Reply #22: I don't think your argument here is sound.

[Lyric]

Unlike a typical competitive marketplace (in which, if one store raises its prices, the others can take advantage) the minimum wage increases affect ALL the stores. So they all raise prices together rather than undercutting each other. It's hard to keep your prices low for a competitive advantage when YOU are stuck paying higher wages just like your competitors are.

I think some businesses do raise prices and try to pass off the pain to the consumers--and I also think that this practice is wrong. Is it not possible to create some kind of federal regulation that prevents businesses from passing on more than a percentage of cost increases to their consumers? Colleges are the worst offenders of all in this respect: if there's a financial aid cost-of-living increase from the government, you can be sure that colleges will raise their tuition rates JUST enough to swallow down every bit of the increase, leaving their students with no more money than before, even though the increased cost of living that the money was SUPPOSED to be for is still there. It's sickening!

Why should the consumers ALWAYS have to be the ones who bear the costs? Why can't businesses and colleges be forced to share the pain instead of passing it all onto our backs? Why do shareholders believe that the "little people" are the ONLY ones who deserve to take a cut in income? It's like they think they have a god-given, etched-in-stone right to make a profit of a certain percentage, and if anything threatens that percentage, BAM! Pass it along.

Sick. Just sick.