Carl's Jr. wants to open automated location
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
That aside, when you use automation to strip personality from a venue, it puts personality at a premium. Some of the best places to eat in town are those where the staff are friendly and you can chat with each other about your day. No robot could ever do that (as long as you know it's a robot).
It's a dire time for people who dropped out of school and with few marketable skills. The tattered net that was the McD's job, is not going to be there for long, not that should have ever been a job for proper adults, but soon it will be on its way out.
However, I think minimum wage increases are a red herring. Increased minimum wages should buy you better employees who are more productive. Never the less, it's just more automation, possibly base wage increase accelerates adoption, but it's not the reason --were just getting better at automation and it's becoming pervasive.
As to people's appetite for automated food production and presentation Japan should allay their fears. After a little trepidation, consumers will grow to like the predictable service.
Why would it do that? If your wages were higher than competitors, certainly paying higher wages gives you the best of the existing workers. But a minimum wage doesn't give you higher wages than competitors at all.
Also, it seems like a minimum wage actually makes life worse for employers who have use for high value employees. Without a minimum wage I can offer $15/hour and I'll get the high value people. High value labor is therefore sorted into high productivity use.
Once you impose a minimum wage this effect is eliminated.
All the benefits you attribute to a minimum wage could be gained voluntarily by companies even without a minimum wage. In fact the minimum wage interferes with these voluntary efforts. Yet they often don't exploit them. Why don't they?
He just explained that to you. The people who actually work hard and have goals will actually want the minimum wage jobs because now its more manageable to live off of.
A university student who needs to pay rent, groceries, a car, etc. Cant afford to live off minimum wage so they want the better paying jobs which may not exist cause companies want to get away with the most profitable scenario which is paying employees the absolute minimum.
That last statement wasn't needed, no body has time for ad hominems.
...want the better paying jobs which may not exist cause companies want to get away with the most profitable scenario which is paying employees the absolute minimum.
Yet most jobs in the US pay far more than minimum wage. Why would they do this if paying minimum wage is the "most profitable scenario"?
As to why you get a better employee at 15 vs 7/hr, think about an engineer.
At 70k a laid off engineer will sit it out. A so so engineer will take that job instead. Now, raise that 70k to 120k (or whatever rate) and you'll be able to entice the better engineer, while the so so engineer gets left out, perhaps going back to learn more marketable skills.
We can't all hire the best (or better) employees.
I'm not sure adding productivity helps. Since a lot of the time is spent doing things like waiting for the frier to be done cooking the fries. No matter how efficient a worker you are, the fries will not cook faster. Likewise there are times of the day when the foot traffic is very low. At those times people are told to do things like sweep the floor but I'm not sure if someone finishes sweeping 10 minutes earlier it really makes a difference.
Source: I worked fast food with both lazy and productive workers before I decided making $8.00/HR wasn't good enough.
If you really dislike Mexicans and are willing to harm Americans in order to keep them away, I guess it makes sense. I guess I'm just not a fan of Trump/Bernie/Hillary style nationalism.
On the other hand it benefits higher skills workers from across the border because there will be more demand for high skills labor.
And you know why people don't want Mexicans to flood America. I've seen you link to Putnam's study which shows that diversity destroys trust and communities. There are real externalities here.
(Hat tip to Bryan Caplan who pointed out the parallel. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2016/03/nativism_agains.... )
I do, however, support your right to put up a "No Mexicans" sign and make your own house a safe space.
Trust between members of society, however, is not a matter of individual psychology. It's one of the crucial differences between western countries where you can expect a level of fairness in dealing with strangers, and the third world where you have to rely on your family and clan. It's what enables the markets to work, the justice system, the bureaucracy. Not to mention making living more pleasant.
And anyway, why would the "no Mexicans" policy be OK at a single house level, and not a gated community, city, state, country?
With a functioning justice system, trust between members of society is something that can be outsourced. And if you are really worried about it, don't do business with Mexicans. I am sympathetic to the problem of political externalities - it would be terrible if the US were to be overrun by people who vote for Trump, Hillary or Bernie.
I take issue with your "no Mexicans" policy when you threaten me with violence if I don't participate in it. Same issue I have with Jim Crow, really (remember that Jim Crow was a "must discriminate" law).
With a functioning justice system, trust between members of society is something that can be outsourced.
It's fiction. First, it doesn't happen. In reality outsourcing means third-world elites using western courts like Russian oligarchs settling their disputes in Britain or Latin American countries borrowing under US law. Second, because the justice system is too slow and expensive to be used in any significant number of transactions. Finally, rampant corruption renders it all moot in low-trust countries.
I take issue with your "no Mexicans" policy when you threaten me with violence
What about a private company? Should its owners be allowed to institute a "no Mexicans" hiring policy?
Help these Mexicans get jobs and in a while they won't be "diverse", they just won't look exactly like everyone. Even these purebred enclaves have got blondes and brunettes (right?) and society hasn't ripped itself apart. This is just another trivial difference they'll learn to ignore.
Not really but that's like concluding that studies on multitasking show everyone's lazy and they just need to try harder instead of focusing on one thing. "Knowing your natural predisposition, counteract it."
Back in the communist days, there was a popular saying in Poland: "the system is fine, only people failed it." Obviously, it's silly to design a system for humans that doesn't work for humans because you otherwise like its aesthetics or it would work great if the people acted differently than humans normally do.
Not that we don't do it in IT with certain regularity.
I disagree. I think an increased minimum wage, presumably above the market clearing price for a person with that set of skills, allows the manager to introduce non-economic factors into his decision making. This includes personal biases and encourages nepotism. It's also worth remembering that the minimum wage law had less than noble intentions
> The business-friendly National Center for Policy Analysis points out “the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, requiring ‘prevailing’ wages on federally assisted construction projects, was supported by the idea that it would keep contractors from using ‘cheap colored labor’ to underbid contractors using white labor.”
[0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/carriesheffield/2014/04/29/on-th...
Fast food in particular, but even most "fast casual" places don't actually make the food in the sense of raw ingredients come in, finished dishes go out.
What is delivered to each restaurant are prepackaged, pre portioned food "modules" that are then rapidly assembled: frozen hamburger patties, bags of precut flash frozen fries, bags of precut onions, etc. Which is wildly more efficient than handling everything in house.
Similarly, Starbucks switched from barista's who needed some level of skill to the "Mastrena" machines which let you hit buttons to make drinks.
1 - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-company-behind-starbucks-...
There will eventually be a price point at which the cost of buying and maintaining machines is more expensive than human labor. The problem is those competitive wages are extremely low, measured in pennies an hour. (Mechanical Turk is a great example)
Today's minimum wage workers may eventually end up working illegally or flooding "gig economy" 1099 roles - driving their collective value in those markets down to wages less than a dollar an hour.
Without a strategy like Basic Income, our cushy Western living standards are going to be at a real crossroads soon. We're about to turn a good chunk of the Western world into Bangladesh
If the minimum wage stayed the same, but automation was cheaper regardless (it will be by its very nature, count on it), he'd still be first in line to axe those jobs.
If his business is suffering right now, it's because the American appetite has changed - people either want decent food made with quality ingredients in a friendly higher-touch environment, or dollar value menu quick calories.
Much rather see crummy middle-ground fast food chains like Carl's/Hardees, Burger King, Wendy's go under and be replaced with better businesses that respect employee attention to quality and service than have them morph into automats. If fully automated dining becomes a category, I really doubt these lumbering grease factories will be the ones to dominate it anyhow
Keeping costs down isn't being miserly, it's helping to deliver a product that is within reach of the less fortunate.
McDonald's wasn't in that list. Neither was Taco Bell. Both very affordable, and still pretty consistent.
But if you're going to call me out on classism, it's a fairly ironic position to take that fast food is some sort of special charity to the poor. A far more charitable approach would be embracing publicly-subsidized grocery stores in food deserts rather than letting private equity slumlords peddle sugary deep fried dog food as if it's the only game in town.
It is worth noting that Egyptian prominence is directly due to the abundant resources of the Nile, and presumably, with technology displacing natural abundance, there could certainly be more for everybody. Famines are more often a result of policy, and rarely because food is so scarce that no-one can eat (ex: Ireland and India under British rule)
Once companies start investing more in automation, then we as a country can focus on freeing humans from the shackles of performing meager tasks for penance. We can tax these companies a modest amount and give that to unemployed workers.
It's really a win/win. The business makes lots more money and the former workers now have a load of free time to do with as they please. They can focus on developing skills for higher paying jobs, or just live out their lives in modest leisure, focusing on raising their family instead of just feeding them.
Even the smallest nation-states can afford and manufacture nuclear weapons now (ie North Korea). I don't foresee this capability getting more expensive or more difficult as time goes on, only cheaper and easier.
That's not a statement that can be made universally, I think. They're way better in scenarios which tend to be deterministic, but otherwise not so much (e.g. when there's more interaction with humans!). I also like the predictability of robots, but more than once I got blocked by a e-toll system with Gandalf-syndrome - "you shall not pass!" :). It's really a lousy, lousy experience.
You can say "it was a case of bad implementation", but surely an analagous argument can be made to a less-than-performant human employee.
We (society in general) will let these people starve and act like it's their own fault.
> They can focus on developing skills for higher paying jobs
Ever wondered why they don't do that now. I mean, everyone could right after high school right? They had tons of free time then. It costs money, an increasing amount of money actually. Where do you propose they get it? We (society) blame people for not improving themselves when they work hard to make a corporation money now, how can you think that would improve when they don't.
Some of them may look to school and education to improve their prospects, but those aren't the only path to a good job. Lots of people are creative and have good business sense and I think freeing people up from doing meaningless tasks is a great way to capitalize on this fact.
To me, people + time + capital => innovation.
All I'm proposing is to give these people a lot of time and a bit of money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Freeing people from work also "frees" them from the income stream that allows them to feel secure.
If you don't feel secure in some being able to provide basic needs (food, shelter, water, etc) for yourself and your dependents then it's a lot harder to focus on higher level concepts which are required to learn new, more marketable skills.
That's why I suggested taxing the companies and using it to supply these people with a basic income.
This is subjective and a slippery slope. There really is no difference between a tax and raising the minimum wage. A tax creates a new middle mam, the government, who is responsible to pay people vs a business owner. Either way the cost is passed to the consumer.
Personally, I think guaranteed basic income + no minimum wage puts the incentives in the right places, but I'll settle for increased minimum wage in the face of the unlikelihood of a basic income being put in place.
Except Congress right now would never enact such a tax (or any tax, thanks to that stupid pledge). So what will those workers who no longer have a way to support themselves do?
Without such protections, people would be cheaper to employ because the deck is further stacked against them.
That is how we go back in time.
And maybe we could even break it down. Maybe protected classes for employment is great and maybe protect classes for service aren't. Or maybe protected classes for employment is actually regressive because it is endorsement of all the factors you can discriminate on. For example, orientation isn't a protect class (at least not federally), and thus in many places is legal to discriminate based on. Perhaps progress would be that employment discrimination is only allowed for factors actually relevant to the job, and adding protected classes is a regression from this.
If they can work out a way to automate the making of the burger, or even the transport from the chef to the customer, they'll be able to cut their staff even more.
If I have produce, or a large basket of stuff likely to contain a "processing error" in it somewhere, no way. Go for a real clerk.
Economically, it means we'll finally have to face the fact that, to run our country, we don't actually need everybody to work any more. Have to figure that one out (or at least, come to the consensus that a basic income is a good thing).
I consider myself to the left of today's Democratic party (then again, I think Richard Nixon was more liberal than 21st century Democrats), but basic income sounds like a real moral hazard to me, and traditional Keynesian economics would likely deal with most of the unemployment problem, perhaps in conjunction with rolling back some "free trade" back-stabbing (alas, that crap was bi-partisan). Easy access to "welfare" in the 60s and 70s is what got us the back-lash of Reagan and friends.
Not (entirely) centrally (yet). If you piss off the wrong individual, or stand out to whatever degree, you still have a shot at a somewhat decent life. There's nobody outside of work you have to obey for threat of losing your livelihood.
I was agreeing with you - basic income only works if everyone gets it, if there isn't a test for getting it, so that there's very little way it can be denied.
We don't actually need everybody any more. FTFY
This company has been marketing one of its products as an automated burger maker. Not sure if they have McD's as a customer. They claim 360 burgers/hr[0]
[0]http://www.businessinsider.com/momentum-machines-burger-robo...
You in the Chicago area, by any chance? That's where their R&D building is located. Although I believe she said they were going to do some testing on the west coast, also.
http://www.mandatory.com/2013/08/09/10-things-idiocracy-pred...
Assuming you're reserving your diatribe for the US, major corporations are simply hoarding and offshoring cash reserves. This is so that they can defer paying the highest corporate income tax in the world, and wait to file all of this cash when the next administration announces a corporate income tax holiday. That will be when the hiring happens and wages get raised in the US.
A far larger problem is the market focus on short term performance and a changing regulatory environment (post enron) that criminalizes mistakes - for the last 30 years (since the corporate raider era in the 80's) CEO tenure has been shrinking, and overall risk has (to the CEO) been rising - because of that rising risk (of being sued, fired (for not meeting unrealistic market performance), or even going to jail) - their pay has gone up considerably.
I'm not saying any of this is good or right - it just is.
http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-Rat-Born-Series/dp/144...
All the automats really do is remove the person at the counter. There's still folks preparing the stuff in the back, there's still people clearing tables and cleaning up. Bringing this back will perhaps reduce headcount in some locations but only by a fraction.
There is nothing transformational about this idea. It is merely being used as fodder in arguments against raising the minimum wage. I am sure they would prefer avoiding fitting existing stores with such new technology.
"This is the problem with Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and progressives who push very hard to raise the minimum wage," says Puzder. "Does it really help if Sally makes $3 more an hour if Suzie has no job?"
The 'human' question is, will a minimum wage job pay enough to support a person. Obviously this is not considered :(
(In Sweden the Employers and the uhm.. "organized" Unions negotiate collective agreements that have something similar to legal minimum wages - but they're voluntary, not mandated by the state or the county etc)
At this point, maybe somebody else can insert a better "Culture" reference than I can :-)
it was pretty awesome, except for the standard issues (slow people trying to use it, etc.)
Assuming your time and transportation has zero cost. And even then you're going to have to be buying pretty massive quantities to get a big enough of a bulk discount to even have a chance to make yourself a burger for anywhere near $1.
The study found that living in a poor, mostly black neighborhood presented "a double disadvantage" in supermarket access. Unsurprisingly, poor black neighborhoods had fewer supermarkets than wealthier black neighborhoods."
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/30/science/la-sci-sn-po...
Plus, a lot of poorer people already work at these places, so it's pretty convenient and cost competitive to the products from CVS.