Posted on 09/06/2014 7:19:39 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Want robots at McDonald's? Hike minimum wage: Zell Matthew J. Belvedere | @Matt_Belvedere Wednesday, 3 Sep 2014
Video
Federal and state efforts to increase the minimum wage are misguided and pose serious risks to the economy and the job market, billionaire Sam Zell told CNBC on Wednesday.
"The tinkering with the minimum wage is a very dangerous game," the chairman of Equity Group Investments said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "You start talking about a $13 or a $15 minimum wage, and you're going to have robots that are operating McDonald's."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Machines are completely capable of replacing workers.
It's a question of what makes economic sense, and a higher minimum wage moves the break even point toward machines.
There is, of course, a difference between replacing workers and eliminating workers.
You obviously don't know the meaning of the word "freedom."
Unfortunate?
They're d@mned fortunate.
They live in a world where they are paid for possessing little more than a pulse.
I held a minimum wage job...forty years ago. I think I got my first raise a few months after that.
Working at a McD's for twenty years doesn't make one a more valuable employee.
Automation vs. the unions goes back many decades. Look at the transformation of the automobile assembly line.
Whenever the unions managed to defeat industry efforts at automation, management started shipping jobs overseas.
This kerfuffle over fast food workers’ pay is minor compared to the battles over heavy industry automation some sixty years back.
The “Rust Belt” of the American northeast wasn’t always that way.
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