Wendy's to install self-ordering kiosks at 1000 locations

[Maxima1]

So the solution is to keep a permanent underclass of people receiving only the minimal income required for life, therefore by definition being staying in poverty

You can create government guarantee jobs for anyone willing to work, lower hours, spend more, get in basic income, etc. There's a lot of options. There is no reason why anyone should be as poor as some people currently are, though. It's bad macroeconomic policy that allows unemployment right now when automation hasn't even taking over yet. There's no reason for it when there is much more resources today to distribute.

and at risk of having more children who in turn cannot get a job outside of the most menial of labor.

Hitler gave eugenics a bad name. That won't change until genetic engineering or people become more receptive of eugenic policies. In the mean time, piss-poor people will keep having kids like they always do.

Jobs have been replaced by computers and machines for over a century and it has never affected unemployment rates. People can and generally will find new lines of work if allowed to (e.g. if living in a nation where welfare doesn't pay more than employment).

A libertarian society will create unemployment. It's an egoistic model.

 

[bshole]

So the solution is to keep a permanent underclass of people receiving only the minimal income required for life, therefore by definition being staying in poverty and at risk of having more children who in turn cannot get a job outside of the most menial of labor.

Jobs have been replaced by computers and machines for over a century and it has never affected unemployment rates. People can and generally will find new lines of work if allowed to (e.g. if living in a nation where welfare doesn't pay more than employment).

Well we live in a country where a growing number of jobs can't even pay for yearly health care premiums. Shit the middle class is increasingly unable to pay for it. Admit it, the middle class is in it's death throes. It gets a little worse each year. The degradation in my own lifetime has been staggering. One more generation of this and home ownership will be relic, everybody will be renting and everybody will be poor (including engineers and middle managers).

A recent Commonwealth Fund survey found that four in 10 working-age adults skipped some kind of care because of the cost, and other surveys have found much the same. The portion of workers with annual deductibles — what consumers must pay before insurance kicks in — rose from 55% eight years ago to 80% today, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation. And a Mercer study showed that 2014 saw the largest one-year increase in enrollment in "high-deductible plans" — from 18% to 23% of all covered employees.

“People put off care or they split their pills. They do without.”

Meanwhile the size of the average deductible more than doubled in eight years, from $584 to $1,217 for individual coverage. Add to this co-pays, co-insurance and the price of drugs or procedures not covered by plans — and it's all too much for many Americans.

Holly Wilson of Denver, a communications company fraud investigator who has congestive heart failure and high blood pressure, recently went without her blood pressure pills for three months because she couldn't afford them, given her $2,500 deductible. Her blood pressure shot so high, her doctor told her she risked a stroke.

 

[Maxima1]

College is virtually free for those that are poor and can be accepted into a decent public college. Of course, that requires that one doesn't drop out of high school and sleep through algebra.

BS. The yearly Pell Grant is around $4000. Many states have higher state tuitions than that and that's not including room and board.Pell Grant is also ineffective because a lot of people don't realize they are eligible for aid. You could argue that's an indication they shouldn't be in college, but... still... not all degrees lead to jobs that require above average smarts.

Wages haven't fallen that much actually, it's mostly just that benefits increasingly eat a bigger chunk of wages. We're talking more like 10% lower, and considering that there are billions of non-Americans that would love to compete with us, those at risk should have been counting their lucky stars decades ago.

It's a distribution problem.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You can create government guarantee jobs for anyone willing to work, lower hours, spend more, get in basic income, etc. There's a lot of options. There is no reason why anyone should be as poor as some people currently are, though. It's bad macroeconomic policy that allows unemployment right now when automation hasn't even taking over yet. There's no reason for it when there is much more resources today to distribute.

Hitler gave eugenics a bad name. That won't change until genetic engineering or people become more receptive of eugenic policies. In the mean time, piss-poor people will keep having kids like they always do.

A libertarian society will create unemployment. It's an egoistic model.

That's a better solution than what I usually hear regarding UBI. The goal should be to take unqualified/incapable workers and make them capable, not to just give them a check to purchase on rent and cheap automation-produced goods. I'd be OK with that if we do start to hit an employment crunch.

True, but for now we can still fund birth control/abortion as much as possible, and remove tax credits/welfare benefits for childbirth. Negative replacement rates are a good thing when we're talking about those that cannot provide a net contribution to society.

Not sure what you mean by this. I'm a libertarian idealist but I fully acknowledge that other systems can work if designed properly. Welfare systems work when people pay at least in part into their own unemployment benefits and when the benefits are just enough to stay afloat while seeking out new work. Our current system doesn't quite work that way.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Well we live in a country where a growing number of jobs can't even pay for yearly health care premiums. Shit the middle class is increasingly unable to pay for it. Admit it, the middle class is in it's death throes. It gets a little worse each year. The degradation in my own lifetime has been staggering. One more generation of this and home ownership will be relic, everybody will be renting and everybody will be poor (including engineers and middle managers).

Separate issue, that's the pharma-government industrial complex at work. Drugs are incredibly cheap in nations where they aren't so regulated.

BS. The yearly Pell Grant is around $4000. Many states have higher state tuitions than that and that's not including room and board.Pell Grant is also ineffective because a lot of people don't realize they are eligible for aid. You could argue that's an indication they shouldn't be in college, but... still... not all degrees lead to jobs that require above average smarts.

It's a distribution problem.

Student loans, for one. State grants, for another. The average student that gets into a UC school has tuition and fees entirely covered by the state. Room and board aren't necessities, but work-study programs often cover the gap regardless. I agree that those going to college for the purpose of being employable should only take degrees which actually increase odds of employment. If a person isn't mentally capable of making it through said degree program, they should be discouraged from reproducing, because statistically their offspring will also be incapable.

 

[Maxima1]

That's a better solution than what I usually hear regarding UBI. The goal should be to take unqualified/incapable workers and make them capable, not to just give them a check to purchase on rent and cheap automation-produced goods. I'd be OK with that if we do start to hit an employment crunch.

What do you think of this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-mosler/a-progressive-health-care_b_521651.html

It's like UBI mixed with universal health care

Not sure what you mean by this. I'm a libertarian idealist but I fully acknowledge that other systems can work if designed properly. Welfare systems work when people pay at least in part into their own unemployment benefits and when the benefits are just enough to stay afloat while seeking out new work. Our current system doesn't quite work that way.

Unfettered capitalism doesn't care about employment levels. Libertarians support policies that would **** all over aggregate demand.

Student loans, for one.

Okay, but that has to be paid back.

State grants, for another.

That's true, but of course, depends on the state.

The average student that gets into a UC school has tuition and fees entirely covered by the state.

Why did you point out CA of all states? Student loan debt is very high or do you deny that?

Room and board aren't necessities

So everyone just gets to live with mommy and daddy while they get a degree? Though, I realize the higher education model is just BS and costs could be substantially reduced (e.g. online classes and subject exams) and free up highly educated people (the instructors and college admin) for other employment opportunities a.k.a. a productivity increase.

but work-study programs often cover the gap regardless.

Okay, but you had to work for it. You might as well just say you could work to pay it off.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Who gets to define "hard work"?

Well it certainly isn't the people who live off EBT for a career.

 

[jmagg]

ivwshane said: ↑
Who gets to define "hard work"?

Well it certainly isn't the people who live off EBT for a career.

I do. I'm a Mason.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Jobs have been replaced by computers and machines for over a century and it has never affected unemployment rates. People can and generally will find new lines of work if allowed to (e.g. if living in a nation where welfare doesn't pay more than employment).

The automation/job curve is bell shaped. As we developed the technology and infrastructure to create automation we generated more jobs than the automation was able to replace, but we have now hit the top of the curve and from now on all new automation will take more jobs than it creates. We have been working towards this for most of a century and we have been told that this day was coming for at least half that time.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Other fast food restaurants are already doing this and the trend will only be to continue to add more. Their rationale is:

The appeal to younger customers is just or fluff, the labor costs is the meat of it. The recent push for a $15 minimum wage undeniably put the fear into CEO's and as a result r&d is being spent on more and more automation. These kiosks obviously won't replace all labor, but it will certainly do away with some of it. More and more jobs will continue to become automated, while more and more responsibility and work put on the back of those that remain.

At one time automobiles and light bulbs put buggy builders and candlemakers out of business. Perhaps the result will be the replacement of low wage menial jobs with slightly higher wage jobs building, installing, and servicing the kiosks while money saved by customers will flow into other areas of the economy, creating jobs in other fields.

I don't necessarily expect fast food workers to understand much about economics, but it's a bit crazy that a lot of educated people were really behind the push knowing full well what the outcome would be. These aren't jobs meant to raise a family on, the value of the work according to the free labor market simply isn't enough to do so. Now due to the fear that places will enact legislation drastically raising their cost of labor they're pursuing automation and who can blame them, they have a business and bottom line to protect.

Of course they are not jobs one could expect to raise a family on. The problem is that there aren't enough available jobs one could raise a family on and the "free market" has resulted in many super rich people who no longer actually earn or produce much of the money they extract from the market, essentially using the structure of the economy and the shortage of land and natural resources and world overpopulation to steal it from the workers.

 

[ivwshane]

Well it certainly isn't the people who live off EBT for a career.

That's not an answer.

 

[SMOGZINN]

At one time automobiles and light bulbs put buggy builders and candlemakers out of business. Perhaps the result will be the replacement of low wage menial jobs with slightly higher wage jobs building, installing, and servicing the kiosks while money saved by customers will flow into other areas of the economy, creating jobs in other fields.

We are now past specific automation and working towards general automation. So assuming each kiosk will replace 2 jobs, and one person can install and service 20 of them. That means we replace 40 jobs with one. Sure some of that money will go other places, but since our automation is now generalizable those places are also being automated, because almost any job those 40 people can do can also be done by the automation. So sure we are creating new jobs, at the rate of 1 opening for every 40 we displace, and automation is getting better. Soon we will be replacing 100 or 200 jobs for ever one we create. Then it will start to move upward in skill. So while those displaced people are getting a new education and training to do more complex tasks we are working at making the automation be able to do those tasks. How long until we can't educate people fast enough to keep up with the rate that jobs are being automated?
This is the whole point of automation.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What do you think of this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/warren-mosler/a-progressive-health-care_b_521651.html

It's like UBI mixed with universal health care

Doesn't say anything about what is supposed to keep the people receiving this valuable. I think mixing UBI and specific coverage kind of defeats half the purpose of UBI to begin with.

Unfettered capitalism doesn't care about employment levels. Libertarians support policies that would **** all over aggregate demand.

Sure it does, people almost always choose work over needing but not receiving any money. Free markets love to maximize workers; just look at how illegal immigrants move here and then self-deport according to the need of the economy at the time. Is there a correlation between unemployment and lack of employment regulation, beyond the boom-bust cycle? I'm not aware of it.

People at the highest risk for losing their jobs are also those that contribute the least to demand. Slowly losing the bottom class over a period of decades/centuries does not matter as long as those people have their children educated and their incapable children removed from the gene pool.

Okay, but that has to be paid back.

That's true, but of course, depends on the state.

Why did you point out CA of all states? Student loan debt is very high or do you deny that?

So everyone just gets to live with mommy and daddy while they get a degree? Though, I realize the higher education model is just BS and costs could be substantially reduced (e.g. online classes and subject exams) and free up highly educated people (the instructors and college admin) for other employment opportunities a.k.a. a productivity increase.

Okay, but you had to work for it. You might as well just say you could work to pay it off.

Indeed, paying for what you consume is a good thing.

To an extent, but usually there's a correlation between tuition costs and state benefits. Schools that don't pay as much as California also have much lower tuition and rent. The average public school debt is a mere $20k or so iirc, roughly the cost of an average car, nothing insurmountable unless you major in Feminist Basketweaving.

Anyone taking significant student loan debt at a UC is doing so because either 1) they choose to, 2) they're poor students, or 3) their parents make a lot of money but refuse to support them.

Yes, and agreed.

Indeed, paying for what you consume is a good thing.

The automation/job curve is bell shaped. As we developed the technology and infrastructure to create automation we generated more jobs than the automation was able to replace, but we have now hit the top of the curve and from now on all new automation will take more jobs than it creates. We have been working towards this for most of a century and we have been told that this day was coming for at least half that time.

I'll believe it when the unemployment or labor participation rates reflect it.

 

[agent00f]

That's a better solution than what I usually hear regarding UBI. The goal should be to take unqualified/incapable workers and make them capable, not to just give them a check to purchase on rent and cheap automation-produced goods. I'd be OK with that if we do start to hit an employment crunch.

True, but for now we can still fund birth control/abortion as much as possible, and remove tax credits/welfare benefits for childbirth. Negative replacement rates are a good thing when we're talking about those that cannot provide a net contribution to society.

Not sure what you mean by this. I'm a libertarian idealist but I fully acknowledge that other systems can work if designed properly. Welfare systems work when people pay at least in part into their own unemployment benefits and when the benefits are just enough to stay afloat while seeking out new work. Our current system doesn't quite work that way.

Consider this simple thought exercise. You and I work on competing robot algs, which is all well and good for the value of competition and whatnot. Mine turns out somewhat better, squeezing you out, make a billion dollars, and given the nature of IP it's questionable why anyone would need you instead of me. And thus you're collecting unemployment/welfare funded by me, and I'm lording it over the worthless incompetent leeches. Such is life.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Consider this simple thought exercise. You and I work on competing robot algs, which is all well and good for the value of competition and whatnot. Mine turns out somewhat better, squeezing you out, make a billion dollars, and given the nature of IP it's questionable why anyone would need you instead of me. And thus you're collecting unemployment/welfare funded by me, and I'm lording it over the worthless incompetent leeches. Such is life.

I would be a mere one person, and conceivably even if I can't hack it at the cutting-edge of robot development, I could find employment elsewhere. I'm assuming your billion dollars doesn't go straight into your pocket with no overhead; you need people to fix your robots, debug the occasional flaw that shows up in your robots, and research or purchase new robot IP as it appears on the market to stay relevant.

I think a better hypothetical in your favor would be to pretend you had invented a burger-flipping robot that every fast food place wants, and every burger place immediately began waves of lay-offs until only a handful of robot-maintainers, janitors, and security people remained. I'm not seeing anything that suggests those restaurants employ even 0.5% of our workforce, probably much less especially if you look at it on a work-hour basis (many work part-time). Because production should only increase, there's not really any effect on the global supply chain that I can see. Those that depend on McDonald's for their career are a minority, being that fast food has the shortest median tenure of any job type. There would be an increased strain on social services, no doubt, but the recession was much worse than what automating the entire industry would do, as far as I can see.

 

[agent00f]

I would be a mere one person, and conceivably even if I can't hack it at the cutting-edge of robot development, I could find employment elsewhere. I'm assuming your billion dollars doesn't go straight into your pocket with no overhead; you need people to fix your robots, debug the occasional flaw that shows up in your robots, and research or purchase new robot IP as it appears on the market to stay relevant.

The purpose of the excise is to illustrate the absurdity of a winner take all system when losing participants are necessary for its function.

I think a better hypothetical in your favor would be to pretend you had invented a burger-flipping robot that every fast food place wants, and every burger place immediately began waves of lay-offs until only a handful of robot-maintainers, janitors, and security people remained. I'm not seeing anything that suggests those restaurants employ even 0.5% of our workforce, probably much less especially if you look at it on a work-hour basis (many work part-time). Because production should only increase, there's not really any effect on the global supply chain that I can see. Those that depend on McDonald's for their career are a minority, being that fast food has the shortest median tenure of any job type. There would be an increased strain on social services, no doubt, but the recession was much worse than what automating the entire industry would do, as far as I can see.

Broadly speaking it's the point of social organization to optimize labor efficiency/effectiveness. Generally proactive planning works better than the reactionary responses typically seen/assumed in free markets. We've known that burger-flipping/coal-mining/etc robots have been coming for while yet continue to be deluded that those folks will somehow find their new niche. Consider for example the importance of the women's rights movement given that many of the less desirable jobs traditionally granted females (eg secretary) weren't long for the world.

 

[highland145]

You can create government guarantee jobs for anyone willing to work, lower hours, spend more, get in basic income, etc. There's a lot of options. There is no reason why anyone should be as poor as some people currently are, though. It's bad macroeconomic policy that allows unemployment right now when automation hasn't even taking over yet. There's no reason for it when there is much more resources today to distribute.

Good luck with that. Once entitled=always entitled.

Hitler gave eugenics a bad name. That won't change until genetic engineering or people become more receptive of eugenic policies. In the mean time, piss-poor people will keep having kids like they always do.

Margaret Sanger did that. Kill blacks, win for your community. Right?

A libertarian society will create unemployment. It's an egoistic model.

Red above.

bolded ...Pretty sure we're already there.



shane, sacramento?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

But it's not a winner take all situation if it's a consented trade (unless the alternative is starving to death, of course).

I agree that we may eventually hit a crisis if 1) virtually every non-intellectual job is consumed by automation, 2) people with no potential for intellectual jobs continue to outbreed those with the ability, and 3) energy/power advancements fail to keep up with other technology and human demand. Burger flippers and coal miners should not be subsidized only to delay the inevitable, but whenever possible I'm fine with an effort to keep them relevant to evolving job markets.

 

[agent00f]

But it's not a winner take all situation if it's a consented trade (unless the alternative is starving to death, of course).

I agree that we may eventually hit a crisis if 1) virtually every non-intellectual job is consumed by automation, 2) people with no potential for intellectual jobs continue to outbreed those with the ability, and 3) energy/power advancements fail to keep up with other technology and human demand. Burger flippers and coal miners should not be subsidized only to delay the inevitable, but whenever possible I'm fine with an effort to keep them relevant to evolving job markets.

Winner take all game is orthogonal to consented trade, if you're decent with robots and it's not obvious you'll lose it only makes sense to compete. There's no reason to believe you'll know about me or what I do at all (or vice versa) until you've invested. The main point there is that it was certainly beneficial to the system for you to compete, yet the system was either going to be unfair to you or me. Why be obliged to support it?

 

[justoh]

McDonald's (for example) employees make about $22/h here in CH. There's no minimum wage law, just in some industries agreed-to-minimums secured contractually by unions. Pretty sure there's no such organization representing fast wood workers. They just pay them a living wage for some reason. Basic subsistence is guaranteed by the constitution, and taxes are quite low, so maybe it's to keep it that way (it's a sure thing that the govt would have to subsidize employees if employers aren't paying properly, which would raise taxes? not sure).

They did start phasing in order kiosks as well, though not necessarily or primarily to save money on workers, as now they have people bringing your order to you (you take a little plastic triangle thingy from the order machine and place it on your table), which they didn't do before the kiosks. These machines also only take credit or debit cards, and a lot of people here prefer to use cash, so most of them are unused most of the time.

 

[Puffnstuff]

But it's not a winner take all situation if it's a consented trade (unless the alternative is starving to death, of course).

I agree that we may eventually hit a crisis if 1) virtually every non-intellectual job is consumed by automation, 2) people with no potential for intellectual jobs continue to outbreed those with the ability, and 3) energy/power advancements fail to keep up with other technology and human demand. Burger flippers and coal miners should not be subsidized only to delay the inevitable, but whenever possible I'm fine with an effort to keep them relevant to evolving job markets.

Couldn't you see the Sonic replacing roller skating employees with robots to deliver meals to people's cars? Robot burger flippers, order takers (geez that would work well just like every automated answering system I've ever called does), meal assemblers and then deliverers to round out the crew with only a human to intervene when issues arise? It would resemble some of the really bad sci-fi movies we've seen in recent years. Automation doesn't automatically mean complete replacement of humans but it works very well in areas of high repetition and danger where a higher throughput can be achieved by the use of robotics.

 

[Jaskalas]

College is virtually free for those that are poor and can be accepted into a decent public college.

That's the problem then. Your foundation is based on some sort of fantasy. Are you going to tell us you never heard of the following?

The college debt crisis is even worse than you think

Last year, Dean sent a financial aid award letter to an accepted student whose family, the federal government had determined, was so poor that the “expected family contribution” (EFC) to that student’s education was zero. The college awarded the student a Dean Presidential Grant of $17,000 and another nearly $13,000 in institutional, federal, and state grants, meaning that almost $30,000 of the bill was covered and never had to be paid back. Sounds great, right? Yes, until you look at the larger numbers on the award letter. The total cost of attendance — tuition, room, board, and fees — was $53,120. That meant the gap that this “zero-EFC” student had to cover through loans and other means in order to attend was more than $23,000. Per year. Over four years — and with only modest rises for inflation factored in — that total gap could be expected to climb to around $100,000, not counting future interest payments. That’s a ton of debt, particularly for a degree from a college whose median annual salary for alumni 10 years after enrolling is just $32,700.

I'll point out the details. For them, with a grant it's $23,000 per year. Without, $53,120 per year.
When I estimated the costs...it appears I misplaced the decimal place, FFS.

A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2017

$1.31 trillion in total U.S. student loan debt
44.2 million Americans with student loan debt​

And you, somehow, boldly tell us that there's a path forward for people... and it's "free". Astonishing.
We need an economy and a model that works for everyone, not just a select few.
The mythical bootstraps don't exist if they cannot be applied to more than just a handful.

And if this discussion is marred by such delusions of grandeur for our current system... at least I can appreciate why the resistance and/or hesitation. Why the need to cling to the current landscape, failing and crumbling all around us as it is. Maybe it's ego that makes someone believe it's actually working or functional. "Everything's fine" (NSFW?)

No, it's not fine. And opposition to change sounds a hell of lot like "eat cake". I aim to have America move before the next step is taken down that path. Before we have a violent revolution in the midst of such incredible failures on our part to adapt and provide for our people. It's a simple matter of production is separating from labor... has been a trend for 40 years... and it's a simple fix before automation goes nuclear and violently forces our hand.

We maintain taxation on production, with or without labor, and return that value to the people. So they can still be consumers. So capitalism can still exist during the collapse of labor. Capitalism must coexist with a fully functional safety net. This can no longer be optional as the world and technology has forced our hands. We can, and we should, do better for our people.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I know all about student debt as I have a mountain of it piled upon my shoulders right now but what was the alternative? Go to school and earn a degree so I can get a better job or take my chances in manufacturing as it continues to leave the country? I chose to recycle myself but at a high cost and that is the reality of life now so if you want to get ahead and are poor you go into debt to attend school. I have multiple grants and scholarships helping me out but they in no way pay my entire bill. At least I can say that I took so personal responsibility as I watched my options shrinking and took some proactive steps to ensure my ability to hold a decent job in the changing landscape of our economy.

 

[Jaskalas]

I know all about student debt as I have a mountain of it piled upon my shoulders right now but what was the alternative?

Well... we've been discussing automation, the loss of jobs, the devaluing of labor across the board. The alternative to chasing the dragon, (in your case... repeatedly?) spending 4 years and 5 figures a year (money most do not have in the first place) is to provide basic income. Then to start programs specifically for the purpose of cheapening housing, education, and healthcare. Specifically the end costs on the "consumers" for those "products".

Because as nice as it is that you're fighting to stay relevant, end game is there's no place to hide from automation. Maybe in the next 20 years your new job will still exist... but the number of desperate people willing to fill it for less will grow exponentially. As will the number of people who can't. We simply cannot look to a handful of success stories and pretend that's a path for everyone. Our economy must work for the many, and leave no one behind.

 

[Jaskalas]

'The millennial side hustle,' not stable job, is the new reality for university grads

Where do I even begin at quoting the plethora of real life cases and examples of economic disaster?
It's only going to get worse for the bootstraps mythos and its zealous faithful. Labor is dead and dying.
College is no answer, you cannot work your way out of an autonomous future. We must adapt, economically.
We must answer the call of the un(der)employed, we must modernize our social safety net to cover everyone.