Union shop guys make more than most managers and engineers. So there is that.

It is always about the sizzle not the steak.

Do you think people would come to your restaurant to see an employee place burgers on a conveyer belt??
People would bring their children into a restaurant to see the “robot chef”.  Not to mention robots don’t get COVID.

Not really “fucking retarded” when you look at it from a different view. Just another option.

At that point, continuing to work in a high stress engineering job full of ambiguity and bleak future prospects (it's energy related) won't compare favorably to taking a minimum wage job with few responsibilities and a well defined set of expectations.

I'll be damned if I'll continue to stress myself out trying to keep the motor of the world running.

Sure will.  It will cause more problems than it solves. When meals and groceries double everyone suffers.

First they came for the textile industry because of cheaper labor elsewhere.  
Then they came for manufacturing.  
Then they came for everything else.

I thought the rich company owners and executives were just gunna take that extra money out of their own pockets to pay the higher wages.

They weren't? Well, I guess we'll just have to tax them more, or just set a 100% tax rate for corporate profits. That'll make sure the little guys get that money back.

Some people don't think wage compression be like it is.  But it do.

I don't see that happening, no body is working any more.

Wages were rising prior to covid. The only way to really help people is to have an awesome economy and a great education system.

Yes, they will pass the increased costs of doing business on to the customer/consumer/end users, subject to competitive forces in the marketplace.

And yes, you (and everyone else) is correct, that when you compensate labor at a higher rate than the actual market value of said labor without the presence of artificial government controls, all you do is create inflation.

The only qualifier here - depending on competitive forces, it may not be possible or feasible to pass all of the increased costs of doing business on to the consumer.  In that case, it is the investor who will take it in the shorts, through reduced profits and ROI.

And ultimately, it may (and likely WILL) cause companies that operate on very narrow margins to go under completely, and thus - PRESTO! - our Democrat and socialist friends will have destroyed jobs.

Likely, the net effect of all of this heavy handed socialism will be to accelerate the drive towards AI even faster.  Our socialist friends are incentivizing companies to find ways to replace costly and liability prone human workers as fast as possible, wherever and however possible.  Thanks to the socialist agenda, "getting rid of humans" is going to be an urgent priority for companies that want to remain profitable.

I have said it repeatedly on here over the past 2 years and I will say it again now:

What we are headed towards is Neo Feudalism, and the not too distant, dystopian future is going to resemble a high tech version of the 12th Century.

The middle class in this country is in big trouble, going forward, and will shrink and possibly disappear.  AI is going to drive a lot of this, as engineers, doctors, lawyers, and a host of other professions see some if not all of their work being made obsolete.

What you will end up with is an enormous wage and tax slave class of peasants, ruled over by a thoroughly corrupt oligarchy at the top.

Do I get to keep the deed to my house?

This. I cannot feed my 2 kids and me at Wendys or ChikFilA for less than $50.  That's 3 burgers (son eats 2), 1 pack of chicken nuggets, 3 fries, and 3 drinks.

Regardless, there are two groups of people who believe it should be a living wage:

1.  the people who lack the vision to see themselves ever doing better than minimum wage.
2.  the liberals who believe those people are doomed to minimum wage forever because Look How Black And Poor They Are, or Capitalism Sucks, etc.

Try BurgerFI sometime.  A basic burger is over $8, add $1.50 to that if you want a fucking slice of 10-cent cheese.  WTF...

Jesus, the amount of "fuck the young-uns, Gibs Me Dat" baked into his statement is breath-takingly arrogant.

for $15/hour?

it's-your-funeral.jpg

Rarely do we see a communist out himself in GD, yet here we are.

I disagree, you could have all the Biden voters vote for $15 MW and some Trump/3rd-party/NOTA voters vote for $15 MW and thus it passed.

Yep.  

So has the pricing at various restaurants.  Here's just one example:

two months ago I took my 2 kids to the local Brooklyn-style pizza place, fairly good thin-crust pizzas, but not outstanding.  Thin-crust, so an entire pizza isn't really that much food, a 12yo girl can eat an entire 10" pizza and not be full.  

Their prices have gone nuts compared to 1 year ago.  From checking their online menu just now:

--$14 for a 10" one-person pizza.
--$18-20 for a 14" pizza that a normal adult could finish at one sitting.
--$22-25 for an 18" pizza that could feed two adults or one hungry teenage boy (ask me how I know).

At those price points, it's too expensive for a quick "hey, lets go grab food somewhere" but not tasty enough for "let's plan on a nice go-out-to-dinner evening at a restaurant."

That loses our repeat business, and from talking with people in my AO it appears many customers have cut way back on eating there.

The "worst" that could happen is a 27% increase in goods and services?

That's pretty fucking bad if you ask me.  Guess it doesn't matter, there's going to be a lot of people bankrupt because of this.

This is going to squeeze everyone.  Do you think the guys making $40k a year or $60k a year can absorbed those kinds of increases?  Bankruptcies for everyone!

you guys are completely missing his point about inflation....

That 27% increase from labor doesn't take into account the 27% increase in cost of product to make the burgers, or transport it. In reality it's more like an avalanche (insignificant at the top, catastrophic at the bottom).

Since the FL min wage is only $8.65, it's probably Covid related cost increases

Quite possibly.  

But now imagine what happens to these existing prices if a Federal $15/hr min wage passes.

My first job at 16 was bagging groceries.  I got hired at $7.25/hr when minimum was $7 or just under.  A few months later minimum wage went up and I stayed the same, it was from an early age that I realized minimum wage just screws you.

Fuck the doctors, lawyers, CEO’s and middle-upper managers. They’ll feel it, it’ll cut their vacation budget in half or obliterate it, but this min wage hike won’t bend them over and fuck them raw like it will the blue collar workers and middle class.

Tradesmen and various other skilled trades, ranging from mechanics to police and others at this income level will be hit the hardest. Dudes making $25 to $30 an hour will go from being able to support their family by themselves to needing a second income to keep from going under.

In southern VA, a 10 year electrician, plumber, or ductman Pulls anywhere from $20 to $30 an hour. Going from over double minimum wage to only a few bucks over it will be enough to fuck them over.

Gov poverty line will simply be raised.

She is a work of art.

The only real answer to $15/hour minimum wage is to remind all the general riff raff that there is no minimum wage.  The true minimum wage is zero.  It's called being unemployed, and no one can force you employ losers.  Automation, cut hours, lay offs, and a smaller staff is the only way to compensate for a forced wage hike.   You keep the guys worth a damn, you fire the guys not worth a damn, you fill in the gaps where you can with automated machinery, and you charge more to the customer for your losses in both production and profit.  It's happened everywhere the $15 minimum wage has been implemented.  You get poor schmucks desperate for work who have to wait in a quasi on-call scenario waiting for Taco Bell to call them and tell them that they can come work.  They have no set schedule, they have no fore-warning of hours will open up, and if they don't jump at the opportunity to take on said hours someone else will.  Imagine being on-call without pay unless you get called in just to work minimum wage.  I'd sooner work for $9/hour and just have a regular schedule.

Id rather incentivize my awesome currently $15hr guy to do the job of two people and pay him $25/hr
Rather than have a $50/hr payroll consisting of one good guy and a dope

One consequence: more dupes.