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Will Robots Make $15 An Hour?
Conservative Review ^ | 04/19/16 | CR Wire/Phil Silver

Posted on 04/19/2016 7:06:06 PM PDT by writer33

Fast-food mega company McDonald’s has big plans for the future, and it doesn’t include $15-an-hour minimum wage order-takers. The futuristic McDonald’s will replace those entry-level workers with kiosks where customers can place their own order, according to a BizPac Review article.

The first model of the new 6,500 square-foot McDonald’s will be opened this summer in Missouri, and will include many new interactive features. In Chicago, the company is already experimenting with a self-serve coffee station again eliminating the need for workers.

(Excerpt) Read more at conservativereview.com ...


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KEYWORDS: minimumwage
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To: Imperialist

They’ll probably put out an app so you can order from their menu using your phone or tablet without going near the grimy kiosks. Including payment and telling what table to deliver the food to.

Without order takers, it sound like paying with cash is going to be impossible, though.


61 posted on 04/19/2016 9:09:49 PM PDT by Kellis91789 (We hope for a bloodless revolution, but revolution is still the goal.)
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To: writer33

Yeah, once the robots start demanding equal rights.


62 posted on 04/19/2016 9:14:17 PM PDT by nooooo
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To: Pontiac

Hvac, Electricians, Machinists, Welders,Mechanics are in desperate need. I blame a huge part of this on school career councilors telling everyone that blue colar work is not worth it. They can ship IT over seas, but I want to see them ship my construction equipment to China. my shop has 7 mechanics, and two of us are apprentices, and we are so desperate for assistance we’re getting another apprentice promoted from yard work.


63 posted on 04/19/2016 9:14:17 PM PDT by SPDSHDW (Georgian by Bloodright, Californian by Birth)
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To: SPDSHDW

I’m glad I was a mechanic when I wore a younger man’s clothes. I owned, shot and maintained AK-47s for years. Then ARs got cheap and I bought one.
Gas rings on the bolt, tiny pins, numerous springs, it seems like a different tool needed for smithing just about everything.
It’s like the difference between working on a Dodge half-ton and a British sports car.
Which has nothing to do with robots, I just wanted to get that off my chest.


64 posted on 04/19/2016 9:34:49 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: Personal Responsibility

I went to a Sydney, Australia McDonalds that had gone completely to the screen-business, and you could pay there as well. A number popped up on the big screen above the counter, and the kid handed me the bag and drink. Like you say....you tap for anything extra. No big deal.


65 posted on 04/19/2016 9:42:50 PM PDT by pepsionice
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To: PAR35
This time it will be different.

Not only can ordering burgers from an automated Kiosk work, Mc Donalds probably only needs to invest in a server as a front end to take the order from the customers smart phone app that allows the customer to custom order a custom made burger to their own tastes, including a medium rare burger or egg tested for e coli or other bacteria by an inline bio sensor, using a build a burger pate and fries can sold by the gram and drink of your choice.

The order can be placed ahead of time before the customer even arrives and paid for by a EBT card by any kid in the ghetto with his or her ObamaPhone

The technology already exists and the user already owns and is familiar with the input device which is the big hurdle that has been overcome

That is what makes it different this time around

66 posted on 04/19/2016 10:05:13 PM PDT by rdcbn ("If what has happened here is not treason, it is its first cousin." Zell Milleraere)
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To: Bellflower
What is a MD, are you advocating robots go to MD's? The headline on this article is a hoot, robots don't get paid a wage they are purchased and depreciated. The reason that Corporations, boycott McD's if you want, it's your right, plan on boycotting all the major fast food companies because these ridiculous wage demands for unskilled labor is going to drive all of them to automation. These people are demanding a wage that in almost all cases, is higher than journeyman wages in skilled trades.

I know of what I speak having managed Mickey D's for over 23 yrs., there is not a position in any restaurant below shift manager that comes anywhere close to that kind of remuneration.

The only ones that benefit from a $15 minimum wage are the unions with wage increases tied to the minimum and the tax man, minimum wage workers will lose jobs and hours as businesses cut expenses that can't be made up in price increases and all the rest of us lose out in reduced purchasing power as prices go up everywhere while our purchasing power stays stagnant. I feel that people should be paid what their position is worth I no more feel a fast food worker is worth $15 an hour than I do that sports players and actors are worth their ridiculous salaries.

67 posted on 04/19/2016 10:12:23 PM PDT by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: mass55th

At least in my area, the McDonalds have actually improved their fries by a huge margin. They actually taste pretty good even when cold.

I don’t know changes they made recently to do that.


68 posted on 04/19/2016 10:45:47 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: writer33

Can’t robots potentially cost more than $15 an hour? Maintenance, repair, amortized cost, upgrades?


69 posted on 04/19/2016 11:11:41 PM PDT by Persevero (NUTS)
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To: Persevero

Thanks to miniaturization and improved quality of electronics, probably not.


70 posted on 04/19/2016 11:47:18 PM PDT by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Society needs to think about what we will do when a significant portion of the population simply cannot find productive work.

We should start by closing the borders. If existing low skill workers can't find work it's nuts to bring in millions more.

But in the long haul we need to consider the possibility that increased productivity means less work for everyone - and that's not the worst thing that can happen!

I wouldn't mind a ten hour work week.

71 posted on 04/20/2016 12:15:33 AM PDT by MaxFlint
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To: Kellis91789
Without order takers, it sound like paying with cash is going to be impossible, though.

The automated checkout at Walmart takes cash.

72 posted on 04/20/2016 12:24:48 AM PDT by MaxFlint
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To: Pontiac

Re: “It’s called pricing yourself out of the market.....”

I disagree.

Since the Reagan Amnesty in 1986, the USA has LEGALLY imported 20 million low skill immigrant workers.

A solid majority of Republicans enthusiastically supported that policy.

Those immigrants are now citizens, and they just voted themselves a huge pay raise.

If they lose their jobs, they will just vote themselves a huge increase in government welfare payments.

Congratulations, Republicans.

Now it’s time to reap the political and economic whirlwind.


73 posted on 04/20/2016 12:34:06 AM PDT by zeestephen
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To: SPDSHDW
Re: “Hvac, Electricians, Machinists, Welders,Mechanics are in desperate need.”

If true, wages in those professions should be going up very, very fast. Are they? I doubt it.

You hear that same song and dance from the software and network companies.

But wages at those companies have been stagnant since 1999.

By the way, 1999 was the year that Congress voted to approve a massive increase in H-1B foreign work visas.

74 posted on 04/20/2016 12:48:13 AM PDT by zeestephen
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To: writer33

Do they dream of electric sheep?


75 posted on 04/20/2016 1:01:54 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Be a blessing to a stranger today for some have entertained angels unaware)
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To: mrsmith

Awww, ya beat me to it.


76 posted on 04/20/2016 1:03:08 AM PDT by SaveFerris (Be a blessing to a stranger today for some have entertained angels unaware)
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To: Bellflower

I’d rather have a robot than an idiot. I went to a movie theater and the person at the window took forever, the ticket taker was nice and the concession operators were slow, sometimes lazy and very inefficient...... I just looked at them and told my wife ,”robot, robot, robot”.

I could get rid of 75% of their employees and have a couple more security, one manager, one robot supervisor, one IT person and one or two robot/kiosk tenders, possibly even robots to clean up after each show.

No worries about scheduling, workers comp, insurance, payroll, etc...

Robots.


77 posted on 04/20/2016 1:38:13 AM PDT by Dick Vomer (2 Timothy 4:7 deo duce ferro comitante)
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To: Persevero

$120k/yr is a lot of wages and that is if a robot replaces just one position three shifts per day seven days per week.

I think in this context “robot” really means the ordering kiosk rather than some humanoid robot.

Even if it referred to one of the new burger makers that makes 350 custom burgers per hour, which is probably pretty pricey, something like that would replace several workers and last ten years. Even a million bucks would be a bargain if it replaced two positions for ten years.


78 posted on 04/20/2016 1:45:20 AM PDT by Kellis91789 (We hope for a bloodless revolution, but revolution is still the goal.)
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To: Osage Orange

“Robots can probably spell”

auto correct - think of the possibilities

on the other hand no more incorrect orders


79 posted on 04/20/2016 2:19:16 AM PDT by Nailbiter
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To: Dick Vomer
"I’d rather have a robot than an idiot."

No one has brought up the "Orgasmatron" from the 1973 movie Sleeper. Woody Allen eschews the orgasm machine as he is strictly, "hand operated" when it comes to sex.

80 posted on 04/20/2016 2:33:06 AM PDT by outofsalt ( If history teaches us anything it's that history rarely teaches us anything.)
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