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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday August 21 2014, @11:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the Maximum-Effort dept.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports

The San Diego City Council voted Monday to override Mayor Kevin Faulconer's veto of gradual increases in the local minimum wage to $11.50 an hour by 2017, starting the clock on a referendum campaign that business leaders have said they'll pursue.

If opponents can collect the 34,000 valid signatures required for a referendum by Sept. 17, the wage increases will be held in abeyance pending an election in June 2016.

If the signature drive falls short, the wage hikes will go into effect in January with an increase for local minimum wage workers from $9 an hour to $9.75.

Faulconer's veto, which he issued Aug. 8, was overridden by six members of the council, the two-thirds of the nine-member panel required by city law. All of those who voted to override are Democrats.

Of the council's three Republicans, two voted against the override and one — Lorie Zapf — was absent from the vote. The mayor is a Republican.

Bob Filner, a Progressive Democrat who previously represented a San Diego district in Congress, got himself elected mayor in 2012.
There would have been a lot less drama to this workers' rights issue if he hadn't had to resign after a groping scandal.

Related Stories

Chicago City Council Strongly Approves $13 Minimum Wage 55 comments

NPR (formerly National Public Radio) reports:

By a 44-5 vote, Chicago's City Council set a minimum-wage target of $13 an hour, to be reached by the middle of 2019. The move comes after Illinois passed a nonbinding advisory last month that calls for the state to raise its minimum pay level to $10 by the start of next year.

The current minimum wage in Chicago and the rest of Illinois is $8.25. Under the ordinance, the city's minimum wage will rise to $10 by next July and go up in increments each summer thereafter.

[...]The bill states that "rising inflation has outpaced the growth in the minimum wage, leaving the true value of lllinois' current minimum wage of $8.25 per hour 32 percent below the 1968 level of $10.71 per hour (in 2013 dollars)."

It also says nearly a third of Chicago's workers, or some 410,000 people, currently make $13 an hour or less.

[...][In the 2014] midterm elections, voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota approved binding referendums that raise their states' wage floor above the federal minimum.

Media Matters for America notes that The Chicago Tribune's coverage tried to trot out the *job-killer* dead horse once again, to which the response was

According to a March 2014 report(PDF) prepared for the Seattle Income Inequality Advisory Committee titled "Local Minimum Wage laws: Impacts on Workers, Families, and Businesses", city-wide minimum wage increases in multiple locations--Albuquerque, NM; Santa Fe, NM; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC--produced "no discernible negative effects on employment" and no measurable job shift from metropolitan to suburban areas.

Related:

Seattle Approves $15 Minimum Wage

Mayor's Minimum Wage Veto Overridden by San Diego City Council

States That Raised Their Minimum Wages Are Experiencing Faster Job Growth

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  • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Bob The Cowboy on Thursday August 21 2014, @11:54PM

    by Bob The Cowboy (2019) on Thursday August 21 2014, @11:54PM (#84149)

    As a San Diegan, I was kind of surprised to find this on here. Not complaining or anything, I just would have figured it was a little too 'local politics'.

    Who are the other San Diegans?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Friday August 22 2014, @12:39AM

      by krishnoid (1156) on Friday August 22 2014, @12:39AM (#84162)

      From my understanding, people from San Diego fall into one of four categories:

      • Attending Comic-Con
      • Working at Comic-Con
      • Working at Scripps
      • Working at SeaWorld

      My experience may not be representative, however.

      • (Score: 1) by bswarm on Friday August 22 2014, @12:59AM

        by bswarm (4564) on Friday August 22 2014, @12:59AM (#84167)

        Or on the ticket list for a future San Diego Comic-Con. San Diego isn't that bad, except for the idiot drivers.

        • (Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 22 2014, @01:27AM

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday August 22 2014, @01:27AM (#84173) Homepage

          I'm one of those who live in San Diego, and Californians are excellent drivers. The only reason why there are bad drivers here is because they're all assholes from other states, most in the military and spending their entire paycheck on that huge truck or Camaro, but also your occasional douche-Arab trust-fund kids from DurkaDurkaStan.

          I was filling up my gas tank one day when a typically douchey Arab guy, reeking of waaay too much cologne and driving a Mercedes sports-car, wearing a metallic collar-shirt and a way-too-closely-trimmed beard, motioned for me to come over. He then held up his credit card and pointed at the pump, then rudely suggested that I do it for him. Now, I had fun with this. I started wearing an exaggerated, "You fucking serious dude?" expression, glancing repeatedly at him, then the pump, then him, then the pump etc. He started losing patience and durka-durka-ing very loudly. It was at that point that I yelled at him, "Fuck you, I ain't your servant!" and jumped in my car and took off. The way the street signs are in that area you kinda have to go into a circle to get out of there, and when I came back around I saw that he was still trying to figure the pump out. Jesus, you'd think somebody from the Land of Oil would know better.

          But about the minimum wage thing we should be discussing in the first place -- Gewg probably posted this because raising the minimum wage is one of his pet issues, not because it's specifically local. I need to do more homework before I can weigh on the issue, but what I can say is that San Diego is extremely hostile to populous measures due to a LOT of big republican money and retired military idiots who actually thank God for "getting theirs" and believe Obama is the Antichrist and still have Bush/Cheney posters and bumper-stickers all over their shit. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see this beat.

          I don't honestly care much for raising the minimum wage because I've never started at the minimum wage, even working my first retail shit-job. In this city a minimum-wage increase would be about the Mexicans cleaning hotel rooms, who don't even know English, and I don't give a flying fuck about somebody who lives here and doesn't bother to learn the goddamn language.

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @03:36AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @03:36AM (#84214)

            Stay classy E.F..

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @05:27AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @05:27AM (#84230)

              Too late.

        • (Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Friday August 22 2014, @02:56AM

          by el_oscuro (1711) on Friday August 22 2014, @02:56AM (#84204)

          Please. You haven't been to DC. We have the worst drivers in the world here. They combine California clueless with Boston aggressiveness. I learned to drive in LA and after several years in DC, went back to LA and was absolutely shocked at how courteous LA drivers were, at least by comparison.

          --
          SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
          • (Score: 1) by canopic jug on Friday August 22 2014, @09:30AM

            by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @09:30AM (#84289) Journal
            Look up the old news articles about LA highway shootings n the 1980's. There was a time that driving poorly could win you and your car a small hail of bullets from another driver. Any remaining courtesy is probably an artifact of that period.
            --
            Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
      • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday August 22 2014, @02:55AM

        by Snotnose (1623) on Friday August 22 2014, @02:55AM (#84203)

        My last Comic-con was 2006, it just got too crowded and I gave up on it. I actually inadvertently attended a few in the late 70's, not knowing at the time that doing so might give me soylent cred. Starting going for real in the late-80's, went maybe 20 years in a row until it just got too insane to bother.

        --
        Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @05:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @05:37AM (#84233)

          Either '05 or '06 was my last visit too.

          I went to Defcon, then two years of ComicCon, then threw in the towel on both.

          The problem with the formerly nerdy stuff is the level of success has lead it the venues becoming unpleasant for the original demographics. Defcon when I went was more about underage kids hanging out with their 'mentors/idols' getting shitfaced, and maybe picking up an escort or two while they were there (for the ones who weren't broke ass/low on friends). ComicCon on the other hand was loud, noisy, unpleasantly long lines I hadn't seen since a Star Trek convention in the early 90s (and that was in a *SMALL* venue too) and horribly over-commercialized (they have a 50-100 foot square area dedicated to gaming, and about half of the presentations were in no way related to Comics, having Stargate, Star Wars, etc pitching their latest episodes/seasons/movies/etc). The only reason I stayed for the entire second trip was because of the viewing rooms on the top floor showing a random sampling of anime, thus allowing me to discover new anime I might otherwise have missed given the limited (legal) access online at the time.)

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @01:24AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @01:24AM (#84172)

      A win for labor *somewhere* is a win for labor **everywhere**.

      If we can get -all- the burgs pulling in the same direction (in opposition to the trend of the last 40 years), that's the path to re-empowering the working class which had a proper wage and The Good Life through the '50s and '60s.
      (Don't go thinking it will be easy.)

      I note that with Seattle's $15 win, $9.75 is a very timid movement of the needle.
      I also note that if wages had kept up with worker productivity, the minimum wage would be over $22.

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday August 22 2014, @03:04AM

        by Snotnose (1623) on Friday August 22 2014, @03:04AM (#84207)

        You really think the labor productivity came from McWorkers? Seriously? That productivity came from STEM workers competing with Indian labor willing to work for 1/3 of the American wages for the same job. Kill the H1-B visa and watch STEM saleries skyrocket, while burger flippers stay the same.

        --
        Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
        • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday August 22 2014, @10:09PM

          by BasilBrush (3994) on Friday August 22 2014, @10:09PM (#84502)

          My guess is you are a STEM worker? And thus your view is simply self serving.

          Burger flippers need higher minimum wages, more than you need your already decent wages inflated.

          --
          Hurrah! Quoting works now!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @03:06AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @03:06AM (#84208)

        > I also note that if wages had kept up with worker productivity, the minimum wage would be over $22.

        (1) It is inflation, not productivity.
        (2) That's only true if you pick one very specific moment in time: +/- 2 years from that date and the number is a lot lower, like in the $16 range.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Friday August 22 2014, @03:45AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @03:45AM (#84216) Journal

        I also note that if wages had kept up with worker productivity, the minimum wage would be over $22.

        Such an increase ignores the fundamental change of the past 40 years, namely that US labor has to compete with a vast cheap pool of labor throughout the world. My view is that the US minimum wage should probably be about the median Chinese labor price, maybe a bit lower, and increased only to adjust for inflation. Sure, it's not a win for labor, but labor isn't nor should be winning here.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday August 22 2014, @07:12AM

          by sjames (2882) on Friday August 22 2014, @07:12AM (#84254) Journal

          Only if the cost of living is also pulled down to match. I'm guessing you have no interest in seeing that happen, it would harm profits.

          • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 22 2014, @08:29PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @08:29PM (#84465) Journal

            Only if the cost of living is also pulled down to match.

            The standard of living has been getting pulled down to some degree in the US and elsewhere in the developed world for decades despite my lack of interest in seeing that happen.

        • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday August 22 2014, @05:10PM

          by Hawkwind (3531) on Friday August 22 2014, @05:10PM (#84417)

          This is just a guess but I don't think parent is trolling but instead referring to the idea that US standard of living compared to the rest of the world is not sustainable. This leads to multiple problems that can be handled in multiple ways, one of them narrowly viewed being the one parent is sharing his view on. I could attack it (why China and not a world index, what will the wealthy provide, support for those displaced) but I'm happy to see this issue raised and I find the China idea food for thought.

          • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 22 2014, @09:29PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @09:29PM (#84489) Journal

            I chose China because it is the biggest competitor, bigger IMHO than the whole EU bloc. And the EU is suffering from a bunch of the same problems the US suffers from. I don't think the US should emulate someone who hasn't found a fix to the primary US problems.
             
             

            what will the wealthy provide, support for those displaced

            I don't know. But I do know that if something isn't done and most of the rest of the developed world continue to play games, the wealthy will be providing support to somebody else. As to support for the displaced, there has to be a better way than the current bulky, misdirected, and occasionally dishonest attempts. Higher minimum wages help only those who are employed; paying for someone's health care only helps if the health care is worth the bother and can be afforded by society; and public pensions really need to set aside more reserve in order to remain solvent. That, of course, assumes that the parties which promise the support actually made an honest attempt to fund that promise.

        • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday August 22 2014, @08:29PM

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Friday August 22 2014, @08:29PM (#84464) Journal

          "My view is that the US minimum wage should probably be about the median Chinese labor price, maybe a bit lower, and increased only to adjust for inflation."

          So you are saying that we should lower the minimum wage to that of a developing nation just to compete with them? I guess you don't earn minimum wage then. Hell, I bet you are the one paying minimum wage and think that it's "damn good money". And any attempt to lower it gives you wet dreams.

          It's okay to pay minimum wage as long as you aren't on the short end of the stick. Typical greed mentality. We need less people like you in the world.

          • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 22 2014, @08:44PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @08:44PM (#84471) Journal

            So you are saying that we should lower the minimum wage to that of a developing nation just to compete with them?

            Yes. I'd prefer no minimum wage at all (reflecting that actual minimum wage remains $0 per hour). But at least a low one with predictable increases would be better than the current state with unpredictable increases happening whenever the populists need to get their base going.

            Typical greed mentality.

            Typical psychological projection. I get accused of greed when others are the ones trying to grab stuff that they didn't deserve or earn. And they do so at the expense of a lot of people who simply put, aren't worth minimum wage to employ. Minimum wage is one of the big drivers of long term unemployment IMHO.

      • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday August 22 2014, @03:07PM

        by hemocyanin (186) on Friday August 22 2014, @03:07PM (#84359) Journal

        I totally disagree. This minimum wage thing is a bandaid over the real problem, the flight of actual jobs.

        When I was in HS in the mid 80s, I worked part-time (making pizzas, stocking groceries, pumping gas -- the classics). With that I bought beer, clothes, movie tickets -- it was spending money and a good experience. There are lots of jobs that we should consider training jobs -- they type that help a person learn some very basic skills, like showing up on time for your shift and so forth. The problem is, now that we've shipped off a large percentage of our real jobs or replaced them with H1Bs, there are people who are trying to live on their McJob.

        This job-export problem really took off under Clinton's push for free trade agreements with countries whose economies bear no resemblance to ours, and hasn't stopped since. A free trade agreement with Germany is fine because of the parity in economies, but with an economy like El Salvador? That's economic suicide and now that we have slit our throats, "progressives" attempt to cover up their complicity in all these job killing policies by pushing for minimum wage increases, making it just barely possible to survive on jobs best suited for kids to get beer money. Instead of worrying about raising the minimum wage of a WalMart worker, they should have been focused on helping industry grow so those WalMart workers would have decent paying manufacturing jobs, rather than a minwage jobs stocking Chinese goods, and WalMart could get by just fine with kids earning beer money.

        Neal Stephenson said it pretty well in Snow Crash back in the 1992:

        When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
        music
        movies
        microcode (software)
        high-speed pizza delivery

        Software of course, has been shipped to a great extent -- why do you think Congress is so friendly to the RIAA or MPAA? It's all we have left.

        • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday August 22 2014, @10:19PM

          by BasilBrush (3994) on Friday August 22 2014, @10:19PM (#84504)

          I'm afraid the false disparity that put the US at the top of the earnings scale of the entire world is doomed, regardless of how much protectionism you apply.

          It originally came from slavery, then oil, then from America being a safe place in which to manufacture the weapons and materials for WWII - after the war all that manufacturing capacity was directed towards manufacturing for the consumer, which gave both manufacturing jobs and the consumer products to spend the wages on - a virtuous circle for a while.

          All of these forcings have or are disappearing. And globalisation is going to result in a world more balanced from one country to another. Fighting against your equals in other countries is pointless.

          The battle that can and should be fought is against the international Pleutocrats. The gap between the richest and the poorest has been rising for a few decades, and that's nothing but a bad thing for everyone.

          --
          Hurrah! Quoting works now!
  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Snotnose on Friday August 22 2014, @02:03AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Friday August 22 2014, @02:03AM (#84184)

    After the Filner debacle Kevin Faulconer, a sitting republican council-member, won the mayors race. The council got to decide who took his seat. Instead of choosing another republican, which IMHO would have been the right thing to do, they chose a seriously left wing union leader. This gave them a veto proof majority.

    Now we get crap like this, where the city council has decided by fiat to go left wing and is doing everything they can to prevent the people of San Diego from voting on it.

    We used to be Enron by the sea, now we're Chicago by the sea.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday August 22 2014, @05:39AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday August 22 2014, @05:39AM (#84234) Journal

      We used to be Enron by the sea, now we're Chicago by the sea.

      I am confused, it would seem that moving from being a criminal corporation to being a fine American City (albeit with a tradition of crime) would be a vast improvement, morally and civicly.

      And as for labor, labor should always win, because labor is the people. If labor is losing, someone else, not the people, is winning. That is called losing. Why do you hate America?

      • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 22 2014, @09:03PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @09:03PM (#84483) Journal

        And as for labor, labor should always win, because labor is the people.

        Democracy is not an excuse for an alleged majority to loot society. It's bullshit like that which got us into this situation in the first place. Places like China will do most of what we do for cheaper no matter how hard you try to make that competitive problem worse.

        My take is that the US public (and in general the developed world) will make a big generational sacrifice whether they try to avoid it or not. The real question is what comes afterward? Is it a shitty, balkanized society which can't even put out its own fires or repairs its own roads? Or a retooled and fierce economic power ready to take back what they had and plenty more? Labor shouldn't win, because that means we all lose. They aren't everyone. They aren't making society work. They're just a few ideologues offering up ponies and falsely claiming we can avoid making needed sacrifice.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @10:03PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @10:03PM (#84500)

          Democracy is not an excuse for an alleged majority to loot society.

          In what way is expecting more than $9 per hour for labor "looting society"? How much do the business owners earn? In what way is that not "looting society"?

          Places like China will do most of what we do for cheaper no matter how hard you try to make that competitive problem worse.

          China's advantages of cheap labor are disappearing as their workers are also enjoying increasing returns for their labor. The divisions in society that you want are unhealthy, and it's good when they are eroded.

          My take is that the US public (and in general the developed world) will make a big generational sacrifice whether they try to avoid it or not. The real question is what comes afterward? Is it a shitty, balkanized society which can't even put out its own fires or repairs its own roads?

          The problems you identify are real, but come from the the increasing wealth gap promited by people like you.
          You should be interested in this talk by a rich plutocrat who sees the error of his ways and your ideals:
          http://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_beware_fellow_plutocrats_the_pitchforks_are_coming [ted.com]

          • (Score: 2) by khallow on Friday August 22 2014, @10:29PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 22 2014, @10:29PM (#84507) Journal

            In what way is expecting more than $9 per hour for labor "looting society"?

            As long as it's just an "expectation", you're not looting anything. Perhaps delusional or overly entitled thinking, but not looting. When you actual force companies to pay $9 per hour, then it veers into looting.

            China's advantages of cheap labor are disappearing as their workers are also enjoying increasing returns for their labor. The divisions in society that you want are unhealthy, and it's good when they are eroded.

            Sure, and there may well come a day when Chinese labor is better paid than US labor due to the advantages of employing people in China compared to the enduring disadvantages of employing people in the US.

            The divisions in society that you want are unhealthy, and it's good when they are eroded.

            But my divisions of society are much better than a permanently unemployed and unemployable class of people. If your work only creates $8 per hour of value, then nobody with a profit motive will pay you $9 per hour for it.

            The problems you identify are real, but come from the the increasing wealth gap promited by people like you.

            Honestly, how does a minimum wage reduce this wealth gap? It creates as I noted before a class of people who won't be working and gaining wealth. It's not enough in itself to move anyone between classes. And it encourages businesses to either employ people elsewhere in the world or develop automation to replace the more expensive low end workers.

    • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Friday August 22 2014, @09:55PM

      by BasilBrush (3994) on Friday August 22 2014, @09:55PM (#84498)

      Presumably you are equally scathing of the Republican congress doing everything they can to veto the actions of the democratically elected Democrat president.

      No?

      --
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by turonah on Friday August 22 2014, @09:30AM

    by turonah (2317) on Friday August 22 2014, @09:30AM (#84288)

    From the article:

    Councilman Scott Sherman [...] said the wage increases should be viewed as a tax on businesses that will punish them.

    Seriously? Paying your employees slightly more than the legal minimum wage should be viewed as a tax?!? Unbelievably profit-centric thinking there.

    Maybe he'd change his tune if he knew what people richer than him [soylentnews.org] were saying.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @02:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @02:12PM (#84343)

      legal minimum wage should be viewed as a tax
      Well yeah...

      Creating artificial scarcities and screwing around with the market always works right?

      This is a *very* short term fix for what is a long term problem. You will see a slight bump up in what people make. However, long term you will just simply not see the job offered. As the dude in the back will crunch the numbers and say instead of the 5 open recs you needed you can have 3. Those 2 extra jobs just will never exist. 2 less people will have money and the remaining 3 get a by your own words 'slightly' more.

      Maybe he'd change his tune if he knew
      He is right. However, some of his ideas screw us even HARDER. He wants to create artificial caps. This has shown time and again to create less work. Less work = less employment. He almost got it too. We have thru a series of laws made it easy for 1%'rs to get money and screw it out of the rest of us. More laws that create more scarcity will not fix the issue. It will make the problems even worse.

      We have in the united states basically made it impossible to keep your money here thru a combination of poor tax codes, poor enforcement of laws, and artificial scarcity. We are in such a hurry to make sure every last dime is taxed. So they keep it offshore. Where it does no good here. The investment of that capital is done somewhere else.

      View all economic theories thru the broken window fallacy. As that is what 99% of the ideas that people drop on the internet have.
      http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/ [steshaw.org]

      If SD wanted to lead the way they would say 'no H1B visas in our city'. Which are designed to depress wages. You would see the companies that really run that city flip out.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by BasilBrush on Friday August 22 2014, @10:05PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Friday August 22 2014, @10:05PM (#84501)

        Creating artificial scarcities and screwing around with the market always works right?

        Leave the market to do whatever it wants NEVER works. See 1929 and 2008 for the end results of lack of regulation on business.

        --
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