Well, I just chose not to tackle all your points but... * the default position in the US is that the government should stay out of things (limited government),

Well, I just chose not to tackle all your points but... * the default position in the US is that the government should stay out of things (limited government), not that the government should regulate things (although we are rapidly moving away from the former and towards the latter) * believing that "economists" and "advisors" can discern an hourly wage number that balances supply and demand across all variables is just wrong as there is no way for the central authorities to have as much information as the market has (the collective group of buyers and sellers), distributive decision making trumps centralized decision making in this regard * Your belief that a centralized decision making process is "better than the alternative" suggests no limit to the scope of this power, this is dangerous. You also provide no justification for your preference for the centralized approach. You agree that there can't be a single number that works in all cases and yet refuse to give up on the idea that there still needs to be a single number. Why?