It is obvious that you have never managed a business, otherwise you’d know from experience that, if given the choice between employing an experienced person or a youth for the same hourly rate, you’d usually opt for the older person. The reasons are patently obvious – reliability / quality of output / life experiences / less risk fitting in with others etc.

With youth rates, it’s possible to change the mix of staff / increase staff numbers, without having to spend any more on wages / salaries. Lefties think this is some form of exploitation, but in the real world it is called giving 11 people jobs instead of 10.

Now, that wasn’t hard, was it?

values a person’s labour on the basis of their age and not their skills or experience.

The minimum wage does not place a value on anything. It allows a value to be placed. The youth minimum wage does not mean that young people MUST be paid less, only that they can be. If they have skill and experience then they can earn more based on that.

The “simple discrimination” argument has been debunked. Discrimination is not always bad, so appealing to that perception does not make your case.

Go ahead and dismiss EC’s work on this as biased. Thats a great philosophy. It means you can go throughout your entire life without having your mind changed on anything.

Good to know that you wont go so far as to say that price has nothing to do with the demand of something. I mean, that would be pretty fucking retarded. But you would have to explain why price wouldnt be the most important factor, especially over such a short time frame.

I don’t feel that you have debunked any arguments.

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the relationship between minimum wages and employment is far from clear cut. “We have shown that the higher price for young people has lead to higher unemployment” is an overstatement. Studies in this area tend to reflect the existing biases of thier authors. The CIs study is no exception. I wouldn’t go so far as to say there is no relationship between minimum wages and unemployment; but it is only one factor among many.

paying lower rates on the basis of age was simple discrimination

Like I said. Tired debunked arguments. Yes it is discrimination. So are student discounts. Young people are treated differently.

We have shown that the higher price for young people has lead to higher unemployment (which is what we warned at the time).

Asides from your adolescent reflexive response to the boogey-word “discrimination”, what is wrong with a lower minimum wage for young people?

Oh well, roll on naked hatred. Must be disappointing to live in NZ instead of Palestine or Kosovo.

I think I have interpreted this in the only ways possible. Unless you want to explain exactly what you meant by it.

What happened to the debate on youth rates?

Well, in one sentence … it got derailed by lefties repeating the same tired debunked arguments over and over again, refusing to address all the counterpoints, but instead telling people, who have actually thought about the issue rather than emoting all over it, that they are racist and sexist for not supporting the lefties’ feel-good-achieve-nothing policies.

I have no illusions that anti-discrimination laws would improve life in Palestine or Kosovo, and did not say that.

Sorry, my mistake. I misread. It turns out you were once again slandering your opponent. You said that because they didnt agree with you about anti-discrimination laws that they must hate others based on their race to the extent that they would like to ethnically cleanse the planet of them.

I am bored of your trolling.

I really am unsure why you wanted to call me a “fascist, homophobic, baby-eating cunt”.

Because there is as much justification for me to do that as there is for you to imply I am a sexist and a racist. LDO

Oh well, roll on naked hatred.

Sorry, are you really saying that anti-discrimination laws reduce hate? Legislation isnt magic. It isnt going to make even the mildest racist person less racist.

It is absolutely ridiculous for you to say that anti-discrimination laws would make Palestine and Kosovo bastions of racial acceptance. Get real.

So, if the cafe owner have such signing on display in front of his property, then the question to ask you is who’s rights has been violated? The dog owner or the Jews? No one. There is no rights violations involved at all.

So you feel a business owner could discriminate against anyone? Your cafe owner could have a signing saying “No dogs or Jews”?

I’m as happy to have legislated limits to discrimination as I am to have laws against physical violence.

I’d just scrap the minimum wage altogether and make the first $20,000 or so tax-free.

That is a very laudable aim, but it requires determination and decision that no New Zealand government will ever have, let alone the current one.