Are price floors in general a good idea?
Imagine there are 100 manufacturers of cars, who discover that a byproduct (lets call it weberfoam) of the process of making cars is useful in making planes. Each manufacturer makes between 1 and 2 tonnes of weberfoam, of varying quality per month. 10 plane manufacturers want weberfoam, because it makes planes lighter. They're willing to pay quite a bit for it (up to $1,000 a tonne) but at that price will want only 1 tonne each. At $1 a tonne they'll buy 2 tonnes each.
What should the car manufacturers do? Would them getting together and agreeing a minimum price they'll sell weberfoam for be in there interests?
Of course, putting it that way makes me realise the harmful effects more clearly. Cheers :-)
The concept of minimum wage is one I'm rather attached to. I have dozens of arguments for why it helps people, improves the world, etc. etc. I suspect this view is shared by most of this community, although I haven't seen any discussion of it.
I don't have much understanding of the harms that minimum wages cause; and at what level of minimum wage those harms become relevant (ie. a minimum wage that would not be a living wage even working 24 hours a day is unlikely to have any of the same problems that a minimum wage sufficient to buy an aircraft carrier an hour would have)
So what are the harms that such laws cause?