minimum wage should exist

I understand that you've explained why you think a person who works better should not be paid the same as someone who does worse job. That's why they give that person a raise. Why wouldn't this work? The person who sucks doesn't get a raise, and if they're so bad, they don't stay at that job then. If they're a hot body doing the work and is making the employer money, they wouldn't be keeping them if they weren't that great. As for outsources, most jobs I can think of that pay minimum practically are not outsourced. Mcdonald's. etc. The only jobs I know of are things like steel jobs. These jobs were not minimum wage to begin with, so actually they don't have to do with this debate much. Now, really, I have to pleadd a degree of ignroance, because I'm not sure why they don't just pay less for other workers here, instead of like 30 dollars pay 20 etc. Maybe there's no people here willing to pay them at the rate they want, which is what I've heard before. But if that's the case, it's not hurting us because people who want better jobs must be able to get them, and the minimum wage doesn't really come into play here that I can see. (Now, when they do outsource, they may be paying them less than minimum wage overseas, but, that's why we make sure regulations ensure labor standards, proabbly not our standard but one fair for them. but this is an incidental point to minimum wage) Also, now, when they do outsource, actually, the inifite sea of labor from overseas wouldn't help us, but hurt us. the cost of homemade products would be uncompetitive with proucts from overseas. So, it seems that outsourcing, or at least not taxing the imports, is actually hurting us, at least in terms of the working class. We have no reason to stay super competitive with other countries. i see nothing wrong with some isolationism. why not? I almost want ot put the last paragraph in paranthesis though, because outsourcing that we're talking about, for practical purposes, given walmart jobs etc, is not affected by minimum wage as I can see. As for the cost of raw material etc being bought, I'm glad you brought it up. Because if we have no steel, for example, and have to import it, then their cheap labor (within ethical labor standards from the seller) will allow us to buy cheap. But only if there's not much steel here, or the steel here is unreasonalby high with reasonable labor standards. So, basically, we have to take a more catgorical approach, instead of simply being a free market fundamentalist, as per outsourcing. I now see your point now that you've explained it, about how a uniform wage would be bad for a smaller economy where it's too high. that's why we set the standard very low, not a NY standard, but a poor state standard. Again, some cannot created businesses, but if they can't while others can within a reasonable frame, ie some job blow like me can't hire mexicans to be sterotypical, they/i simply should not be in business. As a final point, the smartest economists have debated this forever, the topic of outsourcing, and i'd guess the topic of minimum wage. There may be empiracal data we simply need to study, to see who's theory is correct. I'm willing to bet both of us are in over our heads.