(V): Good, so now that you have stated your position and your (mis) understandingS, happy to answer your points.


“It does nothing to encourage a skilled and liquid labour market”
Quite the opposite.
Firstly skills are purchased at a premium. If there was no reward for learning a skill, then there would be no differentiation and all would earn the same amount.
By introducing the minimum wage you effectively reduce the differentiation and reward, hence providing less encouragement for a skilled labour force. Alternatively, if the differentiation is to be maintained, then the employer has to pay a higher cost for labour, resulting in diminished competitiveness and therefore eventual loss of business and unemployment. Simple economics.

A liquid labour market is not encouraged by the minimum wage, but instead creates an illiquid market. It results in less movement of labour as again differentiation and free market forces have been skewed by these populist but fallacious ideas. Regarding unemployment benefit, which you seemed to associate with this discussion, this too is another market aberration, again resulting in the increased cost of labour and reduction of liquidity. Simple economics.


“The lack of such a minimum wage is a tax on the income the government gets”
Duh, surely you can't be serious with this statement!?


“As such it is also exploitation”
Good, where people feel exploited, they will move on = increased liquidity. Simple economics.


“And has led to much civil unrest in the past. Which is another drain of public funds.. which, are raised on taxes.. as I'm sure you know”
Your reasoning is circular here. What you are effectively saying, is that the minimum wage provides a tax revenue which will enable government to afford the quelling of any uprising on its own citizens, but to prevent the uprising occurring in the first place we will introduce a tax on labour through means of a minimum wage, hence avoiding the uprising, but we will keep the tax receipts any way and make our nation less competitive. There is a real cost here, the government has again reduced the competitiveness of business and again the business fails and unemployment increases. Simple economics.


“I've seen (before minimum was introduced) companies staff changing rapidly, as people moved on quickly. It wasn't they didn't like the job, just they could not afford to live on the pay. The result being that new staff had to be advertised for and trained. When a decent wage was paid. People stuck at the job. “
These are commercial decisions to be made by a company. They are the best decision makers in these matters, not government.
Staff turnover = increased liquidity!
Skilled labour commands a reward and the company will pay a premium for this in order to retain this staff.
For unskilled labour, the wage will be optimised between the cost of retention and new hires.
All simple economics.




“As for higher costs. Shop around.. haggle.. ebay. Labour costs are a small % of the actual retail price usually, as I'm sure you know.”
Another bizarre statement, which also depends on the nature of the business. For most businesses, labour costs are one the largest, if not the largest operating cost of a business. And more so because of labour taxes.


Well, I can only give you a score of 1/10 (the 1 is awarded for your imaginative suggestion to use ebay to purchase items at a lower cost)

Try harder!