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Fast food strike

PhDeac said:
50 years ago, someone could support a family from that crappy job. Now there are fewer crappy jobs and those who do have them can't. That's where the problems lie. It's not necessarily about wages, but inflation.
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Partly inflation, partly the disappearance, through outsourcing and automation, of millions of low paying jobs. We've had massive unemployment since 2008. Massive. The official unemployment rate ignores many, many people who have been forced out of the workforce and gone on disability, retired early, or are making ends meet on student loans. Millions of people are in a situation where no matter how hard they work or want to work, there are no jobs for them to have. That's where the bootstraps narrative falls apart. We have to recognize that there are winners and losers in capitalism and society has an obligation to support the losers if we are willing to let the winners have all the winnings.
 
Deacon923 said:
Just responding to this part of your post. Part of your argument works, part of it I think leaves out or ignores some important issues. A big part of the issue here is that what most Americans consider an acceptable standard of living (especially in high-cost-of-living areas) is fairly expensive by global standards. You have to consider that the amount of money it takes to live that way may simply be more than the amount of money that 40 hours/week of certain kinds of labor are worth to a rational employer. If a person is not able or willing to do work that pays enough to live in a given city, who should bear the burden of that fact? The employer, or society at large?

If you say the employer, then consider how the employers will respond. As an employer, I might want to have a nice man in my building's elevator to push buttons for guests who are laden with suitcases and small kids, but simply cannot justify paying that man $290 a week ($7.25 x 40 hours). His labor is just not worth it. I could pay him $50 a week, but not $290, and I'm not allowed to pay $50. So I do away with the job altogether, and pretty soon my customers (and everyone else's) get used to it, and so now instead of every building in NYC having one of these guys, only the ritziest hotels in town have one. So now instead of hundreds of guys having a crappy job, only 2 or 3 guys have a job (and it's still crappy). Hundreds of jobs in NYC alone disappear, which reduces opportunities for low-skilled people to learn basic job skills that (hopefully) they can leverage into a better job.

Note I am not suggesting that we expect these people to live or support a family on $50/week. There will always be people who just are not capable, mentally, physically, or both, of doing work that pays enough to live on. Our society needs to face the fact that we have poor people in our midst, stop blaming poverty on the poor, and support the poor with well-designed, easy to navigate safety net programs that don't disappear when they get a low-paying job. At the same time, we have to recognize that when we try to load the whole burden of social safety net programs onto employers, employers are going to react rationally to those increased costs by offshoring, automating, passing on costs to their customers, or just flat out eliminating marginally productive jobs.

ETA: IAppreciateIt's post #147 is saying the same thing I am saying here.
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you certainly have a point that inc. wages decreases the # of jobs available in the economy. i don't really understand economics, so i can't really say how to fix the problem from an economic perspective, so i didn't offer a solution lol, but i'll try to address your main point.

i think, looking only at the economics, the biggest difference between your example and this issue is that the bellhop or whatever is really a just a luxury. people can carry a bag and push a button themselves. they cannot so easily substitute the labor of the cook of a FF restaurant when there is a demand for relatively cheap and relatively fast food (and that demand is, i think, somewhat more inelastic than the rest of the hospitality sector because there are always gonna be busy people needing a quick meal, and poorer people needed cheaper food, etc.). obviously to pull this off there is not gonna be a dollar menu, but execs can't be making 30 mil a year, either. raising prices should be easy esp. when everyone else is as well. don't know how to fix the latter problem.

so IOW, with respect to this particular case, i already think almost all FF locations are only staffed with people doing essential jobs. i do not think they are employing bell hop type workers who they can just cut and not have to replace. ignoring job creation from rapidly growing businesses, the only way these jobs go away is if locations close or people cook their own cheeseburgers on their lunch break.. i think that gradual changes to wages that outpace inflation but do not hamstring franchisee's would do a lot to mitigate the phenomenon where jobs begin to disappear because employer's can't justify the costs while also prevent franchisees from going belly up so everyone is out of work.

this could be incorrect, people could just start eating sardines and vienna sausage and spam and FF restaurants really will close en masse, but for me the key is gradual changes. as far as other jobs where demand is more elastic and your job is non-essential/being replaced by machines...yeah that's a tough cookie.

oh and the statement we need safety net programs that don't disappear as soon as you get your 7.25 hr/job could not be more accurate.
 
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Deacon923 said:
Partly inflation, partly the disappearance, through outsourcing and automation, of millions of low paying jobs. We've had massive unemployment since 2008. Massive. The official unemployment rate ignores many, many people who have been forced out of the workforce and gone on disability, retired early, or are making ends meet on student loans. Millions of people are in a situation where no matter how hard they work or want to work, there are no jobs for them to have. That's where the bootstraps narrative falls apart. We have to recognize that there are winners and losers in capitalism and society has an obligation to support the losers if we are willing to let the winners have all the winnings.
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No doubt the disappearance of jobs is a huge factor in the broader bootstraps narrative. But for even those who have a job, sometimes two jobs, to struggle to make ends meet is even a bigger condemnation of the system.
 
he just wants to know why his decimal level test costs so much you guys GOSH
 
bobknightfan said:
What the hell are you talking about? Why should I be an expert on hearing tests, you smart-ass mother-fucker?

You don't even seem to be able to answer the simple question of whether or not you are employed in the healthcare industry.
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how can you possibly know what something should cost or have any right to complain about what it costs if YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE PAYING FOR.

I'm not in the healthcare industry, no. I missed that question. This is simple logic.

it's pretty fucking simple.
 
But I notice at no point did you actually ask your doctor(s) or service provider. Just go take your nap.
 
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after reading i appreciateit's post, i can't say i disagree. from that paradigm, if the argument is we need a better safety net, you will not get any disagreement from me on that, and i could grant that if govt is picking up the tab on essentials, then 7.25 becomes a lot more realistic wage. i think it is a good idea to try and get the money from these social nets from increased taxes on parts of the economy that can best sustain it. so his post makes a lot of sense.
 
dmcheatw said:
you certainly have a point that inc. wages decreases the # of jobs available in the economy. i don't really understand economics, so i can't really say how to fix the problem from an economic perspective, so i didn't offer a solution lol, but i'll try to address your main point.

i think, looking only at the economics, the biggest difference between your example and this issue is that the bellhop or whatever is really a just a luxury. people can carry a bag and push a button themselves. they cannot so easily substitute the labor of the cook of a FF restaurant when there is a demand for relatively cheap and relatively fast food (and that demand is, i think, somewhat more inelastic than the rest of the hospitality sector because there are always gonna be busy people needing a quick meal, and poorer people needed cheaper food, etc.). obviously to pull this off there is not gonna be a dollar menu, but execs can't be making 30 mil a year, either. raising prices should be easy esp. when everyone else is as well. don't know how to fix the latter problem.

so IOW, with respect to this particular case, i already think almost all FF locations are only staffed with people doing essential jobs. i do not think they are employing bell hop type workers who they can just cut and not have to replace. ignoring job creation from rapidly growing businesses, the only way these jobs go away is if locations close or people cook their own cheeseburgers on their lunch break.. i think that gradual changes to wages that outpace inflation but do not hamstring franchisee's would do a lot to mitigate the phenomenon where jobs begin to disappear because employer's can't justify the costs while also prevent franchisees from going belly up so everyone is out of work.

this could be incorrect, people could just start eating sardines and vienna sausage and spam and FF restaurants really will close en masse, but for me the key is gradual changes. as far as other jobs where demand is more elastic and your job is non-essential/being replaced by machines...yeah that's a tough cookie.

oh and the statement we need safety net programs that don't disappear as soon as you get your 7.25 hr/job could not be more accurate.
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Everyone thought that there would always be a demand for Detroit autoworkers in 1965. So they were able to negotiate really good wages and benefits and so forth. But the world changed, and making autos in Detroit became a "luxury" as compared to making them in Mexico or Japan- and the jobs went away. In the 90s and 2000s everybody thought that lawyers would go on making more money forever and ever, but guess what, you can now get a lot of doc review and discovery work done in India by US trained lawyers for $20/hour, and the law biz is sucking.

The point is that just because a fry cook is a necessity today, doesn't mean he will be tomorrow. If the cost of employing a fry cook gets high enough, the market will find a way to replace him with a machine. The machine will be expensive, but it will also be reliable and guaranteed not to get in fights with the manager or be late to work. The reason that such a machine does not currently exist is because it is currently cheaper to employ a 19-year old kid to do the work, even with all the problems the 19 year old kid causes.

Raising the minimum wage will cause some marginal FF restaurants to close and others not to open. It may cause cashiers to be replaced by touchscreens (I understand some McDonald's in Europe already have these, exactly because workers are so expensive there). I would rather tax society at large and provide a solid, even generous, safety net than load more burden on employers.
 
Costco gives hearing tests for free.

This is probably an incident of a doctor taking advantage of an old man.

How much does your anger management therapist charge?
 
bobknightfan said:
What good do you think that would have done? And I couldn't have done it, anyway. I didn't get the bill until several weeks later....and nobody told me when I was there to take the test "Oh, by the way, the fee for this test is $1,200." So I posed the question on this board. I'm sure there are lots of professional healthcare people on this board. WF is filthy with them. However, to date none of them have even acknowledged the question or offered any reason or defense of that charge for that service.

The only response I got was your smart-ass comment that "maybe I could show them how to do it for less".

Anyway, we will eventually get a single-payer, government-run healthcare system. The people will eventually rebel against all the greedy gouging when they are no longer able to pay for healthcare. We are almost to that point now. And, thanks to the Tea Party, we are in the process of ridding the country of today's Republican Party....which supports all that greedy gouging. So I have lots of hope for the nation's future.
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"it's greedy gouging because I don't like paying money for things!"
 
bobknightfan said:
Speak layman terms here. I don't have any idea what "ABR" means. I put a headset on and went into a soundproof booth. I was told to repeat words given to me at various decimal levels (or whatever the term for that is) for each ear and a lady outside the booth scored my answers as to what the level of hearing impairment was in each ear at different sound levels. Took about an hour, at Cone Outpatient Services on that road that runs parallel to Elm, behind Cone Hospital.
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ABR is Auditory Brainstem Response, in which they hook up electrodes to your "hearing" nerves and measure the response as sound is passed through the nerve. What you had was booth testing. What they are doing on the outside of the booth is the computer is measuring the various volume levels and frequencies, and plotting your responses. If you get hearing aids or other devices, the audiogram plot is uploaded directly into the hearing aid software so that it is programmed at the proper settings for your hearing levels. The booths can cost a few hundred thousand dollars depending on the equipment in them, so if you figure pro-rating the cost of the room/equipment, combined with the cost of the audiologist to actually perform the test, $1200 could make sense. If you want to have your hearing tested in a barn with some bells, it would probably be cheaper.
 
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PhDeac said:
50 years ago, someone could support a family from that crappy job. Now there are fewer crappy jobs and those who do have them can't. That's where the problems lie. It's not necessarily about wages, but inflation.
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For sure, but it's also a question of mobility, particularly from working to middle classes. There are a host of factors that complicate mobility that we had previously taken for granted, especially in mainstream economics. Criminal records strike me as the most significant, but the decline of the industrial and manufacturing sectors that made the middle class are significant, as well. With the ever increasing credential gap creating harder pathways to mobility, not to mention the increasing cost and shrinking access to "legitimate" institutions of higher learning, it's becoming MUCH more difficult to get jobs with upward mobility. Folks are increasingly staying in dead end jobs, especially when there are benefits are minimal security, for precisely this reason. Then, factor in inflation and it's a dire situation.

Additionally and while I think 923 and IAT's exchange is really productive (on a previous page), I can't help but think that IAT's two-choices don't tell the entire story of this new economy.
 
huwb.jpg
 
bobknightfan said:
Thanks, finally, for a reasoned response. (Though the idea that that booth should cost "a few hundred thousand dollars" is another issue in itself.)
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I mean, it is a soundproof booth filled with computer-driven diagnostic auditory equipment that has to get installed in an otherwise standard office building. I don't know the specifics of the one you were in, but it isn't something that you pick up at Best Buy.
 
Deacon923 said:
Everyone thought that there would always be a demand for Detroit autoworkers in 1965. So they were able to negotiate really good wages and benefits and so forth. But the world changed, and making autos in Detroit became a "luxury" as compared to making them in Mexico or Japan- and the jobs went away. In the 90s and 2000s everybody thought that lawyers would go on making more money forever and ever, but guess what, you can now get a lot of doc review and discovery work done in India by US trained lawyers for $20/hour, and the law biz is sucking.

The point is that just because a fry cook is a necessity today, doesn't mean he will be tomorrow. If the cost of employing a fry cook gets high enough, the market will find a way to replace him with a machine. The machine will be expensive, but it will also be reliable and guaranteed not to get in fights with the manager or be late to work. The reason that such a machine does not currently exist is because it is currently cheaper to employ a 19-year old kid to do the work, even with all the problems the 19 year old kid causes.

Raising the minimum wage will cause some marginal FF restaurants to close and others not to open. It may cause cashiers to be replaced by touchscreens (I understand some McDonald's in Europe already have these, exactly because workers are so expensive there). I would rather tax society at large and provide a solid, even generous, safety net than load more burden on employers.
Click to expand...

i'm pretty sure i understand where you are coming from, and i can't say when the french fry cook will no longer be needed or what will happen economically on any level when that occurs. these are my thoughts as i read ur post:

1) in 1965 it may have been a good idea for the economy to have entered into that agreement with autoworkers. just because the world has changed didn't make it the wrong move at the time. if we start hiking the wages up gradually, and put in provisions for reviewing and changing the agreement between employers and employees we can further reduce the risks of a detroit type situation.

2) imo, none of your examples apply to inc. the FF workers minimum wage in the present. u adequately explained how it could bite us in the ass in a short period of time, but not why in the here and now it isn't a better plan than doing nothing. if you've been arguing the same thing iappreciateit is, then all i can say is i don't disagree, i haven't followed the thread that closely. though i do not know how to fix the problem, i do not think sitting on the sidelines now because of a potential problem later is good enough reason not to intervene. if that was the attitude, society would never get anywhere. the best we can do is try to learn from the problems we're dealing with now wrt the auto industry and lawyers when entering into an agreement with FF workers.

3) machines don't get late for work...but they do need maintenance, break down/parts, and need electricity as well as someone to push at least one button. obviously if u can afford one, the theoretical machine is still better in the long run, but you can't act like such a machine is anywhere on the horizon or that start up costs are the only issue. until you we make actual robots, i don't see how u clean and stock the store, load the machine, press the start button, handle the drive thru and the cash register, and lock the door at night w/o humans (this assuming the machines don't break or need supervision, either). so even if some game changing machines are on the horizon, how many jobs will they really eliminate until they can help unload the delivery truck and turn off the lights at the end of the day?

4)in the last paragraph, job creation and the possible effects of a min wage hike on R&D for FF automation were kind of beyond the scope of the discussion and so i left it out for the sake of simplicity.

i'm pretty sure we actually agree. ur ultimate theme seems to be to help these people out via safety net(s) instead of min wage hikes...I think that is a great idea. i was just pointing out some of the problems people are bringing up with min wage hikes can be dramatically mitigated if implemented a certain way. i didn't really intent to respond on this thread because the specifics of this issue demand a certain level of economic understanding. i just got really irritated by reading the "budgets" proposed with a straight face by people born into the middle or upper classes who are making 2-10 times as much as an MCD employee and have time to post on the msg board from a soft chair with high speed internet while deriding everyone else about how lazy they are. those people are seriously out of touch with reality, even if they are working/worked quite hard at their own educations and jobs.

i think ur general points are in-assailable, but i do not think ur actual examples apply that well to the specifics of this situation--they don't have a union to start, and automation of an assembly line is a whole different ballgame than automating a multi-step service.

of course my POV makes its own assumptions as well. if too many people did start eating crackers and kraft mac-n-cheese, then that would be bad.
 
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@DM - not going to quote your last post because it was pretty long. I don't disagree with many of your points, and I am not one of those arch-libertarian flag wavers that goes all Chicken Little about minimum wage increases - a minimum wage increase will not collapse the fast food industry or eliminate all fry cooks or destroy the economy, etc. etc. But I am convinced that the minimum wage has in fact reduced the number of low skill jobs available in this country, and increasing it will reduce those jobs further - at a time when, frankly, we need all the low skill jobs we can get.

Raising the standard of living of the working poor is important, they keep falling further behind due to inflation and other factors, and the current economic recovery is pretty much all going to the 1% while the rest of us stagnate. But I think that between the minimum wage, Obamacare, and a million other government mandates, we've loaded our employers with enough social welfare burdens. It's time to reform the safety net and fix the tax code so we all pay to support the poor, without the unintended consequences of loading more onto employers.
 
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