Posted on 03/19/2016 5:57:49 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s CEO Andy Puzder has people all in a huff over his idea to automate restaurants.
But why be upset with Puzder? This is an inevitable consequence of massive minimum wage hikes by the government.
“I want to try it,” CEO Puzder said. He’s looking at something “where you order on a kiosk, you pay with a credit or debit card, your order pops up, and you never see a person.”
Is he heartless? No. Just responding to the government’s foolish plans to jack up the minimum wage and put restaurants, hotels, bars and other service industries out of business. “With government driving up the cost of labor, it’s driving down the number of jobs,” said Puzder. “You’re going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants.”
He’s right. That’s why whenever the minimum wage rises above the market-set prevailing wage, jobs are destroyed. Who would pay someone $15 an hour to do a job that’s worth less than that?
This isn’t rocket science. It’s plain common sense — something that demagogues on the left are missing entirely.
The proof is overwhelming.
Consider:
IBD’s Jed Graham surveyed six big U.S. cities that hiked the minimum wage in 2015 and found they took a serious jobs hit. “Wherever cities implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more last year, the latest data show that job creation downshifted to the slowest pace in at least five years,” Graham wrote.
During the 1970s, Congress forced Puerto Rico to adopt the U.S. federal minimum wage. The result, according to a 1992 study by economists Alida Castillo-Freeman and Richard Freeman: “Imposing the U.S.-level minimum reduced total island employment by 8%-10%.” So Puerto Rico lost 1 out of every 11 jobs to the minimum wage.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Basic understanding of economics was targeted in the 70s by a new generation of teachers and professors at all levels throughout the education regimes in the US and Europe. Now, to possess even a passing acquaintance of the mere existence of the concept of supply and demand is to be guilty of a major thoughtcrime.
Minimum wage is illegal? Take it it to SCOTUS.
Exactly right.
There is another major factor in play...... in China. That factor will eliminate the robots envisioned here. They are already obsolete.
In China the young people have taken to their phones by the millions to make transactions. there are aps that call up other aps to make transactions. You go to a fast food place and point your phone camera at a graphic on the wall. the ap calls the restaurant’s bot that connects with your payment mode and produces a menu. you select from the menu and are given a receipt. the order is produced, you show the receipt and get your already paid for food.
This is but one example of many many company bots that work with your specific ap to transact all business transactions. They are real and in very wide use at present
Source: Forbes
Kiosks are one thing. Automating the food preparation will be very interesting. A robotic production line will have optimize scheduling during busy times, will always place the pickle slices and various goops at the center of the burger (not slopping over the edges - I hate that), will enable lot sizes of 1 so non-standard preparations will be easy (hold the mustard, no problem), etc.
My first real job was at McDonalds - back when there were only two in Maine. Making milk shakes was pretty much a full time single person affair because it was all manual: grab cub, squirt in syrup, add shake mix, weigh on scale and adjust, put 6 cups on the mixer spindles, remove when the right level is reached, put in refrigerated cabinet, repeat...
Now it’s a one touch operation performed by the counter clerk.
Also eliminates diversity training and class action suits against the employer!
The free market will find ways to circumvent government intrusion until the government outlaws the free market.
Kiosk don’t:
1. Go on strike
2. No healthcare needed
3. NO FICA, unemployment, workman comp.
4. NO sexual harassment lawsuits
5. NO spitting/ urinating on food
6. NO overtime
7. NO “scheduling” issues
8. NO paid vacations
Give the night manager oral.
That has been claimed for a long time now, but hasn’t happened.
Perhaps it could happen, but I don’t see that it needs to happen.
It could happen with welfare, where people choose welfare over low paying jobs. It could happen with taxes on employers (social security, Obamacare, etc.) which discourage employment. It could happen with unions, who threaten disruptive strikes, and make labor more expensive. It can happen with minimum wage legislation outlawing low paying jobs, the first rungs of the ladder of success. Yes, there are many ways we can, and do, shoot ourselves in the foot. But that is not the same as inevitable.
The historical trend has been for shorter work weeks and greater prosperity in the West. The engine is greater productivity. There is no reason why this trend should stop. The rest of the world can join us in shorter work weeks and greater prosperity also.
Before saying this is just pie the sky nonsense, appreciate that this has been the trend for 500 years of so.
Kiosk don’t:
Give the night manager oral.
Against.
1. In any financial transaction, buyers will seek the lowest price possible. At the same time, sellers will look for the highest price possible.
2. An employment arrangement involves a "buyer" (the employer) and a "seller" (a worker).
3. One of the simple realities of an economy is that a worker will usually demand far more for his/her services than he/she would ever pay another worker for the same services.
Point #3 underlies almost every policy decision that is made by a government in a modern, advanced country like ours where labor costs are extremely high. It also underlies almost every business decision that is made by employers in this country, too. Automation is a natural response to a business climate where labor costs for one or more routine functions that can be replicated by a machine have gotten too high to make it practical to use human labor anymore.
add:
7) do not stop work to pray 5 times a shift
to that list
No they don't. Quality matters.
“Do you have a problem with automation?”
Why would you ask?
Automate when it makes sense. Don’t automate when it does not make sense.
“They were warned about this, and chose to proceed, regardless. They knew.”
They may not have believed it. Or they may not have believed that the voters do not believed it. It would be interesting to see a survey of the American public (or FR) with survey a question on raising the minimum wage, and another on abolishing the minimum wage.
It’s not just the increase in the hourly rate that’s the killer but all the payroll taxes that increase as well that’s the killer.
As a customer, number 5 is a good selling point.
Every buyer who has the option of purchasing a variety of different items in a product line will always ask the same question:
"Am I willing to pay $X for a top quality item, or will I settle for a mid-grade or cheap alternative for a price of [less than $X]."
As the factors I described in my previous bring about the inevitable result where a combination of cheap imports and immigrant labor push more American consumers out of the work force, one of the ways the government deals with the issue is by replacing the question I presented above with the following mandate (not a question):
"You will pay $X for a product or service regardless of whether you need it, even if it has the quality of a mid-grade or cheap alternative that would cost [less than $X] under normal circumstances."
This explains why our economy is now built on a growing pile of government-mandated expenditures instead of normal business and consumer transactions.
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