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It seems to me that those taking the position that the minimum wage should be lowered/abolished and those taking the opposite position are both accepting the premise that absent the minimum wage, wages would fall. Is there any real-world basis for that premise?

From basic supply and demand:

1. a downward pressure on wages emerges from workers competing with workers (competition among suppliers of labor)

2. an upward pressure on wages emerges from employers competing with employers (competition among consumers of labor)

And, ceteris paribus, some equilibrium wages emerge.

The minimum wage ostensibly exists to interfere with #1 (though usually framed as protecting workers from employers), assuming the minimum wage is set above the would-be equilibrium wage.

But what if the minimum wage is set below the would-be equilibrium wage? Perhaps the minimum wage instead serves to interfere with #2 by allowing a point of collusion among employers, and thereby keep wages artificially low.

Is anyone aware of any research on this?

> so saying anything is unworkable because the rich can partially game it is defeatism

Thankfully I wasn't saying that. I was disagreeing with your claim that "[inflation] hurts you in direct proportion to how well off you are", arguing instead that:

1. inflation benefits those earlier in the flow of new money, and

2. at present, that new money enters the economy via banks, etc.

> If we use UBI to inflate the currency...

Indeed, this depends on #1 above: change how new money enters and propagates through the economy and you change the wealth transfer effects.

> The US would benefit from a weaker dollar as it would protect what remains of our manufacturing base

At equilibrium, a weaker or stronger dollar doesn't affect exports, it's just an exchange rate. What can affect exports is a weakening dollar.

In an inflationary disequilibrium, exports increase only insofar as foreign consumers are able to purchase domestic goods before those goods' prices have adjusted to inflation. In other words, exporters are unwittingly selling their goods for a lower price.

Absent inflation, exporters could have chosen to increase exports by intentionally lowering their prices. That they didn't suggests something about their marginal costs.

With inflation, the exporter has a similar benefit over its suppliers as the foreign consumer has over the exporter, namely buying goods with new money before prices have adjusted. As such, the exporter's suppliers are also unwittingly selling their goods for a lower price.

Whether this is beneficial depends on where one is positioned as new money propagates through the economy. Banks get it first, then to their borrowers, other financial institutions, and so on. The losers are those at the tail-end, who face higher costs but have not yet had their own prices bid up with new money: wage workers, those on a fixed income, etc.

The net effect of all this price manipulation is a wealth transfer from those who receive the new money later to those who receive it earlier.

> currency manipulation, is equivalent to a tariff or an export subsidy

While an export subsidy can also increase the quantity of exports, the larger economic impact of intentionally weakening the currency through inflation is very different.

The effects of inflation are neither instantaneous nor uniformly distributed. Those who obtain the new money first are able to spend it before prices have had time to adjust. As that new money propagates, the prices of the relevant goods and services are bid up.

As such, inflation gives an economic advantage to those who receive the new money sooner, and the consequent higher prices harm those further down the flow.

In short, and contrary to the implication of the above comment, inflation benefits banks and corporations (and by extension, the wealthy and powerful), and harms workers and those on fixed incomes.