Fmr. McDonald's USA CEO: $35K Robots Cheaper Than Hiring at $15 Per Hour.

[Themius]

Do you actually think that counters anything I've said? That only strengthens my argument.

If your current system isn't working and is wasting money THEN CHANGE IT. Otherwise you're going to continue wasting money.

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Do you have a source or are you just speaking out of your ass?

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They do this with crime statistics too, it's quite funny.

"If you ignore all our worst citizens in the statistics then we're actually the country with the lowest crime rate. Other countries of course have to continue including their worst citizens in their stats!"

Wait do you think there is another country that's better when it comes to compensation and upward mobility when it comes to finance careers?

[Tyrianth]

Some jobs will die, but another will take their place. It's been like that forever. Don't worry there wont suddenly be less jobs, there will be just different jobs.

Except their will be less jobs and jobs are already decreasing. The jobs being created by automation is not equal to the amount of jobs automation is displacing. That would entirely defeat the purpose of automating in the first place...

[Wolfheart9]

Fact: Automation, like all other technologies, becomes cheaper and more efficient every year.

Fact: The cost of living increases every year.

Conclusion: Basing arguments over wages on the threat of automation is completely meaningless, because automation is inevitable and people will continue to need to survive even after the cost of automation/hour has dropped below the already unlivable minimum wage.

This argument is and always has been a strawman.

My favorite part is how narrow minded people's views are.. In my parents era, right out of highschool a McDonalds job would get them an apartment, a junker car, healthcare, and enough money to go out now and then and have fun. A factory job meant you could own a home and actually look to start a family. Now it's 'If you work at mcdonalds you deserve to die!' and somehow people are okay with this.

[Alvito]

Ladies and gentlemen: The root of the problem.

Though to be fair, still not a supporter of the $15 an hour myself. $10 is reasonable.

10 isn't a living wage which was the original intent of minimum wage. In the beginning it would support a family of four. Now it doesn't support one person. This an issue decades in the making. Those great years some of the GoP likes to talk about planted the seeds for many of our current issues.

[Mindark]

The slippery slope is THE definition of a fallacy and is the exact opposite of critical thinking.

You want some critical thinking:

Bob works for BigCorp for 75,000 a year with a tax rate of 25%.
Bob takes home $56,250 a year.

CountryLand notices that more and more employees are getting laid off due to automation, so to curb homelessness and poverty they implement basic income.
To afford basic income they have to raid taxes by 10%.

Bob now makes $75,000 a year and is now taxed at 35%.
Bob now takes home $48,750.

Bobs not pleased with the fact that he's now taking home less money so he decides to quit his job and live off basic income.

Bob now takes home $36,000.

--------------------

Yup - I'm sure lots of people are going to quit their jobs because they're taking home less than what they used... in order to receive even less than what they would be making after taxes while working.

With basic income, wouldn't Bob make his $48,750 take home PLUS the $36,000 basic income? Bob now makes $84,750 - he now makes 13% more than his annual salary, despite paying 35%.

[Tyrianth]

Wait do you think there is another country that's better when it comes to compensation and upward mobility when it comes to finance careers?

Yes, lots. You've yet to actually provide any statistics or sources. If you're so sure that the US is the best for economic mobility you should EASILY be able to find a source for it. Just as I EASILY found a source for my statement that the US actually has one of the worst mobility rates.

[Reeve]

I know it's been said over and over, and sounds very cliche, but it's the honest truth.

I realized this shit when I was still in high school (why it still evades some grown ass adults is beyond me) and made sure I worked my ass off to get good grades, get scholarships to help pay my way through college, and got a bachelor's degree in a field that had job opportunities available to me at decent wages. I worked hard to get where I am. I put in the effort to make the living I do now. I did the research to make sure I could be where I'm at now. And I was able to figure all that shit out my sophomore year of high school.

Sorry, but a lot of people are in the situations they are in simply because they either didn't care enough when they should have or did not put forth the effort when necessary. This obviously doesn't apply to everyone, but it definitely applies to a lot of people.

And no, I didn't have a lot going for me when I was in school and growing up. My parents were at that point in the income bracket where they made just enough money to not qualify me for government aid in school, but not enough money to actually help me get through school financially. I was able to get all but my very last semester of college (4 year bachelor's degree) paid for by busting my butt earning scholarships to pay for it. I also worked the last two years of my college career with the associate's degree I had earned in the first two years in order to help with other costs. I can't count the number of people I saw who could have done the same thing as me, but chose not to because they were either to lazy or didn't care. And now those same people are paying the consequences at their minimum wage jobs because they've had zero motivation all along to try and do better.

So you'll have to excuse me for having zero sympathy for them and think that it's fucking ridiculous for a burger flipper to be making that much money (especially considering that $15/hour is around what I was making with my two year associate's degree while I was still working on my bachelor's).

People always seem to pound the "work hard" drum. I've done fairly well in my life as well, and I have to say that the times I've done the best have been when I've worked smart and efficient, and not so much hard. Meanwhile I see people all around me who work 80 hours per week, doing difficult painful work, working their asses off, and yet they often make a quarter the money I do.

My sister works her fucking ass off, 70+ hours per week while raising two children. Has the same college degree I do with better grades and a stronger work ethic than me. She's smart, motivated, etc. But she's stuck managing a Sherwin Williams pain store and making half my salary in a city that has triple the cost of living. Meanwhile I'm in the top 5% of wage earners working for a multinational company, because someone who knew me from a house party took pity on my while I was desperately job searching. What I did since then has been mostly due to my personal mannerisms and the effectiveness of my work, but that foot in the door was pure luck. I could have just as easily ended up in bullshit salesman hell.

People always credit their own successes to their hard work. But it's usually a combination of good choices, good connections, cultural acceptability (yes, people are more likely to hire/promote you if they're comfortable with you, and even if they don't realize it, that often means race, national origin, religion, age, and shared interests), personal mannerism, effective work, and luck that causes people to be successful, not necessarily hard work.

I'm glad for you that you've worked hard, made good choices, and had some luck in the job market, but don't mistake your story for one that's possible for everyone. This is doubly true when low skill jobs disappear, high skill jobs start filling up and there just stop being enough positions available for skilled workers.

[Supakaiser]

the computers your can order food from at mcdonalds are amazing, i use them all the time.
though i agree with the worries that it could cause widespread job losses, specially in unskilled jobs like that.

The future is robots will do all menial tasks at businesses such as McDonalds while the people that would normally occupy such jobs will be tasked to service such robots (easy, low-skill maintenance).

[Wolfheart9]

10 isn't a living wage which was the original intent of minimum wage. In the beginning it would support a family of four. Now it doesn't support one person. This an issue decades in the making. Those great years some of the GoP likes to talk about planted the seeds for many of our current issues.

Now to be fair, I'm talking about gov'ment controlled minimum wage, which usually goes for the absolute lowest. $10 an hour is actually liveable in some low-cost areas. If you live in LA or DC? Nah, it needs to be higher.

[Tyrianth]

With basic income, wouldn't Bob make his $48,750 take home PLUS the $36,000 basic income? Bob now makes $84,750 - he now makes 13% more than his annual salary, despite paying 35%.

No, you're thinking of universal income. Basic income is only for people who qualify for it. Usually it's set to say anyone working below X amount gets X amount and for every $1000 they make more than X the income the receive from the government reduced by 2%. This was the method used by Canada when experimenting with it in the 70s.

[Deleted]

They would hire on mechanics on salary to keep them working with a couple fulltimers in store for other things. Without the hassle of having to pay to insure workers along with taxes and other fees it would end up being a huge boost to profits. Not to mention not having to worry about the robots bitching that they dont make enough to flip a burger patty. That alone is a huge boost!

Is it?

You are removing what? Three people in back to add mechanics to the pay roll? Its roughly 30$ a hour on the low end for those mechanics...

[Wolfheart9]

The future is robots will do all menial tasks at businesses such as McDonalds while the people that would normally occupy such jobs will be tasked to service such robots (easy, low-skill maintenance).

And the 5 people those bots replaced can be maintained by 1 person, thus, job loss.

[Themius]

Yes, lots. You've yet to actually provide any statistics or sources. If you're so sure that the US is the best for economic mobility you should EASILY be able to find a source for it. Just as I EASILY found a source for my statement that the US actually has one of the worst mobility rates.

My dear, what I am saying when it comes to professional careers across the board the USA provides the best compensation, usually leaps and bounds higher than what those in Europe make.

[Adam Jensen]

In other news, the sky is blue.

I have a hard time seeing why people can't understand the massive paradigm shift coming because of a sweeping change to the minimum wage.

Because the minimum wage has nothing to do with automation. Automation is coming whether or not we raise the minimum wage. A robot is always cheaper than a human who requires rights and benefits and a wage.

[Wolfheart9]

Is it?

You are removing what? Three people in back to add mechanics to the pay roll? Its roughly 30$ a hour on the low end for those mechanics...

No company in their right mind will hire a mechanic on salary to fix bots once every three months, they'll have a specialist on call.

[Tyrianth]

My dear, what I am saying when it comes to professional careers across the board the USA provides the best compensation, usually leaps and bounds higher than what those in Europe make.

All I see is your words, not any actual statistics.

[Mayhem]

My dear, what I am saying when it comes to professional careers across the board the USA provides the best compensation, usually leaps and bounds higher than what those in Europe make.

You´re kind of moving away from social mobility aren´t you?

[Daedius]

Capitalists don't give a shit of how much unemployment rates will skyrocket due to laying of human labour in favor of robots, as long as they continue to abuse any means of making profit... be it sweatshops in China, or this.

Menial jobs now such as fast food joints, 50 years from now even doctors and surgeons, etc., would be replaced...

[Mayhem]

No company in their right mind will hire a mechanic on salary to fix bots once every three months, they'll have a specialist on call.

I can imagine how fun it will be for customers to not get what they want because the mechanic isn´t there to fix the machine.

[Tyrianth]

You´re kind of moving away from social mobility aren´t you?

It's not even right what he's saying. They're plenty of sources that say that while the US makes more money, they actually have less disposable income due to things like health insurance and the such.