Idiocracy: Carl's Jr Vending Machine is HERE!

Just so long as they keep making those commercials.


www.rsvlts.com/2013/01/15/the-9-hottest-carls-jr-commercial-girls-of-all-time/

Just watched that movie again last week. Compared to the timeline in the movie, our current state of idiotization is occuring at an alarmingly accelerated rate.

Anyhoo...my brother was visiting from Chicago over the holidays and we are politically polar opposite (but we respect that, no heated arguements between us). Something about Unions came up and he was all Union gung-ho and blah-blah the poor working class. I just find it really hard to believe how anyone who has ever taken an economics class can justify how absurd "minimum wages" benefits anything. Aside from across-the-board inflation that would shift the cost curve (thus, making $15/hr the new $7/hr for you Gamecocks fans) innovation (i.e. the aforementioned Carls Jr. slingin' robots--Carls Jr., Fuck You! I'm eating--) will evolve to replace the role of the human. Taken to the next power, an entire entry-level job niche could be rendered obsolete. What then? My 2 cents here, but, are these people starving or living on the streets (maybe some are, but let's not consider the outliers)? Or do they just want more stuff? Materialism is a larger blight on the working class than corporate greed.

"B: Thanks to these fools pushing for $15 an hour for no skill jobs, guess what, you're now going to be replaced by a machine. Good job."
"At the local Jack In the Box they have a touchscreen ordering kiosk to cut another $15 employee out of the loop."
"Aside from across-the-board inflation that would shift the cost curve (thus, making $15/hr the new $7/hr for you Gamecocks fans)..."

Where in the U.S. are fast food workers making $15 an hour? Last I checked, Federal minimum wage was $7.25 an hour, correct? Help me out, why are we cheering for low-wage workers to be replaced by robo-burrito venders (and blaming them if they are), or lambasting the fact that some of them are asking for a pay increase? God forbid folks with mental and physical gifts on the low-range of the spectrum be able to earn enough money to get off welfare...

On-topic, robo-burritos? No thanks. Part of the charm of a fat-laden, disgustingly delicious fast food burrito is that it comes from a a visibly soiled kitchen area and is delivered by a dood with a 'Born To Luze' prison tat on their neck.

GM, I know you're against the minimum wage. I disagree, but folks far smarter and more learned on the topic than you and I ALSO disagree on the subject, so that's neither here nor there. There is certainly something to be said for reduced government intrusion in the market. I wish we could find a middle ground between extreme minimal govt. intrusion (which historically = rivers catching on fire due to pollution and a host of other bad things) and the sort of overreach that throws up ridiculous barriers to folks trying to get ahead, but I'm not holding my breath.

My issue with the above quotes is the presumption that automation is a direct result of workers seeking higher wages. Is that the case? Because I would like to see a non-anectdotal study from a non-biased source that shows it. I would posit that automation is a way for corporations to increase production and cut costs, REGARDLESS of what wage they pay their workers. Ford didn't automate his factories because he thought the cost of labor was too high. He RAISED his workers wages concurrent with the automation of the times, in large part to increase the potential market for his product. Classic 'trickle down' economics, correct?

Here's a link to an academic study about the correlation between increased mimimum wage and employment:

www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/148-13.pdf

Summary is on the bottom of p. 38, but that's not the point. Skim the entire paper. It shows that economic research is much more complicated than most of us give it credit for, and a blanket assumption like "Increased minimum wage = takeover by robots" is almost invariably a fallacy.

GM, do not, I repeat DO NOT try to read that entire paper, unless you're just a glutton for punishment or need a way to fall asleep at night. It's mind-numbing and statistics laden - - just like all good research is!

The purpose of posting that paper was only to show that unbiased economic research is extremely complicated, hard to find, harder to interpret, and generally only allows research into a VERY narrow and variable filled snapshot of a given economic situation at a given economic time. Further proof in my mind the fallacy of making blanket statements like "the minimum wage is good" or "the minimum wage is bad".

Your opinion on making individual contracts for individual pay has apparently been discounted by pretty much every corporation on earth that employees anybody in a first world production system. Pay 'per unit' in manufacturing has been replaced by set pay per hour for decades (unless you're an 11 year-old girl stitching t-shirts in a Chinese sweatshop, they still get paid 'per unit'). Why? Engineering efficiency has maximized how many 'units' per hour or individual it is desireable, safe, and necessary to produce. If you're working at Bill's Burrito Factory and can make 100 burritos per hour, that's only useful if demand necessitates that level of production. If demand is 25 burritos per hour, anything above that is unnecessary and wasteful. As long as an employee can keep up with the desired production rate, it doesn't matter if they can do more, and it's not desirable to produce more.

A person on the line at our local Toyota plant would get fired if they were told to produce 25 bumper assemblies and they instead made 45. They would also get fired if they could not produce 25 bumper assemblies per hour. Low-end labor doesn't lend itself to individual contracts.

Your wife is not in a low wage 'production' job. She is in sales or design. Sales personnel routinely make a bonus or rate based on what they can sell, which makes sense for sales. Most sales people that I know make a base salary plus commission.  I don't actually know any salespeople that only work on commission.  Do you think it is unfair that your wife's design work is a salaried job?  Would it be better for her if she was paid by the design job?



There are some jobs that DO predispose themselves to 'per unit' compensation, but you assume (with the burrito example) that the production worker is also in charge of creating demand for their product as well as producing their product.


Does your job predispose itself to 'per unit' compensation? If so, what would that look like? Mine doesn't. I suppose I could be compensated per run I make at the fire department, or per procedure I perform in the ER as a tech, but that seems incredibly complicated. What would be a fair scale for that? Pulling a kid out of a burning house = $10,000? Telling a confused lady that the alarm she hears isn't her smoke detector but is instead her alarm clock = $25? Starting an IV = $30? Getting a worried family member a cup of coffee while they wait for ultrasound results = $1.50? Do I not make anything if we don't make a run that day, even though I was required to be on-duty and ready to respond to emergencies the entire 24 hours? Perhaps we should establish a true free-market system in the fire service whereby I perform on-the-spot negotiations with a person whose dad is having a heart attack, while another fire company stands next to me and tries to negotiate a lower rate so they get the job?


Instead, I get paid by the hour, because some things are out of the workers control. A good plumber who gets assigned a really tricky job that ends up taking a long time should not be penalized because his cohort (also a good plumber) was assigned several easier jobs and can complete them more quickly. Each are working hard and efficiently, but fuck the guy that has the more difficult job? Can you think of a fair system for paying the two plumbers taking that into account? Can you think of a way that the plumbing company estimator could even bid that job if there wasn't a stable hourly rate he could use in his estimate?


A 40 hour work week and hourly wage does a few things that are a net positive, but it primarily (IMO) insures a somewhat stable financial situation for working folks and helps smooth out the ups and downs of the production market, which is good for the economy.
 

Next NYT Besteller:  "The Burrito Economy" by Gingerbread Man, with a foreword by DannusMaximus... 

/pushes GBM and DM out of his way
Ok, you two are hogging the thread.  GBM, you know better.  Blue text = sarcasm

Back in the day when I entered the workforce, minimum wage was $5.25.  My first job was fast food and since I was under 18 PA state law allowed them to only pay me $4.25 as a "student wage", I worked there for about a year and said "$4.25 and I do the same as others?  Screw that, I'll find something better" and started looking for another job.

Next job was as a bus boy for $5.25 and hour.  Sure it was just minimum wage, but better than what I was earning.  So, one day a family friend comes in whom I haven't seen in maybe 5 years.  We chit chat and he asked if I worked weekends.  I was off weekends since the regulars worked it for overtime.  He asks if I would want to work in the factory where he was a manager.  Sure, what does it pay?  $10.25/hour for graveyard shift, no overtime pay since I didn't work 40 hours.  JACKPOT!!

The factory was a dye house with dangerous chemicals and insanely hot.  In the summer it would regularly get over 120 degrees with 90% humidity. So I worked there weekends for about 4 months.  One guy retired and they offered me full time for the summer since I just graduated high school and was going to college in the fall.  Saturday was 1.5x and Sunday 2x.  I worked up to 60 hours a week all summer.  I reeked so bad from all the chemicals, my mom made me go through the basement entrance and take my clothes off and right into the washer.  I had sulfuric acid spilled on me, trisodium phosphate got in my eye, regularly sticking my arms in 200+ degree water with a rubber glove on, I mean this was a job with a harsh working environment.  And the pay reflected it.  Eventually it came to me as I looked around at the guys working with me and I realized I wanted something more, something different.  So I enlisted.

When I got out of the military I went back to college for an associates degree.  Why only an associates?  I didn't want to go too far in debt and an associates would get me a good entry level job.  Of course I didn't get an associates in art history or ancient sanskrit.  I got a degree in computer science.  I worked for years, then went back for my bachelor degree.  Now I'm going for my masters degree using my company's tuition assistance.

So here's what I'm trying to get at with my long saga of jobs....

1) If you don't like your job, find another one.  Even Publix pays stockboys about $10/hour.  Closing a clamshell on burgers or dropping fries in a fryer isn't a $15/hour job, a dye house is $15/hour or more.  And if you were truly a "subway sandwich artist" my food would look like the picture on the damn menu!
2) The military has plenty of jobs which you don't have to deploy overseas.  You just need a reading level above 5th grade.  If you don't have that, you don't deserve $15/hour imo anyway.
3) No need to get into insane debt for a bachelor degree when plenty of entry level jobs will accept an associate degree.
4) If you want a degree, get it in something that is needed.  Ancient sanskrit degrees are not in demand I don't care how much you love it.
5) I advise at least take a few computer programming courses to anyone getting a degree.  Even a few classes might be enough to get a job in it until you can find a job for your degree.
6) Don't bitch about your life, change it.


OK, and my novel continues....

Let's say I'm a small business owner with 9 employees and I pay them minimum wage of $7.25.  So the new regulations say anyone over 36 hours I have to provide health care.  I can't afford it, so my simplest solution is cut back everyone's hours and hire someone to make up the hours.  Woot, I created 1 job so I'm now up to 10 employees (although all are part time to avoid the medical insurance issue).  So now someone says "Let's make minimum wage $10/hour" (Yes, it's been discussed).  So 10 employees @ 36 hours/week = 360 employee hours.  With the old minimum wage that's about $2600/week for payroll.  With the new wage of $10/hour that's $3600/week.  How do I make up that $1000/week?  I can cut my work force which will hurt my production OR I raise my prices OR both.  So raising minimum wage forces me to release 2-3 employees (it's ok, they'll get unemployment which I have to help pay) and since I raise my prices to make up the rest of the money, the minimum wage increase just got a little smaller since people have to pay more for my products.  Oh wait, I forgot.  All the people who supply me now are in the same predicament.  So my costs have gone up and now I need to offset those costs by again, raising my prices or letting another employee go.  Let's say I let another person go.  Now I'm down to 6 employees which means I can't produce as much, so I raise prices again to cover operating expenses.  That $10 just got another bite taken out of it.

So for my fictional business, adding health care and a minimum wage increase added 4 more people to unemployment, the remaining 6 employees work 4 hours less, and raised prices which means that $10/hour buys the same as the $7.25 use to buy.  I mean, I don't have a degree in economics (see part 1 about getting a degree that is useful) but I don't see how raising the minimum wage "helps" build the economy.