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

[fskimospy]

It might not be super accurate in terms of specific numbers, but it establishes the base idea of which we see played out in the economy. That is why overall we see a flat to net loss in jobs.

You're refuting your own point. If the number of jobs remained flat if would be showing the opposite of the base idea the supply and demand curve shows. This is why it is stupid to use that chart here.

The model is simplified to make it clear of what the effects will be, and reality has far more inputs, but its not meant to work on a real market. His use is perfectly reasonable to establish the idea. Its why raising wages by raising the floor will reduce employment. That not happening in a vacuum has no relevance to the concept.

It has every relevance to the concept when the effect of raising the floor does not reduce employment, haha. I would suggest you go back and read Uglycassanova's posts and how he tried to use that graph and then revisit this as Blackjack is 100% right.

So when Agent says its only used by dummies he is wrong. When BJ says its not good at doing something its not supposed to do, I reply.

BlackJack was saying it is not good at doing something that Uglycassanova tried to use it to do. Saying that raising the minimum wage decreases low level employment cannot be established by using that model and if someone were to try and establish it using that model they would most certainly be a dummy.

 

[UglyCasanova]

What an amazingly informed and intelligent opinion.

Show me how I'm wrong?

 

[Jhhnn]

First they automated the factory jobs and I laughed. Then they automated the restraunt jobs and I laughed. Then they automated the transportation jobs and I laughed.

Then there was no one employed to buy my products and it wasn't funny anymore.

That's how the "work for a living" economic model breaks down, isn't it? We get the "own for a living" model, the rentier model, except that not everybody has the capital to own. If you don't own you don't earn because the owners don't need you or very many people like you at all.

 

[realibrad]

You're refuting your own point. If the number of jobs remained flat if would be showing the opposite of the base idea the supply and demand curve shows. This is why it is stupid to use that chart here.



It has every relevance to the concept when the effect of raising the floor does not reduce employment, haha. I would suggest you go back and read Uglycassanova's posts and how he tried to use that graph and then revisit this as Blackjack is 100% right.



BlackJack was saying it is not good at doing something that Uglycassanova tried to use it to do. Saying that raising the minimum wage decreases low level employment cannot be established by using that model and if someone were to try and establish it using that model they would most certainly be a dummy.

He used it correctly. The research being done is how other factors in net help reduce the impact that raising the floor has on employment. That said, the graph he used is 100% correct as the fundamental factors. Because employment is not in a vacuum, other things can influence employment beyond the price floor. Raising the floor does reduce employment, its just that other things in net that take place in a very complex system offset the impact of the floor. There is not a single study that says that the price floor being raised alone has no net effect on employment. What the studies do say is that when other factors are included, the net effect is small to flat. The underlying principle that raising the cost of something reduces consumption of that thing. Its still as valid today as it was when it was first established.

 

[fskimospy]

He used it correctly. The research being done is how other factors in net help reduce the impact that raising the floor has on employment. That said, the graph he used is 100% correct as the fundamental factors. Because employment is not in a vacuum, other things can influence employment beyond the price floor. Raising the floor does reduce employment, its just that other things in net that take place in a very complex system offset the impact of the floor.

This is incredibly and obviously wrong. You simply cannot say that raising the floor does reduce employment that is only made up for by other things because the other things in net that take place are also the result of raising the wage floor. They cannot be separated from one another. This is in fact the entire reason why trying to represent this relationship using a simple supply and demand curve is stupid.

There's no need to be stubborn when the answer is as clear as it is here. That graph cannot be used for what he tried to use it for.

There is not a single study that says that the price floor being raised alone has no net effect on employment. What the studies do say is that when other factors are included, the net effect is small to flat. The underlying principle that raising the cost of something reduces consumption of that thing. Its still as valid today as it was when it was first established.

There are most certainly studies that say the wage floor being raised alone has no net effect on employment. In fact, there are even some that say it has a net positive effect on employment. Those studies do so by looking at ALL the effects of raising the minimum wage the feedback effects cancel out any reduction in employment. It is not only correct to include these other effects, it would be research malpractice NOT to include them. Any analysis that excludes them like UC's did is fundamentally wrong.

There's no getting around this.

 

[mxnerd]

Each store will get 3 kiosks, 3x1000 = 3000 jobs.

Yet billionaire Wilbur Ross was just confirmed as Secretary of Commerce

Trump supporters: More billionaires holding cabinet positions is going to make our life better!

 

[realibrad]

This is incredibly and obviously wrong. You simply cannot say that raising the floor does reduce employment that is only made up for by other things because the other things in net that take place are also the result of raising the wage floor. They cannot be separated from one another. This is in fact the entire reason why trying to represent this relationship using a simple supply and demand curve is stupid.

There's no need to be stubborn when the answer is as clear as it is here. That graph cannot be used for what he tried to use it for.



There are most certainly studies that say the wage floor being raised alone has no net effect on employment. In fact, there are even some that say it has a net positive effect on employment. Those studies do so by looking at ALL the effects of raising the minimum wage the feedback effects cancel out any reduction in employment. It is not only correct to include these other effects, it would be research malpractice NOT to include them. Any analysis that excludes them like UC's did is fundamentally wrong.

There's no getting around this.

Find me a study that says that the raising of the floor causes enough net purchasing power to offset and increase demand enough to keep employment flat. Every meta analysis I have ever seen shows a net loss in employment.

 

[Vic]

The minimum wage argument is a red herring on this issue because the cost of automation continuously decreases. So even if wages remained stagnant, eventually automation will still reach the price point where it will out-compete human labor for any particular job. And then throw in factors like how robots are more reliable and consistent, and human workers come with additional costs like the need for management and human resources, etc etc. It doesn't look so rosy for human workers.
My only advice to the working folks out there is do not try to compete against the robots head-on. You will lose. You need to do what the robots can't do if you want to stay ahead.

 

[fskimospy]

Find me a study that says that the raising of the floor causes enough net purchasing power to offset and increase demand enough to keep employment flat. Every meta analysis I have ever seen shows a net loss in employment.

Sure, let me know how many you would like me to link.

Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010):

http://irle.berkeley.edu/files/2010/Minimum-Wage-Effects-Across-State-Borders.pdf

We compare all contiguous county-pairs in the United States that straddle a state border and find no adverse employment effects. We show that traditional approaches that do not account for local economic conditions tend to produce spurious negative effects due to spatial heterogeneities in employment trends that are unrelated to minimum wage policies. Our findings are robust to allowing for long-term effects of minimum wage changes.

Giotis and Chletsos (2015):

http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2015-58/file

The impact of minimum wages on employment has always been a field of conflicts among economists and this divergence of views has usually taken the form of competing studies. Doucouliagos and Stanley (Publication selection bias in minimum-wage research? A metaregression analysis, 2009) conducted a meta-analysis of 64 US studies which showed that literature is contaminated by publication selection bias, and once it is corrected, little or no evidence of a negative association between minimum wages and employment remains.

Note, this does not mean that these two papers must be correct, it simply goes to show that trying to represent the effects of minimum wage on employment in the real world using a simple supply and demand curve is stupid.

 

[senseamp]

The push for automation has been going on much longer than the silly $15 per hour demands by burger flippers, but those demands are sure to hasten the process. Simple economics: the higher the cost of labor, the money you will spend to automate to reduce your expenses.

I guess it's somewhat of a cautionary tale. There's been a lot of hubbub about $15 per hour for essentially menial jobs. Supply and demand have prevented that from happening, but the agitation has led to an increase in the drive to automate away those jobs. So now the workers essentially got a double whammy: they didn't get the $15 per hour they demanded, and they will lose the jobs they have to automation sooner than before.

The real cautionary tale is for the middle class workers. You are next. As fun as it is automating away minimum wage jobs and taking that money to Silicon Valley, the real money pot is in automating away middle class and blue collar jobs.

 

[PokerGuy]

The real cautionary tale is for the middle class workers. You are next. As fun as it is automating away minimum wage jobs and taking that money to Silicon Valley, the real money pot is in automating away middle class and blue collar jobs.

There is no doubt that middle class and upper middle class jobs are next, and sooner rather than later. When AI can read an xray or CT scan better than a radiologist, who needs the radiologist? If a system can do accounting better than a human accountant, who needs human accountants? If an AI system can interpret/apply the law and provide better advice than a lawyer can, who needs lawyers, etc etc etc.

Before, we were talking about automating jobs that were manual in nature, assuming that the humans could be trained to do something else. Now we're reaching the age when there are processes and systems that can do non-manual things better than humans. There's going to be a big impact, and I'm not sure how society is going to evolve because of it.

 

[Blackjack200]

There is no doubt that middle class and upper middle class jobs are next, and sooner rather than later. When AI can read an xray or CT scan better than a radiologist, who needs the radiologist? If a system can do accounting better than a human accountant, who needs human accountants? If an AI system can interpret/apply the law and provide better advice than a lawyer can, who needs lawyers, etc etc etc.

Before, we were talking about automating jobs that were manual in nature, assuming that the humans could be trained to do something else. Now we're reaching the age when there are processes and systems that can do non-manual things better than humans. There's going to be a big impact, and I'm not sure how society is going to evolve because of it.

The automation you're talking about is assistive in nature. Look at the tools available to a home builder today compared to even 30 years ago. Night and day. Tools to make cuts more accurate and faster, tools to measure more precisely etc., etc. It hasn't reduced the demand for people working those jobs. It has increased the quality of their work.

Everyone loves the legal example where AI can do a better job of document discovery than a person. I don't see that reducing demand for lawyers, I see that as improving the work that they do, which ultimately benefits us all as cases can be settled or decided more fairly.

 

[Blackjack200]

Show me how I'm wrong?

Why don't you start by showing me a single formal UBI proposal that works by printing the money that it distributes? I like how you began the thread by disparaging the economic understanding of blue collar workers, and then proceeded to lay turd after turd of infantile bullshit.

 

[woolfe9998]

It's not Moore's law, we aren't talking about the processing power of computer chips.

And I do agree that automation is taking over, not just low level jobs like this but higher skilled jobs as well. It is becoming more intense, but what's driving that? Advent in technology certainly, but money is being funneled into that not just for the hell of it but because economic forces drive it. The quest for more efficiency and to combat the most expensive variable for many companies which is labor cost.

I get that you want to push for basic income, but we aren't there yet. Money is a store of value, we have to make sure there is actual value behind those dollar bills. Merely printing money and handing it out to everyone saying "here ya go, here's your monthly stipend" is worthless unless there's actual value and wealth being transferred to them.

Our local super markets have had self check out kiosks for about 7 years now. I assure you that they pay their employees way over minimum wage. Accordingly, a minimum wage increase did not fuel the use of this technology. I find it interesting that a business with lower labor costs - fast food - didn't get around to it until later.

 

[woolfe9998]

The real cautionary tale is for the middle class workers. You are next. As fun as it is automating away minimum wage jobs and taking that money to Silicon Valley, the real money pot is in automating away middle class and blue collar jobs.

It's already been happening. See my post above. I think our super market checkers make over $60K per year, and their jobs are already being replaced by this technology.

 

[nakedfrog]

It's already been happening. See my post above. I think our super market checkers make over $60K per year, and their jobs are already being replaced by this technology.

Where do you live that they make that much?

 

[woolfe9998]

Where do you live that they make that much?

SF Bay Area. And yes, they really do make that much here. At least the experienced ones do.

 

[hal2kilo]

He used it correctly. The research being done is how other factors in net help reduce the impact that raising the floor has on employment. That said, the graph he used is 100% correct as the fundamental factors. Because employment is not in a vacuum, other things can influence employment beyond the price floor. Raising the floor does reduce employment, its just that other things in net that take place in a very complex system offset the impact of the floor. There is not a single study that says that the price floor being raised alone has no net effect on employment. What the studies do say is that when other factors are included, the net effect is small to flat. The underlying principle that raising the cost of something reduces consumption of that thing. Its still as valid today as it was when it was first established.

Yea, works for Apple products, not.

 

[sandorski]

I wonder how long Kiosks will last. It seems likely that Phone Apps are the next step and even cheaper than Kiosks.

 

[nakedfrog]

SF Bay Area. And yes, they really do make that much here. At least the experienced ones do.

Ah, that makes sense, I expect that's enough to rent a 10x10' shack there.

 

[senseamp]

I actually don't think kiosks are going to take off in fast food. Part of appeal of fast food is perceived service. It's not even the quality of service, it's the fact that the customer who may be a loser who gets bossed around all day, gets to be the boss and be served by someone else for 30 seconds and restore his self esteem. Ordering on a tablet takes away this aspect, and in fact does the opposite by telling you you aren't important enough for human service. That you are at the bottom of the totem pole. I think this is also part of the reason conservatives, even poor working class ones, are so gleeful about other workers being put in their place, jobs being automated, and unions being dismantled. They don't derive self esteem from their own well being in an absolute sense, but from their perceived relative standing in society. As long as there is someone, immigrants, "moochers," minorities, etc, who is treated even worse then them, they are OK taking poor treatment themselves. But it's also why I don't think fast food will successfully go kiosk style in the US. There are already far less labor intensive non-tech heavy ways of ordering food. I mean if you go to Japan, you just take pay for ticket with the dish you want at a vending machine and give it to the cook in many places. Or in UK, you just buy a sandwich at a corner news stand and go. But they haven't really taken root in the US.

 

[nakedfrog]

I wonder how long Kiosks will last. It seems likely that Phone Apps are the next step and even cheaper than Kiosks.

Any place that went to app-only would lose my business.
If they still allowed ordering via mobile website, that would be acceptable, but I'm not going to have a gaggle of restaurant-specific apps on my phone.

 

[PokerGuy]

The automation you're talking about is assistive in nature. Look at the tools available to a home builder today compared to even 30 years ago. Night and day. Tools to make cuts more accurate and faster, tools to measure more precisely etc., etc. It hasn't reduced the demand for people working those jobs. It has increased the quality of their work.

I think you're looking at the short term and selling the technological advances -- especially in machine learning -- short. The technology is evolving at an accelerating pace. If I told you 10 years ago that we'd have self driving vehicles on the road that didn't need any human interaction, you'd have said I was nuts. GPS and assisted navigation etc are "assistive in nature", and they are great tools for drivers. Now not only do we have that kind of thing going on in various places, but there's a very real vision that within the next 20 years you might see a 90% decrease in the number of truck drivers, taxi drivers, delivery drivers etc.

In time this will go far beyond tools to assist you and be more productive (like using excel instead of a paper ledger back in the day), and more towards replacement (where an AI process evaluates the data and comes to conclusions instead of a human).

Everyone loves the legal example where AI can do a better job of document discovery than a person. I don't see that reducing demand for lawyers, I see that as improving the work that they do, which ultimately benefits us all as cases can be settled or decided more fairly.

Nope, an AI algorithm to comb through documents is a tool to assist in the legal work, but there will come a time when an AI type learning system will *do* the legal work rather than assisting. We've already even seen this happening in the medical field. No longer are these just tools to help doctors figure things out, they are actively working on and testing systems that actually do diagnosing, recommend treatment, monitor patient results etc.

And to think, it's all just in its infancy.........

 

[PokerGuy]

I wonder how long Kiosks will last. It seems likely that Phone Apps are the next step and even cheaper than Kiosks.

I wondered about that myself. A kiosk I guess is a good thing for someone that just wants to walk in and buy something (and doesn't want to install some data stealing app on their phone), but over time everyone is going to have a way to order something using their phone without the need for a kiosk.

 

[K1052]

I wonder how long Kiosks will last. It seems likely that Phone Apps are the next step and even cheaper than Kiosks.

This is already increasingly common in foodservice. Starbucks is the largest and most notable example so far. Everybody else is working on it. I suspect old folks will probably favor kiosks though.