AOC- Amazon Pays their Employees in Starvation Wages.

[ivwshane]

I have a college degree and many years of work experience, and still make only 22.00 an hour. New graduates and post-doctoral employees at the university where I work make even less. I am sorry, but for a job that requires basically no training or investment, 15.00 an hour seems reasonable. It is hardly "starvation wages". If one wants a family, the spouse can also earn a second income, or the primary earner can work a second job. It sounds harsh, but when I had kids home to support, I worked a full time job, a part time job, and my wife worked also. I do agree it is unfair for large corporations to pay little or no tax, but I would much rather see them taxed and the money used to pay for college or vocational training/retraining than for the government to subsidize private wages.

When you went to school how much did it cost? When you had kids what was the medical cost to have them? When you bought your house, what was your mortgage?

Humans can be odd creatures sometimes. They don't want what's best for society or the human race at large if it means they didn't/don't get the same benefits.
You would think that someone who works at a university would understand how bettering an individual would be better for society but I guess not.

I'm guessing by your attitude you are a baby boomer. Typical.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/boomers-are-blame-aging-america/592336/

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millennials-congress-debt

 

[Luna1968]

I wonder if you can figure out this mystery on your own!

Is it your intention to come off as the kind of angry old man who ruins Thanksgiving every year with some rant about the 'libruls'? That's what you come off like.

i bet you have a picture of Marks on your wall or his book on your coffee table dont you? or manybe Mao's little red book? such a good comrade.

 

[IronWing]

i bet you have a picture of Marks on your wall or his book on your coffee table dont you? or manybe Mao's little red book? such a good comrade.

Wondering minds are wandering.

 

[brycejones]

i bet you have a picture of Marks on your wall or his book on your coffee table dont you? or manybe Mao's little red book? such a good comrade.

Marx, Karl Marx

The absolute ignorance of the American Conservative is unfortunately not a surprise anymore.

 

[DarthKyrie]

Marx, Karl Marx

The absolute ignorance of the American Conservative is unfortunately not a surprise anymore.

There you go assuming a CONSERVATIVE means Karl Marx, maybe he's talking about Groucho or maybe Harpo. Fuck it who am I trying to kid we all know they love them some Karl Marx, he was the one to coin the word capitalism after all. Although Engels may have been the 1 to use the word in conversations with Marx first.

 

[Greenman]

Wondering minds are wandering.

So are wandering minds. It's a system.

 

[Greenman]

Marx, Karl Marx

The absolute ignorance of the American Conservative is unfortunately not a surprise anymore.

The critical typo. If only the rest of the world knew that it triggered an automatic forfeit. Or is that for fit, or 4 fit, or fore fit.
Thank God we have your tremendous hulking intellect to keep us on the right path.
Is there a missing comma or two, too, to, up there?

 

[ondma]

When you went to school how much did it cost? When you had kids what was the medical cost to have them? When you bought your house, what was your mortgage?

Humans can be odd creatures sometimes. They don't want what's best for society or the human race at large if it means they didn't/don't get the same benefits.
You would think that someone who works at a university would understand how bettering an individual would be better for society but I guess not.

I'm guessing by your attitude you are a baby boomer. Typical.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/boomers-are-blame-aging-america/592336/

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millennials-congress-debt

Which is "more bettering"? financing someone's college education/technical training, which will most likely benefit them for life, or forcing their employer to pay them for doing an unskilled job which most likely will soon be replaced by automation? And which is better for society, a well rounded, skilled, trained workforce, or unskilled laborers who the government forces the employer to pay more than the market bears?

 

[brycejones]

The critical typo. If only the rest of the world knew that it triggered an automatic forfeit. Or is that for fit, or 4 fit, or fore fit.
Thank God we have your tremendous hulking intellect to keep us on the right path.
Is there a missing comma or two, too, to, up there?

I am sure Luna appreciates your defense of his ignorance. +2 bro points for you.

 

[ivwshane]

Which is "more bettering"? financing someone's college education/technical training, which will most likely benefit them for life, or forcing their employer to pay them for doing an unskilled job which most likely will soon be replaced by automation? And which is better for society, a well rounded, skilled, trained workforce, or unskilled laborers who the government forces the employer to pay more than the market bears?

That's quite the false dilemma now isn't it?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I have a college degree and many years of work experience, and still make only 22.00 an hour. New graduates and post-doctoral employees at the university where I work make even less. I am sorry, but for a job that requires basically no training or investment, 15.00 an hour seems reasonable. It is hardly "starvation wages". If one wants a family, the spouse can also earn a second income, or the primary earner can work a second job. It sounds harsh, but when I had kids home to support, I worked a full time job, a part time job, and my wife worked also. I do agree it is unfair for large corporations to pay little or no tax, but I would much rather see them taxed and the money used to pay for college or vocational training/retraining than for the government to subsidize private wages.

I'm fine with $15 an hour. Enjoy your 2 years of blissful burger flipping for $15/hour - in those 2 years you will immediately drive each and every company that has minimum wage work to build an automated burger flipper ASAP.

Eventually were just going to get to a point where every skilled person has automated every unskilled person - and from there we are simply left with a massive shock to people that you will no longer be able to live doing mindless work of scanning barcodes, flipping burgers, or driving a truck.

 

[fskimospy]

I'm fine with $15 an hour. Enjoy your 2 years of blissful burger flipping for $15/hour - in those 2 years you will immediately drive each and every company that has minimum wage work to build an automated burger flipper ASAP.

Meh, you’ve already got a number of fast food chains that are paying close to $15. You’re likely overestimating the changes that would come. I wish you were right though, as I say below.

Eventually were just going to get to a point where every skilled person has automated every unskilled person - and from there we are simply left with a massive shock to people that you will no longer be able to live doing mindless work of scanning barcodes, flipping burgers, or driving a truck.

This would be a massively positive development for humanity. I mean think about the opposite argument, which is that we should purposefully avoid automating mindless tasks so that people have something to do.

Our never ending goal should be to automate all work people don’t enjoy doing out of existence. Living in Star Trek looks pretty good to me.

 

[brycejones]

I'm fine with $15 an hour. Enjoy your 2 years of blissful burger flipping for $15/hour - in those 2 years you will immediately drive each and every company that has minimum wage work to build an automated burger flipper ASAP.

Eventually were just going to get to a point where every skilled person has automated every unskilled person - and from there we are simply left with a massive shock to people that you will no longer be able to live doing mindless work of scanning barcodes, flipping burgers, or driving a truck.

And then what?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Meh, you’ve already got a number of fast food chains that are paying close to $15. You’re likely overestimating the changes that would come. I wish you were right though, as I say below.



This would be a massively positive development for humanity. I mean think about the opposite argument, which is that we should purposefully avoid automating mindless tasks so that people have something to do.

Our never ending goal should be to automate all work people don’t enjoy doing out of existence. Living in Star Trek looks pretty good to me.

I'm with you in that I love automation - I love not having to interact with humans that are too stupid to process basic math. I make sure to do my part with self-checkouts

I mean, it SOUNDS good in a.... John Lennon Imagine sort of way - but it's just not realistic from an economical perspective. What is going to happen to all of that unskilled labor - with more and more crossing the border each day? Hell, even if we go with an Andrew Yang UBI, you think all those raging stupid middle class consumers will accept that as their pay? No sense of purpose in life - they will likely go into mass depression and resolve to drug usage since what little skills they have will become entirely useless to society.

It's like people that retire with no plans for what to do with their time - then they realize they were happier just working and go back... Except there will be no work for them this time.

The fact is that blue collar is here to stay - but it's just not cool anymore. How the fuck is anyone going to automate a plumbers job? Or an HVAC job? Or a construction job? Those will be fairly safe for quite some time because they actually have useful skills that not everyone learns.

 

[fskimospy]

I'm with you in that I love automation - I love not having to interact with humans that are too stupid to process basic math. I make sure to do my part with self-checkouts

I mean, it SOUNDS good in a.... John Lennon Imagine sort of way - but it's just not realistic from an economical perspective. What is going to happen to all of that unskilled labor - with more and more crossing the border each day? Hell, even if we go with an Andrew Yang UBI, you think all those raging stupid middle class consumers will accept that as their pay? No sense of purpose in life - they will likely go into mass depression and resolve to drug usage since what little skills they have will become entirely useless to society.

It's like people that retire with no plans for what to do with their time - then they realize they were happier just working and go back... Except there will be no work for them this time.

How is this any different than the arguments made against automation throughout all of human history? Automation and the resulting increases in productivity are the only consistently reliable vehicle for improving human living standards. We should embrace it, not fear it.

The idea that we should purposefully do things in a dumb way to give people a sense of purpose is just wrongheaded to me. How about we pocket the gains in productivity and find new purposes for people? Trapping people in unhealthy, low wage jobs seems like a bad mental health plan.

The fact is that blue collar is here to stay - but it's just not cool anymore. How the fuck is anyone going to automate a plumbers job? Or an HVAC job? Or a construction job? Those will be fairly safe for quite some time because they actually have useful skills that not everyone learns.

The reasons why plumbing and HVAC aren’t going away any time soon is they require skill and they don’t perform tasks that are highly regular and repeatable. As anyone who has ever had work done on their house knows there’s always something weird that comes up, which means it’s very hard to automate.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

How is this any different than the arguments made against automation throughout all of human history? Automation and the resulting increases in productivity are the only consistently reliable vehicle for improving human living standards. We should embrace it, not fear it.

The idea that we should purposefully do things in a dumb way to give people a sense of purpose is just wrongheaded to me. How about we pocket the gains in productivity and find new purposes for people? Trapping people in unhealthy, low wage jobs seems like a bad mental health plan.

I get it - but I'm asking the question what are all these people going to do? How will they spend their time? How will they get a livable wage with no skills?

Previously in the industrial revolution when we began outsourcing things - unskilled labor had other options that sort of took its place related to services such as mass distribution of imports and local goods (truck driving), customer related services (retail boom), and other services (lawn care, waiters, shipping, etc)


All of those will be going away with the likes of
-Drone delivery
-Automated self-driving trucks
-Self-checkout (no checkout clerks needed) and automatic burger flipper robot


We all know damn well that the majority (99%) of the unskilled labor will remain just that - unskilled. Remember learn to code? It's going to stay that way, but this time there won't be anything for them to fall back on. I'm not a doomsday person, but I just can't come up with anything that the unskilled labor will be able to fulfill.

What, are they all going to become successful artists or something?

 

[Greenman]

I am sure Luna appreciates your defense of his ignorance. +2 bro points for you.

I believe good sir, that you totally missed my point.

 

[fskimospy]

I get it - but I'm asking the question what are all these people going to do? How will they spend their time? How will they get a livable wage with no skills?

Previously in the industrial revolution when we began outsourcing things - unskilled labor had other options that sort of took its place related to services such as mass distribution of imports and local goods (truck driving), customer related services (retail boom), and other services (lawn care, waiters, shipping, etc)


All of those will be going away with the likes of
-Drone delivery
-Automated self-driving trucks
-Self-checkout (no checkout clerks needed) and automatic burger flipper robot


We all know damn well that the majority (99%) of the unskilled labor will remain just that - unskilled. Remember learn to code? It's going to stay that way, but this time there won't be anything for them to fall back on. I'm not a doomsday person, but I just can't come up with anything that the unskilled labor will be able to fulfill.

What, are they all going to become successful artists or something?

Well I can't predict how the labor market will react to this and if I could I certainly wouldn't post it here as I could make a lot of money if I were right. What I can say is that we've had about two centuries of people worrying about the social effects of labor automation, the primary result of which has been the largest increase in human living standards the world has ever seen.

I am confident in our ability to adapt and frankly, this automation is going to happen anyway. Sure you might speed it up some by making labor more expensive but in the end it's coming regardless. This may present a social problem for us to address but the great thing about social problems is that they are entirely our CHOICE as to if we address them or not, unlike material scarcity.

 

[glenn1]

I get it - but I'm asking the question what are all these people going to do? How will they spend their time? How will they get a livable wage with no skills?

Don’t know don’t care do long as the “answer” is not tax the shit out of the productive to give it to the unskilled. If you’re unemployed I guess we can provide the bare minimum of zoo animal level necessities like food and minimalist shelter like 200 sq ft efficiencies. If you can create your own sense of purpose in that great. If not we’ll just move the criminally inclined opioid addicted loser class to guarded compounds in somewhere like North Dakota. Then their job can be subsistence farmer, what other unskilled morons have done for millennia.

 

[ch33zw1z]

^^ lol, Glenn's a nutter.

 

[cytg111]

I guess Greece is what the modern progressive aspires to. You either are one of the 25% unemployed, or you have a job with lifetime security and the government mandates rates of pay that are completely delinked from the value you provide to the company or customers.



That's a good idea. You should start employing people at rates above the value they provide to your business because it's a "race to the bottom" otherwise. I look forward to your coming business empire and you becoming a billionaire.

You pulled Grease out of your ... no wait.
Still, Greece is a whole nother story, what the hell are you on about.

 

[brycejones]

I believe good sir, that you totally missed my point.

Your point was found lacking.

 

[brycejones]

^^ lol, Glenn's a nutter.

And probably an unskilled moron.

 

[ch33zw1z]

And probably an unskilled moron.

Then he's automatically written off and a criminal drug addict, off to the Dakota encampment with him

 

[mect]

I'm with you in that I love automation - I love not having to interact with humans that are too stupid to process basic math. I make sure to do my part with self-checkouts

I mean, it SOUNDS good in a.... John Lennon Imagine sort of way - but it's just not realistic from an economical perspective. What is going to happen to all of that unskilled labor - with more and more crossing the border each day? Hell, even if we go with an Andrew Yang UBI, you think all those raging stupid middle class consumers will accept that as their pay? No sense of purpose in life - they will likely go into mass depression and resolve to drug usage since what little skills they have will become entirely useless to society.

It's like people that retire with no plans for what to do with their time - then they realize they were happier just working and go back... Except there will be no work for them this time.

The fact is that blue collar is here to stay - but it's just not cool anymore. How the fuck is anyone going to automate a plumbers job? Or an HVAC job? Or a construction job? Those will be fairly safe for quite some time because they actually have useful skills that not everyone learns.

We can provide jobs for people, they would just be jobs that currently aren't compensated. For example, we can attach a salary to raising a child. We can increase the number of jobs for caregivers for the elderly and disabled. We can increase the number of teachers, and expand opportunities for higher education. We can increase the numbers of wildlife jobs, and do a better job caring for our national forests and national parks. We can increase the number of research jobs, including the number of tech positions. We can increase funding for the arts. Basically, we can tax the productivity of automation in order to fund people working at a job that actually has meaning for them, instead of insisting on letting the owners of automation keep all the profits of automation, garnering ever increasing amounts of wealth and power, while the unskilled are left to live in zoo cages as glenn apparently prefers.