Galt's Gulch

Forcing companies to pay more always equals job losses

Posted by freedomforall 11 years, 9 months ago to Business
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Excerpt:
After you heard President Barack Obama's call for a hike in the minimum wage, you probably wondered the same thing I did: Was Obama sent from the future by Skynet to prepare humanity for its ultimate dominion by robots?

But just in case the question didn't occur to you, let me explain. On Tuesday, the day before Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage, the restaurant chain Applebee's announced that it will install iPad-like tablets at every table. Chili's already made this move earlier this year.

You'll be able to place your order and pay your check at the same time.
SOURCE URL: http://www.naturalnews.com/045342_minimum_wage_automated_labor_restaurant_industry.html

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  • Posted by wiggys 11 years, 9 months ago
    Solver asks "how can politicians fix this wage business. they can't!!!!!!!!!!! I have met a few politicians in my life and one thing they all "politicians" have in common is a complete lack of economic knowledge. they simply do not care who they damage so long as they can get you to do things their way, which is always bad.
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  • Posted by jimslag 11 years, 9 months ago
    You already see it stores where they have the self checkout lanes. Now they only need 4 or 5 cashiers instead of 9 or 10. McDonalds is also going to kiosks in larger cities, I saw one when I was in Atlanta. They still had the normal gal at the order counter but had a trial kiosk where you could order if you wanted to try it. During the election cycle, I think it was Romney was at a WaWa store ordering a sandwich, you used a kiosk and the sandwich was at the counter waiting when he was finished. You also see it at Pizza Hut or other fast food places where you can order online and have it ready for pickup at a certain time. Take your pick and you see that low wage jobs are disappearing. Even now, instead of stores having people to bag the goods, the cashier is also the bagger, less people required. One of my first jobs in school was bagging groceries in the local market. It taught me skill sets on dealing with customers and interacting with people. I parlayed that into other, better paying employment and so on, up the chain to better pay and benefits.
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  • Posted by brs02 11 years, 9 months ago
    The proposed minimum wage hike is a red herring to excite the base a draw attention away from their numerous catastrophic failures. It wasn't an issue in either of his elections, nor was gay marriage, etc. It is an effort to give the media populist talking points enabling them to talk about anything other than the serious issues at hand (missing planes apparently work well too). It is a mistake to give the policy any credence as as serious economic proposal. It is more important to call them out on their distractions; insisting that our representatives and media address issues of substance.
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  • Posted by Solver 11 years, 9 months ago
    If you lived in Beverly Hills California, wouldn't your living wages need be much higher than someone living in a place such as, Fayetteville North Carolina? How can politicians “fix” this to be sure everything is fair and equal? Would $75 an hour do it? Maybe $100. After all, it's not that they actually earned the vast amounts money they spend or order others to spend in their name.
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    • Posted by $ KahnQuest 11 years, 9 months ago
      This is a good point. It amazes me that these politicians don't understand (or willfully ignore) the simplest of economic concepts. The cost of living in Beverly Hills is higher because, presumably, people want to live there more than they want to live in Fayetteville. If we were to artificially remove this discrepancy by mandating higher wages, everyone who wanted to would be able to live there. Sounds good, right? Equality of outcome and all that. But once a bunch of new people moved there, it would only be as attractive as the aforementioned Fayetteville. The people who willingly paid a premium to live there would move, the property values would plummet, and a different Beverly Hills would be established somewhere else.

      The market evens itself out. The reason politicians think they can fix it is timing. Were they to raise wages to deal with the cost of living, they would ensure that we saw two or three interviews with people who were overjoyed that they could now afford to live in Beverly Hills. Then the masses would be distracted by the shiny object of the week before they could see any of the negative effects.
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  • Posted by SolitudeIsBliss 11 years, 9 months ago
    These 'living wage' minimum wage strikers really tick me off. As a small business owner I wholeheartedly agree with paying for performance and skill set. What these idiots don't understand is that you get paid based on marketability of skill sets. A doctor has a specific, highly specialized set of skills that are extremely valuable (and life saving) hence the high pay. Sorry, but someone who just shows up and puts food in a bag is not all that valuable, pretty much any other warm body can pretty much do the same thing. And now that our wonderful government is getting rid of job performance evaluations because of the inequality of good evaluations between whites and Hispanics/blacks while retroactively paying them bonuses and salary increases which will cost the taxpayers approx. $5 Mil I'm even more ready to go to the Gulch !
    Waiting for Directive 10-289 to go into effect.
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    • Posted by jpellone 11 years, 9 months ago
      I agree. One other thing you might have mentioned is that if the minimum wages doubles, so will the price of that same burger. Burger joints and gas stations are just jobs. They teach you about responsibility and work ethics. A skill is saleable.

      Does the left understand cause and effect? There are two possible answers to this question; the first is that they don't look at the consequences of their actions or they are doing it on purpose to hasten the destruction of America or maybe they are just too stupid!!!! OK, three...

      According to most political books, around 10% of Democrats are highly educated whereas the other 90% are the lowest educated in America and most every Republican is middle class usually with some sort of skill and higher education.

      I think every American should watch "Atlas Shrugged" because then everyone would hopefully understand what "Fairness policies" do this country no good.
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  • Posted by Notperfect 11 years, 8 months ago
    We could probably replace all those quacks in D.C. with the same technology. Would that not be a novel idea. We program i-pads to run a strict limited government and lose all the hot air from those who think they know what We need. We could balance a budget pretty quick. What say you?
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  • Posted by MikeRael101 11 years, 9 months ago
    The problem with the minimum wage being upped by Big Daddy is that teens, Blacks, and women who have not had previous experience in the work force will not be able to get jobs to gave that needed experience. And that's only the job problems. Next the companies can't hire the cheapest workers otherwise available, so prices of goods and services rise. Then the creators are treated like second-class citizens, with bureaucrats altering anything and everything--which means quality of goods and services decreas. Jehosophat, is there anything else I've left out? Oh yes, those workers who are worth the extra money will be voters, enthusiastically voting for the Dems! Joy to the world!!
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