Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

Removing minimum wage, even for a short time, is about the worst idea I have ever heard. That would reduce the wages for actual jobs, not magically create new ones, as you seem to believe. It would create more poverty, not less. Even if it would legalize jobs that are currently illegal due to it being below the minimum wage level, which might create a few more, I don't see it balancing out in your favor at all.

I don't see employers running headlong into lowering salaries. The minimum wage sets an artificial line on the natural competition that should be occurring is the job market. With a low income neighbor,like Central and South America, which has so many people willing to work for less than the minimum, it creates a large supply of low-skilled labor. In order to compete with that, our government should help facilitate raising our citizens to a higher level, but to begin with, they must be in the thick of it. Otherwise, yes, the jobs will go underground, and be given to those who will do them illegally. Once the market has soaked up all the citizens looking for work, then natural competition for the best employees will commence. This will then lift salaries, and those with the best credentials and experience will be lifted out of poverty. This is a global issue, and so our (US) goal should be to have the largest number of highly educated and skilled workers in the entire world. Job security is intimately tied with having credentials from education and experience.

I'm reasonably certain there are plenty of jobs which do not actually require the skills necessary to get a high school diploma while still requiring the actual diploma even today (and it would be worse afterwards). You'd just be putting the people who were going to get those jobs out of work, since now they can't get their diploma. I would normally approve of upping the standards of education, but you can't accomplish that simply by setting higher standards and giving out tests. You have to actually educate, or you just end up with a higher failure rate.

Well, yes, I assumed education and skills were the goal. Testing is just a fair measurement of achievement. Once the general citizenry is better educated, and has higher skill sets, then employers will choose them over the illiterate and unskilled masses. Yes, there may be jobs that Americans won't do, but that should be their choice, not some arbitrary government law. This is not different than what Denmark has done, right? Do you think your social system might be threatened if it bordered Mexico? How important would border security be if you had millions of people, many armed with guns, invading through your borders to find a better life in your country?