So it begins- Wendy's To Switch To Self Ordering and Automation To Avoid $15/hr Wage hike

[Carlos Huerta]

Do u not realize how half of jobs being taken by robots will destroy our current economy and social structure...

Granted I believe a universal basic income will help alleviate that when it comes to that point but it's no telling if/when our flawed was government would do something so drastic

No, I don't realize that, but I'd love to hear the argument.

 

[PortCityProphet]

Yes, there needs to be some sort of balance. We had that balance in the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was doing great WHILE corporate regulation was strong and corporate/wealthy taxes were high AND worker wages were fantastic. The working class did just awesome in the 1960s, especially when Kennedy/Johnson were president. Minimum wage and average wage were both much higher than they are today.

That was also the stage in US history that the population in general was happiest and had the lowest incidence of mental health issues, FWIW.

Every since corporate deregulation and tax breaks for the wealthy became a huge thing in the 1980s, the state of working-class people has been stagnating or dropping while the profits of the top 1%, top 0.1%, and top 0.01% have been shooting through the roof.

I suggest you read Larry Bartel's "Unequal Democracy" for a run-down of take-home income from the late 1940s through the mid-2000s. He tracks who made what kinds of incomes at different times, and how the economy was doing during those times. The crazy thing is that from 2006 (the end of his data) through 2015, the situation has only multiplied.

Not to derail the thread but

 

[ℒine ☈acks]

Free trade schools and public colleges.... more apprenticeships.... more career/skills focused training in high schools.

i like the sound of that but your proposal probably cost more than a 15 dollar minimum wage...and i can tell you right now people will complain about that too...b-but why they get a free education and im stuck paying off loans...

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Damn Gina, your arguments are horrible.




That doesn't make any sense.

Corporate lobbying FAR outpaces worker lobbying. So right now, the balance is way, way off, and that is reflected in our legal system.

Getting a living wage as the minimum would be a drop in the bucket compared to the favors that corporations have already been able to get.

It's like you're saying, "You can't complain about my $100,000 bonus unless you give up asking for your $100 bonus!" The issue isn't that no one should be able to request something from the government. It's that corporate heads are working outside the public system in order to get FAR more from the government than workers are getting.

If corporate lobbying is the problem, why not get rid of that? $15 minimum wage wont do shyt to challenge that, or in general. My point still stands. You would rather play rig the system tit for tat than actually address the issues workers are facing.

This is an intelligent conversation. High school level tactics won't work here.

I show you something that Germany does better than the USA. You reply with, "BUT BUT BUT their economy isn't perfect!" by pointing out that they have a problem...when the USA has that same problem, only worse.

It's like ridiculing someone when their rushing average drops from 5ypc to 4ypc in the rain...when everyone else's average dropped to 3 ypc.

If you want to actually do a meaningful comparison, then show how Germany's working-class workers are worse off than the USA's working class workers. Just showing that their situation ain't perfect, when it's far better than the American situation, is an exercise in futility.

Well, since our exchange has been about manufacturing, we could start with the fact that manufacturing is leaving Germany and coming into the US. Lot of manufacturers are building plants here and shutting them down in Germany. That is def working out well for German auto workers :yadontsay:

No, it's not, because the exact same thing happened in every developed country whether they had strong worker protections or not.

No matter what, a wealthy country will have higher labor costs than an impoverished country. You can't change that unless you maintain a slave base. Arguing that Germany has higher labor costs than Mexico is ridiculous when every developed country in the world has higher labor costs than Mexico.

We live in a globalized world. If labor is cheaper in Mexico than it is in Germany, why should a manufacturer build anything in Germany? More importantly, with the knowledge that manufacturing flows to the cheapest base, why would anyone in a developed country choose a career as a line worker? The only way manufacturing has stayed in Germany is via national union law. If you need a law or tariff to keep an operation afloat, it's knocking on death's door.

If they're paying them less than a living wage, they're abusing them. Pretty much by definition. You have to at least get paid enough to live on. It's ridiculous stupid that we support a system where the only way many workers can live is by going without health care, forcing both parents to work at the expense of the children, and/or getting some form of welfare from the government.

$15/hr won't make healthcare affordable. $15/hr won't mak childcare affordable. In many cities, $15/hr is well within the threshold of what is eligible for govt assistance. So by your own definition in many places $15/hr isn't even a livable wage.

Let me ask you a very simple question. Would you rather these folks get $15 an hour minimum wage, or

- public healthcare
- public childcare
- public tools to get more skills and education, and the protection by law for their jobs to allow them to utilize them

because to me, those seem surer pathways to low/middle class wealth. What good is $15 an hour to a parent, which is about $1500-2000 after taxes, when childcare is up to $2000 a month for babies and $1500 a month for kids? This issue is forcing parents to stay home instead of work. which is horrible for the everybody. That is that much more money not being generated, that parents' skills and hirability atrophying, that family that much more at risk to slip into poverty etc. etc.

So again do you want to go after corporate fat cats or actually help the people you have latched your agenda to? If minimum wage is more important to you than the day to day concerns of the working poor, stop pretending to give a fukk about the working poor.

 

[Xerces]

so how do you leave the bathroom didnt know there were automatic doors

yo fukk all this anyway id rather order it from a person, sorry. you're gonna have a bunch of retards who cant figure out the machine take 5 minutes to order. i think it sounds terrible

yea, we'll just pay someone 15 to mess it up for you then have the nerve to give you attitude when you tell them they messed up

 

[NotAnFBIagent]

No, I don't realize that, but I'd love to hear the argument.

I see why your rep is in the red...here's some more to go along with it

 

[LurkMoar]

Bunch of emotional ass nikkas in here



Capitalism 101




Dont hate the player hate the game

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Yes, there needs to be some sort of balance. We had that balance in the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was doing great WHILE corporate regulation was strong and corporate/wealthy taxes were high AND worker wages were fantastic. The working class did just awesome in the 1960s, especially when Kennedy/Johnson were president. Minimum wage and average wage were both much higher than they are today.

That was also the stage in US history that the population in general was happiest and had the lowest incidence of mental health issues, FWIW.

Every since corporate deregulation and tax breaks for the wealthy became a huge thing in the 1980s, the state of working-class people has been stagnating or dropping while the profits of the top 1%, top 0.1%, and top 0.01% have been shooting through the roof.

I suggest you read Larry Bartel's "Unequal Democracy" for a run-down of take-home income from the late 1940s through the mid-2000s. He tracks who made what kinds of incomes at different times, and how the economy was doing during those times. The crazy thing is that from 2006 (the end of his data) through 2015, the situation has only multiplied.

Ah yes, the 50s and 60s, when

- Europe, SE Asia, Russia and Mexico were non-existent on the global stage
- The US population was half what it was today, and the world population was 1/3-1/2 what it was today
- There were zero environmental regulations

Oh and the absolute BEST parts.................................................................................................................

- the only people in the US with access to those great economic protections and wealth in general were white men

For fukks sake.... if the country was the happiest during that time, how do you explain the Civil Rights Movement? How about McCarthyism? Japanese internment camps? You have got to be kidding me. It was bad enough that you are a redistributionist/socialist masquerading as an advocate for the poor, but on top of that you are a revisionist too?

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

i like the sound of that but your proposal probably cost more than a 15 dollar minimum wage...and i can tell you right now people will complain about that too...b-but why they get a free education and im stuck paying off loans...

Welp people are already complaining about how fast food workers are getting $15/hr while other folks who do much harder jobs aren't. And businesses are already closing down or accelerating automation to workers. Plus it's not really more expensive and there's ways to work around it. Give people who still have student loans a tax deduction. That problem is solved.

 

[Carlos Huerta]

I see why your rep is in the red...here's some more to go along with it

I ask you for the argument and you neg me?

 

[151_Pr00f]

Ah yes, the 50s and 60s, when

- Europe, SE Asia, Russia and Mexico were non-existent on the global stage
- The US population was half what it was today, and the world population was 1/3-1/2 what it was today
- There were zero environmental regulations

Oh and the absolute BEST parts.................................................................................................................

- the only people in the US with access to those great economic protections and wealth in general were white men

For fukks sake.... if the country was the happiest during that time, how do you explain the Civil Rights Movement? How about McCarthyism? Japanese internment camps? You have got to be kidding me. It was bad enough that you are a redistributionist/socialist masquerading as an advocate for the poor, but on top of that you are a revisionist too?

Balck people made a lot of progress during the 60's, matter of fact that decade saw the growth of a black middle class. Just because the battle for civil rights was being fought during that period doesn't take away from that. There was progress being made on two fronts.

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Balck people made a lot of progress during the 60's, matter of fact that decade saw the growth of a black middle class. Just because the battle for civil rights was being fought during that period doesn't take away from that. There was progress being made on two fronts.

I don't think you can separate one from the other. We were seeing the benefits of digging our way out from all the restrictions imposed on us.

I think we can all agree that the 50s were NOT a good time for black Americans. Redistributionist socialists always seem to forget that when they talk about how "great" the 50s-60s were.

 

[NotAnFBIagent]

I ask you for the argument and you neg me?

Shouldn't have to argue what should be common sense

 

[Carlos Huerta]

Shouldn't have to argue what should be common sense

Your argument is that automation destroys an economy? Is that it? Just want to be clear.

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

Do u not realize how half of jobs being taken by robots will destroy our current economy and social structure...

Granted I believe a universal basic income will help alleviate that when it comes to that point but it's no telling if/when our flawed was government would do something so drastic

None of this is new. They said the same thing would happen with the cotton mill, the assembly line, the computer, the automobile, etc. But it seems like with every innovation there was a huge increase in prosperity for everybody.

U do realize globally we are in a period with the lowest rate of poverty ever?

Its not machines or automation people are up against. It's competition. Unless u want to send the world back to 1949, or throw away all the machines and computers, competing against people willing to do the same work for less money, or machines/computers willing to do it for none is something everyone has to get used to. Which is a good thing. If a machine or Bangladeshi factory worker can do your job, it's probably a miserable dead end job someone in a first world country shouldn't be working in the first place.

The goal HAS to be to enable everyone to reach their full potential through maximum employment. Everyone can't be a doctor or IT manager but our middle class shouldn't be fighting for minimum wage jobs. We are collectively smarter and of higher value than that.