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I've always found it odd that service jobs are held in such contempt here in the US. Many places in Italy have generations of wait staff, it is their profession and they are proud to make it a life's work.
There are honorable career wait staff in major cities that have restaurants with high enough average checks to make living on tips possible.
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Originally Posted by lenniel
So, I assume you only shop at Whole Foods, not Walmart, Target or some other low-wage paying trap? ...
I'm fortunate enough that price isn't usually a primary consideration, so while I don't intentionally choose to shop at high-wages places it often turns out that way just because usually when you choose quality over price you end up buying something made with higher-wage labor.
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Originally Posted by lenniel
This isn't a zero sum game. If a company makes 100 in profit, that doesn't mean that someone gets to arbitrarily say "100 is too much, you should only make 50 and redistribute the rest". Well, that 100 in profit creates wealth for shareholders, creates additional jobs, creates the benefits, creates the advertising needed to sell more X so those low skilled workers have a job in the first place.
No one here is talking about redistribution, we're talking about the macroeconomic impact of microeconomic decisions and where the balance between free markets and cultural strength belongs.
Taken to the extreme, a "pay for the value created" philosophy would result in the literal starvation of people who, for whatever reason (whether through mental, physical or moral defect), were unable to add any value. Very few people believe that should be allowed to happen - I'm guessing even you would not like to see that happen. At the very least, society is willing to feed non-productive people to prevent them from stealing food or having dead bodies in the street.
Now, once you recognize that, you are recognizing that there are rational reasons for a minimum wage. You are recognizing that there is some level of human dignity that society should subsidize.
The only thing you are debating then, is what the threshold is. So when you get all up in arms about differences in wages, if you're actually honest with yourself you will admit you're only arguing about where on a sliding scale things should be maintained - you're not making an argument about a fundamental difference in philosophy.
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Originally Posted by lenniel
I also think the term "hard work" is misconstrued. Lots of people work hard. Digging ditches may be more physically demanding than someone sitting in air conditioning analyzing spreadsheets, but they're both 'working hard'. But, the guy analyzing spreadsheets provides more 'value' for his work because not as many people can do what he does where as lots of people can dig a ditch (or flip a burger, or push a broom).
This presupposes several things.
First it presupposes that having a rare skill automatically warrants additional value. Most people can't walk on their hands, but the relative rarity of that skill doesn't mean those who can should get more money.
Second, it presupposes that we can accurately measure the value added by a skill. Which, to a certain degree, we can. But past a certain degree the accuracy of those measures begins to decline.
Third, it presupposes that we can accurately account for the difference between true value creation due to an individual's skills and value created purely through random chance, and value created not by one individual but by a system. And if the value is created by a system, it assumes we can accurately determine whose contributions to that system drive what portion of the value created. This is particularly important to fully appreciate. I work in the trading industry, an industry which is strongly associated with "pay for performance" because, in theory, you can very directly measure an individual's skill and the value they've added. Additionally, not very many people have the kind of mentality required to be a successful trader. So you have rare skill plus what seems like a logically easy measure of performance (did you finish with more than you started with and, if so, by how much?). But look at it more closely and even that starts to fall apart - certainly some traders seem to have a better track record than other traders but statistically how does that hold up? In any set of results, some will be better just randomly. Then you factor in the market - did the trader successfully pick long vs. short trades because he's smart or because he's lucky? If that's a real skill, why are traders on Wall Street typically only marginally better over the long term than the market average? I think it's very likely that we *want* to believe that markets can be understood and decisions made logically because that means markets are rational. But, clearly, they're not completely rational. When a stock trades at $30 one day and $29 the next, there is often no attributable reason for that difference. Yet if a trader had decided to short that stock he'd have made money even if the move had absolutely nothing to do with his logic for selling short. He makes money due to his "skill" and because of the "value" he's added to whatever firm he's trading for (or, perhaps, for the small bit of liquidity he's added to the market). A trader on the opposite side of that trade loses money (at least on paper) but chances are there was no justification for it.
The same is true for many web-based companies. If you have two companies offering the same or largely similar service, usually only one will survive. And it will be as much about chance as it will be about true value. Is it really good for society to engender a "feast or famine" culture? Where either you become a millionaire or you work the rest of your life making reasonable money, doing nothing at all different than those millionaires except having somewhat different (not better or worse in any measurable way) timing?
Read about patents in the 1800s. There were frequently people who invented the same things 500 miles apart. They both worked hard, completely independently of the other. One got rich, the other is ruined. Sometimes the difference was a single day.
These are extreme examples, and they're examples where both parties work equally hard and equally smart yet receive VASTLY different results.
Demonstrating that results are not always strongly correlated with skills or worth ethic should lead one to look to ways to make sure that "worst case" scenarios are avoided. One way to avoid that is to set the minimum level for anyone who works at a livable wage. If you work, you and your children can live a safe life with access to health care and education seems like a good minimum standard to me.
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Originally Posted by lenniel
In addition, most blue collar jobs punch a shift clock where as many white collar have to live with their jobs almost 24 hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week.
Again, both are 'working hard' but a company is going to pay a lot more for someone who can generate more revenue/income than someone doing unskilled labor.
While collar workers in those scenarios are also suffering from a lack of unionization. They didn't used to have that burden, before the internet and cell phones, and it's a lack of individual backbone that makes it possible for companies to demand it. It's fine if companies are making these workers equity partners for that dedication, but all too often they are not.
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Originally Posted by Army_Guy
The thing is that the businesses have to answer to their owners, the shareholders. If I'm a shareholder in a company, I think I would want it to make a profit.
Most people don't want to grasp that a business is in business to make money and not give people jobs.
You assume that because shareholders and employees in a corporation are so far separated that shareholders should feel no responsibility for the lives of people working to add value to their investment. In a small business, owners frequently feel personally responsible for the welfare of their employees. Of course there are limits to this sense of responsibility, but I'm not aware of very many small business owners willing to throw their employees under a bus just to increase profits. They want profit to be sure, but they don't necessarily want it at any cost. Most shareholders who actually think about things in more than just numerical terms feel the same way.
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Originally Posted by Army_Guy
One reason why I think our costs for food (and many other items for that matter) is so high is because of legal reasons. Do this or that and you get sued. Costs of litigation get passed on down to the consumer as well as employee wages.
I love it when people say things like "problem X wouldn't be so bad if" as if we should all just assume that "problem X" even exists because they magically say so. Food in the United States is cheaper than any other country in the world. Period. So "our costs for food are so high because" ... oh, wait, they're not actually high at all.
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Originally Posted by Army_Guy
The only thing that employers can control are wages. They can't control foot traffic.
You're exaggerating. Companies control foot traffic all the time through the choice of location and advertising. There is some uncertainty with both, but to say companies have no control over either is flat-out wrong.
I have mixed feelings about this. on one hand, people say this is supposed to be an entry level job ONLY, you are being paid the appropriate amount for the work you do (non-skilled).. it was meant to be a job for teens just getting into the job market.. then that teen is expected to move on to something higher up that would pay more.
But on the other hand, people ARE using Macdonald's jobs as their full time job where they do need to make more money, but that is not what a Macdonalds job was intended.. but since people are working full time - why?
why cant they move up to a better job? Could be - no skills, dont want to learn any skills, therefore they deserve what they earn (whether earning more education to be able to earn better wages, or earn valuable job skills to take to the next job wherever that may be, or maybe they are too lazy to want to do better and have an entitlement mentality where they want the good wages but not put in the work/effort/investment.
or maybe the corporations could take some of the current profits and give more to the worker, they may not suffer, however, this is a capatalist USA (for now) and maybe thats the way its supposed to work, (so that you have incentive to earn more education to be able to earn better wages in a better job.
or maybe compromise and pay them somewhere like $12 an hour, which is a middle of the road. But even if they pass the higher wages onto the customer, someone on the news figured it would add about 69 cents to each burger. so i can afford 68 cents more. But the corporation does not want to budge.
I have a feeling they wont budge because look at how the teachers protested, for the last 2 years, and they ended up this summer, getting fired and schools closing. so good luck with that.
Most people don't want to better themselves. If they did, it'd be happening.
If they get what they are asking for, $15.00 for entry level, then $17.00 for shift leader, $19.00 for assistant manager? Where does it end? higher end restaurants and retail don't pay these wages. Hell, skilled positions like CNA, Automotive, EMS don't even pay these wages.
More people are unwilling to fend for themselves and are looking for someone to blame for their problems. It has to stop.
It won't be long. Especially ordering, it'll be a touch screen that'll show items with pictures.
This is true. McDonald's is taking baby steps in that direction. Many restaurants have switched to digital menu boards behind the counter, as well as payment pads in front of the registers. It may only be a matter of time before the two merge.
For an idea of what it will look like, stop at a Sheetz somewhere on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. THey are already doing it.
First it presupposes that having a rare skill automatically warrants additional value. Most people can't walk on their hands, but the relative rarity of that skill doesn't mean those who can should get more money.
And I'd just add that the grotesque amounts of money various professional athletes - almost all male - make pretty much negates the idea that job pay should equate to some rarified skills but not others.
The only reason anybody is a millionaire is because there is a society. Henry Ford or Thomas Edison on a deserted island wouldn't have amounted to diddly. And don't get even me started on Donald "started life with only $10 million" Trump.
A couple of years ago, I had the distinct displeasure of working alongside a product of the "educational" system similar to the subject of the original post; age 25, with an 11-year-old son at risk of following in Trayvon Martin's footsteps.
She was, however, well-suited to the job, which was just opening and repacking grocery items; she turned it into a dance and I would have to endure Michael Jackson's "Can We Chill" (if you're not familiar with it, consider yourself lucky) over and over again. She had the fastest rate of all of us, and got incentive pay -- all of 75 cents an hour.
Is this what the last phase of the culture which invented the term "baby daddy" has reduced itself to???
This is true. McDonald's is taking baby steps in that direction. Many restaurants have switched to digital menu boards behind the counter, as well as payment pads in front of the registers. It may only be a matter of time before the two merge.
For an idea of what it will look like, stop at a Sheetz somewhere on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. THey are already doing it.
It's a useful system -- WaWa uses something similar, but some poor fool still has to slap mayo, meat, cheese and toppings onto bread and rolls at an expected top rate of one sandwich every 30 seconds, and sell it to somebody expected to drive at unsafe speeds to tie a dozen service calls into eight hours, or inventory 900 items every 60 minutes.
How much is enough? Where does common sense overrule short-term pressure? And what happens to those who burn out?
Capitalism is, truly, the worst system except for all the others; but a lot of safety valves have been tied down of late.
So he liked to occasionally walk through neighborhoods inhabited by overzealous redneck morons while eating Skittles?
He may have been referring to the fact that he was a drug dealer, if you read his twitter.
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