After a weak session of strong drinks and average poker, I was chatting with a friend about my actual age but probably many years my life-experience senior. It was approaching 4am, and he said suddenly "Now is a good time for this. Follow me." I naively expected to be shown some sort of eclipse or weather pattern only available at this time of night. Instead we wandered over to the central casino bar while he scanned the field like a golfer looking for his lost golf ball. He announced "Here we go. Perfect," and sat uninvited at the table of a lonely-looking blonde-haired girl.
"So how much?" She gave a quizzical look and befuddled response that amounted to something like "What in tarnation are you referring to?"
He continued "C'mon it's late. I know you don't have any other prospects right now. Give me a good deal." (I will continue the conversation referring to sexual acts by tried-and-true method of bases reached in baseball, although I'm not quite sure which each base translates to).
She quickly dropped her 'how dare you' look and attitude and got down to business. "$400 for everything."
What ensued was a lively discussion about a lower price-point for 3rd base and even a 2-for-1 deal for "your friend over there." I made a joke about scanning her personal effects for a toothbrush covered in Lysol and politely declined. A few minutes later they disappeared into the night both satisfied with their consentual business agreement.
Besides a decent story, what I saw was Capitalism in action (I fully believe consensual prostitution should be legal as an aside). A good or service assigned a value too high is only the fault of the purchaser, and one priced too low is the fault of the seller. Likewise, a wage paid too low is the fault of the employee accepting, and a wage paid too high is the fault of employer paying it. The government HAS NO BUSINESS telling two people who are the most closely invested and familiar with the terms of an agreement what the terms should be. So why regulations on wages? What has gone awry here?
DISCONNECT THEORY SECTION:
The key word/provision in all of this is the "ability to consent." A child cannot negotiate his own wage because he/she is unable to form consent without education. The only excuse for a person needing a surrogate, like the government, to negotiate his wage for him is that he's too stupid to do it himself. But most people don't seem to be stupid, right? So why aren't they negotiating for themselves? The problem is in schooling or parenting or anything else that instructs someone how to be an individual adult. There is a pervading theory that "if you go to school, then go to college, then do the right things, the system will take care of you." (I'll go into the education system in another article).
But there isn't a faceless system at the other end of a job offer. There is another human being whose duty it is to his company to hire at the most effective wage possible. No doubt people don't even realize that an offered wage is a negotiation. The most dangerous concept here is "I was told by authority that these people know better than I do, and this is JUST how it's supposed to go." There are no rules here. You are responsible for yourself.
-doug
P.S.- My friend returned to the poker room hours later bragging that he had paid only "$100 for the whole enchilada!" ... I asked if that included the antibiotics.