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What Happens When It’s Easier To Pay No Wages Rather Than A Minimum
As of today there is no hotter subject following on the heels of Obama-Care than the current fight brewing in the minimum wage debate.
Regardless of which side of the aisle (or counter) you’re on, the argument as to demand a government regulated hike of upwards of 50% or more in some places puts a question squarely on the businesses owners that must and will be answered: channeling the Clash, Should I stay – Or Should I go?
There are some arguments within this debate that have some valid points. i.e., We do the same for child labor. You can’t hire a 10-year-old at .10 cents an hour to clean out the grease traps at your restaurant, or sweep the floors and so forth where a competitor might try to use an 8-year-old at a nickel. It allowed for all businesses to be on a level playing field at the lowest of rungs. i.e., The entry-level.
Today the entry-level position has morphed into something far different when you talk to anyone who’s never owned or run a business. It’s no longer thought of as “entry-level.” It’s now looked upon in the ways one would look to some form of “career choice.”
But what happens when businesses decide their choice is to either leave – or eliminate the need for those positions all together?
The problem for many arguing on this issue is this:
At the price point of wages now being demanded immediately (upwards in some cases of over 50%) it provides not only the financial imperative to mitigate, but maybe the incentive to eliminate the positions all together.
But (and it’s a very big but) what changes everything and enters into this debate in a way that has never been possible until today is this:
Both the technology, along with the acceptance of it, might be farther along the development curve than many believe to foster such dramatic changes. Along with the availability for near immediate implementation pushing aside earlier distrust or fears of acceptance adding incentive to “employ” now rather than later.
To help clarify I offer this observation I witnessed the other day…
For my anniversary I took a day off from watching the Wall Street casino and ventured to a local casino where the odds and rules for gambling were fair, honest, and known.
I pondered with great amusement I actually had better odds of beating the dealer and possibly the slots than I did placing an order only to then be front run by the HFT de jure. But I digress.
What caught my eye was something that had been added only in the last 6 months. There were several black jack tables with people seated and playing. However, the dealer was a life-sized television image on a flat HD screen. The whole game was an electronic projection. Yet, so real and blending into the background was the set up – you might not catch it at first glance. Actually my wife never noticed till I pointed it out.
We’ve all seen the movies with the futuristic robots or interactive displays that seem so B-movie in nature. This was not of that caliber. Yes there were some quirky things as far as stutters in a few places but overall it was impressive. And it’s going to get a whole lot better, and faster, if this whole minimum wage debate festers further leaving businesses what they’ll deem as “no other choice.”
As of today casinos across the U.S. are struggling and one of the glaring issues one can see is when you enter a casino that’s far from filled are the dealers and others that are standing at their tables with no one playing looking almost sullen as you walk by.
The cost in labor on days like that must be astronomical. And what are they doing about it? Well to start, it seems to me the one thing they have started doing which has immediate impact is to eliminate it. For if they don’t do something fast – they’ll be eliminated themselves all together. (Again just look last week at Atlantic City NJ.)
Casinos have made their bread and butter based all about the personal and the interactive. But necessity is the mother of invention. And there is no stricter parental tool for getting one inline than the realization that Chapter 7 has no need of an epilogue for closing the book on a business.
In reaction to all this there is an entry into the new and once thought “taboo” when it comes to a customer interactive business. i.e., Can the shift be made into the Virtual Interactive vs Human Interactive in the most personally interactive of service industries?
If casinos, the once bastion of anything and everything “customer personalization and/or interactive excellence” has decided it’s in their best financial interest to go “non-human.” What are the consequences for other industries facing similar issues?
How much will this technology be pushed, enhanced, refined, and accepted if it’s deemed a necessity and employed en masse today – forget tomorrow?
Do you or I need to be greeted and waited on in a “fast food” styled establishment by an actual person? Especially when that person many times treats the taking of my order as an inconvenience? Or, is looking down and texting between my pauses when I’m ordering?
What about the many signs we now see where employers have to put up everywhere (I see them in bold red at my own local McD’s) “NO PHONES WHILE WORKING!” (Apparently no one follows the rules so they must be reminded with a posting – everywhere!)
The machines alone in most fast food places today are one step or protocol away from needing any human interaction entirely. Many of these systems are made with reminders and warnings that an employee shouldn’t touch them other than picking up the completed item and handing to the customer.
Just look at any take out windows soda fulfillment machine. Most now are completely automated and many require in-house seated patrons to get their own via some integrated Hal 5000-esque dispensing machine.
Not that long ago this was all thought of as “taboo” as in customers will never accept it. Now, getting your own soda is the norm.
Do we need cashiers if plastic is the “tender” of choice? Do you need to be greeted by a person who acts as if they have something better to do? Or, would you rather have a smiling LCD screen?
How about the larger question:
Will you pay twice as much for your current fast food order as a show of solidarity day in, day out, week after week, month after month when over on the next block the same restaurant or franchise is serving the exact same food with no noticeable difference other than a person taking your order, or handing you your order? Again – at maybe half the price?
If casinos facing ever higher and higher labor costs have decided to take the plunge and feel the odds are worth it. How long will it be before others feel they have no other choice than to play those same odds for themselves?
What may add insult to injury is if the very regulatory bodies setting up to enforce these hikes decide in order to meet the needs of an ever-growing unemployment problem implement similar ideas to better serve a possible wave of newly unemployed fast food workers. i.e., They decide to automate further.
Press #1 for recently fired, Press #2 for newly dismissed. Or hold to speak with the next available Gen-3500 interactive virtual assistant.
Don’t think for a second it isn’t possible. The inherent problem lies within – it’s far more probable.
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Soon we'll have nothing to eat but the rich.
Every one more unemployeed is one more soldier for independence everywhere.
I'll throw my own dice thank you.
Listen, That's what he's saying. If you are ready for change, real fucking USA change, FIND ISIL!
They want to fight for your country. Not the new one, the old one.
'find ISIL' and do what???
Kill them?
Those fucks have nothing enticing for Americans...you are nuts!
Jesus! Listen, I cannot believe how many of you are still in "FULL CAPTURE MODE".
How's your evening news tonight? Any advertisements for Lyrica, or Cialis? Did your national NEWS call out the evil ISIS rebels?
Who owns your local and national news programming?
Fucking idiots, I say! What will it take? Will you actually have to be in the fucking FEMA camps before you awaken?
Man. You are so smart. You can identify problems with pop culture and spout rhetoric that entices people into your argument. Yet you haven't actually said anything. What is wrong? What does ISIS want? What can be righted? What are you trying to say?
Listen, "YOU'VE" got problems man! Deep seated comprehension problems.
Just re-read the comments and try to fucking "THINK" on your own....
I am not your messiah.
The US has taken the low productivity/low wage road with regard to its less well off citizens. The situation is that a nation has X human resources. So a nation does best if it trains/educates its population to the highest level of labor productivity possible. Alternatives are killing people in wars or letting them die young of preventable diseases. The wealthy elite can do fine taking the low road, but the whole nation suffers economically. Using technology to do menial jobs is inevitable, so the nations that have higher skill/higher productivity workforces will do the best.
Holograms bitches
Rich bastards don't want to pay a living wage. So the government has to force them. It's been this way throughout history. There's no mystery here.
@Bangalore
If I wanted to support mass murdering muslim maniacs, I would have voted for the petulant-child-in-chief. Why go halfway across the world for that?
I think you want to be posting at huffpo. honest mistake I'm sure.
Don’t think for a second it isn’t possible. The inherent problem lies within – it’s far more probable.
Yeah, replacing people with tech has only been on the agenda for oh several thousand years, give or take. I'm sure no one had thought of replacing servers with some form of tech until the minimum wage debate showed up.
I mean hell, if the operators charged a bit less than minimum wage I'm sure we'd all toss our smartphones out the window and go back to telegram, or better still go back to hand-to-hand note delivery.
I think you are trying to say "psychology wins/ supply and demand bitchez"....but I can't tell for sure.
Yeah, things aren't going to get done some way because it's cheaper and more efficient. If that were true, for the last 20 years I'd have just placed a phone call every Sunday to a warehouse somewhere on the edge of town and a delivery truck would drop off 21 sealed packages at two fifty a pop on my doorstep for the week. Meals in a can, made in China. The tech has been around for decades. No cashiers, no restaurants, no grocery stores, no appliance stores, and think of all the money I'd save. Hey it's automation so it's the wave of the future, it must be inevitable if we increase the minwage by ten cents, right? All I need is a can opener and a spork and I'm happy.
James_Cole;
True. 5,000 years ago at least we had slaves. Slaves are an economic boost easily agreed upon if you are a warring society that just took cities and regions...
Laws, Contracts, Divorces, slavery, the value of a slave or child produced from a slave... this is all 5000 years old. There is much more detail in annual crop yields, compensation on disputes.
We have not changed in 5000 years, we are thugs & we are desperate... we cause war, we are like war aggressors.
- 5000 years of laws written in stone, we still can't get this straight since Power & Money corrupts the laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
Slavery developed after the advent of animal and plant husbandry and settlements. Prior to that, the vanquished were usually killed.
So slaves were spared their lives because of the technology of agriculture, herding, tool making, metallurgy, construction, etc.
I'll go along with that.
Hard to tell in the case of Megaliths. Big stone monuments might have predated the animal husbandry, agriculture, metallurgy,... but I think you are right.
"What Happens When It’s Easier To Pay No Wages Rather Than A Minimum"
Wow, tough one. We pay the Obama voter to stare at the obama phone for the required number of hours until it has to be provided with obamacare. Or retire. One of those.
You know the "Obama phone" started years before Obama was president right? Do you get that? Can you pull your head out of your ass?
Imagine only 15 Million service jobs... turned into ROBOT JOBS... for Serving Drinks, Food, ordering food or drink, ATM Banking, Self Checkout at stores, Warehouse Self Checkout by truck drivers, Automated Truck Drivers, Notary Publics Document Validation, Court Filings,
Who is going to maintain these machines, integrate these machines, reconfigure machine tasks on these robots, and where are they going to come from.
The Technology is there, but Quality is going to go to hell and real city engineering jobs and city maintenance just like highway maintenance will still need humans. Someone is going to have to increase hiring to straighten out mistakes & errors in billing, merchandise returns, customer complaints, illness from poor quality, lawsuits, ...and likely city, country, & State employment will have to go up to deal with the Chaos that results from low quality...
Imagine teens & young adults kicking Robots at school or at restaurants or stores just to have a little fun....
How about people on EBT cards or dependent on relatives/friends wouldn't they kick out at Robots??
That's not how these technological advances work.
When the automobile replaced the horse, we didn't build the car to handle the roads that horses did. Instead, we needed to build the roads that were accomodative to the rubber tires of our cars.
The robots that replaced humans weren't built to fit in a human being's assembly line. The assembly line was changed, like our roads, to accomodate robots.
If we decided to switch out humans with robots at fast food places or road repair (in your example), then we'll do it by changing the way food is prepared and roads are laid out to accomodate the robots that will do the work.
These changes are not inserted into our current ways of doing things. The way in which things are done will also have to change to accomdate the new ways.
You might have some good points. I do better sometimes by getting specific. One point was made that we want a human experience in restaurants and entertainment venues... would you agree? Not sure your main issue above.
But we have ATMs, We have restaurants with order-taking machines that you pay your money in Japan & Europe, We have self Checkout lanes at Local Groceries with ATMs build in.
- In some cases we are not going to want Robots if they ruin the atmosphere... but that means they will have to adapt to proper manners or lose customers
- Industrial applications appear to be the first ideas since they were quicker to adopt, assembly lines are like one man in one positions doing one thing, machines can often be the size of one man
I for one can't stand interacting with these fucking morons.
I would much rather use a touch screen to order. Self check out is a drag, but soon, with RFID, just walk out the door with a cart load and done.
Go on "strike" you idiots. And oh, by the way, if you work at Micky D s, and you are trying to raise a family off the wages, you should have stopped screwing.
If the machines ever really do get as pervasive as these articles fantasize (my bet is they won't), we'll have a whole new class of misanthropes who live in the city around millions of people and yet they'll be hermits who never talk to anyone when a machine is there for them to interact with instead. Sad.
First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.
If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand
over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines' decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.
On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. in that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite—just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or to make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they most certainly will not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals. —Theodore Kaczynski
Check this book out if you're interested in the subject. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwjX_dbOIwbSNjlkYmZkNjEtYjU0NS00NWYwLWE2ZmEtZmI4ODQ2ZjQ1MDhl/edit
The robots that replaced humans weren't built to fit in a human being's assembly line. The assembly line was changed, like our roads, to accomodate robots.
The way we think has also been changed to accommodate tech. How many people waste time memorizing details when google is handy? Can be an expert with spreadsheets without understanding any math, can self-diagnose without biology etc. Even the way we interact is shaped by algorithms.
We're fast heading into a world where human inputs are minimally necessary. Click a few simple buttons into the machine it goes and out comes something wondrously complex.
Human jobs may not be needed except at the limits within our lifetimes, this is something that almost no one bothers to try and reconcile with traditional economics.
How many people are employed in industries replaceable by variations of automated drivers? A whole lot of people worldwide are imminently unemployable and the only proposed solution is some optimistic nonsense about 'in the past tech innovation has always lead to more & better jobs..'
was at Carl Jr the other day and they have automated menu and payment sonic has it so there you go just keep on asking to loose your job
Don't kid yourself, these "jobs" were already on the chopping block. Big business are "rain making" on this issue. They know that complete automation is going to happen eventually, one way or the other, but drawing an incorrect causation to scare the serfs into line.
I shall NEVER be UNEMPLOYED!!! I plan on standing on the footpath with an esky full of ice, selling soft drink and chocolates for HALF OF WHAT THE VENDING MACHINES CHARGE!!!!
Bwa ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
errr, that was SARCASM, in case no one noticed. But if you like, you go right ahead and steal my idea. I don't mind. You do it, I'll watch ...
Yeah right, it takes almost no one to make it all work. Robots repair robots these days. A friend of mine has a factory that had 50 machinists and now he and 3 others do the work. An entire factory floor of turret laths, auto feed, auto inspection, auto tool change. The humans move parts and clean.
Those who can't create will have nothing left to give. What do we do with them? Is it a new branch of evolution? Or do we send them somewhere they can have value?
Target practice.
Bunz - Dont think its new evolution, just evolution. Other tools beside factory automation is birth control. Notice declining birth rates in the West. Large families were once a plus, more hands on the farm and to mend clothing, cook meals etc. Today, a large family is an expense few can afford nor does one need based in automated farming.
Government encouraging vote buying by supporting baby breeders or expensive medical treatment is unsustainable.
What to do with the extra people? Your seeing it, a part time job society like France much of the latter half of the 20th century.
People will consume less in the short run (next 20 years) and focus on basics. That enviornment pushes family formation out a generation curing current the demographic imbalance.
Longevity will take a hit in the short run as energy and medicines have become more expensive. Now that I mention it, US longevity numbers were revised downward over the last decade. The US government wouldn't be letting in 25 million Mexicans or outsourcing to millions of Chindians (H1 visas) if automation was the solution to labor costs. I think we'll see capital and labor imbalances until our final evolution which looks to be back into energy. At that point our species will face new challanges. Evolution looks like a never ending process.
Does your friend give tours of his robo factory?!
Website?
An oft missed point in these silly articles is that WE WANT THE ROBOTS TO DO ALL THOSE JOBS!!!!!!!!!! Raise the fucking minimum wage! Let the robots do everything! THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!! You got nothing better to do with your life than work a dead-end job? Good for you. But some of us would prefer a real life. Some of us don't turn into destructive dickheads just because we're unemployed. We got a shit load of stuff we want to do. And some people would rather be surfing or fishing for the rest of their lives. FUCKING LET THEM GO SURFING OR FISHING!!! When robots do everything, we don't have to pay them, do we? So how soon till we get ROBOT MOTHER FUCKING CEOS SO WE DON'T HAVE TO PAY THE FUCKERS!!!!!!!! WHAT A COST SAVING THAT WOULD BE! WITH THE HUGE SAVINGS INCENTIVE AVAILABLE, WHY ISN'T IT HAPPENING????? Then when robots do everything we won't even need fucking money, will we?
Yes, yes, I've strayed off a little into fantasy land, haven't I? Didn't take too long either. But what's the alternative? Work our guts out for 90 hours per week in some slave labour shit "job" that is completely unnecessary????????????? You go live in your fantasy land, I'll live in mine. I hear Crony Communist China is Currently beating the Crap out of Crony Capitalist USA. Perhaps you can go there and get a job sewing plastic parts onto McHappy Meals toys. It's easy. Just offer to work more hours for less pay. And once you make more money from working harder for less pay you can use the savings to start your own McHappyParts factory and work even harder and make even less pay until you own the world!!!! Why didn't a million Bangladeshis think of it before???????
When workers are laid off and replaced with a robot, doesn't that just mean that prices come down and the unemployed workers can still afford to buy product? NO????????????? But if the workers accept lower wages, prices come down and the workers become relatively richer and can afford to buy more product, IS THAT IT???????? NOW, FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME, GO BACK AND GOOGLE THE PETER SCHIFF VIDEOS WHERE HE ASSERTS THAT A $15 PER HOUR MINIMUM WAGE (AT THE TIME, DOUBLING THE MINIMUM WAGE) TRANSLATES TO A 15% INFLATION OF WALMART PRICES. WALMART!!! A COMPANY WITH MINIMUM WAGE WORKERS AND MINIMUM WAGE CUSTOMERS!!!! Double my wages for 15% inflation? I'll take that trade. My prices go up by 15% but my customers are TWICE as rich???? I'll take that trade. I'll keep taking that trade until diminishing returns and supply chain disruptions set in, whether it is at $16 per hour, $26 per hour or $6000 per hour. The only real problems are, as I have said before:
1. The other side of the world ain't increasing their wages and THAT is how you lose jobs AND CUSTOMERS.
2. THE BANKSTERS ARE LENDING MONEY TO IDIOTS WHO PUSH UP PRICES AND MAKE EVERYTHING UNAFFORDABLE. YOUR WAGES ARE IRRELEVANT WHEN THE PRICE OF LAND IS 100% OF YOUR WAGE. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Dammit! I've moved off point again. Go ahead. Worship your CAPITALIST GOD because there is no better way! Have your built-in obsolescence because that is what the GOD OF FREE MARKETS demands! Destroy all excess production because the GOD OF PRICING AND PROFITS demands that it be so.
When a machine allows one man to do the job of ten, do we really have to sack the other nine? IF PRODUCTION IS THE SAME THEN WHY CAN'T WE PAY THE TEN GUYS TO WORK FOR ONE TENTH AS LONG???? Where is the four hour working week? Yeah, go ahead, fuck with the figures. Maybe the ten guys work ten hours and the rest of the profit goes to machine maintenance and the ENTREPRENEUUUUUUUUUURRRRR 'cos he's a fucking GENIUS and no-one coulda figured it out like he did. Oh, hang on. Someone else did figure it out like he did. The competitor down the street just bought one of them machines too, and hired one of the sacked guys at half his original wage because it was still better than starving to death on the street and NOW THAT ONE GUY DOING THE WORK OF TEN MEN AT HALF THE WAGE, I.E. NETTING THE JOB OF TWENTY MEN - shit! that'll send a few competitors broke won't it? There really will be 19 net men unemployed but never mind we got the production of 20 men so it's all sweet, isn't it? Of course the 19 unemployed men can't have any of the production. You can't just give stuff away. They have to earn it!!! Perhaps they can offer to operate the machine at half what the other guy is charging!
NO!!! FUCK YAS ALL!!! Capitalism is great for what it does, but THAT IS ALL. In the end it will guarantee slavery for ever, just like every other system.
"We can't possibly make shit that lasts forever and never breaks. There's not enough profit in it!"
"Oh, we can only sell stuff to people who have money. And that is why that guy has to work 90 hours per week so he can afford our stuff and that other guy can't have anything because he's a lazy unemployed son-of-a-bitch."
"Oh, we have to destroy all that excess capacity to maintain price levels. We have to make a profit. We have to pay the mortgage."
"What are you complaining about? That guy chose to work 90 hour weeks and divorce his wife and then work more 90 hour weeks to pay his lawyer to get access to see his kids that don't recognize him because he was never home anyway. That other guy chose to be unemployed rather than go door-knocking 12 hours per day until he got a job for less than the minimum wage. Freedom Bitchez!"
Yeah, that "freedom" certainly can be a bitch. And there is no better way!!!!
Sure there isn't. Get fucked!
Short, Rough Summary of the above:
1. Wasn't technology doing all our work the whole point in the first place?
2. If technology is taking all our jobs, then why do we still have to work so hard?
3. Especially when so many other people are unemployed.
BONUS point 4. Why all the crap about wages when banksters steal every cent anyone earns by artificially jacking up the price of land?
Publicus Soon we'll have nothing to eat but the rich.
Every one more unemployeed is one more soldier for independence everywhere.
----
Most of the rich will be away to safety. It will be the peasants cannibalizing each other and the elites using that as another divide an conquer tool. History
The horde will spawn virus like Ebola, not even the elite can escape from humanity.
The poor people will be too bony and not enough meat.
The rich people will be too fatty and carcinogenic.
We're all going to die.
Boo Frickety Hoo! When I was young, a man could own a house and raise a family on the wages selling shoes. Now, if you aren't a slimy fucking paper shuffler or lawyer, you need to have a goddamn PHD to survive. Fuck you all and see you all at the bottom!
Well, should someone be able to raise a family by selling shoes? I mean everyone needs shoes, but I dont think being a salesman selling them should make you enough to buy a house and raise a family. Making shoes, maybe. But if you think about how much value add a shoe salesman provides compared to the labor/materials needed to build a house and feed a family. The equation doesnt work.
Says you. The economy a few decades ago disagrees.
It doesnt work now, correct? So who was right, the econ a few decades ago or the econ now? Considering the value of shoes, to me, it doesnt add up. My guess, there was some sort of indirect subsidy to shoe salesman decades ago. Maybe it was expensive shoes for banker types. What were the price of those shoes in today's dollars?
EDIT: If you watch leave it to beaver, Only white men had those jobs. It was a protected class. No doubt the market had to compensate the shoe salesman engugh since there were no minorities or women allowed that job, even at a lower wage. today, shoes are sold on the internet with no salesman. Cheap.
I guess we should identify why living wages from shoe sales were previously possible but no longer.
It seems like it's your contention that the situation is now different simply because the status quo in the past was unsustainable.
For thousands of years, until relatively recently, man ploughed the fields with oxen or horse. What would happen if we reverted to this practice? We wouldn't be able to afford to eat anymore. All but the most wealthy people would starve.
Why? Was horse & oxen unsustainable?
I agree with that. Bottom line, is a living wage needs to be available to all people or a very serious instability will occur. I think the wealthy know that, which is why more and more EBT cards are available. I prefer the living wage solution to EBT cards.
"Bottom line, is a living wage needs to be available to all people or a very serious instability will occur."
We live in an unsustainable economy. Our whole modern economy is based upon a finite supply of fossil fuels. Sooner or later we are going to face the mother of all energy crisis and it going to be end of the economy as we know it.
You're forgetting the elephant in the room: Inflation caused by the Federal Reserve makes prices continually rise, when more productivity should cause prices to fall! Cui Bono?
"Well, should someone be able to raise a family by selling shoes? I mean everyone needs shoes, but I dont think being a salesman selling them should make you enough to buy a house and raise a family. "
It does, in Asia
We should all go homeless and hungry unless we are bankers? Fuck you asshole. You think you are one of them, but asshole, you are NOT!
Hey man, Al Bundy did it.
He sold a LOT of shoes in the 10 hrs a day 5 days a week 48 weeks a year for 30 years that he had to payback the mortgage on that 1 house.
I think the point is that a lowest "minimum wage" job used to be enough to maintain a mortgage on a modest home for a family .. why does a modest home for a family now require 2 x non-minimum wage jobs to service ?
so get a PhD instead of banging7gramrocks...
I don't know if I trust the FSA more than the rich, in all honesty...
Sure, the chaos that will occur when everyone is hungry enough to go postal will be a blessing, but really, we're kidding ourselves if we say that the FSA is made of "soldiers for independence".
I own a small coffee shop. I pay 10 to 12 now. If forced to pay 15 I will lay off one and pull more hours myself or just close altogether. Fuck you .gov
Right so your costs going up 30-50%-- no business can survive that long. Let's not even talk about Obamacare premium on top of that...
Hows about if your customers' wages increased by more than your cost increases? Could you afford that?
And how's the rent/mortgage these days? Can you afford that? I hear that rent / mortgage costs are set by the ffrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee markits! he he he he ... I guess if you bought the shop a long time ago, you should have a nice little competitive advantage in your area.
That's enough from me. I'm quite sure you are way too busy to consider such silly hypotheticals.
errrr, and my apologies for the attitude. I now owe it to you to be nice to you one day. Or perhaps you can claim from the guy who wrote the above article. I found it most ignorant and offensive so he owes me.
With the caliber and attitude of customer service these days, I would prefer a pleasant sounding and efficient machine.
Gawd can we get those on the airplanes?? What is it w/US carriers--most of those women are complete bitches. Hubby was on Delta recently, 1 stop, cross country. One stewardess was outwardly antagonistic with one of the passengers. Husband didn't think he was a problem, just had asked when he could get a drink (alcoholic). They basically ignored him the entire flight regardless of what he said. When we fly overseas (Asia or Europe) the crew are all very polite and attentive. Some nonplussed robots dishing out eats fast would be great.
As for other automation, the one we don't think of is ATMs which started over 30 yrs ago. That was to beat the lines at the bank, speed everything up. It's something we'd never want to go back to "the good old days" on. Nowadays it's the automated check out lines at supermarkets (when I bother venturing to them). You can get your stuff done pretty quick. All that union staff adds up which is why the margins are only 4% at most majors. I'm all for union when there are critical needs and truly in-depth skillsets. True butchers I could see being a union gig, but not just a bunch of can stackers and run it past the scanner types.
Raising the entry-level rate for the overall entry-level skill work will only briefly raise the standard of living for those working at those kind of jobs (lucky to be a year). Beyond that, the overall inflation will then drive up the cost of everything else, then back to the same story, not enough money. That is, if their position isn't eliminated altogether first. Those 30 yr olds working in fast food really have to deal with the fact that they are only putting out that level of desired product and there is no way to reward it more. Allowing EBT at fast food places (at least in Calif) is probably keeping those businesses floating more than they would be anyway.
My high school girlfriend could ring up groceries twice as fast as the clerks nowadays. Before scanners, punching in every single price on the old cash register. And while figuring the amount of change in her head. With a joke and a smile.
Hubby was on Delta recently
do not understand why women diminutize their men by calling them their "hubby."
'Cause "Flunky" wouldn't go over as a term of endearment! :>D
My brother in law is almost 40 and works at mickey D's. He's a good guy, just way too slow to fix a burger machine let alone become an automation engineer or whatever those momentum machines people say they would help train him in ... "The key is more education!" all the liberals and the .1% chant in unison as the jobs guys like him do are dismantled. Great, we'll just sign the fast food workers up for integral calculus, modern physics, and circuit theory, then they'll have the prereqs for electromagnetics and Fourier series the next year. There's a shortage of engineers, I read that somewhere.
Anyway if it does come to that, he'll find something else I think, the sky isn't falling over the minwage. Maybe Obama could revive the WPA and have them tear down the blighted retail and make nice parks.
All I want to know is when those lifelike Japanese Sex robots will be affordable. That ought to bring the price of pussy down, and those out of work hookers will be available for housekeeping duties......oh wait, I think there's robots for that now...a Roomba.
Who could possible downvote that post? Guess Hookers do read ZH! PM me for a job application.
I think it was the house-keeping dig :))
The day a robot can substite indiscernbly for real pussy we are fucked !
Listen, A forced "INFLATED" minimum wage = YOU Americans ARE Fucked!
Increased social payments would make more sense... instead of driving business people out of business... and giving more market share to huge corporations (Anti-Trust).
Maybe cost of living increases on the broke Social Security System makes more sense than a forced higher minimum wage OR Obama Care.
TeethVillage88s Increased social payments would make more sense... instead of driving business people out of business... and giving more market share to huge corporations (Anti-Trust).
Maybe cost of living increases on the broke Social Security System makes more sense than a forced higher minimum wage OR Obama Care.
----
I must have missed the sarcasm because this is incredible stupidity on display. Are you a Federal government worker TeethVillage88s?
Are you a federal worker sessinpo?
I must be sensitive. You can't see both sides of this one.
A) Small Businesses are going away in the USA, steep decline
B) Total Number of banks are on steep decline
C) Big Corporations are bigger than ever
D) Private Executive Compensation is Exponential Growth
E) Corporate Tax Base is declining as they pay 12%-14% now and they write off all the stuff they want with option to Off Shore Corporate HQ
F) US Demographics is a problem for future Taxes paid by Individuals... plus AVG Wage is declining & Participation is declining
G) US Total Debt is $59 Trillion
H) US Federal Debt is $17.6 Trillion minimum
Pull your head out. Do YOU want to save small businesses or not.
If you can't control your Fascist Buddies, then we can all fight it out in the streets next year... Say April 2015 as my collapse date.
What you don't look at Debt in USA, but you want expensive wars overseas so you can get bonus money, stuff your retirement, and laugh at the little people that got laid off from John Deer, Caterpillar, and International Harvester in the 1980s
Don't worry the Foreigners already own USA.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ROWFDN... ($3.16 Foreign Investment USA)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GPDI ($2.69 Private Domestic Investment)
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/iip_glance.htm
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/iip_glance.htm ($26 Trillion foreign compared to $22 for US) (This is very interesting as Big Banks are growing strongly, but the number of total us banks is dramatically decreasing, like someone is gaming the system, Commercial Banks in the U.S. - FRED - St. Louis Fed)
Listen, it makes no sense!
Let me ask you scholarly gentlemen this:
If your BO is going to almost double the minimum wage, should all earners expect a doublement of compensations?
Why the fuck NOT?!! Let's be fair and "BALANCED" A-merica! Like the Foxes.
There are government concepts of using Ceilings or Floors on certain benefits or taxes. Like Maximums for benefits or Maximum wage level applied to FICA tax. This is common.
We should see more talk about Streamlining Taxes... that is simplifying taxes to a 12 year olds reading level... people are getting dumber right... why allow the government to make complicated laws, tax laws, financial laws... it is all a game that the poor and middle class lose.
Anyway... you never learned about Worker Rights laws and how they came to be in the USA? Like it took 100 years of abuse, violence, deaths in mines, schemes to take back pay from employees, protesting, activism... just to win the Right to Organize a Union.
Do you want Child Labor back in the USA?
It might happen. Education and child rearing is expensive. And many kids work for their parents businesses anyway or like back when many people worked their own farms.
You get Overtime Pay, Holiday Pay, Official Holidays from having to work... all because of hundreds of years of activism, protests, and labor strikes in the USA. These Worker Rights and Standard Safety Rules serve you, your children, your parents, and you community. Seems like a good thing.
Just like having regulation on the Stock Market to prevent Fraud. Exchange Markets can't work without regulations.
Answer: I'm not with the Minimum Wage Increase, since it is the rest of the system that is corrupt. And if I own a business I ain't going to double the pay for anyone making more than $20K per year, no way.
"Do you want Child Labor back in the USA?"
Listen, what's the alternative? Fuckers threatening cops in Furgenson, MO?
Spare the rod? Provide the labor!
Well I hate to admit it.
I saw a video online completely through called China Blue, but think you will have problem finding more than just an hour in English at this point.
This 15 year old Chinese girl leave the village and her Education in the countryside... to work making blue jeans. It is a crap job with wages held back, fees taken out, and no overtime while working up to like 15 hours a day.
Okay, but logically it makes sense. If you are poor and your family needs money you take crap job working in factory making a couple of dollars a day.
USA has Labor Demand Crisis, we have too much labor and too few full time jobs... but Education and cost of raising a kid or two is very heavy if you want a middle class house.
Clearly ... we are expanding to where we will see Hoovervilles, shanty towns, tent cities, and multiple families living in single family homes. Not clear where the elderly will go at this point. Retirement home prices are inflating and are subsidized by SS & Medicare probably.
Sounds horrid. Glad I'm in India, we're use to it already.
Just as a realist...I would move to Bangalore or other locations in India if I could get some offers...
But as I was an early geek, peers and supervisors said I was just shit. So I don't feel any prospects are open within my employment class...
Better to screw with government & bankers by educating the masses of unemployed I suppose.
Oh No, Please God help me.
Bring Out Your Dead.
Bring Out Your Dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
They / we are fucked anyway Bangalore. Crushed between first world real estate prices, first world DEBT and third world wages.
The "rich" want high real estate prices so they can borrow more money from the higher revaluations. Trouble is, you need high wages to keep those real estate prices real. On the one hand, the rich want to pay the poor fuck all, on the other hand, how to manipulate real estate prices UP when no-one can afford them? Now too many people have been lent too much money, there is no alternative: Either increase wages or watch real estate prices fall.
The weak and defenceless have always been weak and defenceless. They cannot increase their wages without the help of someone powerful. That powerful "someone" needs to keep his own valuations high or else he too will become weak and defenceless.
Let the US minimum wage go down. Then the weak lose their homes. Do those homes go on the open market to the highest bidder? What happens to all the lost debt and debt derivatives?
The banksters took a HUUUUGE shit in their own bed and now they are trying to figure out how they could possibly sleep in it.
Hey if I'm paying twice as much for my fast food order I am at real independently run joint that has friendly real people serving me a real fucking ground beef burger on a fresh made whole wheat bun with real fucking potato frys AND a fucking Beer. That's where I am when I am paying twice as much. FUCK McDonalds!
The increase in minimum wage is not going to "real" food.
It's simply an increase to pay wages and you'll still find your burger is made with pink slime, your whole wheat has Roundup, your potato will be GMO'ed to contain peanut DNA to keep it bug resistant, and your beer will have carrageenan to keep the foam.
All for twice the price.
Nobody will care, Raymond.
Wheat is not Roundup Ready.... so you're not going to be finding it in your bread.
Oh yes you are going to be finding Roundup in your bread. 96 percent of U.S. wheat is sprayed with Round-up three days before harvest. Not to kill weeds - it is to dry out the wheat plants to make harvesting it more convenient. Eat up.
Oh, it's thought that the "gluten sensitivity epidemic" may actually be a physical response to eating Round-up.
He's correct, in much the same way that cotton is intentionally, chemically killed prior to harvest (defoliated), to remove the leaves so that most of it does not end up in the harvested cotton.
In ages past, farmers would wait for the first frost to do it. Warmer winters in the US cotton belt and cost/market pressures to get the crop in earlier (so it can be ginned and sold earlier, when prices are higher still) have driven the move to chemical defoliation. Makes the cotton stink to high hell though, and bothers many with asthma/allergies.
BurningFuld: If you're not already paying those higher wages then McDs can afford to supply you with a quality product right now. No???
Hahahahahaha.
If casinos, the once bastion of anything and everything “customer personalization and/or interactive excellence” has decided it’s in their best financial interest to go “non-human.” What are the consequences for other industries facing similar issues?
Really, this is a huge issue for the coming years. Everywhere the wage demanding and benefit craving employee can be axed, he will be axed.
They will try it in phases to "Go Slow" with implementation.
They know they may Destroy the "American Brand" or their Reputation within a single year.
As you point out:
- Patronage comes from human experience of service
- Loyalty come from human experience of service
- Patriotism can not come from a corporate Entity and this will become clear in the coming Decade
who needs patriotism when you can have brand loyalty
You didn't learn about the great depression or... NSA Spying implicating and crashing sales of US Tech companies?
Did you miss the fact that UK & US companies authorized transfer (with congress) WMD technology & equipment to Iraq?
Did you miss that we paid private industry fees to bail themselves out in 2008 with bonuses and private loans including to Walmart??
Where did you get a drivers license?
Jimmy CARTER SIGNED THE Intelligence finding that Created the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan.... We trained them, we supplied them, we gave the active intelligence and taught them US intelligence methods... the left them stateless in Pakistan with no passports and no home country that wanted them.
nice.
- See Robert Bear books.
- Patriotism brought shit to mujaheddin, but could save USA.
- Tell people about US Rights, Bill of Rights, and Worker Rights... Demand auditing for free Trade in globalism... OR ask for protection from predatory corporations....!!!! No Slave Labor!!!
- No competition against people with no labor rights!!!
- Standardized accounting & financial instruments with new integrity in US financial Ratings.
Fuck USA. Lock it in. No one is listening.
This blogging sideline is BS. Hello Depression, Collapse, and Stock Market Crash...
I can tell since even ZH has people 2 times smarter than me, but we can't generate community rule or community consensus on what is the Truth... What are the Facts... and What is our History.
Fuck it. Call it passivity. I must be the biggest Violator. Just gauge on me we will Crash in April 2015.
Min wage hike is just another form of confiscation. People need to be fed one way or the other. So one can either be forced to pay them more (and accept decreased profit margins) or be taxed more (and hence still loose that extra income) or they can print (and the wealth/income will be lost via inflation). It is just what is easier to push through politically and what is less damaging to the dollar. Min wage hike works great on both fronts.
B I N G O ! ! !
Give this man a prize!
You can either raise the minimum wage or raise taxes to pay into a wealth redistribution scheme.
Obama chose to raise the minimum wage so that he can say he didn't raise taxes.
Hmmm...raise taxes on flat wages in an inflationary environment, or tap some of the big corps sitting in cash and doing stock buy backs? Decisions, decisions...
Infectious, deadly diseases and toxins like plague, botulism and ricin have been uncovered at government laboratories in the United States. The discovery also revealed some of the vials had been stored for over 60 years.
The revelations come after officials from the National Institute of Health (NIH) made a sweep of government owned laboratories in July after they found smallpox. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also admitted it had found vials at a lab at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Worryingly, inspectors also uncovered toxins and viruses, which had been lying around since 1954, with staff ignorant of the fact. The NIH said the discoveries were made between July 29 and August 27. The information was only made public on Friday.
http://rt.com/usa/185640-toxic-ricin-laboratory-discovered/
One issue that is always ignored -
Employee pay is not growing - true for most employees not just minimum wage - many are not even keeping up with inflation -
But
The company is paying a lot more per worker in other costs - mostly health insurance - but also unemployment compensation & WC costs.
My last company - on average 35% of our total compensation costs was this other stuff - and with lower pay rate employees it was closer to 45% and GROWING.
So you get a 1% raise in your take home pay and are not happy because it is so little - but the health insurance cost we pay goes up 16% and we feel like compensation cost are growing too fast - and we are not happy.
We tried to educate people by showing them how much it was really costing us to have them on the payroll - but they don't give a fuck about anything except their take home pay.
and voted for Obama. lmfao. Can't fix Stupid
my company did away with that whole pay raise issue and just instituted salary caps on all of us.
executives excluded, of course
so I'm feeling lucky that I've obtained all of these pay raises, to only be slightly behind, and not completely underwater
I don't stop by McDs anymore unless it's really urgent. The last few times the thugs behind the counter were so rude. I can't imagine hiring anyone that rude and nasty. is this what 'dicersity' is all about?. There are plenty of other nice younsters out there w/o the attitude. McDs management has sunk lower and lower over the past 5-8 years as most on the McD blogs write.
So many people have a chip on their shoulders these days. It's another aspect of our decaying society/culture. I agree with above and honestly would prefer a robot.
i remember when the filet o fish and mcnuggets were tasty.
now, they don't even have napkin dispensers and the soda is flat much of the time..a homeless / senior citizen hangout serving sawdust.
I loved the quarter pounders also.
I remember when a 20-piece chicken McNuggets cost $8 20 years ago, and they're $5 now???
Somethin ain't kosher...
Reminds me of the movie, "Falling Down."
Whammy Burger!
Ive had the opposite experience. McD I find to be better than the others in terms of predictable service and quality.
I dont know. My local McD here in UK is the cleanest fastfood around, staffed mostly by young people. Fare is obviously standard McD but I never was disappointed there (considering it's fast food of course). Guess we still have a bit to go to catch up with USSA.
You obviously know different youngsters (especially girls) than myself.
unless it is really urgent???
what could possibly be so urgent that u would have to stop there????
admit the truth
u stop there quite frequently////
Maybe you should look into a Robotic SpellChecker. lmao. (sorry, couldn't help myself.)
CheapBastard: Pay peanuts, get monkeys. And if they skimp on the labour, do you really think they won't skimp on anything else? - you know: food, hygiene ( who do you think cleans the place? ), building codes, real estate deals ...
Yeah, I wonder what it means for McDs (or any of the other ones) to "skimp" on real estate? We should have a little look into that one. Or is the price of RE the reason why they skimp on everything else?
I will rely on fking energy center breathing before I would ever eat at mcdonalds.
working there for two weeks back when I was 16 was enough to disgust me thoroughly and completely, have never eaten there since.
when being trained and you have these nice square packages of buns, and everything's counted, and you drop one and your trainer tells you to pick it back up and put it in with the rest of them going into the toaster so you dont fuck up the #s of buns to patties...
yeah, I'm out of this shithole...
I'm going to keep this simple... a wage is a price, and price fixing is guaranteed to create unemployment
it's really that simple
On the other hand, there is no guarantuee the value of labour at unfixed prices will exceed subsistence costs.
http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/
I'm going to keep posting this until the commies, progressives, and other "there oughta be a law" types get it through their thick skulls that price fixing does... not... work...
They don't get it Mr Turtle. They will be the first ones not partaking in supporting these businesses with their money. Fast food is already at a precipitous price point. The average meal is $7.50 / person and that is $30 for a family of four. Even at the current beef prices, I can grill some steaks for a family of 4, nuke some vegies, and provide drinks for under $30. Fast food is worth it, if I don't have food in the house or my time is otherwise limited. When they pay these people a living wage for burger flipping, the price is going to $40 per family meal. It ends up becoming a luxury and fast food is never a luxury.
http://finance.yahoo.com/video/peter-schiff-why-wal-mart-200034834.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLr5oWfoWRY
When are you fuckers, including Mr Schiff, going to realize that if the minimum wage DOUBLES then suddenly these minimum wage workers CAN afford 15% inflation and BE BETTER OFF!!!? Not my numbers, BLAME MR SCHIFF. Minimum wage cost is less than total cost of production. THEREFORE Increase in price is less than increase in production costs. Or take Mr Schiff's numbers and work them backwards: Workers took a 50% pay cut so you can enjoy 15% cheaper prices. Winning?
Can you double the minimum wage forever? Of course not. Other limits will kick in.
Can the minimum wage really go up? No. Jobs will go overseas AND SO WILL THE CUSTOMERS. None of your customers are $50 per hour auto workers because the auto workers now all live over seas and earn two dollars per hour.
Why can't I pay my workers two dollars per hour so they can compete with overseas workers? Where will they live? In a $300 per week rental? Where will they buy food? From a supermarket that pays a $10000 per month rental? Who are your customers? Two dollar per hour workers? Can they afford that $30 meal now? Oh, that's right, the meal will be cheaper from the cheaper wages. What's the rent/mortgage on that shop again??? Or did the generous banksters allow you to "renegotiate" the loan???
Wages have to go up to hide the sins of the banksters because the banksters will NEVER allow the price of real estate to go down. But the system will remain fucked because the banksters will continue to lend money to people who cannot afford to repay, thus driving ALL prices unsustainably higher.
Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
A Smith And Wesson beats four Aces.
And never bring your capitalism to an auction against an idiot and his bankster.
None of that contradicts what I said. There is no guarantuee the value of labour covers subsistence cost, Henry Hazzlit who you linked pretty much agrees with me.
From the section The Fetish Of Full Employment :
"It would be far better, if that were the choice—which it isn’t—to have maximum production with part of the population supported in idleness by undisguised relief than to provide “full employment” by so many forms of disguised make-work that production is disorganized. The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs. A much smaller proportion of the American population needs to work than that, say, of China or of Russia. The real question is not how many millions of jobs there will be in America ten years from now, but how much shall we produce, and what, in consequence, will be our standard of living? The problem of distribution on which all the stress is being put today, is after all more easily solved the more there is to distribute."
It's nice that you link something from a non fuzzy thinker rather than the usual Rothbardian fare the libertarians here love ... but maybe your skull was too thick to grasp it on the first read through as well ...
I think you could easily argue that most of the US economy now is made up of disguised make-work. Government jobs, government contractors, business directly subsidized by the government (big Ag), business indirectly subsidized by the government (Wal-mart low wage workers). FIRE industries nearly completely unproductive.
Maybe it would be better just to have a straight up FSA on the dole, sign your name on the line and get your benefits card. The Fed can just keep printing more, no worries.
I agree with you mostly on the concept of make-work.
On your second paragraph, I say okay but let's put them in the FEMA camps instead of us productive souls. I have no problem with the FSA or their EBT as long as I don't have to see it up front and in my (tax-paying) face at the grocery store! I think this is the part that the bleeding heart liberals don't/can't comprehend. There IS a limit to my tolerance (and I am a very tolerant person) but seriously, the evil empire is squeezing me to the max and forcing me to pay exorbitant taxes that they then turn around and give away to rude, thankless, useless people. And then, they wonder why I (working slave) chose not to spend my hard-earned money at some fast-food establishment staffed by said rude, thankless, useless people that probably derive great satisfaction by screwing up any order I place (at best) or (at worst) defiling the food I might purchase for myself and my family?
Thanks, and NO thanks ... I would actually support/welcome a robotic assembly line over that!
I have no problem with the Free Shit Army as long as:
1. They don't do anything illegal.
2. Workers get paid more.
The "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality is enough to ensure that any work that needs to be done will get done.
Or in other words FUGM ...
If society manages to stay functional enough to keep technological progress going then in the end nearly everyone without hereditary wealth will become part of the FSA ... we just got lucky to live in a time of opportunity.
show me how maximizing production has anything to do with guaranteeing subsistence... think hard on this one...
If you can have maximum production without full employment (a situation which he explicitly portrays as possible) the unused labour is by definition worthless (and by extension worth less than subsistence cost) or it could be used to increase production.
Mr Turtle: "Hey! Look over there! Weak and defenseless people are destroying us!!!"
Regarding your lesson, don't tell it to me. Tell it to the banksters. Tell it to those who determine the price of land. Or do you still believe that land sales is a "free market"?
Club of Rome report says that capital will have to move from industry into agrculture in order to feed a growing population on degraded soils.
Therefore we get cheap robots (industry) serving expensive pink slime (agrculture)
...and the world's population continues to rise.
So do we reduce the population dramatically (so as to have a higher demand for workers)? It seems these days that is the plan for some.
If the population continues to rise and automation reduces the need for human labour, what will these surplus people do to house, clothe and feed themselves?
As the competition for jobs increases, (and the competition is increasingly global), we have already seen downward pressure on wages.
Do we then close our borders and limit immigration and/or brithrates?
I certainly do not have the answers, but I found the comments above a bit narrow minded...
There is a group that infests futurist circles which espouses the concept of "Universal Basic Income". It calls for money to be handed out to everyone so they can consume things and go about their lives in some sort of manner.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm I do keep this in mind all the time as I am young enough to still experience it (or global war, more likely these days...). When I chose my career path I didn't realize it but my skill set and experience will make me very hard to replace by computers/robots. Too bad it is a 1 in 100 postion in the company I work for... Somehow I don't think that the Australian utopia from the novel will come to pass for majority of the world population.
Never heard of this - but yes, a lovely idea that sounds unlikely today or in the near future. I have vague recollections of a Star Trek movie that presented earth in the far future somewhat along the line of the concepts presented. I know i am too old to see it (59), and I can only hope that after the troubles that are no doubt coming, humans will evolve....
It gets me sometimes how judgemental the first world can be with those who have not progressed at the same pace. One doesn't have to go very far back in history to read of atrocities committed by our ancestors just as evil or more so than what is happening is some parts of the world today.
JUSMAN:
"So do we reduce the population dramatically (so as to have a higher demand for workers)? It seems these days that is the plan for some."
Amazing that our system holds together. There is some balance in the current system.
I say we just have to recognize that we can't loot the system for our wealthy network, loot our corporations even if they are huge transnationals, and we have to be able to audit the compensation of executives, activities of corporations especially when they use shell companies, recognize conservative values in accounting like GAAP and standardized Financial Instruments (for visibility and transparency)...
It is just stupid that we allow Wealthy or Power or Private Executives or Sport Stars loot the system... forcing human nature to engage in fraud, Gaming the System, Lobbying, Conflict of Interest, and gift giving known as bribes.
IBM Values used to be "Integrity"
Wow. How about American, US Integrity, Honesty, Pride, Patriotism... bring back the Basis Documents of this Country and hold up the Principals.
Shell Companies?
Lobbying?
Non GAAP Accounting, off balance sheet Transactions?
Private Banking with unregulated Financial Instruments?
Global Financial Crisis from US Toxic Assets?
WTF?
Humans will always have greed, envy, fraud, crime,... so stick to conservative rules, principals, standards,... tell Neoliberal Politicians and Economics to go get Stuffed.
Yes, agree. So perhaps a big next step is to have more direct involvement (via internet referenda perhaps) in government? But, living in Toronto, I am actually quite horrified at the ignorance of the "masses" in the support they seem to continue to offer our current Mayor Rob Ford. In my mind, there seems to be very little altruism left in governements these days...
As to "forcing human nature", one of my BIG realisations is that adult human nature these days does not seem to be inherently "good" and that there are way more selfish and shallow people out there than naive me ever imagined!
When I am consumed with the internet then I feel negative.
I need to unplug from the computer.
I will say our Canadian & US system maybe have been built on good will and good ideas, but there are many "Gaming the System". So this is positive even though Wall Street has clearly "Won" and can take it's money and leave the country at any time.
2 years ago we were saying on the internet that we only needed like 5-10% of the population on our side to "Change the System"... well the bright side is 20% of the youth must know by now about financial greed... and we probably have 10% of adults educated.
We are a country looking for Significant Emotional Event or some galvanizing crisis... in Canada, EU, & UK too.
True. Neither place is a utopia so it doesn't make sense that not everyone is employed. How can there be unemployed persons in a non-utopian society?
Double Negative? Not sure what you said. Utopia is not what conservatives or fiscal conservatives are asking for. Democrats probably care more for social programs than "Jobs"... could be that Democracts are totally useless as politicians in Washington DC. Bill, Hillary, Joe, Barak... they are War-Mongers, Selling War, Drones, Torture, Rendition, Gitmo,... and they could give a crap if they gave away the Federal Farm to Big Banks & TBTF Wall Street Insiders.
You know labor force is 150 Million and participation rate is down since 1981 to about 60%.
Fed Money Data updated from Jan 2014
M1 Money Stock, 2014-06-16: $2.83 Trillions of Dollars (Exponential Growth, but doesn't include Dollars overseas)
M2 Money Stock, 2014-06-16: $11.32 Trillions of Dollars
MZM Money Stock, 2014-06-16: $12.54 Trillions of Dollars (Money with zero Maturity)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MZM
Looks like 1981 was the Money Velocity high, note manufacturing plunged 1979.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1V (Top was 2007 Q4 at 10.7, now down to 6.3)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2V (Top was 1997 Q3 at 2.2, now down to 1.5)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MZMV (Top was 1981 Q1 at 3.5, now down to 1.4)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/Mult (Top was January 1987 at 3.1, now down to .7)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MANEMP (Employees: Manufacturing 12.1 M Persons)
M1V M1 Velocity of M1 (6.305 Ratio)
M2V M2 Velocity of M2 (1.540 Ratio)
MZMV MZM Velocity of MZM (1.386 Ratio)
MULT M1 M1 Money Multiplier (0.705 Ratio)
Federal Debt: Total Public Debt
2014:Q1: 17,601,227 Millions of Dollars (+ see more)
Quarterly, End of Period, Not Seasonally Adjusted, GFDEBTN, Updated: 2014-05-29
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/GFDEBTN
Yes, agree. So perhaps a big next step is to have more direct involvement (via internet referenda perhaps) in government? But, living in Toronto, I am actually quite horrified at the ignorance of the "masses" in the support they seem to continue to offer our current Mayor Rob Ford. In my mind, there seems to be very little altruism left in governements these days...
As to "forcing human nature", one of my BIG realisations is that adult human nature these days does not seem to be inherently "good" and that there are way more selfish and shallow people out there than naive me ever imagined!
Awesome piece of Futuristic sci fi.. highly recommend it.
Suisse;
Could be human nature being what it is we would have to collapse or be told we had already collapsed before the idea could find support.
Reason one is that no one wants to be the first nation to chose a lower income.
Might credit Star Trek with this idea...but I'm not an expert. Clearly from US Taxes, FICA Payments, and Federal Budget Growth we are spending at minimum $3.5 Trillion for MIC, SS, MEDICARE/MEDICAID, plus federal discretionary spending... that is $3 Trillion minimum under this system with no other programs.
You would think that EBT/SNAP/WIC is not that bad looking at that. And you would think earning Federation Star Trek Credits looks possible when looking at US Fiat System.
For many, the last two inventions will be the Replicator and the Holodeck. Some will replicate enough to eat themselves to death, conjure up a pile of stuff to crush them, etc. As for the Holodeck, how many will gameplay themselves (or other XXX activities) to death? Heck people neglect duties and activity for the love of immersing themselves in games. The Star Trek universe brings that home in full 3D technicolor. Of course they had further space to explore and a greater mission/game in life.
Have you been reading Dilbert Future? (Or was it one of the other Dilbert books?)
The likely alternative, 100 years from now, will be 80% unemployment as technology and productivity improvements increasingly degrade the "value" of human labor.
In 1900, if I wanted a ditch dug in a day I hired 100 laborers with shovels.
In 2000, if I wanted a ditch dug in a day I hired 1 man with a backhoe.
My takeaway: Obvious point is obvious, and I'm really glad you have enough disposeable income to afford to hang around in casinos. Good for you.
I find it a great tragedy that someone, who has enough money to go to the casino, goes to the casino. What a fucking loser! Get a life! Don't do shit that pisses me off and proves what a brainless stupid heap of shit idiot you are. Do something cool and exciting that makes me jealous and makes me wish I was as rich as you.
Fucking loser.
I think it is fact that all the minimum wage workers do find a way to suck on the tit of government and tax payers. We know how many Wal-Mart workers draw government benefits, food stamps, health care and even private chairty like food banks. Is it fair for one employer to provide a living wage that his employees live from private sector work alone, while his competition lowers wages to non-livable, and his employees burden the tax paying public. We KNOW which employers in this make the highest profits, and can delievr the lowest prices to customers. If it were me, for my business, I would choose to pay the lowest wage that will bring a competent worker in the door, and let taxpayers feed his family through food stamps, and state tax payers fund his health care through state or medicaid health insurances.
You know Wal-Mart took this model and drove it to the richest retail business imaginable. Rule one, was lowest possible wage, and zero benefits, then squeeze providers to do the same, both Wal-Mart and it's provides pay the lowest possible, and throw the workers families onto public and private assistance.
Is it right? Yes. Is it moral, maybe not. But business has zero to do with civic morals or the civic good. It is to return earnings to share holders and to pay managers and directors the highest possible salary that the corporate books can bear.
It isn't going to change. China's model of free markets for labor without rules, regulations, unions or even labor contracts. It will be work for me today at what I pay, or hit the road, I'll find ten to replace you. The world wide globalist desire for total free movement of labor is on the agenda of elites. The EU has it now, inside the union. A greek can walk into any Glasgow shop and ask to work for less than any Scot. Any Pole can move to London and undercut all the local plumbers in order to get market share. When Middle East, Africa, India, CHina and others can become mobile global labor, another cycle of race to the bottom begins. Why will the UK never close it's borders to illegal immigration? Simple, these desperate people will undercut all others for low wage jobs. Business benefits. Supposedly the consumer benefits from lower prices. Race on! Towards zero wage work.
Thanks Jack. That fits with somethings I've been saying for years about how ACA Health Act doesn't address the poor people that us Hospitals for health care, plus ACA made millions of workers part time workers (not sure the real figure here).
I posted something last week about how the system has been redesigned from Capitalist, Military Republic... to some kind of Fascist Socialist Experiment that is pushing at least half of our 150 Million Labor Force into joblessness and Social Programs with friends & Family housing support. The Jobs are going away: Outsourced, Offshored, Automated, Robotized... while since Ronald Reagan Bipartisan politics has ruled over Washington DC with Lobby Money the Driver, and Debt has soared with Neoliberal Economics the Driver.
Brain Dead Politics in DC has no Idea how to facilitate or create an environment for Jobs just like in the Great Depression. Banks gather and say "no" to any ideas.
- $60 Billion for DHS, but not for Jobs Creation
- $60 Billion for Tennessee Valley Authority, but not for Jobs Creation
- At least $2 Trillion to ruin the Middle East, but not for Jobs Creation, Apprenticeship programs, or on the Job Training in woodworking, metal working, electrical HC-VAC, Energy Production, Hydrology, Aquaculture, Horticulture, Waste Management
- $1 Trillion spent Annually on MEDICARE/MEDICAID and no money to figure out how to reduce these huge burdens
- No we are going to help the Banks Extract all the Money from US Households as possible and we will call it "Government"
Collapse is not going to be nice, but inevitable.
Bankers Dream: Global Economic System which maximizes use of at least 5 different Economic Classes of people, low mobility between socio-economic classes, low wage growth in economic classes, barriers between classes including education within at least 5 different levels of education, anyone who is chose to move to a higher economic class will "Owe" the system and his mentors.
Bankers Dream relies on surveillance of debt, credit, financial systems, and NSA type augmentation to Official Government Control Systems.
Articulated superbly, Jack.
But, as bad as WalMart is, Amazon is worse. See, people are now mostly avoiding shopping in actual brick and mortars (too depressing, too annoying, too ________ (inset your word here). And the real scary thing is we are all being driven to the amazon experience.
SICK.
And what happens when Mr. Digital finally takes all the jobs including manufacturing, repairing and programming itself. Obviously earning a wage will be soooo Victorian and not an option. Where will the demand come from.... the robots? How will the now mostly useless carbon units feed, cloth and house themselves. Only answer I can come up with is government issuing credits. But can government issue discretionary credits too. Would that not be the very definition of socialism many on this site abhor? Those that think this machine technology is so cool might want to reflect upon this. This appears to be where we're headed.
You mean we wont be job locked? Lovely
Watch the last half of WALL*E to see how future humans exist in a world of robots.
Watch Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3, and Terminator 4 to find out how future humans exist in a world of robots.
Listen to, "We're All Bozos On This Bus," by The Firesign Theater.
Thanks! My wife seen your reply and now wants to watch it. ..........
The Elephant in the room problem with jobs that no one talks about is all the fucking mega-companies that have consolidated 2-3 & 10 times to the point their "efficiency" is now infringing on the point of zero customer service. Everytime I have to interact with one of these companies I cringe, because either the wait time is astronomical, or when you finally get through the phone tree, the doofus on the other end is in Bangladesh or some other fucking place and has no clue as to the answer. Might as well be a robot for the quality of service.
Bottom line: break up all the monopoly companies and there will be jobs again.