>Is it inefficient? Why do you think that? Deadweight losses. A bored teenager that'd rather have $3 than an hour of his time sits at home. A retired person wo

>Is it inefficient? Why do you think that? Deadweight losses. A bored teenager that'd rather have $3 than an hour of his time sits at home. A retired person would rather tell stories to a bored teenager for an hour than have $3. The law says that it's illegal to make this trade, even though both parties are better off afterwards. There's other issues from messing with prices - shortages/surpluses, excesses or deficiencies of quality, search costs, and misallocation of resources. It really all boils down to the same thing, though. Prices provide feedback between what buyers want and what sellers provide. Mess with prices, and society starts lying to itself about what it wants or how hard getting it is. Do Not Mess With Prices. >When you propose an alternate solution I'd like to see it in practice before throwing millions of people to the wolves. We have an alternate solution, we just reserve it for people who somehow "deserve" to be treated humanely through virtue of being disabled or elderly. Everyone deserves to be treated humanely. Expand the current welfare system to everyone, eliminate the incentive distortions from means and needs-testing people, and pay for it through tax increases.