The Czar found a mysterious photograph slipped under his door; the picture was simply of white clouds against a blue sky. Assuming the worst, we ran the picture through GorT and Mandarin’s stegiographic decompiler, and sure enough—a message was encoded in the pixels.

And hey, it was from Javahead, who writes to the Czar for the first time. A promising first line:

To the most noble & terrible Czar:

A gushing comment supporting the California minimum wage increase posted to our local increasingly-irrelevant newspaper’s online version annoyed me enough to respond in kind. In hopes that it might interest a few more readers than those who follow the San Jose Murky News (motto: All the “news” you want to see, if you’re a left-wing sycophant); I’m forwarding it for your perusal:

Prediction: 2 years after the minimum wage boost takes full effect the gap between rich and poor will remain unchanged. But the percentage of unskilled labor, especially youth and minority unskilled labor, will be higher, if measured by percentage in those groups who have jobs vs percentage actively seeking jobs.

The dirty little secret is that nobody except the truly unskilled or unmotivated remains at minimum wage for more than a few months to a year. For the vast majority of workers, it serves as an entry point, a foot in the door, a chance to earn money and gain experience after school, over the summer, or part-time.

Raising the minimum wage prices the inexperienced out of the market for many of the marginal jobs – for many small businesses, an extra 20% per unskilled employee translates into the owner working an extra shift rather than hiring one more employee, or deciding to cut marginally-profitable hours.

The only real winners are the much higher paid workers – mostly members of politically-connected unions – who have their pay indexed to a multiple of the minimum wage.

If we really want to increase employment overall, we should strictly enforce overtime provisions in the labor code, but reduce or eliminate the minimum wage. Counter-intuitive, but remember that nobody is forced to work if they believe the wages are too low. On the other hand, I’ll predict that there are a huge number of jobs that will open up at, say $6 an hour that would not be available at $10 an hour. And a huge number of people – mostly youth, and probably disproportionately minority youth (a group with a unemployment rate 2-3 times the state average) – who’d welcome the chance to have a job and earn money of their own.

Sincerely, Operative Javahead

Excellent! Yes, you are exactly right! Nice work, and look for an extra radish in your vanilla pudding at your appointed feeding time. The Czar shall see to it.

Note: if that radish is missing, let us know. Dat Ho probably took it and will receive a beating; that’s his minimum wage.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.