Meet the "Big Mac ATM" That Will Replace All Of Your $15 Per Hour Fast Food Workers

[wakjak]

1 minute ago, FloatingFatMan said:

OK, now ask yourself, why has the cost of living increased?

 

Inflation is a major cause, not minimum wage.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

1 minute ago, wakjak said:

So Minimum wage isn't the cause of higher prices. It just increases with the higher cost of living. So no proof then.

...and i said i didnt have proof. and what causes the higher cost of living, then?

 

The following is clearly just my opinion:

1. employees want $15/hr

2. employers cant cover that increase

3. fire workers, reduce hours, cut benefits or increase prices of goods?

4. increase the prices of goods = higher cost of living

5. increase the prices of goods means higher cost to the manufacturer, which, in america, is most likely china.

6. higher cost to manuf means currency valuation fluctuation that burdens the manuf country, which means decreased production and exports

7. fewer benefits means more strain on employee and more strain on economy

8. firing workers means more unemployment = slower velocity of money = less economic spending = lower GDP

9. lower GDP means more unemployment and higher strain on government entitlement programs

Just now, wakjak said:

Inflation is a major cause, not minimum wage.

and what causes inflation? inflation is not a natural economic occurence.

[wakjak]

2 minutes ago, Jason S. said:

and what causes inflation?

http://www.economicshelp.org/macroeconomics/inflation/causes-inflation/

[FloatingFatMan]

Just now, wakjak said:

Inflation is a major cause, not minimum wage.

Oh really? So you honestly think that every single person involved in the entire process of making your burger, from the farmhand helping raise the crops that make the bun, to the printing press guy making the packaging, to the factory worker making the patties, to the truck driver delivering the products, to the cooks frying them up, to the guy running the till. 100's of people all involved in providing you with that Big Mac, all suddenly getting a $8 per hour pay rise, has nothing at all to do with an increase in the cost of living?

 

Are you really that uninformed?

 

[+Biscuits Brown MVC]

Back on topic... If we must automate these places, I'd actually prefer it if the machine cooked and wrapped the food and a human took my money and simply handed me the finished goods. That way there is less chance of eating stuff that got dropped or spat upon.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

2 minutes ago, wakjak said:

http://www.economicshelp.org/macroeconomics/inflation/causes-inflation/

quoting from that article: "If the economy is at or close to full employment, then an increase in AD leads to an increase in the price level"

 

that's a big "if" b/c in the US, we're nowhere near full employment. the official U3 unemployment rate is a lie. According to the BLS there's approx 102mil americans that are not in the labor force. of that number, something like 85mil are working age, 16-54. The unemployment rate does not count these people.

 

from that article, i'd lean towards the bottom where they talk about governments printing money. that is a direct cause of inflation.

[wakjak]

8 minutes ago, FloatingFatMan said:

all suddenly getting a $8 per hour pay rise, has nothing at all to do with an increase in the cost of living?

Of course it doesn't. And there is no proof to prove otherwise.

 

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=148071126119099102104086089003018024033013028061061031073025081074121117120114085022007103016062046034116124084096104118018038091092033052066069107080090116124086064039021023067089007114006123081014015105076003008064006118086072124080113067003024&EXT=pdf

 

Quote

Assuming full pass-through effect, no substitution effect, no employment effect and no spillover effects, they estimate that a 10%-25% minimum wage increase raises prices by 0.3%- 0.4%.

0.4% raise in price for 10-25% wage increase is a drop in the bucket. Hardly worthy of any discussion.

 

Quote

So in reality, raising the minimum wage did not and does not cause inflation to increase. It’s a historical reality that can be proven when you look at the the minimum wage increases versus historical inflation rates.

https://medium.com/@discomfiting/debunking-if-you-raise-the-minimum-wage-it-will-cause-inflation-c0db32f579f8#.rggv2w2ly

 

[DocM]

Fast Food™  to us older folks meant the McD ATM's predecessor - the Automat.

 

Row on row of windowed boxes with sandwiches, salads, desserts and cold drinks where you'd insert coins to buy the meal. Food prep was unseen, no servers, and you may or may not have to bus your own dishes. Hot coffee in pots, self serve.

 

What's old is new again.

 

 

[PsYcHoKiLLa]

3 hours ago, Jason S. said:

were you replying to my moronic explanation? i'd say that your explanation only strengthens mine... this is the exact outcome of raising the minimum wage to $15/hr

 

btw, i used one of these ordering kiosks in england when i visited family last august. what's to say they wont come to Scotland if they havent already?

I was actually replying to the guy attempting to ridicule Bernie Sanders, a man who has served his nation for 16 years in the House of Representatives, who has shown wisdom in many past decisions, always calling the right judgement whether it was the Iraq war, the bailouts or many others, while the OP presumably supports the orange faced gameshow host who currently sits in the oval office having had no experience in politics whatsoever apart from bribing the right officials.

 

Trickle-down economics doesn't work because the people it's supposed to trickle down from are too greedy and want to keep the money, any wages rises given to workers will come back, in part, into the economy, whether it is local businesses or other companies, it would also improve the healthcare of their workers because they might actually be able to afford some healthcare.

[FunkyMike]

2 minutes ago, PsYcHoKiLLa said:

while the OP presumably supports the orange faced gameshow host who currently sits in the oval office having had no experience in politics whatsoever apart from bribing the right officials.

Didn't they teach you in prep school not to make assumptions about people?

[Sensi]

Unless you're the bloke who repairs these robots then it is no benefit to 99% of the world already struggling to make a living to put food on the table, pay slavetax, all that other bs they make you pay for inbetween, yeah life is harsh if you're poor! Remember the system was designed to make it close to impossible to get rich easy even though the whole idea of money was to give everyone the chance to live such lavish lifestyles.

[Bryan R.]

You mean I'll finally be able to get a sandwich made correctly and definitely with nothing gross done to it? And we get to keep the same low prices? Awesome!

[ngc891]

All the McDonald's in my local vicinity have these kiosks, (Leeds, UK) they still have a couple of tills too for people paying cash - its a sign of the times I guess...

[Mr. Gibs]

5 hours ago, FunkyMike said:

Dear Bernie, as you continue in your never-ending "Fight for $15", we thought you might benefit from a simple example of how economics work in a real life, functioning, capitalistic society.  You see, Bernie, labor, much like your daily serving of crunchy granola, is just another "good" that businesses can choose to consume more or less of, depending on price.  And, just to be crystal clear, when the price of labor (i.e. wages) increases, businesses tend to consume less of it.  Finally, our dearest Bernie, when misinformed politicians radically disrupt labor markets by setting artificially high base prices, like your proposed $15 federal minimum wage, then businesses simply stop consuming labor completely and instead replace that labor with this "Big Mac ATM Machine."

 

So, you see Bernie, pretty soon all those McDonald's workers that you promised a "fair living wage" to make Big Macs, will have absolutely no wages at all courtesy of your "Fight for $15."

 

Of course, as the Daily Caller points out, the "Big Mac ATM" is just the tip of the iceber when it comes to low-skilled jobs that will be automated as a result of the $15 minimum wage that has already been passed in several states across the country.

 

So, congrats on getting all those fast food workers fired, we're sure they really appreciate all your hard work. 

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-25/dear-bernie-meet-big-mac-atm-will-replace-all-your-15-hour-fast-food-workers

And you do realize that a few years from now those workers would have been replaced anyway right? Even if their wages stayed exactly the same. Robots or machines like this do not sleep, do not call in sick, do not need to be paid / given benefits, make less mistakes etc. There is no way they aren't going to be cheaper than workers unless you pay them $1 an hour and call it good and even then workers are still a risk.

 

I don't live in a state or a city with a $15 minimum wage yet if I go to any of the fast food places here, pretty much all of them have a machine that dispenses the drinks automatically based on the customers order. A few of them have ordering kiosks instead of having to talk to a person. Hell Red Robin has tiny tablets on all their tables where you can order your food and drinks, order refills, and pay your bill. Only thing it can't do, yet, is bring the food out from the kitchen to you but the number of staff at the restaurant has decreased from what it used to be before. And NONE of that have to do with $15 minimum wages at all.

 

This article reads like it was written by some 5 year old but then it is zerohedge, so its just a tiny step up from literal trash.

[Joe User]

12 hours ago, FloatingFatMan said:

Oh really? So you honestly think that every single person involved in the entire process of making your burger, from the farmhand helping raise the crops that make the bun, to the printing press guy making the packaging, to the factory worker making the patties, to the truck driver delivering the products, to the cooks frying them up, to the guy running the till. 100's of people all involved in providing you with that Big Mac, all suddenly getting a $8 per hour pay rise, has nothing at all to do with an increase in the cost of living?

 

Are you really that uninformed?

 

If those were the only factors, the inflation rate would have climbed by double digits for the past decade. (it didn't).

 

The reality is that the minimum wage peaked in 1968 and has been on a decline since. Minimum wage should be at least $11.05 in 2016 dollars to be equal to what it was in 1968.

 

$15 might be too high, 12 or 13 would be fair and should increase consumer spending in the lower income brackets, which is absolutely necessary for continued growth.

[Joe User]

12 hours ago, Jason S. said:

inflation is not a natural economic occurence.

It very much is. Any economist would tell you that.

 

[compl3x]

8 hours ago, -Razorfold said:

And you do realize that a few years from now those workers would have been replaced anyway right? Even if their wages stayed exactly the same. Robots or machines like this do not sleep, do not call in sick, do not need to be paid / given benefits, make less mistakes etc. There is no way they aren't going to be cheaper than workers unless you pay them $1 an hour and call it good and even then workers are still a risk.

 

 

This sums it up. Today it is menial, low paid jobs. Eventually the technology will be replacing educated white collar workers. We'll see how smug people are then.

[Emn1ty]

11 hours ago, -Razorfold said:

And you do realize that a few years from now those workers would have been replaced anyway right? Even if their wages stayed exactly the same. Robots or machines like this do not sleep, do not call in sick, do not need to be paid / given benefits, make less mistakes etc.

The minimum wage increase just forced the issue. That and increased costs for healthcare coverage due to a reduction of what hours qualified as "full-time" and a mandate that businesses must provide health insurance for anyone that fit that description.

So you have it two-fold, an increase in wages and an increase in healthcare expenses. This results in more part-time jobs and/or less people employed overall and a vested interest in looking for ways to help the bottom line. In my opinion it's better to have 30 people working for $8-$10/hr than it is to have 10 people working for $15/hr with health insurance benefits (and the rest filled by automation). Now you have 20 people with no paycheck at all. Is that worth it?

 

There are many factors that go into these things, but when you increase the cost of labor by nearly 45% you are going to change the way businesses look at labor. Now we'll have an even smaller minimum wage job market. However I believe this will happen regardless until we shift our education system to teach the next generations the skills they need to live in a higher skilled job market (software, engineering, sciences, etc). With services being automated, and manufacturing pretty much gone in the US there's not much left for the blue collar worker.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

5 hours ago, Joe User said:

It very much is. Any economist would tell you that.

Jason was right.

 

Quote

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.

We have 500 years of recorded historic prices when the inflation was at the bare minimum. It became a problem only after the money printing press was turned on.

 

Most people just memorize the first part of the sentence and then go with it.

[+Zagadka Subscriber²]

A few years ago, a lot of grocery stores introduced self-service checkout. Lasted for about a year before they started to disappear. Can't replace a human.

[DocM]

4 hours ago, Zagadka said:

A few years ago, a lot of grocery stores introduced self-service checkout. Lasted for about a year before they started to disappear. Can't replace a human.

In our parts 1/4 to 1/2 of checkouts are self-service, and people use them because they're faster for most orders. Checkout persons get distracted by chatty customers, supervisors or coworkers asking about breaks, actually taking breaks or other trivia and they're always open. 1 supervising human for every 6-8 checkout terminals to handle issues like items which won't scan.

 

I hear Amazon is experimenting with brick & mortar grocery stores where there are no checkouts called Amazon Go; their employees being the guinea pigs. Items are scanned by the cart and you bag items as you shop. You can review the list, and then you just walk out. Items are billed to your Amazon account when you leave.

 

https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011

Edited January 27, 2017 by DocM

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

9 hours ago, Joe User said:

It very much is. Any economist would tell you that.

 

youre right, to an extent. if you define inflation as that article i quoted does, then inflation is a natural occurrence. that is, if demand exceeds supply, then inflation occurs. this is exactly what gives certain things value.

 

if there's a shortage of oranges, and everyone wants them, then the price will naturally go up. if there's a finite amount of worthless fiat currency, then it has value b/c governments say it does. people trade their currency for goods. but when a central bank begins to print infinite amounts of that currency, then it's value goes down and inflation artificially occurs. b/c the currency is not worth as much, prices will inflate. this has happened time and time again. it's currently happening in Venezuela.

 

coming full circle, and back on topic, when we have a $15/hr minimum wage, that's artificially creating inflation and prices will go up across the board to match that increase.

 

disclosure - again, just my opinion b/c there are articles posted here that will tell you otherwise.

[PGHammer]

22 hours ago, wakjak said:

And that means people shouldn't be able to afford to live? 

 

Not everyone is going to be a 4.0 GPA University grad you know.

wakjak - I made that comment based on having done it (worked in fast-food); it has long been considered entry-level for exactly that reason.

[PGHammer]

4 hours ago, Zagadka said:

A few years ago, a lot of grocery stores introduced self-service checkout. Lasted for about a year before they started to disappear. Can't replace a human.

No sign of it disappearing here - in fact, every chain in this town has multiple self-service checkouts (and not all of them are large; in fact, the concept was introduced by one of the smallest; Weis Markets of Sunbury, PA intgroduced it when they opened their first area location in Laurel, MD - and they just acquired a crapton of locations from the consolidation of two larger chains, and outright acquired a smaller - and also local- mini-chain because the family owners wanted to retire (Mars Supermarkets of Baltimore - which also had self-service checkout) - typically, self-service checkout replaces the "express lanes" (you know - fifteen items or fewer).)

[restroom]

18 hours ago, ngc891 said:

All the McDonald's in my local vicinity have these kiosks, (Leeds, UK) they still have a couple of tills too for people paying cash - its a sign of the times I guess...

Soon there will be no need for human interaction on a day to day basis generally!