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"Soon the McDonald’s workers Sanders and Democrats promised would get a “fair living wage” to take customers’ orders for Big Macs “will have absolutely no wages

• al2o3cr 10y ago
  TBH, if Zero Hedge accurately reported that the loss of wages was due to the executives who authorized the R&D for this system half of their readers would immediately denounce the site as Communist propaganda.
  • dxhdr 10y ago
    > TBH, if Zero Hedge accurately reported that the loss of wages was due to the executives who authorized the R&D for this system half of their readers would immediately denounce the site as Communist propaganda. Not sure I understand; your argument is that automation is the result of sinister executive R&D?
    • smcl 10y ago
      Where are you getting "sinister" from? There's no negative implication in the GP commenter - they were literally just describing the root cause. We're on Hacker News, I think it's safe to say that automating processes/jobs is our bread-and-butter. The issue is that someone's trying to imply that merely proposing that the US has a modest minimum wage is enough to endanger people's livelihoods. To me that's the only sinister thing here - which is basically what my original comment was hinting at.
      • dxhdr 10y ago
        I'd argue the root cause is the decreasing utility of unskilled labor in an increasingly automated economy. Automation is inevitable, not the result of a few executives "authorizing" R&D. Describing it that way is a gross mischaracterization. > The issue is that someone's trying to imply that merely proposing that the US has a modest minimum wage is enough to endanger people's livelihoods. I didn't interpret the argument that way. To me it read as: look, here's a machine replacing unskilled labor at the current minimum wage, imagine how much more common this will be if it were raised to $15? Unfortunately they didn't provide any actual economic analysis as to the answer to that question and instead just smeared a political party; very low quality article indeed.
• dxhdr 10y ago
  > Yet somehow the World Tribune lays the blame for some future job losses in the fast food industry at their feet? Incredible! I don't think anyone is blaming Bernie and Clinton, it reads to me that they're criticizing the idea of a $15 minimum wage as counterproductive. And mocking the politicians who support it, sure.
  • smcl 10y ago
    Hehe they're pretty direct with their finger-pointing so I think you're being a little charitable with your interpretation. Roast as many politicians as you want for whatever reasons you want, they usually deserve it. In this case though it's a little misplaced, and the "Democrats killed jobs" narrative is a little sneaky.
  • kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
    It makes so much more sense to permanently freeze wages while inflation makes its steady march. What could possibly go wrong?
    • smcl 10y ago
      Are you for real? That is not what minimum wage is - you don't just set the level once and then forget about it forever. The UK has managed to have minimum wage for decades, increasing more-or-less in line with inflation every year. Edit: ... furthermore at least this way you get some kind of increase. As inflation makes its steady march do you think the fast-food industry (or the service industry overall) have kept up?
      • CaptSpify 10y ago
        I think he was being sarcastic