So, McDonalds has been holding out on computerized ordering out of the goodness of their hearts? That's just the sweetest story.
McDonald's minimum wage fallout
- Thread starter gamecockcat
- Start date
A burger-making machine probably could make a better burger than their humans now produce.
A) no. People losing their jobs would not be fun. But it's been happening for 50 years. So far we are eroding jobs from the middle down. That will probably change after the bottom is eroded away.
B) $15 an hour isn't much fun, either. I have a degree that required 180 credit hours to obtain (that's 30-40 more than your typical masters). Seeing a sophomore in high school go from making a little more than 1/4 per hour than I make to over half would almost make me want to sabotage the entire economy.
C) I'm flabbergasted at how well off your average American looks without doing much work. People don't work. Yet people live in 5 bedroom $450k McMansions. I'm sure most of their jobs are replaceable.
D) I'm not too concerned about a computer taking my job in the next few decades. Idiots with a computer that think having a computer makes them a genius is the biggest threat to my job.
There's obviously a threshold where it becomes more profitable to runderstand a kiosk tHan pat workers. It's likely that threshold is somewhere between $7.25 and $15 an hour.
It would be interesting to find out how many times disaster has been predicted from increases in the minimum wage and how many times disaster has followed. Similarly, it would interesting to see how many times inflation has been assured -- and not just inflation, Weimar-level inflation -- and how many times we've had bouts with inflation like that.
I wonder how many times those kinds of predictions need to fail before people accept that maybe something else is afoot.
Listen, Moestradamis.
It's simple. Change=catastrophe. Status quo=catastrophe.
Learn political spectrum.
I'm not sure if the McD's on Bardstown Rd I just went to had actual humans or some sort of hippo-human combos going on.
And to that regard, those people who have been working at McDonald's for several years, maybe worked their way up from minimum wage to a managers position making $15 an hour or so, how do you think they will react to all of the high school 16 year old punks they hire all of a sudden making as much as they are? You can bet the managers won't get a proportionally similar raise, that's for damn sure.
OT: There was a great article in Barrons about a month ago citing the fact that by 2030 half of all jobs will be eliminated due to automation. The McDonalds example is one. Restaurants will no longer have waiters or waitresses. You order from a kiosk and a robot delivers the food to your table. Machines clean everything up. Driverless vehicles which ARE coming sooner than people think will replace truck drivers, everything from local deliveries like UPS to interstate long hauls. Interactive online educational systems will replace teachers, mail will be sorted by machines and delivered in driverless vehicles. More advanced productivity software that can manage records, compile reports, contact, and interact with customers will eliminate white collar jobs.
All these productivity increases will result in increased profits for corporations which is good news for investors but what will all these unemployed millions do?
All these productivity increases will result in increased profits for corporations which is good news for investors but what will all these unemployed millions do?
Automation is a crisis if we continue to view human existence as a competition for stuff. Imagine a huge run-off election at some point in the near future. What kind of government and division of goods and services will we have. There are at this point 14 billion of us. It all comes down to a choice between Sharing and Savagery. (The campaign slogans would write themselves: Sloth vs Shackles!)
But, hey, knock-wood, by that point we'll have gone through the big winnowing due to AGW. We'll never have to choose.
It is basic economics.
Large minimum wage increases do the following:
1) in the SHORT term they do improve buying power for those that keep their job and hours
2) but also some lose their job, and many more get their hours reduced (so no better or worse off)
3) in LONG term it artificially causes inflation erasing the buying power gains by the few, and hurting everyone else
Large minimum wage increases do the following:
1) in the SHORT term they do improve buying power for those that keep their job and hours
2) but also some lose their job, and many more get their hours reduced (so no better or worse off)
3) in LONG term it artificially causes inflation erasing the buying power gains by the few, and hurting everyone else
Efficiency goes up and up, employment decreases proportionately, Skynet ends up running the economy with zero human input, government taxes Skynet's productivity, government redistributes Skynet's tax money to the unemployed masses, unemployed masses spend their money on Skynet's products. Around and around we go.
As if employers keep more people than they actually need and work their employees more extra hours just for the heck of it because the wages are so cheap. If you are the owner of a business you sure wouldn't do that. Neither would you allow a manager of yours have employees he/she doesn't have to have. Yes, prices will have to rise - but your competitor has to raise his prices too.
Employers employ the minimum number of employees they can to run their business. Almost all will need the exact same number of employees after a hike in the minimum wage. I've been hearing that same proclamation of doom since the minimum wage was 50 cents an hour (yea, I'm old),
Actually, with Obamacare, some employers actually have more employees on payroll, but have all part time employees to keep their average weekly hours below the mandated threshold to be considered fulltime.
I'm always amazed that there are people like you and your vote counts the same as someone with the ability to understand basic concepts.
It has always played out like that. That's the reason the the country is in such bad shape economically now.
So the prices are raised and the buying power of the minimum wage employees has not increased much if any and the buying power of everyone else that didn't get raises goes down. Great plan!
If the assumptions were true you'd see definite declines in employment following hikes in the minimum wage. I've looked for documentation of that. I'd appreciate a cite if you come up with one. An increase in moaning by commenters isn't the same thing. There are powerful indicators that people have learned to moan on their own.
As for "now", the country is in better shape than it has enjoyed for years. Reagan is the touchstone for conservatives, yes? More jobs have been created under Obama than under Reagan. The size of deficits has steadily declined. The size of the government has steadily declined. I'm at a loss to imagine what conservatives claim they want or what they are so disappointed in. What they want wouldn't be their own hands on the levers of power, would it?
Taxes? Here's a chart that shows government revenue as a % of GDP. Blue is federal gov't. (The last years are projections) The % of federal revenue under Obama has (for the most part; it's about equal now) been less than it was under Reagan. So ( politely) WTF is it you want? More jobs. Lower taxes. Fewer foreign entanglements. Less intrusion into your private concerns.
You may want to check your assumptions. As the old blues lyric goes, if you cry for a nickel you'll die for a dime.
And, it should be stated, we don't have a $15 federal minimum wage. We aren't anywhere near that. That was the "cover story" for the introduction of kiosks.
If you benchmark "job creation" from the bottom of a historic recession you are either a moron or an Obamatwat.
I've followed the NY state $15 fast food stuff a little bit. The most compelling argument in favor of a higher wage is something I had not run into before - minimum wage employees use government subsidies at a much higher rate. Effectively, the government (that I pay for) is subsidizing low wages for the workers of franchises and corporations (which is an indirect handout to employers) so that I can get a cheaper meal. So the government is redistributing some of my money to me in the form of extra value meals.
I don't know that I buy the argument that a lack of government services and subsidies for the poor would necessarily lead to higher wages, but it would certainly put more pressure on low wage employers to do so, and perhaps the market would support $10 extra value meals.
I don't know that I buy the argument that a lack of government services and subsidies for the poor would necessarily lead to higher wages, but it would certainly put more pressure on low wage employers to do so, and perhaps the market would support $10 extra value meals.
You created the comp, not me. But no, not as big....per the Obama administration. Disingenuously working backwards should be beneath such an elitist.
The recession of 1982 had more unemployed.
I have no idea what your last sentence refers to. WTF is "working backwards" supposed to consist of? Citing actual data? Or is that what makes someone an "elitist".
Well if you are actually touting Obama as a job creator, it certainly takes really really wanting that to be true and then constructing arguments around how to make that possibly work....thus using an idiotic benchmark of a historic recession.
His job approval among small business owners has generally been around 30%. Two of the top top job growth areas are temps and the service industry. Wages are down. Lowest amount of people in the workforce since the late 70s. And he used an extra trillion of credit that turned into liquidity to stimulate while the Fed has artificially kept interest rates down.
Just stop.
His job approval among small business owners has generally been around 30%. Two of the top top job growth areas are temps and the service industry. Wages are down. Lowest amount of people in the workforce since the late 70s. And he used an extra trillion of credit that turned into liquidity to stimulate while the Fed has artificially kept interest rates down.
Just stop.
Approval numbers come from all sorts of reasons and the numbers don't always reflect economic reality. Eisenhower's years are remembered very fondly. Lots of money. Lots of jobs. But there were 2-3 recessions in his 8 years. and his job creation was really anemic. Particularly his 2nd term. Yet everyone remembers the "good times" of the 1950s. High approval rates.
And you're complaining about the stimulus bill that kept us from the 2nd Great Depression? Fine. I don't think much your understanding and you don't think much of mine.
Without looking, which presidents since WW2 have enjoyed the highest rate of job creation? (Rather than raw numbers since the population base has changed.) Does Ronald Reagan make the top 3?
I think you are confusing the stimulus with TARP. I favored some stimulus but how it was dispersed was a boondoggle. Just a bunch of ex clintonites repaying the loyalists. Interesting to hear HRC talk about letting banks fail now.
If the assumptions were true you'd see definite declines in employment following hikes in the minimum wage. I've looked for documentation of that. I'd appreciate a cite if you come up with one. An increase in moaning by commenters isn't the same thing. There are powerful indicators that people have learned to moan on their own.
As for "now", the country is in better shape than it has enjoyed for years. Reagan is the touchstone for conservatives, yes? More jobs have been created under Obama than under Reagan. The size of deficits has steadily declined. The size of the government has steadily declined. I'm at a loss to imagine what conservatives claim they want or what they are so disappointed in. What they want wouldn't be their own hands on the levers of power, would it?
Taxes? Here's a chart that shows government revenue as a % of GDP. Blue is federal gov't. (The last years are projections) The % of federal revenue under Obama has (for the most part; it's about equal now) been less than it was under Reagan. So ( politely) WTF is it you want? More jobs. Lower taxes. Fewer foreign entanglements. Less intrusion into your private concerns.
You may want to check your assumptions. As the old blues lyric goes, if you cry for a nickel you'll die for a dime.
Let's start with jobs. Adding low paying part time jobs does pad the stats but it doesn't do much for the people who are working them. The fact also remains that the percentage of the population that is currently not in the workforce is at an all time high.
The size of the budget deficit is meaningless. Citing it as anything other than an example of propaganda reduces the credibility of your argument.
As opposed to what? your stout assertion? The last time I checked stout assertion isn't much of an argument.
The baby boomers are retiring. Expect the % not in the workforce to go higher still.
Why would you think I confused the two?
Calling something a boondoggle doesn't make it one. A lot of economists favored what they call a helicopter drop for the money. As in just throwing money out of a helicopter. That would have been soooooo politically feasible. Regardless, simply spending money at that time was going to be beneficial. A huge amount of wealth had simply been erased when the housing bubble burst.