Hillary Clinton's no-go plan
By John Hoy
web posted November 30, 2015
Have you ever heard the story of the silly cat who tried to get more fish by planting fish? As the story goes, the cat was walking past a farmer's field one day and noticed the farmer planting peanuts and corn. "Hmm," he thought, "wonder what he's doing that for." A few months later, he again strolled past the farmer's field, and this time, the farmer was gathering a ripe harvest of peanuts and corn. "Wow, cool. I wonder if that will work for fish," he thought with a dreamy look in his eyes. Well, I think you might guess what happened. The cat failed in his "fish-planting" and never knew why the fish he planted never multiplied.
While you might think that what the cat did in this story is absurd, we see this same thinking in the world today. Hillary Clinton, one of the leading Democratic candidates for the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, says that "inequality is a drag on our [the U.S.] economy." She outlined a plan to solve income inequality (no, she didn´t plant fishes), but like the cat in our story, some parts of this plan fail to solve the problem. In this essay, I will be pointing out the flaws in parts of Clinton's plan to combat income inequality, namely the creation of new jobs, heavier taxes on the rich, and raising the minimum wage.
The first flaw in Clinton's plan to solve income inequality is her aim to create more jobs. She says the she does this to "give people choices about where to work." It appears that Clinton is only concerned about creating new jobs, but not creating jobs that are useful to the economy. Absurd. What good does creating new jobs do if these jobs do nothing to help the economy? This sounds like what will happen if my mum asks me to help clean up the house by tidying up my room, but instead of dumping the rubbish in the rubbish chute, I dump them outside my room. Yes, my room is now clean and tidy, but the problem still exists, now in a different location. Clinton's plan does exactly this: it creates new, (unproductive) jobs (increasing government expenses at the same time), but does nothing to help the economy or solve income inequality.
To solve income inequality, Clinton supports higher taxes for wealthier citizens. This narrows the gap between the income of the rich and the poor, but creates two main problems. First, raising taxes for the rich severely damages their productivity. Some of them may feel that this is unfair, and will not be as productive in whatever they are doing. Second, heavier taxes for the rich would mean that they have less money to spend on other things. This reduces their consumption, which in turn decreases GDP as GDP=Consumption+Government Spending+Private Investment+(eXports-iMports). Clinton hopes to solve income inequality by raising taxes for the upper-class, but this will result in them being more and more unproductive and decreasing GDP.
Clinton's plan to solve income inequality includes raising the minimum wage. She says, "If you work hard you should be compensated fairly." However, raising the minimum wage will do more harm than good. Here's why: raising the minimum wage sets wages above equilibrium, causing a surplus of labor (see graph below). This occurs because firms are not likely to hire workers who are worth less than the minimum wage. These workers will then be unemployed as they are available for work but unable to find work, causing the country to perform below potential GDP. Clinton hopes to solve income inequality by raising the minimum wage, but this will raise unemployment and cause the country's GDP to decrease, thus damaging the country's economy.
In conclusion, Clinton's plan to solve income inequality contains flawed ideas as it decreases U.S.'s GDP, causes the upper-class to be less productive, and raises unemployment. If these economic measures are put into play, they will cause more harm than good. Obviously, this plan shows the unsoundness of Clinton's economic mind. Though I'm not an American, I fear for the economy of the United States if Clinton is elected. Like the story of the cat who planted fish, Clinton has good intentions in mind, but her economic plan will fail to accomplish her goal of solving income inequality and will eventually prove detrimental to the U.S. economy. 
This is John Hoy's first contribution to Enter Stage Right. © John Hoy