LIVING WAGE vs UNEMPLOYMENT on my younger years (sigh) I can remember wellpulling into service stations for gas and an attendent, often in a company uniform would hustle out to the car (one companys stations, for a time even, kept a large rotating timer in their window to show promptness), gas would be pumped, the fluids, and tire pressure checked if desired and I would be on our way, and if I were going to the movies, an usher would then guide me to my seat. Now I pull into a mini-market, get out, pump my oun gas, pay, and drive to the theater, where I hunt for my oun seat. Now these are only two jobs that have gone extinct, primarily through labor costs. Now, in Washington and beyond, there is a steady push for substansial increases in the minimum wage laws, to garrentee a living wage. One logic given,by some, such as economist Paul Krugman, is that that there are jobs are non- transferable and cannot be outsourced to places such as China or India. Fast food restaurants, such as MacDonalds, have been targeted as companies that gross mega millions in profit (most, if not all are small buisness franchises) and can be made to pay a living wage, $15.00 and $18.00 per hour have been mentioned. All this would be lovely, if we ignore Newtons Law which states every action causes an opposing reaction (forgive me, I worked for years as a mechanic). Compel MacDonalds to pay substansial increases in labor costs and the will react by finding inovative ways to reduce labor costs. One example might be, for anyone old enough to remember, the old automats where you put money in the slot, open the little door and remove your food. Updated, this is one possibility for laor savings. Nonsense critics might say, no one would want to deal with impersonal machines when they can order from a smiling human face. But how many of us would really be willing to buy a cheeseburger for perhaps $9.00 or $10.00 dollars, if a restaurant down the street could offer it fo $3.50. To be sure both places would be paying what is considered a living wage, but there would be far fewer employees at the higher priced restaurant, if they could afford to remain in buissness. This is only one simple example, but the human mind is almost unlimited in its ability to inovate and invent. Hotel rooms might be vacumed by robotics, services delivered by some form of automation(fewer maids), home deliveries might vanish (remember the milkman?), and those who once used these jobs as an entry into the working world, or to supplement a families income, left to the charities of Holy Mother Government (welfare). Isnt progressive liberal compassion wonderful?L Looking back
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 12:56:23 +0000
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