'Daily Show' Runs Edited Hit Piece Attacking Peter Schiff: "Rich CEO Tells 'Daily Show' The 'Mentally Retarded' Are Maybe Worth $2 An Hour"

Chris | InformationLiberation
Jan. 29, 2014

Schiff Responds: Peter Schiff: 'The Daily Show' Is Intellectually Dishonest about the Intellectually Disabled"Rich CEO Tells 'Daily Show' The 'Mentally Retarded' Are Maaaybe Worth $2 An Hour," reads the headline from the Huffington Post.

Peter Schiff said on his show a month or so ago he was interviewed by The Daily Show. He said they spent ~~an hour~~ four hours asking him the same questions over and over again in slightly different ways to try to get some sort of flub out of him they could edit to make him look foolish. Well, here's what they got out of the hour they interviewed him, some 2 minutes of heavily edited, out of context class-warfare propaganda to paint him as uncaring and disrespectful towards the mentally disabled.

Schiff: "If we eliminated the minimum wage law then individuals would be free to accept jobs at whatever pay they're able to get."

Bee: "Paint me a picture of a person whose work would be worth $2 an hour."

Schiff: "You know somebody who might be? Maybe somebody who is, uh, you know, what's the politically correct word? Uh, you know, uh, for, uh, you know, mentally retarded?"

Bee: [...]

Schiff, later on: "I'm not going to say that we're all created equal... you're worth what you're worth."

What Schiff said was accurate -- a mentally disabled person's work may only be worth $2 an hour -- his supposed fault is not saying it in a politically correct enough way. No doubt he explained his statement in more PC terms immediately after, he knew full well they were trying to get him to say something which they could take out of context to make him look uncaring, they were doing so for an hour straight, but they cut whatever he said at the end of his statement to make it look more blunt. [Update: Schiff discusses what they cut here.]

Per usual, their only argument against his logic is to run emotional sob stories and have a lobbyist say "studies" show the minimum wage is great for the economy because it increases spending. Of course, an increase in consumption is not good for the economy, what's good for the economy is an increase in production, which price controls only serve to diminish. If the government setting prices increased production, Venezuela would be fabulously wealthy and their store shelves would be packed with cheap goods, instead they're totally bankrupt and store shelves go unstocked because no one wants to sell their goods at below market prices. Wages for labor are a price: people buying labor want to get the best price they can for it, and people selling their labor want to get the best price they can for it, when the two parties agree on a price they find mutually beneficial, a job is created. Inserting a bureaucrat into the mix to set a "minimum price" consenting individuals are able to trade their labor for can only increase unemployment. It's basic logic, you can learn all about it in our Intro to Austrian Economics.

Watch The Daily Show piece here:

For balance, be sure to watch Peter Schiff's excellent video on the minimum wage, "Will Walmart shoppers support 'Every Day High Wages?'"

Walmart touts "Everyday Low Prices," but we asked its customers to support 'Everyday High Wages" instead. We posed as representatives of "15 for 15," a make-believe organization advocating that Walmart raise prices by 15% and use the extra cash to pay its low-skilled workers $15 per hour. The surcharge would be added to customer's bills at checkout, just like a gratuity at a restaurant. Not surprisingly few shoppers supported our cause. Even those who felt Walmart workers should be paid more did not want to pay higher prices themselves to make it possible. Those demanding higher wages for Walmart's workers should consider the importance of low prices to Walmart's customers.

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Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here.