Jack In the Box CEO Says 'It Just Makes Sense' To Replace Workers With Robots (grubstreet.com) 1014
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Grub Street: Per Business Insider, Jack in the Box CEO Leonard Comma told an industry crowd that "it just makes sense" to swap cashiers for inanimate machines in the year 2018. Not because he thinks 2018 will be the year that fast food gets technologized so much as it's the year that Jack in the Box's home state of California increases the minimum wage to $11. In fact, wage bumps hit 18 states this year, with California on pace to become the first $15-wage state in coming years -- a prospect that terrifies industry executives. Jack in the Box has flirted with the idea of installing automated kiosks before. As early as 2009, it tested them out, and apparently found that they increase store efficiency and average check totals -- not bad at all if money's your bottom line. But according to Comma, the chain's executives balked because the upfront cost of converting from people to machines was still too great. What a difference a dollar an hour apparently makes: He told the crowd that with "the rising costs of labor," it's time to start thinking about automating restaurants.
Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
This is *exactly* what you should expect when you attempt to socially engineer a solution that violates the rules of business, in this case, artificially raising the cost of labor beyond the market value. One hundred percent entirely predictable, and predicted.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Where as in the US you pretend you can have a minimum wage below the poverty line then spend lots of tax dollars propping those people up with food stamps, etc, or just paying indirectly with theft and other criminal behaviour.
Regardless of the stupid FOX talking point crap in this thread, people aren't just going to die because you think they should try harder.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
then spend lots of tax dollars propping those people up with food stamps, etc, or just paying indirectly with theft and other criminal behaviour.
As opposed to the European way of making employees so expensive that you have 20% youth unemployment, who you then prop up with social programs, theft and other criminal behavior?
I'm not opposed to minimum wage (and frankly I wish we'd just tie it to inflation so we don't need to constantly adjust it). But lets not pretend that this will magically get people off of government assistance or eliminate crime.
Re: (Score:3)
then spend lots of tax dollars propping those people up with food stamps, etc, or just paying indirectly with theft and other criminal behaviour.
As opposed to the European way of making employees so expensive that you have 20% youth unemployment, who you then prop up with social programs, theft and other criminal behavior?
I'm not opposed to minimum wage (and frankly I wish we'd just tie it to inflation so we don't need to constantly adjust it). But lets not pretend that this will magically get people off of government assistance or eliminate crime.
I think their point was the terrible way the US runs it's welfare programs. Using obfuscation programs like food stamps to demean recipient in order to please angry old conservatives only makes the whole thing more expensive to run.
BTW, the UK which is in Europe doesn't have the same youth unemployment problem as France, same with Germany (which is sucking up cheap labour as fast as it can). The Eurozone's youth unemployment statistics are skewed because of specific regions in France and Italy where ther
Re: Of course (Score:3, Informative)
It's 18.9%: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
[quote]Furthermore, working the fast food counter is supposed to be a kid's summer job and off hours for college and pocket money or first car. It is not living wage work for adults. If fast food is your family's primary source of income then you have failed at life and see above about condoms.[/quote]
And those kids should be paid appropriately for doing a shitty job that adults by and large don't want to do.
Re: Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
So then, if all these adults making minimum wage should apply themselves and get better jobs, then where exactly are all these unfilled better jobs searching for employees?
Re: Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to think this too. Then I saw how bad off kids are that are in poverty. Those kids aren't going to make it. And that group is growing, not shrinking. Middle class is a generation from gone. Middle class kids getting by because their parents helped them out with a car and down payment and college. Each generation less able to help their kids get started. You know what gave all those parents a boost way back? Government programs after WWII.
There just aren't enough jobs for everyone to survive on the pay for those jobs. That right there is a recipe for revolution. You'd be surprised how close we are. About 6 million people in the incarceration/probation system. That's not a huge percentage but you'd be surprised what desperate people can do when they get a seed to grow around.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's exactly the same tired, pointless argument I referred to. NO ONE CARES that you think they shouldn't exist, or that minimum wage is "supposed" to be a starter job, they will do whatever it takes to survive regardless of your politics.
Do you honestly think the rich keep welfare systems going out of the goodness of their heart, or because it's cheaper than rolling around in APCs between fortified encampments a'la South Africa?
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
As long ago as 1999, $15/hr was a minimal living wage for "real" adults who pay for their own rent, transportation, insurance and food.
Most jobs contribute far more than $15/hr value to the employer's organization - if they don't, I'm all for finding solutions that make those "worthless" jobs go away and free up people to do something that is worth $15/hr or more.
Arguably, even semi-talented street busking (entertainment) in a reasonably heavy pedestrian traffic area is worth more than $15/hr. And, if everybody is employed at higher paying jobs, everybody who enjoys an entertainer can afford to toss them a buck every couple of days as they walk past.
Re: Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
If you didn't earn it from your own hard labour, then you're not successful, you're a parasite. We have an entire economic/corporate heirarchy built on the concept that you get paid more the less actual work you do. Shareholders, managers, executives, CEOs, inheritors, landlords... All parasites.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Inheriting millions is NOT "earning" anything... shuffling stocks to make more money is not "working" or "earning" anything.
Tax wealth (not just income) at 90% above 5 Million....
The "Death Tax" Lie! (was Re: Of course) (Score:5, Insightful)
Living parents cannot give more than $10K per child per year tax free. Why should they be able to give it all after death. The children didn't earn it. And EVERY other form of regular income is taxed.
The "death tax" is a disingenous lie! It's just the standard income tax and another *huge* loophole that benefits the very few extremely rich and allows the creation of family dynastys where great-great-grandpa did something once upon a time.
Re:The "Death Tax" Lie! (was Re: Of course) (Score:4, Insightful)
So, say Person A has $1M after paying any and all taxes that were owed. They die and Person B inherits that money. So you want to now tax Person B just because they inherited money. And if they immediately die and Person C inherits the remaining portion of that money, you want them to be taxed, too. And if Person C dies, then Person D would also be taxed. Even though nothing has changed about the fact that the money in question had ALREADY been taxed, you'd like to see that money all go to the government?
This would be equivalent to you being taxed on both your income and your net-worth every year. Even if you only make $50k per year, if you are a great saver and have $500k in the bank, you'd want that $500k taxed just because it exists.
Re: Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
"Earning" anything means jack shit. Do you think anyone could "earn" a couple millions a year? Explain to me what makes the "work" of someone like Paris Hilton "worth" about a million times more than the work of the average nurse and we can talk about "earning" money.
Re: (Score:3)
If people are voluntarily paying millions to Paris Hilton, she's worth it.
Re: Of course (Score:4, Informative)
>they will do whatever it takes to survive regardless of your politics.
Including vote Liberal. That way they get all their lifetime welfare freebies, no questions asked. You and your disgusting ilk are more than happy to punish successful people to pay for the lazy and indolent.
Well, isn't that why rich people vote Republican; to get their lifetimes of tax cuts and elimination of regulations that cost them money to comply with? It seems that, rich or poor, everyone wants something from the government. And rich people are in a much better position to get it; no questions asked.
I'd also add that the people who work for minimum wage work hard for it. If they don't, they are easily replaceable. So your characterization of them and lazy and indolent is quite far off the mark. Perhaps you'd do better to direct your attention towards the very wealthy, if you want to identify the people taking the most advantage. Being wealthy in America is the best advantage of all. Money brings power, yet you focus on the least powerful. Funny.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Funny)
Killbots? You realise this means the leader of the next US revolution will be Zapp Brannigan...
Re: Of course (Score:4, Informative)
Killbots? You realise this means the leader of the next US revolution will be Zapp Brannigan...
You mean the US will have to be led by a vain, womanizing moron who's more obsessed with his public image than actually doing anything? A terrible fate indeed.
Re: (Score:3)
Condoms are free. Their parents shouldn't have had children they could afford to educate properly to the level required to become self sufficient productive members of society.
So, your suggestion is that they should travel back in time and retroactively not have the children they had? That's quite a practical solution you have there.
Furthermore, working the fast food counter is supposed to be a kid's summer job and off hours for college and pocket money or first car. It is not living wage work for adults. If fast food is your family's primary source of income then you have failed at life and see above about condoms.
The fact that adults are trying to support their families on these jobs should tell you something about the state of the economy and the opportunities available to people. But you'd rather judge and condemn than understand. Has every single adult fast-food worker failed at life? Really, every single one? I'd like to see your data.
It is not my nor anyone else's problem nor responsibility to take care of people who can't be bothered to take care of themselves when perfectly capable and had every opportunity to do so.
No, it's not you
Re: Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
He's an asshole because he doesn't want to give you free shit?
Talk about an entitlement mentality. What kind of parasite believes he's entitled to the fruits of other people's labour just as a consequence of being born?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't comment on the asshole, but he's an idiot by not realizing just how quickly it can become his problem.
You have the money, I have a gun, this was your head, now I have a money and you had a problem. If only briefly.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
If you do the totals you get the same answer regardless, self service cashiers work out even in countries with 2-3x smaller minimum wage. You still need some cashiers to overseer the mechanical slaves, deal with customers experiencing technophobia or buying booze and tobacco.
This, stores have replaced checkouts in every state with self service checkouts... if it were just about the minimum wage then they wouldn't have bothered in states with low minimum wage. The biggest issue with adoption are the customers, as you correctly pointed out.
Re: Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, companies needing minimum wage laws as an incentive to pay any wage at all are the problem. The CEO making these claims after the minimum wage went up by one silly dollar should be reason enough to not want to do business with him.
If you pay minimum wage, you are saying that you would've paid less if it weren't illegal. You are saying that economy will fail if we abolish slave labour. People have been saying that for centuries, and guess what... They were wrong too.
In your country, it is normal to
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
If you pay minimum wage, you are saying that you would've paid less if it weren't illegal.
I would pay less taxes if it weren't illegal. I'd pay less for just about anything if given the chance.
Regardless, there's a point where you won't pay more. That's the real issue here. Doesn't matter if it's automated or manual, there is a point where it's just not worth it.
Society thinks people should have a minimum standard of living. Great! I agree. Then society should pay for it. Stop forcing employers of low-skill workers to bear the weight of wealth redistribution. Put it in the tax code, which is more directly under the control of society.
Re: Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
I am saying that in a civilised country, you don't have too
No, you are saying that in a civilised country, that's how you'd like things to be. There is, however, no law of nature that says that there's enough economic output to give everybody a decent quality of life. Just because you're "civilised" doesn't change that.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, companies needing minimum wage laws as an incentive to pay any wage at all are the problem. The CEO making these claims after the minimum wage went up by one silly dollar should be reason enough to not want to do business with him.
... as if I needed another reason to NOT go to Jack-in-the-Box. I'm still amazed the thing is still around, after making so many people sick [wikipedia.org].
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Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure how to respond to your comment. We don't typically hit Wendy's as a night out on the town - we usually hit Wendy's when we are already out and want the convenience of a fast meal. The "human service" at Wendy's is generally the least-pleasant part of the whole experience.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm always polite, always say thank you, always give them a smile. I've worked retail and know what a shitty job it is.
But somehow being nice and empathetic does not magically turn them into people who are halfway competent at their jobs. The change still gets counted wrong and the order still gets screwed up. Working retail exposed me to plenty of morons, both customers and co-workers.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Informative)
If there's no value added to going to a "restaurant", like human service, why go?
Restaurants that have drive through windows typically get 50-70% of their business from people sitting in their cars and shouting into a microphone.
People do not go to fast food joints for "human interaction".
Re: Of course (Score:5, Funny)
I can count on zero fingers the number of times I went to a fast food restaurant to interact with the folks working there. And that even counts when I had family working at one.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely, automation will mean all the burgers are wrong in the same way. With humans, they are all wrong in different ways.
Re: Of course (Score:2)
But this is exactly what we want.
Increased productivity through automation.
This is a nudge towards natural progress, bringing the future a few years earlier.
The remaining employees will be more productive, and appropriately rewarded with more money. Jack in the box will have more sales, likely in high margin items (upsales tend to be).
Hopefully taxpayers won't be subsidizing Jack in the box employees as much as they are paid more too.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
When and where exactly was this golden age when rich people weren't rich?
According to both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders the "Golden Age" was the 1950s.
Back then, people had jobs for life, everyone could afford a house, no one was poor, and America was Great.
Of course, that is total bullcrap. Average job tenure is higher today than it was then. Home ownership rates are higher today, and houses are also significantly larger. Poverty was a much bigger problem then. Even white men are better off today, and minorities and women are far better off.
Most nostalgia is nonsense, especially about the past.
Re: Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
GDP percentage is a non sequitur on the subject of individual tax rates - but you probably knew that before you posted.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Has increased productivity ever actually led to higher wages after inflation was considered?
Yes. Nearly every time. Incomes have stagnated since the 1990s, and especially since 2007, for exactly the opposite reason: stagnant productivity growth [usnews.com].
The problem in America is not "automation of jobs", but "lack of automation".
It hasn't in my lifetime, not even once... and I'm old.
How old? If you are 50, per capita income, after inflation, has nearly doubled in your lifetime. If you are not white and male, you likely did even better.
More importantly, incomes grew the fastest when productivity was increasing the fastest.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't have to due business in the state, they can take their business elsewhere if they don't want to pay a livable wage.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And in a free market, exactly what is supposed to happen when the price of food is higher than one's salary?
Re: (Score:3)
Automated killbots.
Killbots [wikia.com] have a built-in limit of 999,999 kills each.
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
10 years ago these systems were too unreliable to replace humans. They ran XP and crashed all the time. Business is all about reliability, repeatably, and low risk. A living wage didn't doom the jobs, better tech did.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, I'm going to say it because everyone's going to make arguments that are overly complicated and the answer is actually quite simple. Other than 50+ year olds, pretty much you can take any modern register and turn it around to face customers instead and suddenly it is a self serve kiosk. Since 2006 to 2014 there's been massive leaps in the UI+hardware that you pretty much have registers that only require basic reading skills and the understanding of "touch based UI" to fully grasp. Cash registers pride themselves on things like minutes of training required for the average task, the end goal was to meet the needs of companies that literally need people fresh off the street being able to manage a till. This CEO talks about automation and it's clear he's suffering from IDTIMWYTIM. But whatever. The rise in minimum wage makes CEOs feel warm and fuzzy about doing something just like folks wearing black makes them feel warm and fuzzy that their countering gender inequality. We all know that they really aren't doing anything, but whatever. People like to point to useless gestures or baseless claims to justify a position that's always been happening with or without their input. At this point it happens so often that I'm pretty much convinced that the point of C-level staff in companies is pretty much gone. They exist at this point to sponge more money in their direction and that is all.
artificially raising the cost of labor beyond the market value
Dude, unless Crap-in-the-box can find some folks willing to work thirty cents an hour, it didn't matter what anyone did with wages, the writing is on the wall for pretty much all of us and no one with influence actually gives a flying fuck. But perhaps this will have the uptick that 80% of the world's population can finally die off and leave only the rich to suck each other's dicks. You know what happened when horse's were out matched tech wise? Better get used to saying neigh.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Or to simplify the point further: it is impossible for workers to under-price robots and self-service in the long-run, or the medium-run, or increasingly now even the short-run.
There is no "dirt-cheap labor" solution to dealing with the increasing automation of work.
CEOs want dirt cheap labor and they want robots to eliminate it at the same time. They aren't offering a deal - keep wages low and we will leave the jobs intact. They have no intention of doing that, and there is no actual promise being made by "Jack in the Box CEO Leonard Comma" to not automate if wages are not raised. Like those Carrier jobs that went to Mexico six months after they announced they were being "saved" a press release is not a deal, it is not a contract, it is not even a promise. It means nothing.
Re: Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
This is *exactly* what you should expect when you attempt to socially engineer a solution that violates the rules of business, in this case, artificially raising the cost of labor beyond the market value. One hundred percent entirely predictable, and predicted.
Sure, predictable, predicted. But go on and think through a bit further...
The GDP isn't lessened by switching to robots. As a civilization/society/country, we're not producing any less by this transition. If anything we have the ability to produce more. The only difference is how society's production is apportioned to everyone.
Some people believe that the right way to structure society is by using degrading low-paid jobs as a way to apportion a pittance to poor people. It sounds like you're in this camp. Is that because you believe there exists no other feasible way of apportioning, or because you think this is the best out of all feasible ways to apportion?
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
McDonald's would still be profitable with a $50/hr minimum wage.
Bullcrap.
Annual payroll expense per McDonald's restaurant: $602,000
Annual net profit per McDonald's restaurant: $153,900
Even a 25% increase in payroll would put them out of business. There is no way they could absorb a 300-400% increase, which is what you are claiming.
McDonald's cost vs profit [mymoneyblog.com]
Re: (Score:3)
A 25% increase in pay would bankrupt the restaurant. Food prices are *set* by the corporate office, not the franchisee. This is the reason why here in Ontario when the min. wage jumped to $14/hr businesses started laying off employees and cutting back on previously "good will gestures" such as bonus pay. [nationalpost.com] The restaurant industry is cut-throat and operates on a profitability margin of 3-6%. That's far more then even a small gas bar, which has a profitability margin of 1-3%, they don't make their money fro
Re: (Score:3)
Food prices are *set* by the corporate office, not the franchisee.
This does not appear to be true. Whenever McDonald's has an advertising campaign for a dollar menu or lower prices, it is always followed up with "at participating restaurants". You won't find prices at mcdonalds.com, because they vary.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Informative)
A typical McDonalds does not employ ~30 full time people.
LET'S DO MATH!!!!
There are 14,146 McDonald's in America. McDonald's has 1.5 million employees. That is over 100 employees per restaurant.
Of course, some of them work in distribution, corporate administration, etc. and not at restaurants. Many of them are part time. But 30 full time equivalents per restaurants seems reasonable.
Now lets look at one restaurant that is open from 5am to midnight. The workers need to be there an hour before opening and an hour after closing. So that is 21 hours per day, for 7 days per week, or 147 hours per week. 30 full-time equivalents would be 1200 hours per week. 1200/147 = 8 workers in the restaurant at any time. That seems about right to me.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
However, if you understand how a monetary system is supposed to work, you need money to flow.
A monetary system is meant to support economic activity. It "works" by providing a reliable, trusted, and standardized means of exchange so that we don't need to barter physical goods all the time or work out complex currency transactions. It is not "supposed to work" in the way you mean. If all you need is money to flow, then just letting two computers bat it back and forth as quickly as they can would make us all fabulously wealthy.
What you need to lift everyone's standard of living is wealth creation. You don't create wealth by artificially supporting someone's wages, be it through direct government assistance (food stamps, Medicaid, welfare, etc) or indirect assistance like minimum wage. I'm not smart enough to know how to take an untrained - possibly untrainable - adult and make them into a generator of wealth, but I do know that your ideas about the velocity of money are not what you think they are. I'd start by improving and equalizing access to education, and putting into place an incentive structure for government safety nets which rewards the bureaucrats for getting people back on their own two feet.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
ALL workers are "wealth creators". The education/training canard is just a distraction. The question is: Shall workers retain enough of the fruits of their labors so that they may eat, live indoors, and otherwise "have a life"? Or shell workers be forced to accept a starvation wage, so that all the remaining fruits of their labor may flow into the pockets of capital owners?
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Back when those weavers got replaced there were actual shortages of wealth. Lots of people had to die because there wasn't enough food to support the birth rate.
The situation has changed. There's plenty of wealth for everyone, particularly in western countries, especially in the US. The problems are only with distribution.
Workers who are displaced by machines should be retrained into new jobs or educated into fields that benefit society*, or if not possible, supported while their children are educated.
*
Re: (Score:3)
US agricultural output is at or near all-time highs. [usda.gov]
US industrial output is at or near all-time highs. [macrotrends.net]
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And what creates wealth? Manufacturing and agriculture. Turning something useless into something useful. The majority of which the weathy West has offshored to China and other cheap labour nations.
Meanwhile the West just pushes money around in service and banking industries creating no wealth at all, just redistributing what's left into the hands of thoss that already control the system.
It's almost as if the people at the top are not the ones creating the wealth and value. And yet, they are the ones reaping most of the rewards. All this talk about labor markets and levels of industriousness ignore the fact that Capitalism is designed in part to accumulate money at the top. The more money you have, the more ability you have to pay other people to create value for you while taking a cut of the value they create. So once can criticize the poor all they want, but the system still functions
Re: (Score:3)
Minimum wage jobs are not careers is the issue you're failing to recognize with the left's talking point argument. They're entry jobs or part time jobs. They should never be in the conversation about a "living wage" because that's not the purpose of such jobs. Anyone that works for minimum wage for more than six months is doing something very wrong. Show some initiative and strive for more.
What you're failing to recognize is that the structure of the economy is such that there are not enough career track jobs for all of the people who could work them. And there are many people who do not have the faculties to handle complex, demanding jobs. Where do you get the idea of what the "purpose" of these jobs are? Is it ordained somewhere, or are you merely expressing your opinion?
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Sub-living-wage employment is a drag on society. Those "businesses" survive only because the public subsidizes their labor costs - directly through welfare programs or indirectly through crime and social degradation. It is therefore a net economic benefit if those loss-making (before subsidy) businesses are eliminated from the market.
Re: Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
This. Sub-livable wages should not be legal for this reason first and foremost. Don't allow companies to use human labor as a conduit for corporate welfare.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, if you're a shareholder missing out on some dividends because the employees no longer have to use food stamps. Not via higher prices, as those are always set to what the market will bear. If companies can increase prices without losing customers, they aren't going to wait for a hike in the minimum wage as an excuse to do so.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, another demoncrat throwing yet another temper tantrum.
"And if you dont show some initiative, you deserve to die, that is what the fanatic capitalist right says, am I correct?
According to 2nd Thessalonians in the bible if one does not work does not eat. You whiny commie demoncrat terrorists keep touting "What if someone is too disabled to work" Well here's the thing, there is no such thing as being "too disabled to work." Even if there truly were those that are too disabled to work, guess what, can't work falls under don't work so either work or die. Those that are "too disabled to work" are truly "too disabled to live"
LOL, you seem nice.
"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 23:22
"There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land." Deuteronomy 15:11
"If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother." Deuteronomy 15:7
"Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near, so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin." Deuteronomy 15:9
"The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern." Proverbs 29:7
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:17-18
Quoting the Bible is fun, eh? It's almost as if you can find passages to justify any point of view, even for an uncaring prick like yourself.
What a difference a dollar an hour makes (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, maybe it's the 10 years of advancing robotics and automation technology that has lowered the pricepoint to one that is acceptable. A decade is a long stretch for tech, and the price per performance is steadily dropping.
Not just price (Score:4, Insightful)
They had these kiosks in the 90s and early 2000s. 80% of the time they were dumped to a BSOD or a command prompt because the software crashed or the hardware failed.
What doesn't make sense (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The Automat concept has been around for a long time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The CEO who thinks differently is a fool (Score:5, Insightful)
If robots are available, less expensive, and acceptable to consumers... the CEO who DOESN'T replace their workers with them is a CEO presiding over a failing company. Because while they're not doing it, others are, and have greater profit margins to work with.
Re:The CEO who thinks differently is a fool (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah but low-wage workers don't just disappear. They go into social aid programs, and instead of the CEO paying them a salary for doing menial work, it's YOU paying for their food stamps.
Re:The CEO who thinks differently is a fool (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely. But the economic version of natural selection still applies... if he doesn't do it, his company will tank and another will take over. So the choice is, "Do we push this problem onto the taxpayer or do we go bankrupt while someone else pushes it onto the taxpayer?"
Seems like an easy choice.
Re: (Score:3)
Absolutely. But the economic version of natural selection still applies... if he doesn't do it, his company will tank and another will take over. So the choice is, "Do we push this problem onto the taxpayer or do we go bankrupt while someone else pushes it onto the taxpayer?"
Seems like an easy choice.
Yup. And the owners of many companies made the first choice. How 'bout we tax them for the burden they put on us?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/c... [forbes.com]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/h... [cbsnews.com]
https://www.thenation.com/arti... [thenation.com]
http://www.motherjones.com/pol... [motherjones.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
http://www.commercialappeal.co... [commercialappeal.com]
Many more where those came from.
Re:The CEO who thinks differently is a fool (Score:4, Insightful)
How 'bout we tax them for the burden they put on us?
What? Let's say you run a landscaping company. And because you have good equipment, you need only a certain number of workers to get your contract work done. Should we levy a tax on your landscape company for not hiring more people you don't need, because you're using modern equipment instead of push mowers?
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Yeah, but unemployment is at 4% and expected to fall even lower. And there are help wanted signs up all over. And economists are worried about labor shortages as baby boomers age out of the workforce with fewer people to replace them.
Just a variation on the old saying (Score:5, Interesting)
Never try to extort someone for more than the cost to have you killed.
You know what else makes sense? (Score:5, Insightful)
Replacing fast food with home-cooked meals.
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Try that in a rented single room with no cooking facilities.
Please. For well less than $100 you can get a countertop induction unit [amazon.com] -- it heats the pot directly so no real risk of fire -- and about the same gets you a set of perfectly serviceable pots/pans/utensils. Something like that certainly wouldn't be the roughest part of your existence if you're really living in a rented single room.
I'm just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
How many meals will these new cashiers purchase.
That's a common fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
What I'm saying is, don't kid yourself. The rich don't need us. On the other hand, we don't need them either.
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The OP was pointing out that rich people tend not to spend a lot of time at McDonald's. So if you eliminate the wage tier that does go to McDonald's, the business collapses, automation or no automation because you can't turn thousands of fast-food restaurants into gourmet dining establishments for the wealthy.
Even in the Roman Empire, which was essentially dependent on literal slave labor, 30%-40% of the population were enslaved, and this in a literal plutocracy. So look on the bright side, even in the drea
Not in the U.S. (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S., EU, etc. grew past this stage around the 1900s. Henry Ford accidentally stumbled upon this when he discovered that paying his workers above the prevailing wage actually resulted in more business for himself (because his workers could afford to buy the cars he was producing). That's what happens when you (1) put a worker in a productive job, and (2) pay them a fair wage for the productivity they're generating. Basically, when pay your workers less than a fair wage, you make money for yourself, but you stunt the economy. When you pay your workers a fair wage, you spend more money, but the economy blossoms. Usually more than enough to offset the extra money you spent paying your workers.
A market economy *wants* everyone to be as productive as they can, because the feedback effect of that maximizes average income. GDP per capita in these countries is typically $30,000/yr or higher because the vast majority of the population is contributing a meaningful amount of productivity to the economy. Consequently, the vast majority of the rich in these countries are rich from selling things to the middle class (who by population and aggregate income are much bigger than the richest 1%*). If the average income of the middle class decreases in these countries, it ends up hurting the rich too.
* IRS tax stats [irs.gov] show that the top 1% only makes about 20% of the income in the U.S. So if they began buying and selling only amongst themselves and replacing everyone else with robots, that would result in about an 80% pay cut for themselves. The bulk of the country's income (73%) is in the $30k-$500k per year wage range, and it's in the best interest of the 1%ers in the U.S. to insure those people continue to have jobs.
Most definitely in the U.S. (Score:3)
Income inequality is worse now than it was in the 1920's. A handful of billionaires have more wealth than the bottom 50% of the country.
Productivity has been climbing for decades but wages have remained completely stagnant.
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If the average income of the middle class decreases in these countries, it ends up hurting the rich too.
Unless the rich can compensate for that in other ways, like successfully lobbying for lower taxes on the rich.
repeat after me (Score:3)
How is this different? (Score:3)
How is this different than an ATM? It serves the same function of replacing a person with a kiosk.
PR Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's the not the part where replacing people with machines is cheaper and more efficient. Of course it's more efficient, and will get cheaper every year. Indeed it's the cheap shot at the minimum wage rising that's bullshit. They were going to replace cashiers anyway, whether it rose or not. Watch them do it in states with rock bottom minimum wage. But hey, if you can try to repeal minimum wage laws while deflecting potential bad PR from firing people then that's just a double win.
I guess we'll see (Score:5, Insightful)
How many CEO's and managers are left after AI's can do their job. Think of the cost savings to the shareholders.
My only other observation is self service checkouts in supermarkets.
I avoid them like the plague if I have more than 5 ot 6 items, because after that, it's not faster, or more convenient than a cashier. Supermarkets will need to come up with something way better than what they have now, or pay me to do my own checkout.
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Sam's club in the US has it, but you do it from your phone. You scan the items as you put them in your cart, and hit the 'checkout' button when you want to pay (using a credit card you've already entered into the app). On your way out the door someone scans a barcode on your phone and does a quick verification that what's in your cart matches what's on the receipt. Very slick system, and you get 3% cash back or something like that for using it.
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Dunno about you guys but my local McDonald's did this a few years ago, as have many others.
Massive touchscreens in the foyer, tap and order from the whole menu, then just wait for the guy to bring it out. Hell, it even tells you how many orders are in front of you, etc. and you can make every tiny change imaginable to the ingredients.
Sure, they still have kitchen staff (we're not suggesting automating the kitchens, right? That's just a food-safety nightmare waiting to happen and how do they clean themselves?). But they have JUST kitchen staff, who get a list, put the food on the tray and deal with the cooker alerts etc.
It's much faster and more efficient than any McDonald's I've ever used, you can order while ten people are dithering over what to have, you can even assign a seat and have it brought over to you. And, at the end of the day, it's the same food.
I've said for years that restaurants should do this - even posh ones. Tying up waiting staff with orders, corrections, menus, allergy queries etc. is daft when people are quite capable of doing all that themselves - sometimes before they've even sat down. And then BOTH of you have a cast-iron receipt of what was ordered and how. So long as the food delivered tallies, what does it matter?
"So what's in the sea bass?" "Press ingredients, ma'am".
"Can we split this bill?" "Press split bill, sir."
"Do you have any pork left?" "Only what the menu will let you select, sir".
If Jack-in-the-box have already trialled this I can't understand why they haven't been fitting it to all new stores and starting doing it for refurbishments. There's literally no reason not to, even if you don't replace ALL the staff immediately.
Re: (Score:3)
we're not suggesting automating the kitchens, right? That's just a food-safety nightmare waiting to happen and how do they clean themselves?
Actually, that is exactly what eventually happen.
No, it is not a food safety nightmare waiting to happen. Robots already prepare food at much larger scale in factories.
They don't have to clean themselves. Instead of having four to eight employees and a manager each shift, there will be a manager and maybe one or two employees who will keep the robots stocked with ingredients and keep them clean and maintained.
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If they can save money they will be motivated to eliminate it. At some point you will have either workers working for nearly nothing or machines. In both cases, people cant put food on the table.
What goes around comes around... (Score:5, Insightful)
Once we've all been automated out of work...who's going to buy the burgers?
Reminds me of this oft-quoted aphorism, about a UAW official being shown some early auto-plant automation:
(Apparently it wasn't really Henry Ford II. But Ruther confirmed the exchange occurred, with a high Ford official and words roughly equivalent.)
Re:What goes around comes around... (Score:4, Funny)
Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?
Plot twist: the robots are the cars.
This is something I've wondered for years (Score:5, Informative)
So which is it? Are minimum wage employees the bedrock of our economy or a completely superfluous bunch of kids and seniors. They can't be both.
Re: (Score:3)
It can be both, because universities are degree mills pumping out people with useless degrees. Those people will never work in a job higher then minimum wage because there's no demand for someone who has a masters in "feminist dance theory" or the "history of harry potter and it's impact on french culture."
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Still cheaper than hiring a team of greasy teenagers.
But wringing out their hair saves on cooking oil.
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1. We know that fast food workers are under paid, forced to work in unfair working conditions, and that fast food workers are commonly exploited.
No, they are not underpaid. Workers are paid according to the value of their work. Fast food work is simply, unskilled labor and as such is paid a minimum wage because, at that level, workers are basically commodities and one is just as good as another.
No, they are not forces to work in unfair working conditions. No one is forcing them to work in the conditions, unless you include themselves by being unskilled or unable to get a better position due to being a drug addict or convict. I worked in fast food a
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He paid his workers sufficiently well that they could afford one of the products they manufactured.
Two problems with this.