maybe someone has; I'm out of the loop on this.

My two cents on the Clemens ordeal

I'm a baseball fan, and like most fans, I'm frustrated with this Clemens nonsense not because he did or did not take performance enhancing drugs but because it takes the focus away from the art of the game. I could honestly care less if every player or no player takes steroids; if home runs are 800 feet and pitchers throw 150 mph, so be it-- just as long as they are playing the game.

Nonetheless, I get asked frequently about this Clemens ordeal. I really don't think anything has changed with today's proceedings. (Though McNamee did include the fact that he injected Clemens with Winstrol, an anabolic steroid, in today's proceedings. I hadn't heard anything other than HGH up until today, though I'm not following it exceedingly close.) If we look at the biases of each person's testimony, McNamee would be biased towards withholding the bad things he did-- if anything, he isn't telling us enough. It's the same for Clemens; he's biased towards witholding any bad things that could have happened. The reason we've got a problem is while Clemens is squarely where his bias would predict him to be, McNamee is entirely on the other side. I think that speaks more than any confirmation of who was at so-and-so's house for lunch or when certain conversations occurred, if at all.

Related to the issue at this juncture is also the simple fact that, if something bad happened, the marginal cost to admitting it is basically zero for McNamee (or possibly a net benefit if coming clean and leading to other users minimizes his legal penalty) and massive for Clemens.

It doesn't look good for Clemens at this point, nor has it since this began to blow up. Wolfers et al wrote a piece in the New York Times about the statistical analysis Clemens' team did and makes very good points; here (I think) is the most recent post at Freakonomics which links the first post which, in turn, links to the NYT article. I'm going to go ahead and say that you're generally not in a good position when Justin Wolfers is arguing against what you're saying.

Though I will say that one positive that could come from today is that it prevents the members of Congress from...oh, I don't know, printing out checks and sending them to people.

Can you spot the difference, NBA version

I got into a debate with a friend of mine this weekend about the Hall of Fame prospects of Dennis Rodman; I know a bit about the NBA, but he knows more. I've always felt that Rodman was a very underrated player and should definitely be in the Hall of Fame, and my buddy felt he was a borderline case, so we hit the online NBA encyclopedia.

Dennis Rodman's page is here.

As a comparable case, Ben Wallace's page is here.

And after having noticing the difference in those two pages, we spent the next fifteen minutes seeing exactly how different the pages can be. Poke around yourself-- I'll keep the secret, but offer Michael Jordan and Bryce Drew.

In Rainbows

Amid quite a hubbub, Radiohead released their most recent album In Rainbows online about three months prior to it arriving in record stores. But there was a catch-- you could name the price you wanted to pay for it. (Here's a brief rundown; if you search the topic, there has been plenty written about it.) If you wanted to pay nothing, that was fine. If you wanted to pay 10 pounds, that was fine too-- both parties got the same disc. It turned into a great assignment for my Public Economics class last fall-- public goods, rational economic actors on all sides...plenty of angles to take.

As it turned out, the most you could pay for the album was 99.99 pounds. And in a recent interview, about halfway down, lead singer Thom Yorke revealed that 15 people ended up paying the full 99.99 pounds-- "...and I swear the band members are not among that 15." I have to admit, I thought it would be a bit higher, though if I remember correctly, it was not immediately clear when moving through the site that 99.99 pounds was the maximum. I believe it took some trial and error by the user to come to that amount (or hearing about that level online prior to downloading your copy).

The band is acting very protective of the specifics of how many were downloaded and at what prices...now that would be interesting data to look at.

Bluefields: Heaven on Earth?

TPS stalwart Thomas Johnson sent forward a fantastic piece about Bluefields, a coastal community in Nicaragua that benefits from bales of cocaine washing ashore due to Colombian smugglers dumping them when pursued by US Drug Enforcement officials. Even better: The Nicaraguan government considers the area an autonomous region, so they pretty much leave them be to fend for themselves. There are, quite honestly, a dissertation's worth of angles to take with this story if everything in the piece is accurate. This has to be the most interesting article I've read in a while. There's actually four pages to that article, so click ahead...it is well worth the read.

My favorite lines:

The police and Navy have few resources and less trust from the local public. Bluefields is effectively an anarchist nation - no Government, no organised institutions and the rules are made by community groups. Given the massive amount of cocaine in town, violence is surprisingly rare.

(Insert your "looking for $20 bills on the beach" joke here.)

Update: Minor league investing

It looks like we're going to have to wait a little longer to invest in our favorite minor league prospects. Though I get my $20 back, my retirement portfolio has been irreparably harmed-- if I can't diversify my risk into professional sports development, can I really sleep soundly at night?

Good point in the article: MLB's concerns with isolation from gambling. Not to imply the investing in prospects is akin to shady 1919 Black Sox-esque scandals, but given the steroid problems baseball is in the thralls of, the last thing they would want to encourage is that players are doing anything other than good ol' American try-your-best-and-win-because-you-love-playing-the-game-cleanly.

On the flip side, could investment contracts be designed to reverse the incentive to take performance enhancing drugs? I bet yes. Though to force every player to enter into such a deal isn't a good solution to the problem.

Bad point in the article: Assuming that players sell 5% for $50,000. There's no reason to believe both of these margins couldn't change; I'd be shocked if the market developed and it stayed at those levels sans regulation. More risk averse players could up the percentage. More talented or major-league-likely players could up the value, though given the reality of larger signing bonuses for those players there might be a natural ceiling that develops. Or perhaps the evolution of the player investment market will displace signing bonuses completely?

Edited: Here's the text of the email that Real Sports Investors sent out:

Dear Valued RSI Shareholders,

Since we launched our site in early December 2007, the response has been absolutely tremendous. Fans and Athletes alike love this concept and we cannot thank you enough for your support. Athletes are signing up with us because we can provide them with security in exchange for a piece of their potential. Fans like you have purchased shares for a number of different reasons and the excitement is tangible.

Thanks to your overwhelming response we know that our company’s mission and ideas have a place in the future of sports. With your help, we will be able to create the first market where future earnings of professional athletes can be traded.

In order to create a system that will allow players and fans the best experience possible we believe it is in everybody’s best interest to work with Major League Baseball. We have been in contact with them and in the coming months we will be working with Major League Baseball to make sure that RSI addresses all the needs of the larger baseball community especially fans and players.

We are committed to working quickly to achieve these goals, however we do not feel that it is fair to hold your money when we cannot set a definitive time table. In the next few days, we will be returning your money and you will no longer own any shares of Randy Newsom. We will be working with Pay Pal to remove ALL of the charges to your credit cards.

Our company has two goals. The first is to improve the lives of professional athletes. The second is to provide you with an enhanced spectating experience. We are confident that by working with Major League Baseball, we can come up with an optimal system that will achieve both of these goals and provide you exactly what you have told us that you want.

When we re-launch our website, and re-offer shares of Randy Newsom we will allow you to re-purchase your shares of Randy before anyone else. You will have priority and we thank you for your loyalty.

Please continue to check our website for updates in the coming months. In this transition you will notice significant changes. Our website will have much more functionality from message boards to shareholder certificates and we will be able to provide you with a greater selection of athletes from which to choose.

If you have any questions or comments, please direct them through the contact us page on our site, www.realsportsinvestments.com and we will be sure to answer them. We promise that we will contact you as soon as the next player’s shares become available.

We truly appreciate all the comments and support that we have received. Your enthusiasm has energized us even more to bring this market to fruition. I hope you are as excited about this as we are.

Sincerely,

Real Sports Investments, LLC

Gamblers' paradise

Want to bet on Super Bowl XLII? Yes you do. (That's a moderately sized .pdf, so be patient.) Courtesy of Rob Holub, who wants to emphasize that all wagers are for recreational purposes only. Naturally.

And if I had to pick 5-- for recreational purposes only, of course-- I'd go with:

Total Touchdowns scored in game: 6.5, under
Total Sacks by both teams: 4, over
Jersey number of player to score 1st touchdown: 43.5, over
Giants total rushing yards: 105.5, over
Eli Manning, what will he throw first (TD vs. INT): Interception, 115

Bill Gates and 'Creative Capitalism'

Bill Gates has put forth a new type of economic system that would battle world poverty and growing inequality in the world. Here is the CNN story, here is the actual text of what he said.

The way Gates sees it, everything should be based in incentives. For people who can pay for goods, we don't have an incentive problem-- trade occurs, and though voluntary exchange everyone is better off. For people who can't pay, businesses don't have the incentive to provide goods, as the profits are not there. We need to introduce a new incentive-- recognition. If companies "doing the right thing" can get recognition for being good, caring entities, then they'll attract better people to the organization and get more customers. For companies "doing the right thing" and making money...well, they get the benefit of both effects.

I'm happy Gates is thinking about changing the structure of the system. (I think the funniest part of the CNN article is when Bono "pushed the debate towards issues such as...poverty alleviation...") Forcing people to recognize "good" companies won't make them do so any more than they do now, and insofar as "good" companies profit in the manner that Gates described, the market will already have that covered. But kudos for thinking outside of the Bono-aid box.

Still, the big question is: Why are those in poor countries not able to compete in markets in the first place? Trade barriers? Low standards of living due to poor institutional environments? The answers are down these paths.

Thank you West Virginia Legislature for the high gas prices!

Many people like to complain that gas prices are too high and that they would like to see the price go down. I usually respond by asking for them to name a few goods which they wouldn't like to see the price go down. There seems to be a general feel that particular necessities (read: inelastic goods) shouldn't change in price by too much. Mind you, I speak (mostly) with West Virginia folk, and while gas prices across the country have certainly risen, there still remains a moderate amount of variance between states in average gas prices. I heard a radio spot recently that pinned West Virginia up near the top of average gas prices nationwide, so the question becomes: Why does West Virginia have relatively high gas prices? Greedy oil companies?

Nope-- greedy legislators. (More details.) West Virginia hovers around the top quartile when it comes to state gas taxes, and that translates directly into higher prices than our neighbors (none of which have higher gas taxes than West Virginia). So instead of bemoaning the capitalist system, fuel-guzzling SUV drivers or profit-driven oil companies, turn to your local representatives in Charleston and give them a big thumbs-up on your next trip to fill up.

Or you could try this.

January 21 - Depression Day

So if you were to try to answer the question of "What is the most depressing day of the year?", how would you go about it? Personally, I think they answer the question of "What is the day in which people are the most depressed?"-- I think the day that would cause people to feel the most below what they otherwise would be feeling would be the most depressing day of the year. They are different questions.

Nonetheless, how would you tackle this problem? The initial investigator cites "weather, consumer debt from holiday spending and failed New Year's resolutions" in his formula towards finding the answer, and then the author of the linked article looks at search engine behavior. Google searches of "depression," websites of developers of anti-depressants...those are the only two he mentions, but you could generate an exhaustive list that's just as viable with little effort.

Why not alcohol sales? Dips in restaurant attendance? Cell phone usage? Airline travel? All different from cyclical predictions, of course...

I think I'm going to file this under "interesting to look at but impossible to make significant headway."

Disappearing Hitchhikers

Where have all the hitchhikers gone? I rarely see anyone thumbing for a ride. Yet, according to my gray-haired father, everyone hitchhiked in the 60's. The most frequent answer seems to be that it is "too dangerous." The problem with this hypothesis is that violent crime is on the decline, and it has been for many years. This absence could just be explained by a change in prices. Transportation may have become less expensive or perhaps the internet has made arranging rides with strangers easier

My tentative explanation, though, is as follows: Its true that crime has fallen, but people who hitchhike today are more likely to be violent than people who hitchhiked in the 60's. The 60's and 70's saw relatively large numbers of young people due to the baby boomers. Normal young people were more likely to hitchhike. They don't have as much money, are less likely to be on strict schedules, and are possibly more risk taking. Drivers, consequently, are then more likely to pick up young hitchhikers. The more normal people hitchhiking encourages more people of all ages to participate. There is positive feedback.

As the number of young people has declined, the characteristics of people who hitchhike have made drivers less willing to give strangers a ride. At some tipping point, the equilibrium switched from "everyone participates" to "just the weirdos still do that." Now (perhaps for Akerlof-ish reasons) average quality is low and difficult to detect, and as a result, mutually beneficial exchanges do not take place.

File this under: Twins, low probability occurrences

It would seem pretty unlikely, but if the N is large enough...I suppose you could marry your long lost twin who was adopted by a different family. Seriously, though-- this can't possibly have happened more than this time, could it?

Under the law, I don't think this is construed as illegal-- legally, they're not brother and sister. They might want to think twice about having kids with this new piece of information though...

In related news, Columbus brought syphilis back to Europe.

Thanks to Rachel Mathers (no relation to Eminem) for the picture idea.

Value Rankings of College Sports Teams

Forbes has ranked the top 20 most valuable college basketball and college football programs in the country (neither article has a concise 1-20 list, so you have to click through the in-pictures link to get your teams, though ESPN has the basketball rankings here), based on:

We base our valuations on what the basketball [football] programs contribute to four important beneficiaries: their university (money generated by basketball that goes to the institution for academic purposes, including scholarship payments for basketball players); athletic department (the net profit generated by the basketball program retained by the department); conference (the distribution of tournament revenue); and local communities (incremental spending by visitors to the county during the regular season that's attributable to the program).

An intriguing concept. The most valuable basketball team belongs to UNC-Chapel Hill ($26 million), based largely on an agreement with Nike, and football's most valuable to Notre Dame ($101 million), based largely on a TV contract with NBC. Football has a sizable advantage over basketball, and Notre Dame, while having a unique contract, is by no means an outlier-- #2 Texas ($92 million) and #3 Georgia ($90 million) are right behind. (Georgia surprised me.) In fact, #20 on the football list, Wisconsin, is still a good deal ahead of the top basketball school at $43 million.

More successful college teams make more money, both from being on TV more and getting richer payouts from better bowls (though conference tie-ins on both margins tend to create some grouping), but the correlation isn't perfect. Heritage, i.e. success in the past, plays a large role as well.

Why not sell these and let them be run for profit? Is there any illusion left that these are university funded programs provided for the benefit of the student-athelete?

Unintended arson

I have to admit-- I hadn't thought of this, but there's no reason to believe that this won't happen.

I also like the line about fraud increasing when the economy is bad. Would increased government regulation come as a result of more fraud, furthering the economy's woes, and the cycle continues?

Fun vs. profits in predicting college football results

Tonight's BCS title game between LSU and Ohio State culminated the 2007 bowl season, a 19-day, 32-game college football bonanza that, though unsatisfying to the playoff-wanting populus, is nonetheless enjoyable. It's also a fun testing ground.

Yahoo! Sports offers a bowl pick-em contest that lets users choose the winners of each bowl game, and also lets you assign a confidence level to each game. Different bowl games are worth different amounts of your choosing, from 1 to 32 points. The idea is that the games in which you are most (least) confident you then assign the most (least) points. You must have a selection at every point level, so the final rundown of bowl selections is an ordinal listing of how confident you are in your picks for each and every bowl game.

This let me test the following: Does information with money behind it predict better than information without money behind it?

It worked as follows. Yahoo! provided information about the percentage of the country that selected each participant in each bowl game, so this could be construed as a decent measure of the aggregated non-money information (the game is free to play). The team receiving greater than 50% of the participant vote was selected as the winner (there were no 50%/50% ties), and confidence levels were attained by how much of favorite they were. For example, the highest confidence level was for the Hawaii Bowl-- 95% of those playing liked Boise State to defeat East Carolina. (They didn't.) The lowest confidence game was the Poinsettia Bowl-- 51% of the country liked Navy to defeat Utah. (Nor did they.)

The money information generated a set of picks and confidences from moneyline posts in Vegas. The selection came from the moneyline favorite, the confidence from the size of the line. It is the role of the bookie to place lines such that equal money falls on both sides-- that way, any bowl outcome yields a profit for the house. All votes are equal for non-money information; the same is not true for the money information.

The results?

Non-money: 21 of 32 correct, for 382 points

Money: 24 of 32 correct, for 381 points

(Both were around the 90th percentile of all picks submitted.)

I read this as saying the money information-- derived from moneylines-- did best in determining the higher percentage of winners, but the non-money information did a bit better in isolating with confidence those teams that would win. A thin line, nonetheless.

Perhaps more interestingly, there were some pretty sizable differences between the two sets of picks; Utah/Navy, for example, was given the least confidence on the non-money picks, the money picks put that game at 26 confidence points (out of 32)-- and picked the game correctly as well. Tennessee/Wisconsin was at 16 confidence points for the non-money and 4 for the money, though both correctly picked Tennessee as winner. The disparities go on and on. As the numbers bear out above, many of the picks with regards to team are similar, but confidence levels vary widely.

Some shortcomings: Picks were locked after the first bowl game was played, so for the championship game, there was 19 days worth of late information unincorporated into the rankings/choices. This probably would have a larger impact on the money information, if the "late-money-is-smart-money" adage is true, and moneylines could be adjusted (and therefore confidence levels) by small information changes (i.e., player X is now doubtful for bowl Y) whereas picking a different team to win might take a larger information shock (which is how the non-money information confidence levels would be affected).

Also, can the non-money information be trusted as a true reflection of public sentiment, i.e., are people playing the game seriously and not making ad hoc selections? I'm not certain this is a large concern. While it is impossible to believe that everyone who played the game played it seriously, there isn't a reason to believe this caused a bias in any direction. After all, people make bets on a whim as well.

Ah, the sheer bulk of gambling and sports data.

Tigers and Transaction Costs

On Christmas Day, a tiger escaped from its cage at the San Francisco Zoo. It killed one man and mauled two others. It turns out that these three people had been taunting the tiger; shooting rocks at it with a slingshot, dangling their feet into the cage, etc. Obviously, there has been quite an uproar about both the foolishness of these guys and of the animal security at the zoo. It turns out that the tiger's cage wall was several feet lower than recommended by some official zoo organization (not the law).

The two surviving hooligans have hired infamous law dog, Mark Geragos, who has represented the famous of all ilk, from Michael Jackson to Scott Peterson. Some social commentators have called for the zoo to fork over millions while others say those rowdy kids got what they deserved.

It seems to me that the zoo should pay big time for this fatal fiasco. My reason: transaction costs. The zoo can avoid this at a much lower cost than the random tourist. The zoo has expert information about the animals and the zoo facility, whereas the tourists usually don't know anything at all. It would be prohibitively expensive for a tourist to ensure his safety when entering a zoo. He would have to call/question countless people, inspect the cages, etc. In fact, a tourist would have to put himself into danger (in addition to bearing high costs) in order to ensure his safety. In short, those guys were probably being idiots, but the zoo should have realized this is a world full of knaves.

Bartering

A recent trip to Mexico got me thinking: If bartering for goods became a cultural norm in the U.S., would society be better off? You wouldn't make any less sales-- you'd just be scooting yourself down the demand curve. (Though I suppose prices in a barter scenario could be listed as higher in anticipation of a bargaining process, thus driving off potentially interested buyers, but then again prices oftentimes aren't listed at all.) None of the new sales would be involuntary, so there's surplus to be had on both sides. Granted, there would be transactions costs on both sides, probably more of a burden on the buyer. Information costs would be greater for the seller acting as an agent, and I suppose principal-agent problems would then come into play as well.

It seems that bartering isn't that common in the most highly developed countries...which is probably the most telling fact anyway.

(Edit: Sorry-- by bartering, I mean price negotiation, not "my four chickens for your three goats.")

And here I've been going to class all these years!

Did you know that if you recite the Koran in Iran, you automatically get a university degree? It's true. I wonder if there is a specific emphasis with the diploma...but in order for it to have the effect implied in the piece, wouldn't it have to be indistinguishable from a schooling-earned degree? (Unless you wanted it to imply religious superiority, of course...but then you could always just recite the Koran in your interview.)

It won't work by itself...I "promise"

Here in West Virginia, high schoolers have a chance at a free college education though the PROMISE scholarship program. (It turns out that PROMISE is an acronym for Providing Real Opportunities for Maximizing In-state Student Excellence. We have a tough time getting the policies right...but if you need a seven-word acronym, West Virginia is your place.)

For some reason, the program seems to be getting quite a bit of attention as of late. Maybe it's the high school seniors deciding what to do next year or the fact that the first class to receive scholarships under this program are just getting their post-college feet wet. With all the to-do about program, it's worth giving a few bullet points as to why the PROMISE scholarship won't be the savior to the West Virginia economy that many believe it will be...at least not on its own, anyway.

- We could give every person in the state a doctorate, but unless businesses decide to locate here that utilize those types of special skills, West Virginia as a state will be no better off. The status of the West Virginia policy climate is no mystery; it is widely hailed as the worst in the Union, and is a topic we've dealt with at length.

- So what do the students do with their degrees and no West Virginia jobs to go after? They find jobs elsewhere. No surprise there. In this light, West Virginia is not only not helping itself, but also subsidizing the human capital of its neighbors. I've taught a number of students with PROMISE scholarships and this is exactly their choice set. Many of them would prefer to stay in West Virginia ceteris paribus but they just don't have employment options commensurate to their education level.

- It's not like West Virginia conjured this idea out of our thin mountain air. The World Bank thought this was the path to prosperity in Africa, only instead of growth the individuals either a) moved out of the area, just like in the case of West Virginia, or b) became more knowledgable of how to rent-seek and fleece the ever-worsening systems in their homelands. There's a good amount of that going on here in West Virginia as well.

- It's really debatable as to whether the PROMISE scholarship is having a significant impact in sending more kids to college. It may keep more kids in state attending college who otherwise may have gone to college outside of West Virginia-- of course, the taxpayers foot the bill, and when they head off for greener employment pastures you wonder what the upside for West Virginia is. The program, I have gathered, was to give opportunities to low income individuals to get a chance at college. It should be noted that oppotunities (read: scholarships) did/do exist for low income individuals, especially low-income, high-performing students. Further, since empirics bear out that higher income children tend to do better in school than lower income children, a wide swath of these scholarships are ending up in the hands of families that would otherwise have paid for their children to attend college in West Virginia. All of this aside, capital markets function well, and borrowing for education is nowhere near uncommon.

- This argument I'd never heard before but was relayed to me this morning from a professor at Penn State (they are considering a similar program in Pennsylvania). The PROMISE scholarship, as compared to similar programs around the country, has more stringent academic requirements to qualify. Thus, they are even more selective of the academic upper crust than other states. Well, it's been shown that those who do best in high school-- the very best-- tend to segue into courses of study (such as engineering and medicine) that lead them to a more regional, if not national, job search upon commencement from college.

It's with good intentions that these programs are thought up-- but as Ben Harper says, "There's good deeds, and there is good intention; they're as far apart as heaven and hell."

(I could have sworn that I wrote something about this before, but I can't find it in the archives, so if I'm an idiot and all of this is just rehashed from a previous, unfindable-to-me post, my apologies.)

A Pamphlet for Our Times

The minimum wage causes unemployment. This is a well-known fact amongst economists.

A little known fact is that the intended goal of the minimum wage when it was first debated and enacted was specifically to keep MINORITIES unemployed. Evil men believed that non-white races were inferior, and they recognized that a minimum wage would prevent these people from getting jobs. One minimum wage supporter felt it would:

"protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese.”

An American pro-minimum wage supporter approvingly recognizes that minorities will be unemployed:

“With regard to certain sections of the population [the “unemployable”], this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but actually of social health.”

Keeping non-whites unemployed is NOT a mark of social health!

Another social activist "made clear what should happen to those who, even after remedial training, could not earn the legal minimum: “If we are to maintain a race that is to be made of up of capable, efficient and independent individuals and family groups we must courageously cut off lines of heredity that have been proved to be undesirable by isolation or sterilization . . . .”. He believed that economic isolation through the minimum wage would achieve this.

THE MINIMUM WAGE WAS CREATED BY EVIL RACISTS TO KEEP MINORITIES POOR AND, HOPEFULLY, DEAD. WHY THEN DO SO MANY GOOD, HONEST PEOPLE STILL SUPPORT THESE HEINOUS LAWS?

ABOLISH THE MINIMUM WAGE.

PASS THIS FORWARD AND MAKE A STAND FOR JUSTICE!



For a detailed and horrifying survey read:
"Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era"
Thomas C. Leonard
Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 19, Number 4—Fall 2005—Pages 207–224