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If the business can't earn a profit at the market rate for the labour required to run the business, then maybe they shouldn't be in business any more? I mean l

If the business can't earn a profit at the market rate for the labour required to run the business, then maybe they shouldn't be in business any more? I mean lots businesses become viable if you only have to pay $1/hr.

mistermann 9y ago
In some cases maybe that's the trigger point where it makes it worthwhile to buy the products overseas (free shipping!) and deal with the uncertainty of when you'll receive it. The current system sometimes seems designed to fail.
- VLM 9y ago
  There's a lot of options other than simply offshoring. Consider externalizing costs, almost no one has a servant pump gasoline for them, I would imagine you have to be very old for "self service gas station" vs "full service gas station" to mean anything to most Americans. Another option is political corruption, I'll donate $ to your re-election campaign if you create a property tax free zone for my business.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Full service gas pumps are still mandatory in some states in the US.
    - sqeaky 9y ago
      The point is still valid in the states that aren't New Jersey or Oregon. In Nebraska, Washington, California, Iowa, Ohio and Kansas, all the places I have lived in or worked in my memory I have seen no gas station attendants. This is largely because the cost and labor of operating the pump has been externalized by pushing onto the car operator. Retail business do this with cash registers. How many of these jobs will simply disappear? What else can be fully automated?
brightball 9y ago
The counter-point to this is that if people remain unemployed due to unwillingness to accept available jobs at the available pay...at what point do they have to re-examine their own market value?
- prolways 9y ago
  If a significant portion of the population has a market value lower than the cost for them to have a reasonable quality of life isn't that some kind of fundamental failure condition for society/humanity?
  - brightball 9y ago
    Or is it a function of supply and demand simply changing the rate because we've been perfectly comfortable sending millions of jobs overseas? As soon as the supply of people needing jobs is low enough that businesses have to pay more to hire...they will do so barring alternative options.

mistermann 9y ago

In some cases maybe that's the trigger point where it makes it worthwhile to buy the products overseas (free shipping!) and deal with the uncertainty of when you'll receive it. The current system sometimes seems designed to fail.

VLM 9y ago
There's a lot of options other than simply offshoring. Consider externalizing costs, almost no one has a servant pump gasoline for them, I would imagine you have to be very old for "self service gas station" vs "full service gas station" to mean anything to most Americans. Another option is political corruption, I'll donate $ to your re-election campaign if you create a property tax free zone for my business.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Full service gas pumps are still mandatory in some states in the US.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    The point is still valid in the states that aren't New Jersey or Oregon. In Nebraska, Washington, California, Iowa, Ohio and Kansas, all the places I have lived in or worked in my memory I have seen no gas station attendants. This is largely because the cost and labor of operating the pump has been externalized by pushing onto the car operator. Retail business do this with cash registers. How many of these jobs will simply disappear? What else can be fully automated?

brightball 9y ago

The counter-point to this is that if people remain unemployed due to unwillingness to accept available jobs at the available pay...at what point do they have to re-examine their own market value?

prolways 9y ago
If a significant portion of the population has a market value lower than the cost for them to have a reasonable quality of life isn't that some kind of fundamental failure condition for society/humanity?
- brightball 9y ago
  Or is it a function of supply and demand simply changing the rate because we've been perfectly comfortable sending millions of jobs overseas? As soon as the supply of people needing jobs is low enough that businesses have to pay more to hire...they will do so barring alternative options.