Hypothetically, what will happen if the state/federal minimum is $15? Will it be harder to get a job at Kroger or will there be some sort of automation that will replace some of the jobs at Kroger?
That's exactly what will happen when some of you vote for Hillary & she becomes the prez. Min wage goes to $15/HR and automation takes place so jobs for the uneducated are now gone & all the losers who didn't study at schools will be rounded up and taken away to these uneducated people camps that Clnton will form under the guidance of Obama and all those idiots like that dumb cashier & deli clerk you hate will live there for the rest of their lives in exile while the rest of us who did do the right thing by going to school and not having a baby at sixteen will finally live in peace. Won't life be great then. Should be starting in about 6 months when it's cold and snowy outside where all the sudden Tyrone and Lakisha mysteriously vanish one day and a guy from Kroger maintenances comes through with automated meat cutters and U-scans. So be sure to vote for Hillary just like you did for Obama in order to get good ol US of A a big socialist country full of uneducation camps up in north dakota and Nevada
Lol @ anyone who genuinely thinks $15/hr will not come with inflation, rapid automation, and an overall worse situation for the unskilled members of the population.
Food prices will go up, way up. Marginal stores in marginal markets will close. (Food deserts, anyone?) Selection will narrow to cut down on stocking. A lot of older/semi-retired employees trying to fill in short budgets will go hungry and maybe lose their homes.
Customer service will drop. warehouse style stores will become more popular.
The few remaining employees will be expected to work superfast with no errors.
Eventually, rationing will be imposed. Shortages will be blamed on greedy capitalists, and after a few food riots, the grocery business will be nationalized.
Then things will get really bad.
In short? See Venezuela.
All of this is exactly what the unions and the Democrats, socialists all, want. Obama wants it. Hillary wants it. Bernie Sanders wants it. They will be rich frogs in dismal ponds.
-- Edited by The Conditioner on Friday 26th of August 2016 10:03:57 AM
__________________
"If I only had a brain..."
...but I'd settle for a nerve or two.
Yes can compare our country perfectly to a 3rd world country like Venezuela. Their whole economy is based on oil. Not even close but good try. Most of the food is grown here in the USA or can be. Few countries can say that. 15 bucks an hours isn't a big difference in what our store pays out to more then half of the staff. We might all lose our health care, but its entirely possible down here in TX.
Yes can compare our country perfectly to a 3rd world country like Venezuela. Their whole economy is based on oil. Not even close but good try. Most of the food is grown here in the USA or can be. Few countries can say that. 15 bucks an hours isn't a big difference in what our store pays out to more then half of the staff. We might all lose our health care, but its entirely possible down here in TX.
So if I'm a department manager making about $17 an hour, and I see that cashiers who hardly have to do any thinking during their shift get $15 an hour, why shouldn't I step down to that? Or a plain stocking position in general? Why should I have to put up with being accountable for so much if I'm barely getting more than a newby? And this doesn't just stop at department managers. Co-managers, who generally get paid $16 an hour during their training phase, would be insulted if some slack jawed bagger was making only a $1 less than them.
Yes can compare our country perfectly to a 3rd world country like Venezuela. Their whole economy is based on oil. Not even close but good try. Most of the food is grown here in the USA or can be. Few countries can say that. 15 bucks an hours isn't a big difference in what our store pays out to more then half of the staff. We might all lose our health care, but its entirely possible down here in TX.
So if I'm a department manager making about $17 an hour, and I see that cashiers who hardly have to do any thinking during their shift get $15 an hour, why shouldn't I step down to that? Or a plain stocking position in general? Why should I have to put up with being accountable for so much if I'm barely getting more than a newby? And this doesn't just stop at department managers. Co-managers, who generally get paid $16 an hour during their training phase, would be insulted if some slack jawed bagger was making only a $1 less than them.
Yep you have a point. Not saying that it is right but hell some full time at Kroger right now get paid more than some teachers and service members.
Yes can compare our country perfectly to a 3rd world country like Venezuela. Their whole economy is based on oil. Not even close but good try.
Market goods aren't what I'm comparing; it's government deciding what prices should be instead of the market--especially for something as widespread as wages. Keep in mind this would affect everything, not just Krogers.
The price of labor--of anything, really--is the crucial signal in the marketplace that gives everyone the chance to make more or less rational decisions on how to allocate their resources. Resources like one's own time as well as materials, capital goods, and so forth.
When the state distorts that signal, nobody knows what anything is worth in relation to anything else.
And BOOM! Gas lines, food lines, unemployment, depression, skyrocketing crime, social unrest...the whole shebang.
Read your Hayek: best will in the world, the state cannot manage the market because it cannot get enough information quickly enough.
Market pricing allows a kind of distributed processing to take place, where everyone's intelligence is applied to the problem.
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Edit: fix garbled opening.
-- Edited by The Conditioner on Friday 26th of August 2016 03:19:06 PM
__________________
"If I only had a brain..."
...but I'd settle for a nerve or two.
Yes can compare our country perfectly to a 3rd world country like Venezuela. Their whole economy is based on oil. Not even close but good try. Most of the food is grown here in the USA or can be. Few countries can say that. 15 bucks an hours isn't a big difference in what our store pays out to more then half of the staff. We might all lose our health care, but its entirely possible down here in TX.
So if I'm a department manager making about $17 an hour, and I see that cashiers who hardly have to do any thinking during their shift get $15 an hour, why shouldn't I step down to that? Or a plain stocking position in general? Why should I have to put up with being accountable for so much if I'm barely getting more than a newby? And this doesn't just stop at department managers. Co-managers, who generally get paid $16 an hour during their training phase, would be insulted if some slack jawed bagger was making only a $1 less than them.
All other wages will increase due to an equilibrium effect. If a lot of department managers step down, the store has no choice to increase their pay in order to reflect the job position.
Anonymous wrote: All other wages will increase due to an equilibrium effect. If a lot of department managers step down, the store has no choice to increase their pay in order to reflect the job position.
OK, I'm a dumb shet without any formal training in econ.
Please explain "equilibrium effect" to me.
Especially given that artificially forcing wages to a specific level and holding it there itself disrupts the market, breaking the current equilibrium--and then masks the feedback signals required for the market to seek and maintain a new equilibrium.
You seem to think that the value of money itself is fixed; instead, this process will reduce the purchasing power of the dollar. Everyone's wages will increase--but so will the cost of the goods and services.
Hello, hyperinflation!
-- Edited by The Conditioner on Sunday 28th of August 2016 01:14:10 AM
__________________
"If I only had a brain..."
...but I'd settle for a nerve or two.
Anonymous wrote:as a full time Meat specialist its taken me a 1.5 years with Kroger to get to 15.50
I'd be pissed if they paid everyone a Min wage of $15.00 an hour
As you should be. One of the most pernicious effects of socialism--and that's what we're talking about here, socialism--is destroying the incentive for anyone to advance themselves in their chosen field.
The only way to increase your wealth is to increase your standing with The Party--and the only way to do that is to become more proficient at oppressing everyone else.
__________________
"If I only had a brain..."
...but I'd settle for a nerve or two.
for the people saying that robots will just automate our jobs out of existence if wages get too high, i doubt yall have worked in a highly automated facility. I've worked with Amazon Fulfillment in the past and had to deal with their Kiva warehousing automation. There's a lot of issues with just the storage and retrieval (and the system sending the same useless bins over and over) without even trying to have automated handling of the product. We are a long ways off from being replaced.
My favorite image of hyperinflation is the cash on a wheel barrel. I thought I read the cash on wheel barrel was for a loaf of bread but probably mistaken.
"Currency became worthless with kids using it like Lego bricks."
"Its usual for economic professors to tell a hyperinflation story to their students: A gentlemen had gone to a store to buy groceries and had brought his money with him in a wheel barrel. He was distracted somehow and left his money and wheel barrel unattended. When he returned he found the pile full of money still there, his wheel barrel however was nowhere to be seen."
The Conditioner wrote:
Hello, hyperinflation!
-- Edited by The Conditioner on Sunday 28th of August 2016 01:14:10 AM
Socialism seems to be a "dirty word" in some circles of the population, but did you guys know that we have many programs and policies in place today that would be considered socialism? Would you guys consider the programs in place outlined in the articles below to be "bad" and deserving of removal?
With the middle class continuing to shrink while more and more people slip below the poverty line or closer to the poverty line, can this country really afford to continue to go down this road? Raising the minimum wage won't fix all the problems plaguing the country overnight, but it's a start, and it can be a part of a major reform in this country that encompasses education reform so that our kids stop falling behind those that live in many other parts of the world and have a better chance of entering the workforce with the skills and knowledge to compete and succeed. It's not just the education system and minimum wage program that needs to be fixed either, because again, those two things won't solve all our problems. We also need a new energy initiative to make this country energy independent. Create new jobs within the renewable energy field while cleaning up the environment and keeping money out of the pockets of foreign nations and terrorists. That too is part of the solution. There are many more steps that we need to start fixing this country for ourselves and our children... what we're doing now isn't working. So let's start with fixing the minimum wage over a period of time - not $15.00 overnight - but over the course of a few years, get it there, while working on addressing the many other problems that we have.
A quick review of how prices work in the market. Keep in mind that "wages" are the price of labor.
A healthy, robust market can support distorted prices for quite some time--but it's eating the seed corn. Sooner or later, the parasitic price authority will distort the market so badly it falls apart.
__________________
"If I only had a brain..."
...but I'd settle for a nerve or two.
Well if this whole 15 an hour thing happens, Kroger is going to have a hard time getting people to be department heads for $17 an hour. Right now the pay difference would be worth it, but I know I wouldn't be driving 30+ miles to another store in my district when i'd be spending that extra $2 in gas. People who live in areas where there's a Kroger every block might do it but the districts with the smaller towns... good luck with that.
A quick review of how prices work in the market. Keep in mind that "wages" are the price of labor.
A healthy, robust market can support distorted prices for quite some time--but it's eating the seed corn. Sooner or later, the parasitic price authority will distort the market so badly it falls apart.
Wages haven't kept up with inflation, though, and the market is being distorted heavily at the moment - not because minimum wage is too high, but because of the increased share of the profits that CEOs and companies in general are claiming:
Heres whats wrong with the American economy in one tweet-sized bite:
The typical American worker is twice as productive as in 1979, but his wages havent increased one penny after adjusting for inflation.
The makers are producing almost twice as much per hour, but the boss is taking almost all the benefit of that increased productivity. Profits are at record levels, CEO pay is through the roof, but the worker is still getting 1970s wages.
Thats the main reason the economy is struggling to grow, and the main reason that millions of Americans are barely scrapping by, living paycheck to paycheck. Our consumer-driven economy is on a starvation diet.
This isn't what I would call a healthy, robust market.
President Obama had it right (and was fact checked as being factually true) when he said:
"Because the truth is -- and you know this in your own lives, and you see it in your neighborhoods among your friends and family -- even though the economy has been growing for four years, even though corporate profits have been doing very well, stock prices have soared, most folks' wages haven't gone up in over a decade."
The reality of the situation is that the job landscape has changed dramatically in America. This isn't the 1800s or 1900s anymore. The robust age of manufacturing is over with jobs having been shipped overseas and robotic technology replacing the need for human labor. The population continues to grow and what jobs are becoming more and more in abundance? Low paying retail, fast food, general labor-type work. The better paying jobs tend to have fierce competition and there are only so many of those. So... do we just have more and more people go on government assistance for things like food stamps, housing and so on? Forty-five million Americans already rely on food stamps alone and there's millions of people that just barely don't qualify for the assistance and struggle as a result. More people are going to require federal and state assistance if we don't start fixing the wage problem and that's going to mean more taxes because the government has to get the money somewhere to take care of these people. Let's instead work on fixing this - and other - problems instead of having to fall back on the government to take care of even more people.
The country survived and, yes, prospered in the past when workers were compensated fairly for their labor. We only have to look at history and the facts to know this:
The results were clear. Of the nearly two dozen federal minimum-wage hikes since 1938, total year-over-year employment actually increased 68% of the time.
In those industries most affected by the minimum wage, employment increases were even more common: 73% of the time in the retail sector, 82% in low-wage leisure and hospitality.
"These basic economic indicators show no correlation between federal minimum-wage increases and lower employment levels," the authors write.
In fact, if anything, the data suggest that increases in the federal minimum appeared to encourage job growth and hiring.
...
Wow. If the US economy were 9% bigger than it is today, it would have created about 11 million additional jobs. Imagine how great that would be for both American workers and businesses.
The truth is no one knows how it will effect the US in the long term. This is a unique situation and really there is nothing to support anything we are dreaming up. 1930s bs from a different america or data from a hippie city that makes nothing, either way we all have no clue.When i see execs making 6 figures for using recycled ideas and then look at kroger workers busting their ass and killing their body for 7 bucks an hour. If their are people willing to be paid 7 an hour and take these jobs, the system is working. Kroger will adjust once morons quit taking these jobs. Until then.
Anonymous wrote: All other wages will increase due to an equilibrium effect. If a lot of department managers step down, the store has no choice to increase their pay in order to reflect the job position.
OK, I'm a dumb shet without any formal training in econ.
Please explain "equilibrium effect" to me.
Especially given that artificially forcing wages to a specific level and holding it there itself disrupts the market, breaking the current equilibrium--and then masks the feedback signals required for the market to seek and maintain a new equilibrium.
You seem to think that the value of money itself is fixed; instead, this process will reduce the purchasing power of the dollar. Everyone's wages will increase--but so will the cost of the goods and services.
Hello, hyperinflation!
-- Edited by The Conditioner on Sunday 28th of August 2016 01:14:10 AM
Equilibrium is a sort of balancing out of things. Just think the world BALANCE. So in this case the 15 dollar minimum wage is a disruptor to the labor market. This will cause a number of factors to occur. As an example, the bagger now earns $15, the department manager makes $17. This now gives the department manager the option to step down to a bagger for less work for a similar amount of pay. This now causes a higher demand for a department head as most of them are now baggers making $15. Unfortunately the store has no department heads and the store is about to close. There is now a high demand for department heads and in order for these department heads to stay, their pay will reflect the demand. So in the end, it's all a BALANCING ACT. This of course will increase prices/inflation("purchasing power of the dollar") as things will be more costly to operate and run a business. Labor is a huge overhead cost.
The federal minimum wage has been increased 22 times and every time there is a new equilibrium; through inflation, increasing the wages of non-minimum wage workers, ect. I believe modest raises in the federal minimum wage is okay, but $15 might be a huge disruptor that small businesses can't acclimate to quick enough. Some low cost to live states don't need it that high.
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