An Ode to the Minimum Wage

When Bernie Sanders hires help, economies hold sway:
those promises of fifteen bucks an hour fade away.
The Democrats, politically, think minimums should rise
but budgets soon destroy the dreams of socialistic guys.

Declared unconstitutional in 1935,
this stupid law progressives still support remains alive.
But basic economics shows the folly of the thought:
the unemployment problems and the poverty it's wrought.

What Bernie cannot understand is how supply's involved.
He honestly believes that pricing floors will get things solved.
A millionaire, himself, he struts his minute on the stage,
but fails to see the market's role in setting any wage.

So Sanders, sitting pretty in Piketty's one percent
(the grand result of royalties from books on his dissent),
insists on pushing wages well above their normal worth
so unemployment spikes and jobs experience a dearth.

He doesn't see unnatural wages raising up the price
of every product workers buy, from beer to steak to rice.
With higher prices, goods are purchased less now than before;
the workers paid to make them, yet again, are shown the door.

When employees are getting fired, pink-slipped, shown the door,
this new supply of workers gluts the labor market more.
Eventually, distorted laws of economics fray...
so government should just distort them more to save the day!

But maybe someday kids will study econ right in school
and learn the curves: supply, demand, and economics' rule
that prices, even wages, find their spot where curves can meet
without the fatal errors of the socialists' conceit.

~Stephanie Herman, @libertarianarts

I have two accounts: @geke for the venns, military spending, and personal posts ... and @libertarianarts for political and economic poetry / art / film reviews etc.