Well, it happened--minimum wage went up ...again, at least for 18 states in our fair union. Unfortunately, my state, Ohio, is one such state. For many this is a time of jubilation as they celebrate the instantaneous raise that they did nothing whatsoever to earn, but for those of us who have brains that are even remotely economically-inclined, we know that the minimum wage going up is not a good thing. For those of you who don't generally think about economics, here's why Uncle Sam (or, in this case, Uncle Sam's little brothers) raising the minimum wage is not a good thing: 1) It's a sign of the decline of our dollar. We can argue over whether or not it's good for the economy to raise the minimum wage, but one thing is clear: it's not a sign of a thriving dollar. Raising the minimum wage is the logical result of inflating the dollar, so, once again, the problem we're trying to fix is of our own making. Many economists seem to think some infla...