AN EASY ANSWER

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: 458

The City of Anaheim is considering joining the Cities of Long Beach and Costa Mesa in imposing regulations on self-checkout lines for grocery and drug retail stores. Why? Because a few stores have replaced all of their cashiers with computers. So, “concerned that some older shoppers are feeling overwhelmed,” Long Beach and Costa Mesa now require that one store employee oversees a minimum of three check-out counters, that the number of items that can be checked out at those stations be set at 15, and that the purchase of any item that is kept in a locked case be prohibited.

But why not leave those issues to the owners of the stores? Obviously if too many of their customers are “overwhelmed” they will shop somewhere else, so the subject stores will lose money. And that means that the store owners will be careful! In other words, this is an easy issue to address because the Free Market will take care of it. So is there another reason for the cities passing regulations to address this (supposed) problem? Realistically it is the governments that have created these “problems” by passing things like minimum wage laws and, due to lobbying from labor unions, helping to force companies to pay more wages than some employees are worth. As a result, the companies logically look for ways to reduce the number of employees they are forced to pay. But, since it is better for society as a whole to have more people working for less money per hour than fewer people working for more money, we should get governments out of these commercial areas as much as possible.

(Question for the week: I am served at a table, in gatherings of two or four. What am I? Answer: A ping pong ball.)