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TheCatt wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2026 2:08 pm Economists have called 17 of the past 3 recessions.

Leisher wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2026 4:57 pm

TheCatt wrote: Tue Jun 09, 2026 2:08 pm Economists have called 17 of the past 3 recessions.

I laughed.

Since 2013, 30 states have raised their minimum wage substantially — the population-weighted average nearly doubled. Compared to the 20 federal-floor states, restaurant pay rose about 8 percent more, while restaurant employment grew at essentially the same rate. The same story emerges across the broader set of low-paid industries, across three independent research designs, across the biggest raises, and across red and purple states alike. This doesn’t settle all questions about the policy’s impact on employment — for example, on specific groups of workers — and the data also cannot assess effects on hours of work. But within the range of policies actually attempted in the US between 2013 and 2025, wage floors appear to have delivered wage gains at the bottom without a noticeable impact on jobs in the key low-wage sectors the policy targets.

Not necessarily.
Collusion and racketeering are related concepts in some cases, but they are not the same thing.

Collusion generally means two or more parties secretly cooperating for an improper purpose, such as fixing prices, rigging bids, or coordinating actions to gain an unfair advantage. Collusion itself is not always a specific criminal offense; whether it's illegal depends on the context. [lawful.com]
Racketeering refers to participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise through a pattern of specified criminal acts. In the U.S., this is commonly prosecuted under the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). Prosecutors must generally show an enterprise and a pattern of racketeering activity, not just a single agreement between people. [en.wikipedia.org], [ussc.gov]

When collusion can become racketeering
Collusion may be part of a racketeering case if it is one element of a broader criminal scheme involving an enterprise and repeated criminal acts. For example, if members of an organization coordinate bribery, fraud, extortion, or other predicate offenses over time, that collusive behavior could support a RICO prosecution. [en.wikipedia.org], [lawful.com]
Simple example

Two companies secretly agree to fix prices: likely an antitrust issue involving collusion. Not automatically racketeering. [lawful.com]
A criminal organization repeatedly uses fraud, bribery, and intimidation through coordinated actions over years: that could potentially be racketeering under RICO. [en.wikipedia.org], [ussc.gov]

So the short answer is: collusion can be evidence of or part of a racketeering scheme, but collusion by itself is not automatically racketeering. [en.wikipedia.org], [lawful.com]