The US should establish Progressive Wage Laws

To start, raising prices reduces the amount of business they get from customers, based on a basic model of supply and demand. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, just that it's unlikely to be large. Studies that evaluate the actual impact of hikes on prices see a maximum of 2.16%, with most companies increasing prices by below 0.4%.[1] Small businesses can afford to pass on the costs without closing.I am unconvinced. I read the IZA article, and none of the studies were specifically stated, which prevented me from further research on their reliability. It is impossible to average price hikes on a national scale, and even if it were a reliable source of data, you are still strangling the 20% that are forced to raise prices will still be hurt.He's also biting the harm to small businesses. It's possible that, on the four factors, some small businesses will be forced to pay higher amounts in minimum wage, and they won't have the finances to defend themselves in court or to engage in duplicitous accounting practices. Since Pro is already planning on increasing the minimum wage to the same height I am, and since some small businesses may be forced to pay more, Pro is uniquely increasing the chance of their closure.Am I? As I said, the employee third factor is deducted after the wage is set, so its entirely possible for companies to pay below the floor if neccesary. Your argument that some would be forced to pay more, hurting small business, simply doesn't fit what I'm proposing. The wage is set based on the companies ability to pay, so this argument is invalid. Every stem argument resulting from this should be disregarded.And on this, he's simply not doing enough to explain how it will work. Pro admits from the outset that this is a theory, and an untested one at that. He does, however, say that it's proven. He then proceeds to showcase that proof by making an anecdotal claim about video stores, which isn't evidence, and then showing a chart.Assuming you read my link, Stanford gives examples on how certain deficits can be good. The whole point of the progressive wage laws, are to lower the deficit between the 1% and 50%, while also increasing marketplace competitiveness in the process. Even John Maynard Keynes touched upon artificial deficits, by creating gaps that benefit the lower class.I really don't think this point can be argued. Its a simple economic truism. Deficits are needed for the success of a economy, but they can't be to high or to low. Currently the corporate deficit is incredibly slanted towards the "to big to fail" businesses. Your flat increase, doesn't address the underlying problem. Raising a flat wage will still keep the corporate deficit on the rise, and if some of your inflation arguments were true, then we can believe that nothing would change as far as the 1% paying a lesser burden. 1) There's no reason to believe that a progressive wage will solve when a progressive tax hasn't. That's status quo. If Pro is right, we would expect that the progressive taxation system also brings about the same ends.Actually, I'm really glad you brought this up, as I believe this can be one of my strongest points. By constant attacks on the progressive tax, you leave me open to an analogy to the flat tax, which from my understanding, you find worst then the progressive one.A flat tax, is the equivalent of the flat wage your advocating. Lets anaylze what the flat tax does.....(1) Produces less fiscal revenue then the progressive one. Established. (2) Does not effect the Deficit, leaving it to rise. Established.The perk of a flat tax though, is that it doesn't hinder constant growth. Your flat wage can not claim the same benefit, at least not on the same level. At most, the progressive wage creates a 4$ deficit between the lower class, but lowers the deficit immensely to the 1%. So once again, I ask the audience, which is better? The answer seems quite obvious in my opinion.2) There's no reason to believe that the costs of paying more to minimum wage workers will be borne out as Pro suggests. They will always prefer their competitive advantage, which ensures that they can move in anywhere and get profits even with local competition, and thus distribute costs elsewhere, supercharging Pro's harms scenarios.I find myself repeating arguments, which leads me to believe that my rebuttals are being dropped by con. The system installs an artificial deficit, which increases competitiveness even further. By disregarding artificial deficits as valid, you are disagreeing with a lot of educated economists. That's fine and all, but your chain argument relies on it not working (Refer to bottom concession).I'm confused on what your trying to say though. It doesn't matter if the rich favor their competitiveness. The rich aren't making the law to benefit them. I think what your trying to do though, is imitate the "trickle down" argument the right often makes in support of flat taxes. Once again, you can't keep applying arguments for wages with ones for taxes. They don't apply the same. Trickle down doesn't even outweigh the progressive arguments. For that to be true, you would have to prove that stimulating the rich is more beneficial then stimulating the poor, and I think we can both agree that the rich are still retaining to much share. I might be wrong on what your trying to say, and this point may need to be reclarified.Pro's assumption of increased parity between small and large business prices seems to be based on large businesses being forced to increase their prices as a result of this policy. This may create some change in competition between them, but with the cost of the entire country experiencing inflated pricesI have two great, most likely unintentional concessions here....(1) He admitted that artificial deficits can work, which should cancel his earlier chain arguments.(2) He admitted inflation is a problem, which contradicts his earlier argument that it isn't. I do have to address number 2 though, since he marks it as a issue with my proposal. It doesn't make since, as his proposal actually causes the rich to inflate prices. He said so in his first argument this round. My proposal, prevents companies from inflating prices. The rich have to adjust their prices to match the rates of small business. It essentially says that, as long as a business is hiring more people, they'll have to pay lower minimum wages. Pro doesn't say anything companies doing this hiring within the U.S., so this can still mean outsourcing jobs to other nations that don't have this minimum wage in order to inflate employment numbersThis is Con's worst argument, for two reasons...(1) Who in their right minds would pay 15$ instead of a .15$ dollar decrease per employee?(2) Minimum wage workers are not often outsourced. Probably not at all actually.Come on, this is nonsense.On capital, my response really doesn't change even while his case does. In fact, the harms get worse. Now companies have incentive to tie up extra funds in stock, making it all the harder to access, in order to reduce their wages by as much as possibleCon is good at giving ways to offset the wage with reckless business decisions. The stock market does not work like this. You can't simply tie up all your capital into one stock, and then sell it later. Even if you spread it around, its still unstable. That money that you invest gets spent, and I guarantee, you'll never see it again. And before a "funnel it into a fake business" argument is made, I would point out that this is illegal laundering.You have to ask, are his arguments of outsourcing, mass stock investing, and illegal book changing even worth the 2$ wage increase. All these problems apply to his flat rate as well. Sorry audience, but I had to make my opening arguments in R2, so I can't further refute. https://docs.google.com...