These two arguments that were made about the $15 minimum wage are both spectacularly wrong. There are plenty of arguments that can be made against raising the minimum wage, and I'll make them later. But first, I want to explain why these two arguments are wrong first.

First, raising the minimum wage to $15 will not make Taco Bell prices similar to sit-down restaurant prices. That's not how things work in the real world. I mention "the real world" because there is one place where that does happen - Economics 101 textbooks.

The Taco Bell argument is known as cost-push inflation (CPI). CPI occurs when the cost of production goes up. For example, if the cost of rubber goes up, tire prices go up. If the minimum wage goes up, burrito prices go up. Sounds simple enough, right? Not in the real world.

The free(ish) market is defined by competition. Businesses try to undercut prices, union workers compete with non-union workers, American auto workers compete with Mexican auto workers, etc. And in the real world, this is why CPI is so rare, especially vis-a-vis the minimum wage.

Let's say the minimum wage goes up to $15 and Taco Bell then decides to raise the prices of its tacos and burritos. It's a business organization attempting to pass the additional costs to the consumer. Now, this does happen, but not often because of what is known as "elasticity."

Elasticity refers to how price sensitive people are. If people keep buying something regardless of price because it is a necessary commodity that can't be replaced by something else, it's inelastic. But if people stop buying or easily switch to replacements, then it's elastic.

And Taco Bell is a type of business that sells products that are price elastic. Taco Bell is in constant competition with other businesses that serve cheap fast food - McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, etc. They're all in competition with each other.

If Taco Bell decides to change the price of its Grilled Stuffed Burrito from $5 to, say, $10, more people are going to start eating at McDonald's. That would make Taco Bell's shareholders upset. So, instead of passing the cost to the consumer, if the minimum wage goes...

...up to $15, it is most likely that Taco Bell would absorb the costs. What that means is that it will take a hit to its profit margins by paying the new minimum wage (because that's the law) and NOT hiking up the prices of its Grilled Stuffed Burritos.

Will there be no price increase? Unlikely. There might probably be some price increase, but not to the extent of Taco Bell prices being similar to that of sit-down restaurants.

But what if Taco Bell and ALL of its competitors raise their prices? What if even a Big Mac costs $10?

That scenario describes that of a cartel - all of the businesses in an industry agreeing on price fixes.

Well, for one thing, that would be illegal. Governments don't tend to approve of anti-competitive business practices. It tends to piss off voters.

But even if it were legal, cartels don't tend to be effective for very long because all it takes is one business to undercut the cartel's prices. If everyone was charging $10 for a cheeseburger, but Wendy's charges $6, people are going to eat at Wendy's.

For a real-life example that showcases the long-term ineffectiveness of cartels, read up on OPEC.

Now, the second argument about how raising the minimum wage to $15 would make working at Taco Bell more lucrative than serving in the military is just plain dumb.

Why would everyone else's wages remain the same when the minimum wage goes up? Everyone is competing with each other. But not just for customers and profits, but also for workers.

If working at Taco Bell is more lucrative than serving in the military, of course, people will...

...prefer to work at Taco Bell. Serving in the military is not at all glamorous, there is no glory, it's difficult, and marching in formation is a bitch. Taco Bell, here we come!

But here's the thing. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Army is not run by idiots.

If soldiers start quitting their jobs to go to work at Taco Bell, that will make the brass deeply unhappy. They need soldiers to fight their wars for them. And there's only so much that "Army Strong" commercials can do to make Army life seem enticing (puke!).

So what happens next? Naturally, soldiers' wages go up. And it's not just for soldiers. Union workers, white-collar workers, and basically everyone else will see their wages go up, too. Because, you know, duh.

Now I said that there are plenty of arguments that can be made against raising the minimum wage - actual arguments that are not completely stupid. And I'll begin to make them now.

The first big one is that raising the minimum wage will disadvantage marginal workers.

Marginal workers refer to the kinds of people that businesses, for one reason or another, don't tend to employ. People like ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, women, single moms, high school dropouts, immigrants, undocumented workers, the disabled, etc.

This might be fair or (much more likely) unfair, but discrimination is a thing. And no amount of legislation or moralizing is going to change that. At least not overnight.

We don't like to think of people in terms of monetary value, but in business, we do.

If a business owner has a choice of either hiring a high school dropout who also happens to a single mom and a member of an ethnic minority group or a college graduate who is single and has no kids and a member of an ethnic majority group and had to pay $15/hour regardless...

...of which person that business owner decides to employ, the probability of the first person getting employed falls dramatically while the probability of the second person getting employed rises dramatically. This only gets worse the higher the minimum wage is raised.

It definitely feels shitty to say, "There should be no minimum wage so that the physically disabled guy can say, "I'll work for less than that able-bodied guy," so that the disabled guy can improve his chances of getting a job."

It feels shitty for obvious reasons.

We're all human beings, and we like to think that everyone deserves to be treated equally and humanely. But the sad reality is that the world doesn't quite work that way. No matter how much we wish otherwise.

So, when politicians show you charts showing that employment didn't go down despite the minimum wage going up, they're not lying. But what they are likely hiding is information about what kinds of people have kept their jobs and what kinds of people have lost their jobs.

Especially when it comes to economics, there are far more things that are unseen rather than seen. We should try to see the bigger picture as much as we can.

The second argument against raising the minimum wage to $15 is that it will negatively affect small businesses.

Not all businesses are the same. On the one hand, there are titans like Amazon and there are small family-run shops that sell handmade trinkets. You would think that this does not need to be said, but a lot of people seem to forget this. Especially when they say things...

...like "the capitalist class exploits the workers."

Large corporations can absorb higher costs because they have bigger profit margins. If the minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour, Jeff Bezos and Amazon are going to be just fine. They're not going out of business any time soon.

But the small family-run shop that sells handmade trinkets might not be so lucky. Most small businesses, especially individual or family-run ones, operate on razor-thin profit margins. And they're the lucky ones if they can make razor-thin profit margins.

Remember those marginal workers that I mentioned earlier? Those are the workers who will either lose their jobs or fail to get employed because these small businesses can't afford to keep them around.

For the majority of small businesses, their biggest expenditures are wages.

If their workers' wages go up, they tend to have to let workers go (or be choosy about who to hire or fire).

So, the second argument basically boils down to this: Higher minimum wages will negatively affect small businesses downtown, but Amazon and Walmart will be fine.

You see, workers don't have a monopoly on economic grievances. Small businesses have their fair share of it, too.

In order to protect small businesses while also improving workers' lives, it would be much better to provide a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

While a UBI is not perfect, because it will be borne by taxpayers rather than by individual business owners, the UBI will be more just and, possibly, a more permanent solution for improving the income/wealth gap than raising the minimum wage.

The third argument against the $15 minimum wage is more aimed at larger countries like the United States rather than smaller countries like South Korea or Singapore. Because the larger the country, the more different economic landscapes that will exist within that country.

America is a vast country that has wealthy states like Massachusetts or Connecticut, and it also has poor states like Mississippi or Arkansas. A federally mandated $15 minimum wage might make sense in a wealthy state, but less sense in a poorer one.

If Company A has to pay the same amount of money to hire workers in Mississippi as they would in Massachusetts, where the state might have better educated workers, Company A will likely choose to operate in Massachusetts.

(Of course, in the real world, the minimum wage wouldn't be the only determining factor in which state a business chooses to operate. Other factors like corporate taxes, tax cuts, subsidization, infrastructure, etc. will also be factored in. Economics is complicated.)

So, instead of passing a federally-mandated $15 minimum wage for every state in the country, if a minimum wage law must be passed, it would be far better to have regionally-adjusted minimum wages that are tied to inflation.

That way, workers in Mississippi won't be paid the same amount of money as workers in Massachusetts, which would allow the former to maintain a competitive edge against the latter, and tying the minimum wage to inflation will help to ensure that the minimum wage will...

...automatically be set to go up to keep pace with inflation, which would negate the need to constantly argue for "a living wage."

The minimum wage is a complicated subject. Whether it is argued by the Right or the Left, if it sounds too simple, that's because they're wrong.

A higher minimum wage will not destroy the economy, but it will also not save the toiling masses. It will definitely help some people. But it will also make some people suffer. While we'll be able to see the people it helps, those who suffer will be invisible.

It's a complicated topic that requires sober debate and arguments. Left or Right, if the argument sounds simple, ignore it. All they do is to lower humanity's collective IQ.

Thanks if you've read this whole thing.