9 ms·

You are not fully understanding where the $10X or $20X value comes from. It doesn't come from the low skilled workers. It comes from the huge amount of automa

by crusso 14y ago

You are not fully understanding where the $10X or $20X value comes from. It doesn't come from the low skilled workers. It comes from the huge amount of automation, computerization, business process, and infrastructure all around that unskilled person. If I work twenty years and invest all my spare money to build a fabulous machine that produces intricate and expensive electronics but the one thing I don't do is create a way to turn it on and off automatically. I hire a person to just sit there and push the button. This person needs almost no skills whatsoever. Is this person really vital to producing my $100X per hour? In a way, yes. But then again, since this person's skills are non-existent - this person can be replaced by anyone else who can push a button. I invested in the invention and the creation of the machine. I took the risk to build the machine. I spent the twenty years of my life dedicated to it. I created the environment where any half sentient being could push the button to get the thing going. Everything I did created the $100X per hour. The person pushing the button doesn't deserve $100X per hour. The person pushing the button deserves the wages for someone with the skills to push a button.

Nursie 14y ago
Deserve? Oh my, have I crossed some randian moral-boundary here? My word... leeches and moochers everywhere! If you're not going to pay a living wage, what makes you think you DESERVE to have a worker there pushing the button?
- crusso 14y ago
  That person deserves what the market pays for people with that particularly low skill set. It's not totally up to me. Maybe I live in an area where wages are really high. In that case, I'm going to have to pay the going rate for someone with low skills. "living wages" are crap. They completely ignore the fact that some workers are young or spousal dependents looking for that part-time job to earn a little money. On top of that there is no such thing as a "living wage" that can be defined. If I'm living alone, young, healthy, and not real picky about my lifestyle -- a living wage can be $1000 per month. If I'm married with 5 kids and in need of constant medical care, a living wage is 6X higher. Yet you're implying that I as an employer with my available job for someone to push a friggin' button has to worry about all that or at very least accept someone's opinion on the lowest common denominator living wage? At that point, I say screw the high school kid or part-time mom looking to earn a little extra money pushing the button. I automate the whole damned thing and eliminate the job. That, my friend, is called the "unintended consequence" of your heavy handed approach of controlling every little perceived injustice.
  - Nursie 14y ago
    "That person deserves what the market pays for people with that particularly low skill set" So I'm right, you do consider this a moral issue, you think that the free market is the be-all and end-all of morality and that people only 'deserve' what you deign to hand to them. "Yet you're implying that I as an employer with my available job for someone to push a friggin' button has to worry about all that or at very least accept someone's opinion on the lowest common denominator living wage?" You're the one that came up with the dumb button example. Sounds like you don't really need someone to press the button anyway. If it was vital to your operations you'd be prepared to pay decently as it's not you've made a saving. Good for you. "At that point, I say screw the high school kid or part-time mom looking to earn a little extra money pushing the button. I automate the whole damned thing and eliminate the job. That, my friend, is called the "unintended consequence" of your heavy handed approach of controlling every little perceived injustice." If that is the price paid to get hundreds of other people off the government teat and stop subsidising the labour needs of you and your company, awesome. That high school kid misses out but his dad, who does more than press a button and generates more than ten times his pay packet for the company he labours for, gets to put food on the table. This is not an unintended consequence at all.
    - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
      A free market does not operate as a moral system. If you want to inject morals, price-fixing and wage-fixing are especially miserable ways to do it. The free market responds, often in ways you don't anticipate, and your social experiment goes weirdly sideways.
      - Nursie 14y ago
        "A free market does not operate as a moral system." I didn't bring morals into this, you'll notice the no-minimum-wage guy is the one that started bringing 'deserves' into this. I was talking about getting people off government support by making employers pay enough for workers to live on. "If you want to inject morals, price-fixing and wage-fixing are especially miserable ways to do it." Seems to work OK in a bunch of places. "The free market responds, often in ways you don't anticipate, and your social experiment goes weirdly sideways." The free market is a myth.

by crusso 14y ago

Nursie 14y ago

Deserve? Oh my, have I crossed some randian moral-boundary here? My word... leeches and moochers everywhere! If you're not going to pay a living wage, what makes you think you DESERVE to have a worker there pushing the button?

crusso 14y ago
That person deserves what the market pays for people with that particularly low skill set. It's not totally up to me. Maybe I live in an area where wages are really high. In that case, I'm going to have to pay the going rate for someone with low skills. "living wages" are crap. They completely ignore the fact that some workers are young or spousal dependents looking for that part-time job to earn a little money. On top of that there is no such thing as a "living wage" that can be defined. If I'm living alone, young, healthy, and not real picky about my lifestyle -- a living wage can be $1000 per month. If I'm married with 5 kids and in need of constant medical care, a living wage is 6X higher. Yet you're implying that I as an employer with my available job for someone to push a friggin' button has to worry about all that or at very least accept someone's opinion on the lowest common denominator living wage? At that point, I say screw the high school kid or part-time mom looking to earn a little extra money pushing the button. I automate the whole damned thing and eliminate the job. That, my friend, is called the "unintended consequence" of your heavy handed approach of controlling every little perceived injustice.
- Nursie 14y ago
  "That person deserves what the market pays for people with that particularly low skill set" So I'm right, you do consider this a moral issue, you think that the free market is the be-all and end-all of morality and that people only 'deserve' what you deign to hand to them. "Yet you're implying that I as an employer with my available job for someone to push a friggin' button has to worry about all that or at very least accept someone's opinion on the lowest common denominator living wage?" You're the one that came up with the dumb button example. Sounds like you don't really need someone to press the button anyway. If it was vital to your operations you'd be prepared to pay decently as it's not you've made a saving. Good for you. "At that point, I say screw the high school kid or part-time mom looking to earn a little extra money pushing the button. I automate the whole damned thing and eliminate the job. That, my friend, is called the "unintended consequence" of your heavy handed approach of controlling every little perceived injustice." If that is the price paid to get hundreds of other people off the government teat and stop subsidising the labour needs of you and your company, awesome. That high school kid misses out but his dad, who does more than press a button and generates more than ten times his pay packet for the company he labours for, gets to put food on the table. This is not an unintended consequence at all.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    A free market does not operate as a moral system. If you want to inject morals, price-fixing and wage-fixing are especially miserable ways to do it. The free market responds, often in ways you don't anticipate, and your social experiment goes weirdly sideways.
    - Nursie 14y ago
      "A free market does not operate as a moral system." I didn't bring morals into this, you'll notice the no-minimum-wage guy is the one that started bringing 'deserves' into this. I was talking about getting people off government support by making employers pay enough for workers to live on. "If you want to inject morals, price-fixing and wage-fixing are especially miserable ways to do it." Seems to work OK in a bunch of places. "The free market responds, often in ways you don't anticipate, and your social experiment goes weirdly sideways." The free market is a myth.