$25 hamburger nope....

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,899
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McDonalds CEO says a gradual raise to $15 minimum wage won’t impact business.


I wash I could find an old thread where people complained endlessly about a $12 minimum wage.

People complaining about decent wages for fast food, grocery stores, uber drivers, etc. really just have no respect for their fellow citizens.
 

Pohemi

Lifer
Oct 2, 2004
10,884
16,967
146
And yet, here we sit...arguing about raising it...with the current (Federal) minimum wage @ HALF that amount.
It's fucking sad, let's just keep squeezing the poorest citizens out of even affording to exist and have a roof over their heads.
Work 40 hrs a week @ min wage? You'll be lucky to pull in $1k/mo after taxes. Think you can find a rental property for $500/mo or less? Many markets, you'd be lucky to find a rented room for that.

This is the closest we can get to 'slave labor' in the US, but only because rethuglicons can't have it entirely their way (NO min wage, no unions, etc).

So...who are the obvious shitheads trying to enslave the lower classes? Hint: it's not Democrats.
 
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sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
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Seems this will work out for the complete conservative political view split. Russians now good, corporations are now the enemy of the people (adds to list getting bigger all the time).
Gasp, that's Communism!
 
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brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
29,899
30,700
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Seems this will work out for the complete conservative political view split. Russians now good, corporations are now the enemy of the people (adds to list getting bigger all the time).
Read a quote from a GOP congress critter yesterday "The GOP Is now the party of the working class and we need to embrace it." The only problem with this statement is they do nothing to actually help the working class. A more accurate quote would be:

"The GOP is now the party of the uneducated, and we already embrace it by lying to our voters every chance we get".
 

Pohemi

Lifer
Oct 2, 2004
10,884
16,967
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You're right - and service has been top-notch



View attachment 42694


View attachment 42695
That's definitely where it's headed. The self-order boards are spreading to more locations, but it'll likely be years before grill-bots are widely used or a viable option for more locations. People are still needed in these jobs, and you can't keep stringing them along @ $7.50/hr for another 20 years until automation is in place.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,422
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McDonalds wants a better-paid more-skilled workforce, but needs a level playing field with its competitors in order to effectively do so.
Amazon is in the transportation and logistics business, and needs better roads and highways to ship its goods on.
Republican policies have become bad for business. They've starved schools to the point that employers are having difficulty obtaining a quality workforce, and they've neglected infrastructure to the extent that businesses like Amazon lose countless dollars while their trucks sit in traffic.
Many in the donor class are finally waking up to the fact that paying just a little bit less in political donations than they would have paid in taxes, just to keep those taxes low, doesn't yield a particularly good return on investment.
 

VashHT

Diamond Member
Feb 1, 2007
3,353
1,434
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Is there something magical about $15 that automation makes sense at that point? I haven't seen any math on it but the talks of replacing workers with robots just sounds like bullying by the right mostly, "Keep working for the same wage or else we'll replace your ungrateful asses".
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,974
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That cat is out of the bag.
Answer honestly if labor rates went to $1.00 per hour would those robots be replaced.
I think not.
They probably would be, as the calculation is if the cost of human labor is beneath the acquisition and yearly maintenance costs of a robot. The thing is, having robots do all our work for us is an extremely good thing. When people complain about job losses what they are really complaining about is our shitty social system.

Automating jobs is always, 100% of the time, a great thing for humanity. If we can make a robot that will do someone’s job for them we should just keep paying that person the same salary to do nothing and let the robot do it while the former employee goes surfing or whatever.
 

echo4747

Golden Member
Jun 22, 2005
1,979
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They probably would be, as the calculation is if the cost of human labor is beneath the acquisition and yearly maintenance costs of a robot. The thing is, having robots do all our work for us is an extremely good thing. When people complain about job losses what they are really complaining about is our shitty social system.

Automating jobs is always, 100% of the time, a great thing for humanity. If we can make a robot that will do someone’s job for them we should just keep paying that person the same salary to do nothing and let the robot do it while the former employee goes surfing or whatever.
I want to be paid for doing nothing.. I hope it happens somebody ... maybe I'll like it
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,242
14,243
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They probably would be, as the calculation is if the cost of human labor is beneath the acquisition and yearly maintenance costs of a robot. The thing is, having robots do all our work for us is an extremely good thing. When people complain about job losses what they are really complaining about is our shitty social system.

Automating jobs is always, 100% of the time, a great thing for humanity. If we can make a robot that will do someone’s job for them we should just keep paying that person the same salary to do nothing and let the robot do it while the former employee goes surfing or whatever.

Yes, exactly. I've often advocated for UBI on the same rationale as Andrew Yang - that many jobs are being automated away, so something like UBI seems inevitable.

But I am not complaining about automation. Increased productivity means cheaper goods and services for everyone. It means increasing the size of the pie. People seem overly hung up on how we distribute the pie, based on the assumption that your piece of the pie should be directly tied to your personal labor. But that rationale doesn't hold up, not when we are constantly increasing the size of the pie precisely by eliminating the need for human labor.
 

Pohemi

Lifer
Oct 2, 2004
10,884
16,967
146
People seem overly hung up on how we distribute the pie, based on the assumption that your piece of the pie should be directly tied to your personal labor. But that rationale doesn't hold up, not when we are constantly increasing the size of the pie precisely by eliminating the need for human labor.
It's basically akin to Trump and his 'biggest steak on the table'. People's egos inflate their sense of value in relation to everyone else and the world around them. They'll never agree with everyone getting a piece due to their subjective notions of who is "deserving" and who is not.
 

ivwshane

Lifer
May 15, 2000
33,522
17,031
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They probably would be, as the calculation is if the cost of human labor is beneath the acquisition and yearly maintenance costs of a robot. The thing is, having robots do all our work for us is an extremely good thing. When people complain about job losses what they are really complaining about is our shitty social system.

Automating jobs is always, 100% of the time, a great thing for humanity. If we can make a robot that will do someone’s job for them we should just keep paying that person the same salary to do nothing and let the robot do it while the former employee goes surfing or whatever.

That argument/promise was made in the fifties and sixties and never materialized. In fact, workers ended up working more and taking less vacations with an ever decreasing pay.

In theory, as automation and productivity increases, we should have workers working less and making more, but that’s not reality.

The only way that happens is if the government mandates things like required vacation time, shorter work weeks, and lower full time/part time hours, along with minimum wages and CEO pay tied to worker pay. All of which will never happen because Americans have a fucked up view of their worth (they don’t value themselves more than the companies they work for), all thanks to decades of Republican economic propaganda.
 
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Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
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It's basically akin to Trump and his 'biggest steak on the table'. People's egos inflate their sense of value in relation to everyone else and the world around them. They'll never agree with everyone getting a piece due to their subjective notions of who is "deserving" and who is not.
Hmm, I could use a big steak, along with some egos. Sounds kinda like chicken on waffles.
 
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woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
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It's basically akin to Trump and his 'biggest steak on the table'. People's egos inflate their sense of value in relation to everyone else and the world around them. They'll never agree with everyone getting a piece due to their subjective notions of who is "deserving" and who is not.

Yes, I agree that people's egos are closely tied to it. The thing is, their egos should not be threatened by something like UBI, not really. All a program like that does is guarantee a floor living standard for people who the economy simply can no longer accommodate as laborers. Those with marketable skills can still make a lot more money, can still get filthy rich. And have all the attendant "my epenis is bigger than your epenis" bragging rights.
 
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Nov 8, 2012
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The one thing we want to avoid at all costs is increased productivity!

You know the opponents of the minimum wage are out of ideas or are just extremely stupid when they think the automation of menial tasks is an argument in their favor.

lol you're an idiot.

Increased productivity from automation is great... for the upper middle class that has desirable skills and can still be employed to take advantage of that automation.

For the bottom tier? They're royally fucked.

We have a huge over-abundance of unskilled labor in this country - with plenty of you idiots calling for there to be MORE unskilled labor. What do you think that does to wages?

What do you think happens to these people? That they all just magically become skillful - especially a 45 year old single mother types that work in fast food and retail?


All of the nordic countries that you imbeciles love to idolize... guess what they have? NO minimum wage law lol.
 
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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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That argument/promise was made in the fifties and sixties and never materialized. In fact, workers ended up working more and taking less vacations with an ever decreasing pay.

In theory, as automation and productivity increases, we should have workers working less and making more, but that’s not reality.

The only way that happens is if the government mandates things like required vacation time, shorter work weeks, and lower full time/part time hours, along with minimum wages and CEO pay tied to worker pay. All of which will never happen because Americans have a fucked up view of their worth (they don’t value themselves more than the companies they work for), all thanks to decades of Republican economic propaganda.
Right, so it's our shitty social system to blame, not automation. We should automate EVERYTHING. After all, the end goal of technology is 100% unemployment.

It's weird to me that people don't seem to realize that literally the only reason humans are not still subsistence farmers is because we've automated work.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,242
14,243
136
Hmm, I could use a big steak, along with some egos. Sounds kinda like chicken on waffles.

Yes, and it all tastes a lot chicken on waffles as well. I hear Trump's ego tastes basically like chicken, and there is so much of it to go around, we could solve all of world hunger over night.
 
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