I’m a cop. If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t challenge me.

The reason that she's very likely to stay at negative 1,000 isn't necessarily white racism, and what does it have to do with the price of tea in China if it were? But the reason that she's likely to stay at 1,000 is definitely that, for whatever reason, the black population in the United States is at this point ill-equipped to spontaneously lift itself from its current state.

This is not something I love to talk about at cocktail parties among fellow lefties, but I'm definitely not sold on a minimum wage hike as a solution. The GOP might be right. It might be a drag on development in those neighborhoods. Nations like Bangladesh, to name one, and China to name another, have been able to advance partly because they had cheap labor to sell.

It would be politically unpalatable, of course, but maybe businesses that open in inner-cities or impoverished rural areas should be able to pay less than minimum wage. I suppose tax breaks get the same result. But it'd be nice to accomplish it without subsidizing it.

 

Given what I've read about the court system of Ferguson, Mo., it might just be.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/08/ferguson-and-the-debtors-prison.html

 

Since people have money to buy loosies, they have enough to start businesses.

 

Dude, you are championing isolationism.

 

I'm shocked!

You're telling me that the folks who have built a successful business have built a model that benefits them?

Next, you're going to tell me that developers and landlords would rather rent to established, national/regional businesses, with a track record of results, and deep pockets.

 

iPod. Beats by Dr. Dre. Sony PlayStation.

Sneakers, tattoos, jewelry, and satellite dishes.

If you buy all those things -- on credit -- it will probably take more than 100.

Isn't that the point? Is that a policy failure?

 

Yes.

 

The immigrants went outside the "system". That's why whites didn't/couldn't get in their way.

That's the point.

 

Also, you know you can't just use SNAP money for any old thing you want, right?

 

Dick, seriously this is absurd.

You have to at least acknowledge that there is money to be made in these communities.

 

Shouldn't this at least be a part of the plan?

Is it now?

Are Rev. Al, or any of the other civil rights leaders talking about this? Shouldn't they be?

 

I think the point is that selling to customers who pay with SNAP can be profitable. Which, of course, is unspeakably evil.