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Object Lessons in the Minimum Wage
Today is the sort of day that demands a quick and easy lunch. You see, I’m preparing for my company’s annual financial audit and I really just don’t have the time to wait around. (I usually try to get this audit done in February, but the birth of my anchor baby got in the way of that.) So, come 12:30 pm I hauled myself away from my desk and off to the nearest fast food establishment to grab a quick bite.
The restaurant is called CaliBurger, a not very subtle rip off of the great In-N-Out Burger, located near my office in Pasadena, CA. I’ve eaten there before but its usually not my first choice, the quality isn’t great and it’s a tad expensive compared to the real deal. What I like about it is that it’s close and they serve you quickly. The staff was always attentive and the service pretty good for a fast food joint. Lo and behold, when I arrived there today my experience was entirely different.
First, there was the person who greeted me and took my order:
Well, that’s new. Not that I’d never experienced an ordering kiosk at a fast food place before, it’s just that this place always had four employees at their various cash registers to take orders and keep up with the lunch rush. I looked around and saw one person milling about behind the cash registers, but he seemed to be doing other work. Ordering took about 30 seconds, a beep as my apple pay was charged and the machine spits out a receipt. There were no lines.
Ten seconds later the gentleman from behind the cash registers rushed over to me with a cup for my soda, which I filled at a self-serve station. He asked me if I wanted to watch my burger being made by “Flippy”. Well, I thought, that’s an odd and very specific nickname for the chef at a fast food burger joint, only to turn around and see:
Meet Flippy: the burger flipping robot. Equipped with a vast array of cameras and sensors Flippy can cook up to 300 burgers an hour to the exact same specifications every time. No more underdone or burnt burgers. He will even switch utensils for different jobs automatically and clean the grill in between each batch. Not only does he cook a pretty decent burger (it was the best one I’ve had at this restaurant) but he also is equipped with a sophisticated cloud-based AI that can learn from his surroundings and experiences and acquire new skills over time.
Well, damn.
Oh, that guy in the background? He’s Flippy’s assistant and puts cheese on the burgers when needed. I guess Flippy hasn’t acquired that skill yet. Other than the gentleman who brought me my cup and Flippy’s Sous Chef there was one other employee I could see, a nice lady who assembled the finished burger once Chef Flippy was done cooking the patty. The same gentleman from earlier brought my burger to my table.
All told, only three employees and a robot were there to serve me my lunch. Total time from order to first bite: about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. In a restaurant that used to employ four cashiers, nevermind the rest of the back kitchen staff required to make a burger.
Thank you, California’s $15 minimum wage.
Published in General
Keynesian big government Democrat policy actually favors capital over people, but it makes people think they have to vote Democrat to save them from “capitalism”.
I thought the point of the example of burger flippers being replaced by a fairly simple robot was that those low-skill tasks will no longer be done by humans. What will those formerly employed in low-skill tasks do then?
I’m sure someone currently cooks meals for the members of the military, but I don’t believe Peterson was including them in his discussion because they are the military equivalent of civilian burger flippers.
What teen workers? Teen participation in the job market has plummeted. Most don’t even try to get a summer job. Fast food is now heavily employs illegals and older workers…
Did it ever occur to you that they stopped trying when they couldn’t find one?
I got my first car when I was 17… I spent a year trying to find a part time job before I finally found one 40 minutes from home.
The ability fort teens to get jobs has become increasingly more difficult since the $7.00 minimum wage. Just because teens have accepted the new reality doesn’t mean it isn’t still a problem.
Just for the record, I think we could keep our inflationism system, somehow. The problem is, Our Rulers are too stupid and corrupt to pull it off.
The Fed needs to start targeting Nominal GDP instead of inflation.
It really depends on where they’re at in the service. On submarines (Tridents are my experience, 150ish crew) there are only a handful of cooks. There’s normally only 1 or 2 people handling each meal serving roughly 2/3 of the crew. I’m not talking about simple sandwich and chips fare either. Consider making roast beef (and an alternate protein like fish), mashed potatoes, two or three vegetables, gravy, a soup, and fresh rolls for about 100 people (the night baker prepares all the desserts for the day.) By yourself. Since the last meal was closed down and cleaned up 6 hours ago. The cooks aren’t always the brightest, but in that environment they are far above burger flippers and accomplish a pretty heavy lift three times a day — in a space about the size of your kid’s bedroom.
That would be a great start, I think.
Just to be clear, I’ve had some good conversations on ricochet about this, and “my way” isn’t without problems. Credit growth and credit access won’t be the same in a deflationary economy. The big thing is, they have to free up the economy anyway they can and then try to make more dramatic changes to the financial system.
The other problem is global hegemony and war require inflation. Better us than them, I suppose.
Man, that food didn’t look half bad.
Flippy definitely couldn’t replace those guys. Yet.
Just wait…
#MeepToo
The fact is, CPI and asset inflation is regressive taxation on people that don’t have assets or borrow at the right time. Good luck keeping this game going.
Submarine food is the best in the service, because it has to be. But, it still depends on the skill of the operator. I’ve had good cooks and great cooks. One guy got orders to cook at Camp David to do nothing but make soups and sauces. Dude make some rocking gumbo.
Lots of places looking for workers. At least where I live. And note the number “not wanting a job”. I seriously doubt it’s because of previous rejection.
I think a more natural way would just be to have free floating interest rates. It wouldn’t necessarily be deflationary (we would still probably maintain an inflationary economy) but there would be accurately priced credit and short deflationary periods to curb bubble tendencies.
I think in it’s purest form, free floating interest rates actually are. It’s very subtle and slow, which is what I’m talking about.
In any case having a (eh, hem) “committee’ guess an interest rate and shove it down our throats is a bad idea that is running out of time.
They aren’t guessing so much as forcing.
The Comrades on The Committee supposedly look at data and pick an interest rate that will supposedly advance The Collective. GOSPLAN.
If you are saying they are trying to force prosperity and supposedly adjusting as they go, I can see that explanation.
We don’t even have to be ticked off to do that. Just a little bored.
function SpitOnPatty {
if ($customer.attitude < 0) && (manager.attention <= 0) {
SpitValve.open.time = 0.2
}
}
Re teens not wanting jobs: a big part of this is that they are under huge pressure to do ‘volunteer’ work that will look good on a college application.
Being an unpaid intern at Save the Sharks is apparently much more highly valued by the kind of people who become admissions officers than is paid work in fast food or mowing lawns.
SubroutineJesseJacksonSpecialSauce
But of course, it’s a kind of AP Progressive Indoctrination. Less likely on a paid job…
Does Flippy have a saliva nozzle, for when cops come in? Or maybe that only happens in the movies.
Dude, you beat me. Nice one.
Look at this chart. What the hell good does this do anyone? Look around.
Well look at this chart: http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/
Also if you look at the time it takes the average worker to buy goods today vs 30 years ago the difference is staggering. Purchasing power is far higher today in terms of hours worked than it was 30 years ago.
Right, but there isn’t a good debt to GDP chart, anywhere. Look at the social problems. The crazy politics.
The problem is, so many of the things you are forced to buy are a bad value or way over the CPI. Insurance, education, shelter. None of that stuff is going in the right direction. Now you can’t get any interest if you are prudent enough to save some money.
I appreciate being forced to make my case, though. It would be a lot better if I’m wrong.
Whenever a person tried to tell anyone in the liberal crowd how their idea of a worker’s earthly paradise would not come about with a mandatory $ 15 an hour minimum wage, that person would be greeted with looks of disdain and then the usual snarky comments. “Fifteen dollars is barely enough to live on,” Blah Blah Blah.
And of course it also points to the silliness of liberals trying to make the issue of “Bring more immigrants in” the only issue. One quarter of a billion people world wide will be losing their delivery jobs over the next five to eight years to self driving vehicles. That subject should be a priority – not relocating half of Central America to the USA.