Gee. What A Surprise.
I’m sure everyone is aware of the economically inane push by our “good friends” on the Socialist “Progressive” left to mandate a minimum wage that is higher than reality will support. Something to do with “fairness” or “it should be a living wage” – or some other such similar bullsh!t.
I guess they must have slept through Econ 101’s classes about supply and demand. Or maybe they simply think that they can create new economic reality by legal fiat.
Well, pretty much anyone with a clue predicted that the effort would be counterproductive – e.g., that it would either lead to layoffs from lost business (due to higher prices) or would lead to job loss through employers replacing human employees with machines. The left either ignored the warning, or claimed it was bogus.
Well, libidiots – read ‘em and weep:
Wendy’s response to minimum wage hike:
Replace staff with machines
Wendy’s isn’t the only one. Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are also considering doing likewise. I’m guessing a bunch of others are too, but simply haven’t made that fact publicly known yet.
Let me ‘splain it to ya, lefties: some jobs simply aren’t worth $10+ an hour. Flipping burgers and mopping floors are such jobs.
Minimum wage jobs are not and never were designed to support a family. They’re low wage positions that by design (1) require few skills, (2) can be done by most anyone who isn’t physically disabled or a moron, and (3) are intended to be part-time or entry-level positions. Anyone who expects to support a family by working such a job, without some second source of income (either in cash or in kind – like SNAP or public housing assistance), is seriously deluded.
The moral? Be careful what you ask for, libidiots. The law of unintended consequences always applies.
And in this case, the unintended consequences were both predictable and obvious.
Category: Economy, Liberals suck
They do believe that they can alter economic reality-because intentions. So long as they intend well (by which I mean that their actions make them feel really good about themselves), then the result of having not done well doesn’t really matter. So long as they get to pat themselves on the back about what super good people they are-the rest is just something that other people have to deal with.
After leaving the Navy in 1980 I started working in the computer industry in Detroit. The 1980’s was when truly functional industrial robots became more common. It was also a recession in the early 80’s and a time when some of the more progressive factions in the auto unions still pressed for higher wages and benefits even as their workers were being laid off as auto production ramped down.
Fast forward to 10 years ago – the body assembly and paint shops are automated. One body assembly area I saw some years back was quite impressive. No light, other than what spilled in from the final assembly line area. Shadowy movement of the body parts moved by conveyors and robots. Sparks from the arc welders would shoot up in the dark looking like fireworks or volcanoes. Not a human in sight.
Those who don’t learn history….
A military friend, Stationed in Italy with the 173rd Airborne, says that McDonald’s has minimal staff there, using kiosks to order from. They just don’t get it. These jobs are for first timers in the work force and senior citizens who just want to “do something” to occupy their time.
Going to school or apprenticing, takes too much effort for these people. There are a plethora of skills that pay good money, but don’t require more than just “learning the trade” by working with a craftsman. I have had no college education that contributed to making more money, but can work in a half dozen or more skills that pay damned good. But, I had to first work as an apprentice to get the knowledge that allows me to ask for, and get, that higher wage. Sweat equity is unheard of in the 21st century.
These people look at guys like Mike Rowe and think that hard work is for suckers.
They’re the whiny little shits that look at say, a Mechanic, Electrician, or Plumber and think that they’re automatically owed a higher wage when those Professionals have gone to school and learned a trade while the Plumbers and Electricians have to finish their Apprenticeships afterward to earn their Journeman’s Cards. There’s NOTHING wrong with working your ass off to earn an honest paycheck. I do that and I take pride in the fact that every penny I earn is honest money and I don’t owe SHIT to those that don’t want to work or better themselves.
They’re also
educatedindoctrinated by their teachers in high school, to think that they deserve $15/hour to flip burgers. And that the wages should keep rising as their job skill stagnates to flipping a burger or raising and lowering the fries basket.When they aren’t being told that they “NEED” to get that degree in Navel Gazing and walk into a six-figure salary in a corner office.
Most HS guidance counselors are so out of touch with reality I’m not sure what color the sky is on their planet.
Must suck to be a union ‘leader’ about now. They can inform the 1/3 remaining in the FF industry how much they have fought for their $15. The 2/3 on the street? Hey, we’re sorry. We did all we could for you.
Likely a commie shade of red.
I saw those same kiosks at a McDonald’s in France. There were two food prep workers, a drive-thru worker and a manager for the entire restaurant.
I thought it was nice because I didn’t have to try to talk to anyone in French, haha.
Huh, whoda thunk it
Apparently not the
Socialists“Progressives” clamoring for a higher minimum wage.Of course, most of them wouldn’t have the common sense to pour urine out of leather footwear that extends above the ankles, either.
I was reading not too long ago that the “true” burger flipper jobs were a minute % of the work force and were staffed mostly by youths entering the work force.
If you are over the age of 25 and have no more ambition than to work fast food then you should get a DECREASE in pay every three months so you will go out and learn something else.
That being said Fast Food can putr you on track to working in other areas of the fdood service industry, which can be a good career.
^^^^ This ^^^^
They took err jerbs…durka durbs! Yeah, karma sucks.
My first job was in fast food – I made $2.30 an hour which was minimum wage at the time. All of the part-timers like me were students. There were a few full-timers but (other than the managers) no one who viewed it as a career. I remember one was an aspiring musician. It was either pocket money while in school, or a stopgap paycheck until something better came along.
And yet you ended up at the Citadel. See, that’s how the system is supposed to work.
😉 – not sure if that was tongue-in-cheek or if you’re thinking of someone else. Larger point being, though – yes, it was just a stepping stone along the way to bigger and better things!
My Bad, OFD strikes again. A commenter with the username Bill is the Citadel guy. And it WAS meant as a compliment.
There are many unintended consequences of this feel-good mandate and one doesn’t need a degree in economics to see them. In the commie/progressive/libtard universe, the mandate will be met and those who profit from the fruits of others’ labor will have reduced wealth. It is imagined to be some sort of swap: a higher wage for employees and a lower take for business managers and owners. What could go wrong? If you answer “everything” you will either be exactly right or nearly so. Jobs will be lost, not only to machines but to people previously out of the workforce: retirees. I would rather hire a 64-year-old retiree than a 17-year-old kid, for all sorts of reasons. So, bye-bye kid. And I will have to let someone go if I can only employ one person today for what I employed two people for yesterday. And why? Because the central planners in government think that they can simply overcome the laws of economics and of human nature through legislation. In turn, other laws will need to be passed and enforced to effectively distribute “profits” more equitably and to prevent companies from shutting down. Welcome to the commie/progressive/libtard new world.
Damn, 2/17 Air Cav – you used a variant of the “C-word”. You have thus invoked . . . He Who Degrades Discussions With Useful Idiocy. For shame!
“In turn, other laws will need to be passed and enforced to effectively distribute “profits” more equitably and to prevent companies from shutting down. Welcome to the commie/progressive/libtard new world.”
Sort of like what’s happening in Venezuela???
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/venezuela_seizing_factories_arresting_owners_.html
I’m sure Sean Penn, Michael Moore, Harry Belafonte, Oliver Stone, not to mention the greatest intellect of our time, Don King, have a plan. I understand step #1 is to stay the hell out of that shithole just now.
You guys do know that Brazil’s Rouseff has been relieved of her job, right? And while Maduro (Venezuela) is still seated, he may be unseated by the end of this year, because Rouseff was his last means of support. Now she’s gone.
Welcome to the real life world of “Atlas Shrugged”. And Ayn Rand was writing from experience.
Those who fail to learn from experience, etc.
“And in this case, the unintended consequences were both predictable and obvious.”
Annnnd…. the liberal left will still try to push this through and blame Bush for the consequences.
When your job could be performed by a cell phone or a Roomba, you really oughta be careful when it comes to making demands. Hell, even the cooking staff can be significantly reduced with a little automation–and ironically enough, the guy who doesn’t get laid off actually will be worth a slightly higher salary, since he’ll be operating electronics and machinery.
There’s a higher-end burger place in San Diego’s Fashion Valley Mall (I’m sure they have other locations as well) called Stacks. Every table has a low-end iPad chained to it. You order and pay with the iPad. The reduced floor staff (I’ve never counted more than four in a place that’s got about eighty tables plus a bar) are only there to bring your food. The service is quick even when they’re busy, and they never get your order wrong. How long do you think it took for those iPads to pay for themselves?
Right now it’s a novelty place. But you know that’ll change. The only eating establishment that I don’t expect to see go that route in the next few years is Tilted Kilt, because there the waitresses are kinda the whole point.
Hooters is safe.
Tilted Kilt is safer
And has better food than Hooters.
I wouldn’t know, never ate at Hooters. But Tilted Kilt has surprisingly good food and service with a…uh…smile.
Don’t be so sure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGdoKIPcqPE
And you don’t have to tip ’em for sticking their tits in your face…
Leave it to the Japs to come up with something so creepy…
Look, if you absolutely have to have a robot chick, at least do it right! I refer your attention to the following:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OqNO6wZaNHM
Cylon girls have personalities, likes, dislikes, and a pulse. You just have to get past the whole “genocidal warfare” thing and then you’re good!
The questions is, would ID SARC hit one?
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
Does the sun rise in the east and set in the west?
Well, while that’s all true, there will always be the family-style restaurants that people have gone to for years, with lots of waitresses who know you by name the next time you show up, and who make most of their money from tips. Chains like McD’s and BK will be around for a long time, but some day, even the ‘servers’ will be replaced by Honda robots. Ditto the people at the drugstore. They’ll be replaced by robots and only look human from the checkout counter up.
I guarantee it.
Huh. I’m going to SD on vacation in a few months. Gonna have to try that place.
ex-OS2. My thinking is that gov’t will see a need to intervene to overcome the inevitable bad consequences. Usually, this begins with tax incentives, not unlike what NY is doing. After Albany took measures to punish successful businesses, it collectively said “Oh shit!” when the desirable tax base fled. It is now promising those and other businesses the moon in order to get them back. So long as the states can set their own rules on taxes, fees, licenses, and the like, states can compete with one another for the businesses. This will necessarily end one day when the central planners in D.C. decide (with the blessings of the Supreme Court, of course) that one sixe must fit all–and the death on 50 individual entities will be announced. At that point, there will be one nation, comprised of districts or some such thing, and the states will be no more. We have been on that road for quite some time now. It is inevitable.
You are absolutely correct, sovereign states will be a distant memory. I beg the question, How do we keep that from happening?
“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Rahm Emanuel
What we are talking about here has been in the making since the Civil War, a central gov’t that is far too large, too powerful, and far too intrusive in matters originally reserved to the individual states. The transformation is astounding and it has been accomplished in ways unimagined by our Founding Fathers. States have sold their souls for federal tax dollars and are constantly threatened with their loss for noncompliance. (A good example that is current is the transgender business propounded by the DOJ and Dept of Ed. Another is M.oBaMa’s healthy lunch program that replaced Cokes with sparkling spring water and Twinkies with bland and mushy vegie bars or some such unpalatable sludge. (Of course, she was powerless to effect changes. Regulations took care of that for her.) And what the government cannot entice states to buy into, it coerces them under threat of law suit. And then there’s the Supreme Court. It has taken upon itself powers that no Constitutional provision gives it. It is one of the chief vehicles for effecting social change and its pronouncements are (or were) taken as gospel. Congress has slowly ceded its powers to the Court to the extent that overturning court decisions through legislation isn’t even discussed any longer. It would be fruitless, any way. Just look at the newly discovered right to gay marriage. If Congress were to pass another law declaring marriage to be only between a man and a woman, well, that would be reversed as unconstitutional now. It’s a right. I could go on and on but the question is, “So, how do we stop it?” Individually, we don’t. It will take states to take risks, to balk at federal mandates, to sue, to forego federal dollars, to gather together and formulate a plan to recover their power. Then there’s the Constitution. There is more than one way to amend it, and some states are looking at just that. This is, actually, the states’ greatest power, even a credible threat to amend the Constitution through state action can work wonders. Do I think this is likely… Read more »
2/17 Air Cav, So basically we are fucked. By the way, thank you for your service.
Yeah, that’s another way to put it.
No surprise at all, as you so eloquently point out, Hondo. It’s what lefties do best – force solutions to something which are more painful than their imagined original problem. They’ve been effectively practicing this tactic for a century or so.
It’s waaaaay past time for the left to learn the meaning of the word NO.
Well look at Seattle and what has happened up there. I thought the left after mandating home loans for all would have figured it out…
The Left considers minor things like causing the collapse of the real estate market circa 2006-7 (via the completely predictable long-term consequences of the idiotic mortgage policies instituted under Willie “Cigar Lover” Clintoon) acceptable collateral damage in support of “the cause”, Skippy. So long as it advances their agenda, they don’t much give a sh!t who or how many get hurt.
And with 84 month new car loans, I can imagine that being the next collapse.
Roger on that ????
From Forbes in February of this year:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/02/19/seattles-15-minimum-wage-jobs-down-unemployment-up-this-isnt-working-is-it/#530e2da83712
And the NY Post:
http://nypost.com/2016/03/12/how-the-15-wage-is-already-killing-seattle-jobs/
“Furthermore, Seattle’s loss of 10,000 jobs in just the three months of September, October and November was a record for any three-month period dating back to 1990.
Meanwhile, employment outside the city limits — which had long tracked the rate in Seattle proper — was soaring by 57,000 and set a new record high that November.”
Well, du-u-uh!
You see, the problem with this brilliant idea is that the people who propose it have no real idea where money comes from. They really do think it grows on gooseberry bushes, just like all their food comes from the store.
The downside of it is that they chase off the companies that have jobs and….
Oh, wait – you already knew that! Sorry, I forgot, we all live in the real world.
Yup. Add SEA-TAC airport employees to that as well. They got their $15/hr, and then they had to pay for their meals, parking, insurance costs went WAY up, no more retirement match, etc., to the point they’re making no more than what they did before.
I know. Shocking.
That’s a good point, Skippy. The traditional risk determinations were shelved in order “to share the American dream” of home ownership. People who couldn’t qualify for a library card, let alone a credit card, were doled out loans that a blind man could see wouldn’t be repaid. This was done to “reinvest in the community.” Sounded just peachy, sort of like “No jobs, no justice.” And what a horror it turned out to be. Lending institutions folded and the market was awash in foreclosures, with many homes bought in that mess today boarded up. Community reinvestment indeed. Many communities’ street people and drug addicts are grateful. Those homes are a great help to them in the cold months.
But that wasn’t entirely a loss for the Democrats, Cav; remember the building boom all that free mortgage money inspired? Lots of trade union folks who vote Democrat did real well and continued to vote Democrat.
And by the way, we should call this beast by its correct name and that is not liberal or socialist, but DEMOCRAT, for it is the Democrat party that is pushing this economic idiocy in the hope of gaining votes from minimum wage earners at the expense of the nation’s economy. And those calculating bastards think that $15 an hour will be a magnet for all those illegals who will be more, loyal, Democrat voters.
Of course, as we can see, it’s blowing up in their faces, but since when has a bad result from their obvious stupidity ever caused the modern Democrat party to change course? They just keep moving further left.
Before “perks”, an E2 out of Basic Training makes about $9.80 @ hour calculated on a 40 hour week.
Nice to know that burger flippers are worth more than those willing to die for our country…
And I’d love to meet a person, especially in combat arms, sea duty, etc., that EVER work a 40-hour week.
Back in my day, 70-80 was a good deal. 50 was nearly unheard of. Out at sea, 100 was pretty much the norm.
$15/hr after we pay off the burger-flippers student loan debt. Priorities of the self entitled.
Do not discount the fact that many of us who have been in the restaurant business for decades are closing them.
It is not just the wages and tax burden that goes along with it. Water and Sewer is high enough now there is an EPA tax, I pay a tax on the amount of paved parking area, I pay tax on the value of my equipment and contents, I pay tax Elec and Gas in addition to the bill, I pay permits and fees to 5 different government agencies, I paid about $38,000 in credit card processing fees, Insurance prems have tripled in 15 years. Last year I paid about $23,000 in property taxes, for the privilege of having it.
All of those things paid before I sell a nickle worth of anything and pay two separate sales taxes.
Then, if I have anything left, 43.5% of that goes to the Federal, State, and Local government.
The EPA ruled our little New Mexico mountain town had small amounts of impermissible impurities in the treated water that leaves our sewage treatment plant and flows into a small stream that ultimately dries up and disappears in the desert at the foot of the mountains. The village council had to float a bond issue to build the EPA-mandated plant and our water and sewer bills doubled overnight.
My water bill here in Arkansas is one-fifth what it was there. That’s just one example of how government regulations can impact your personal finances.
WHAT THE shit-eating pisspants fuckety-fuck-fuck ever happened to wanting to work one’s way up or learn skills that would increase one’s value to a prospective employer? I’m a college dropout but I use the job skills I’ve acquired over the years and I now make more than many a college grad. I see this shit as a byproduct of the “Touchie-feelie-everyone gets a hug and a trophy” mentality that has thoroughly infested and infected American Culture. I’ve worked my ass off over the years to get to where I’m at and I DON’T OWE SHIT to those who have sat on their asses and done nothing to improve themselves or their lot in life. I remember working in fast food for$3.35 an hour and trying to find ways and skills that could get me a better paying job. if one of wants to deliver pizzas, fry burgers or mop floors they need to settle for what it pays.
Welcome to the entitlement age my friend.
Uh, that went out the window along with common sense and responsibility when feeling good about yourself flew IN through the window. And then self-identifying anchored that stuff, and – well, here we are.
How do they find time to work? Must be tough with their aromatherapy salon visits, micro-aggression seminars and visiting their safe places for a group hug and slurpfest.
Time to work? Who would hire them? They can’t spell, they can’t do simple math, they can’t function without a computer, they are functionally illiterate and they have no job skills of any kind.
So who would hire them? Do you need a housemaid?
Prior to my wife’s passing last year, her daughters husband was here at my home. He’s a photographer by trade. Makes little money, basically lives off his wife. He told all who were present that. He did not have time to work because he was too busy being a advocate for the minimum wage.
Sonny-boy lives in the greater Portland Oregon area, which is extremely liberal. Needless to say I have little time or respect for the little asshole!
I don’t think I could spend even five minutes with a turd like that without putting his head through a wall!
And don’t forget, some of the biggest proponents of this shit are people like SEIU, UFCW, and other unions who will then try to tie union wages to a multiple of the “new” minimum. That’s been a usual tactic ever since the minimum wage was created in the 1930’s. So-and-so is unskilled fodder and gets X, I’m trained and skilled, so I deserve 3 times X, or so goes the logic.
When they’re not trying to carve out exemptions from it for themselves:
http://www.economics21.org/html/why-unions-exempt-themselves-hard-fought-minimum-wage-hikes-1339.html
And don’t you just love it when the teachers’ union says ‘go on strike’ the day after school opens? And yet, the kids WANT to be in school, so just how much do the teachers really care about teaching?
Ex-PH2… some do – mostly older ones (I see it daily), but there are too many that are disillusioned by the job and only look at it as a paycheck, or just don’t give a damn about it. I personally know of a local school where there are severe problems – almost daily verbal altercations between staff, discussion of legal/CPS issues of students in the open, verbal abuse of students by staff, etc. Parents have demanded that the superintendent take action to get things under control, including “cleaning house” at the school. The teachers got their ass handed to them by the district at the negotiation table over a recently ratified contract, which has many looking at the district and union as being the problem. Throw Common Core and teacher evaluations in the mix, and it’s just a pot of shit stew in my AO.
What needs to happen is get the unions out of the schools and getting people willing to step up as School Board members. Then, clean house and get back control of what the kids learn in schools. Until it happens, the schools will continue to put out uneducated, lazy kids that have no business of working anywhere other than the local FF joint – for $9.75 an hour!
Absolutely. Maybe they could find work at a local lawn care business owned by an immigrant. Have you ever noticed how many lawn care companies are owned by someone with a Spanish surname, plus ‘and sons’? And they start with an old pickup truck, a couple of tarps, rakes, lawn mowers that you can buy at a nearby pawn shop, and before long, that old pickup is hauling an equipment trailer and there are a couple of other guys in the cab with the driver. And it just grows from there.
Ex-PH2, I DOUBT that any of those little gnat-farts would last even a few hours working for an immigrant-owned landscaping or lawn care outfit. The immigrants that own and operate those businesses built their outfits from square one with their blood, sweat and tears and they’d fire the little shits as soon as they bawled about breaking a sweat while crying for a “safe space’.
Yeah, you’re right. The term ‘work ethic’ is a foreign language to them. I forgot. My bad.
Having had multiple crews working on my house over the past couple of years, it strikes me that the current hard-working-immigrant-just-trying-to-feed-his-six-children meme is mostly a myth. There has been little, if any, apparent difference in having anglos or latinos working on something in terms of the effort expended. The differences tend to be more subtle, and the downside of using a latino crew can include the following:
Skillsets don’t always match. There seems to be a more of a lack of skills among immigrants that can extend into simple stuff such as basic carpentry and plumbing. For example, knowing how to saw the end of a board off square is a fundamental.
Language barriers can be an issue particularly if a project is relatively complicated. On flat-fee based projects this might not be as important as hourly ones where you can wind up paying twice for work when it needs to be done over.
Although this might sound racist, there seems to be more of a need with latino crews to keep tools and materials under lock and key. It’s not a big difference, but it is noticeable.
Yes, but, Perry, most of the people I’m referring to aren’t doing construction work unless they’ve been here a while and have some real training.
I do know what you mean. My long-since ex-landlord hired a Mexican guy to fix the ceiling in my bathroom. He and eight of his ‘cousins’ showed up to do the work and spent most of the day in my bathroom waiting for the paint to dry. They also showed up when window frames had to be repainted, cracked a couple of my windows, thinned the paint with gasoline instead of paint thinner and didn’t put the screens back. When we, the tenants, complained about all of this, we got crickets from the landlord, but all those unskilled workers got paid.
I know exactly what you mean, but they aren’t all like that.
Let me ‘splain it to ya, lefties: some jobs simply aren’t worth $10+ an hour. Flipping burgers and mopping floors are such jobs.v
The above statement is just as wrong as saying “flipping burgers and mopping floors are worth $10.”
The value of an employee in pay and other variables should be set by the employer and the employee in an agreement. That agreement should be devoid of governmental interference and outside parties saying they know how a business should be run better than the guy who runs it.
There are really good “burger flippers” who are so good and so fast that they can take the work load of a 2 people. There are burger flippers whose product consistency and presentation increases sales to the business. The owner – not you, me or the government – should say “this guy is worth more than what others think.”
The same is true for a mopper of floors / cleaning person. In a restaurant, a person who cleans the kitchen and or the dining area has an impact on the business in both what the customer sees and what health inspectors demand. (You’d be surprised at the standards for cleaning within secure government buildings.)
The point I am trying to make is that when people say “workers deserve $x.xx, they inflate the value of bad employees and diminish the value of great employees. The same holds true for saying “employees of certain jobs aren’t worth $x.xx.” The statement devalues excellence in employees.
If we truly want freedom in the economic sense, we shouldn’t mandate what companies must pay, and we shouldn’t criticize or limit the pay of any employee.
Leave the pay and economic value of an employee to those in the business.
So then we should do away with the minimum wage mandate, I agree. Pay for performance, not tenure or “I deserve it”.
Union ‘leaders’ collective brain explosions in 3 – 2 – 1 – BOOM
“The same holds true for saying “employees of certain jobs aren’t worth $x.xx.” The statement devalues excellence in employees.” Not at all. Their value is recognized by their being retained. What you do not seem to be considering is the value produced by the employee for the business owner. Some jobs can be done by most anyone while others require special skills, talents, or licensure. If someone is paid as much or in excess of what they produce, the business owner is either treading water or under it. What’s more, the worth of an employee changes by forces that a business owner cannot control. As taxes and fees and this that and the of ‘the government affect’ rises, costs have to be offset ne way or another. I don’t know about you, but I am not prepared to pay $22 for a Big Mac and a large soda.
Remember that dude up in the Great Northwest a while back who started paying all of his employees $70,000 a year. I think he ended up back in mom’s garage.
And his senior employees, with critical job skills, all walked because the girl answering the phone was making as much as they were, and surprise surprise, they wanted to be compensated for their contributions. If minimal skills get a pay raise, those with more demanding skills should get a raise. And that is why we have inflation.
Yeah, how would you like to be the person who worked his butt off to get $15/hour, only to learn the untried newbie got it on day #1 and now you have to show him the ropes. You would march right into the office and demand $20 or go anywhere else and be assured that you will not earn a cent less than the mandated $15. More intended consequences…
Nah, I’ll just quit driving the delivery truck and go back to sweeping the warehouse floor – same pay for a lot less hassle. Let some other sucker bust his/her ass :).
The funny thing is that you disagree with the statement and then go on to prove its veracity.
The idea that the value of an employee is recognized by their retention makes no sense as there are some jobs (union jobs and jobs at the VA for example) where totally worthless people are retained. In essence you seem to be saying that a less than great employee retained at $y.yy has the same value to the company as a great employee at the same pay scale because they are both retained.
If someone is paid as much or in excess of what they produce, the business owner is either treading water or under it.
That is not true at all. For example, if one person is making widgets and the another person is making widgets at twice the rate and with better quality control, the second person is worth more to the company because he creates the chance for more profit. What they produce has a value. What they sell that product for minus the costs is profit or in the case of the second employee, increased profits.
Once again, it is not up to someone outside a company to say “that job isn’t worth paying $x.xx” just as an outside person is saying “that job is worth paying $x.xx.” The value of the job and the value of the work of an employee is determined by company – not outside people and certainly not some government crony who has never run a company in their life.
“The funny thing is that you disagree with the statement and then go on to prove its veracity.’
No, I proved no such thing. You have now injected unions into the mix but, like government as employer, the union shops are a separate matter, artificial and altogether inconsequential to this discussion. As for the line you abstracted from my comment, you try to refute it but, to do so, you add facts; to wit, a second, more productive employee. Of course the better producer should earn more than the other. Because of the added value, the better producer is neither keeping his employer treading water or under water. BUT, where there is no enhanced value, the lesser producer’s adequate performance merits a lesser salary and is rewarded by keeping his job.
Agreed. You do agree that there should be no minimum wage mandate, correct?
There is a crap ton of peer reviewed research out there on the effects of a higher minimum wage. This research uses ACTUAL EMPIRICAL DATA. Not a bunch of bullshit rhetoric and a idiotic reference to high school economics. Increasing minimum wage does NOT increase the money supply and thus it does NOT increase average inflation. It does increase costs at some businesses that were previously paying their employees a lower minimum wage. Some of these businesses may fail but will be replaced by new businesses since there is a greater amount of national income held at the local level instead of transferred to the international financial/shareholder class. And when I say “shareholder” class I am not talking about the people who own stocks. I am talking about the fraction 1%ers that hold massive and majority holdings in industries that employ minimum wage workers.They are the ones that keep the majority value of employing low wage workers and expecting the public to subsidize their workers wages. When the minimum wage is higher a higher percentage of the money in an economy stays within communities helping not only the families working at minimum wage but businesses throughout the community. Essentially main street becomes wealthier and wall street becomes poorer. It is essentially a non-tax means of income redistribution from the financial class to the lower class and local small business class. And never forget that a lower minimum wage is a means for some businesses to transfer some of their business cost onto taxpayers. Because their workers earn less than a subsistence wage in many markets they are eligible for food and subsidy programs that shift fill the gap the of the wages paid by the “employer” through taxpayer funded programs. So when you advocate to keep wages low what you are advocating is that taxpayers should subsidize the income of Walmart, McDonald’s, Starbuck’s workers etc. And the nonsense about firms automating is a red herring and scare tactic. Let them. Eventually if it is POSSIBLE in the marketplace to automate they will do it anyway the wage question really just… Read more »
We all have the opportunity to be in the top 1%. I will choose to flip my own burgers at home.
Pot roast for supper tonight with carrots, turnips, onions and potatoes, plus a nice fruit and cheese board and a glass of wine for afters.
Sounds delicious, what time? What kind of wine?
An inexpensive but pleasant and slightly dry 2014 Tuscan red.
Perfect!
Oh, and by the way, Lars, you ignoramus, waitresses make the bulk of their income from tips. In fact, they do better with tips than they will if they have a higher hourly rate, because the restaurants where they work will cut their hours drastically.
This notion of yours that having lower wages doesn’t motivate people to make more effort is pure ignorance on your part, but one must take into consideration the fact that you know nothing about the work world because you have never had a REAL job in the REAL world.
Blabbity blab, blab, blab. WTF ever happened to wanting to improve one’s knowledge and skills in order to achieve a better income, o candyassed bloviating poodle dick? Your “education” is more worthless than rubber lips on a woodpecker, Lars! I’m a Blue Collar Man and I’m absolutely sure that I make more money than you and will continue to do so after you graduate. YOU have little more than a bunch of asinine talking points handed to you by some freeze-dried hippie perfesser that has never earned a living outside of a college campus.
You lose, Commissar.
People already know this, hence the reason why college tuition is so insanely expensive now and why even degrees from good universities are devalued – too many damn people are chasing them to avoid spending their lives working shitass minimum wage jobs. There needs to be a balance or the middle class will be effectively gutted.
Lars, I’m sitting here in front of a MACHINE where I PREFER to do as much of my shopping as possible without a hovering sales clerk asking me every five minutes if I’m “finding everything alright,” so don’t try to sell me that garbage that people prefer “human” service in shopping.
My sweet little convertible sitting out in the garage is an Internet find that required minimal time with a salesperson at the dealership. I even found the home I’m sitting in right now online and my interaction with a human realtor was absolutely minimal.
There’s ya some ACTUAL EMPIRICAL DATA suggesting you may just not be as correct in your assessments as you think you are.
Ditto, Poetrooper, and I regularly engage in barter with my neighbors, too.
Boy I can just picture that.
Neighbor: Well, what are going to barter for today?
Ex-PH2: Well for starters, I won’t shoot your ass off if you get out of my effin’ yard.
Is that kinda how it goes?
Heh…
Nah, nothing hostile. It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood.
Your model assumes that Wall Street/major shareholders will bear the brunt of the wage increase. This is rarely the case. If anything, the costs are passed on to the very recipients of said wage increase, or worse, the ever shrinking middle and upper middle class, hurting their chances of upward mobility that the increase was intended to help. Loose money supply and heavily inflated PE ratios means that the shareholders will always come first. Also, you dont necessarily need an increase in the overall money supply to increase average inflation over time: a rise in labor and input costs can do that for you too.
Yeah, all the auto manufacturing jobs in Detroit went to Oklahoma and Ford City and down to Mexico. When the unions forced Inland Steel into bankruptcy, the thriving city of Gary, Indiana became as close as you can get to a ghost town in less than a year.
And how were those jobs replaced?
Would you like fries with that?
If the poodle actually KNEW anything about running a business and making it successful — but he doesn’t, because as he told us some time ago, he never held a REAL job in the REAL world (except at McD’s) until he got an Army job. And that isn’t really in the REAL world in the sense that a trauma nurse’s job is in the REAL world. Oh! And lest we forget, socialized medicine just may reduce the number of emergency people like trauma nurses and EMTs.
Sometimes, my neighbor mows my lawn. If I’ve bought extra chicken because it’s on sale, I’ll give him some. That’s called barter. It’s not business. It makes the government real hinky when they can’t tax barter, and the revenooers complained bitterly about barter fairs back in the 1970s because they couldn’t calculate the value of two bushels of canning tomatoes traded/bartered for 6 dozen eggs plus 10 pounds of fresh butter.
I wonder if there are any barter fairs around any more. Hmmm….
I just got through mowing my lawn and trimming the verge. Lovely day. I’ll plant flower seeds tomorrow and hope they blossom by July 4th.
Increasing minimum wage does NOT increase the money supply and thus it does NOT increase average inflation.
Economics grade: D- go back and review “cost push” inflation and try again.
Words of “enlightenment” coming from someone that has never held a job in the workforce.
BTW – medicine is not just looking at a lab printout and giving the patient some pills. There are some diseases the mimic others; the practitioner still has to look at and put hands on as part of the assessment process.
Economic socialism is not the great fix you think it is , Lars…
HEY LARS, you served in the Middle East, right? I remember Officers like you and I have to ask JUST HOW many times did someone CS you when you were in the shitter?
Commissar does not know me.
She’s back? What’s the matter, Lars? Your hand have a headache again?
” Because their workers earn less than a subsistence wage in many markets they are eligible for food and subsidy programs that shift fill the gap the of the wages paid by the “employer” through taxpayer funded programs”
Sounds a lot like if they get a $15/hr wage, then you are saying there is no need for food stamps or any of the the other ancillary programs.
When I do something liek go through a fast-food line, I ask myself if what the person is doing is worth $30,000 a year. Normally I not only think “not only no, but hell no” I am also moved to remember the aphorism that “Minimum wage is telling you that looking at how you work, we would pay you less for what you do but it’s illegal to.”
Working as a section manager for a contractor working in the Pentagon, I had one of my sub-par performers come bitching to me when he found out that someone else was earning more than him. I explained to him that he was free to negotiate a salary at the time of hiring, and what was offered to him must have been acceptable, because he took the job. It’s all based on supply and demand. If there are 50 other candidates that have your skill set, and only one available position, you do not have the upper hand. I also told him that the company pays you what you are worth. I tell people that he responded with “I can’t possibly live on that”. I don’t recall if he actually said that, but damn, that is funny.
See, as a defense subcontractor, I have mixed feelings about this. Is the worker subpar based on actual production metrics (you know, the reason why the contract exists in the first place?) or is it based off of who likes who or whatever? Because I’ve seen plenty of guys get pay raises that didn’t really do much all day except talk and pretend they were in charge while the guys actually doing the work didn’t get much of anything because they have less time to talk.
When I was a pup, I knew men who worked two and three jobs, year round, usually a F/T and a P/T or two. They were providers. They saw their duty to provide for their families and they did exactly that. Vacations were by the day. Some of you know what I am talking about. For others, I may sound as if I’m from another planet.
Something that might be pointed out is that a lot of employers now have made an effort to both cap the hours an employee works in order to avoid full-time benefits, and to discourage people having multiple jobs by implementing flex scheduling.
Wow, I’m usually all about this website but you guys are going full potato here. Adjusting for inflation, 15 bucks an hour to flip burgers really isn’t that unreasonable. “Old Economy Steven” memes are fairly accurate in this case, and what people don’t get is that wealth in America is usually inherited, not earned. The social upward mobility rate is behind the Philippines. I will repeat that, because it bears repeating. The social upward mobility rate in America is officially behind the fucking Philippines. The PHILIPPINES. I mean Christ, if that isn’t an indicator of how bad America is effed up now, what is? Simply talking down to the new generation and saying “but hard work! Come home to an apartment and stare at the wall until you sleep and go back to work! Do that for 10 years and maybe you might get a house!” isn’t a realistic attitude for the new economy.