Robot Replaces Workers At Fast Food Restaurant

The rights of the individual are not abused through taxes. What are you going to do with that extra couple of dollars? Buy a faster internet connection for arguing with stupid people on the internet, which wouldn't even be possible without government funding. I don't care how high taxes are as long as they are going to the correct places. A lot of government spending isn't going to the correct places. That's why you pick better leaders like me.

 

Structural unemployment is usually healthy for an economy. It means that the economy is moving closer to efficiency and that there will be more opportunities for displaced workers in other fields.

I'm sure buggy whip manufacturers felt the same way about cars, but it's hard to deny that automobiles were a boon to American labor.

 

Nice try.

At what point can we say its too high? Is our current real level of 20% or so not enough?

Especially considering that fast food jobs were some of the last refuges for the desperate wannabe workers!

 

Now that's a mixed message. The Coke machine works, ACORN trash doesn't.

 

You've been watching too many science fiction movies.

First of all, you're presenting an impossible scenerio that could only ever happen under socialism. There is no way that such a small amount of people could ever aqcuire such an amount of control over that much capital and means of production unless they had government intervening in the free market to tip the scales in their favor with special privileges, which is unconstitutional. No monopoly has ever occurred in the history of mankind without some form of government privilege.

Secondly, if we had a 50% unemployment rate, there is no way that the top 1% could make any decent amount of profit because nobody would be buying any of their goods and services since the economy would be at revolutionarily chaotic levels. However, the only way they could generate profit is if the government was granting them privileges, or subsidies. Ultimately though, the top 1% literally would BECOME the government, which as I said before, could only happen through subversion of the free market and abuse of the Constitution.

Third, a 50% unemployment rate would create a huge demand for jobs long before the unemployment rate ever would reach that level. Demand in a free market generates always supply (businessmen would find ways to create jobs). Of course, that is under a free market situation only. Your scenerio is a scenerio that would only ever happen under fascism/socialism/totalitarianism, so this point wouldn't really apply.

So no, you're wrong...government control is exactly what would put us in the doom and gloom scenerio you're describing. The free market and the Constitution are the only solutions to preventing that.

 

This does indicate that Jack in the Box is a growing business. This is always good for an economy, although the opportunity costs are being felt by laborers.

 

This is a joke post, Right?

If it's not, Do you really believe that employers that use automation to eliminate the positions of regular employees will raise the pay of remaining employees?

What's to stop the employer from simply pocketing the extra money as profit?

And a previous poster brought up a good point, The extra jobs that are created to make these robots will not necessarily be jobs done in the USA, They may be jobs outsourced to other countries, Which really WOULD cause our unemployment rate to sky-rocket.

Thank you for your time.

 

I disagree. The federal income tax is completely unnecessary because the government can just print as much money as it needs to finance itself. I challenge you to answer this question: what other function does the income tax serve than to make us all poorer and socially engineer people?

None of your business.

Baseless claim.

Good for you. I got an idea, why don't we abolish the unnecessary income tax, and you can continue writing checks to the US Treasury?

Gee, who would have thought, government mismanaging its own spending? I guess the only logical solution is to just keep giving them more and more money!

 

Actually 50% unemployment rate wouldn't happen because those people would not be looking for jobs. There would just be 50% less people working because they are not needed. While we are transitioning from human to robot labor, there will be a point where there is about 50% human workers that robots can't perform those tasks yet, and the other 50% of humans are not needed to work. Then, you'll need some type of socialistic system so that it makes the 50% who do work happy, and the 50% who don't work happy. I'm thinking about 20 years into the future just so you know. I don't know if you understand that.

 

There's a simple solution for that: government control.

 

Not needed by who? What's the top 1% going to do if nobody is buying their stuff? The 50% would figure out a way to need each other, and the free market would take over and create a new self-sufficient economy that includes that bottom 50%. The only reason you're making these illogical arguments is because you don't understand how the free market works.

You're also totally ignoring the fact that your situation is impossible right from its core axiom....at least, under a free market system. Socialism would be the only conditions under which such a circumstance could be bred.

Socialist propaganda. The free market would solve those problems long before the unemployment rate got anywhere close to 50%. Did you even read my last post? Perhaps you did, and you just didn't comprehend any of it. Go back and re-read it.

Tin foil hat paranoia fueling more baseless claims.

 

Ok, what will the majority of people be doing with that extra couple of dollars? Most likely buying (*)(*)(*)(*) they don't need. If you print money, you just reduce the value of the money you already have. Printing money is an example of a job that does no benefit to society. There are a lot of jobs that have absolutely no benefit to society and are pretty much there just to give people something to do. This can become even more of a problem once robots do the work unless we eliminate the worthless jobs. I know government is mismanaging its money because the majority of people are stupid. There are a few people like me who are not stupid and would know what to do with the money. That's why I favor dictatorships if you can find the right person. I admit that is pretty difficult, but read some of my other threads, and you should see that I am that person. If you want to let stupid people die because they don't know how to manage their money, that is fine by me. But I don't think many people would accept that which is why government is needed.

 

Anyone who wants to rule over others, particularly if they are elitist, should be ignored, ridiculed, and, if they manage to get elected, tarred and feathered.

 

Its just like at the local Big W. They've done away with half the checkouts and have made these 'self service' lines instead. You have to scan your own items and bag them, then pop your money in the machine. I wonder how many people lost their jobs because of that. No wonder its so hard to find work, when things like this happen because a company is too bloody greedy.

 

You might enjoy this --

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-e1Hxy_kQU]Stevens and Grdnic[/ame]

 

I'll use an analogy of why people wouldn't be needed to work. A while ago you needed 100 people to farm 1,000 acres. You can now farm 1,000 acres with 1 person. Robots would be used in every sector that humans would, so there would be no useful place for those 50% to work. If you had those 50% of people working, it would be like using a hand plow for a field when we have modern tractors. What should those 50% be doing? Doing what they enjoy and have everything they need paid for and have a certain amount of money for free spending. The other 50% could have some kind of incentive for working so it's fair for both groups of people. Also, the people who own the robots would be insanely rich. So, there needs to be socialism to fix all of these problems. The free market would prevent progress because it would be like people living in the stone ages.

 

We shouldn't have leaders?

 

Learn to be the machine repairman.

 

This is capitalism

 

What does greed have to do with it? It's competitive. The margins in grocery are extremely slim and everywhere they can save money they do so. People now can buy more, and better quality food because they don't have to pay for expensive checkers to run through their food.

And what about the greed of your government and central bankers which drives up prices by inflation, making it difficult for merchants because they must raise prices but consumers resist higher prices, so the must find more efficient ways to operate to save the money eaten at by inflation.

Anyway, old Ned Ludd would be proud of you. As he pointed out, thousands of loomers lost their jobs with the invention of auto looms. Prior to that, thousands of scribes lost their jobs when printing presses went in and greedy publishers had ways to create books without all those hard workers. Maybe we should get rid of all technology and go back to hand written books. It'll save jobs! Or is only some technology bad?

 

Does a leader need to rule with a legal monopoly on the use of force and his word as law?

 

Did the free market impede progress with the invention of the printing press which put countless scribes out of work? Did that invention lead to a return to the stone ages, or did it lead to the Renaissance and eventually the enlightenment and much of the modern technology that we enjoy today? Socialism only ends in misery because it destroys economic calculation and can only exist by the use of violence against peaceful people. The free market does not exist by violence but by mutual cooperation and voluntary exchange.
Why should we trust someone like you who promotes violence to push his morals onto everyone else over those who promote cooperation and voluntary exchange?

 

Why does it have to be one way or the other (Full on robot help vs. no advances)? Why can't it be a combination of both.

Do you really believe that all of these displaced workers will be able to retrain into a highly specialized field like robot repair? What about the fact that once all of those workers do retrain and try to enter the workforce, The pay for those jobs will drop dramatically due to competition.

Personally, I use the automatic checkout when I only need to buy a couple things, But I do use the cashier line when I have a larger list. It's a compromise between time savings vs. helping other people.

Thank you for your time.

 

That's a great advance.

 

I will tell you about the "highly specialized field of robot repair".

I aw a woman assembling the vending box that was the precursor to the Redbox movie rental, I stopped and talked with her and asked how they worked their service. I wondered about finding something to keep my techs busy.

She said they would LOVE to hire someone, but she thought I might be disappointed.

The pay for a repair call, almost regardless of distance from your , INCLUDING CAR COSTS, was $35! She said there were few repairs that took more than an hour or an hour and a half, but longer was not paid more.

I was astounded! Assuming even only a 10 mile trip each way, that would be $10 driving costs for an economy car, leaving $25 TOTAL pay for being ON CALL (you had to respond withing ONE hour), and investing several hours at the drop of a hat. No amount of work was guaranteed.

If the call was 20 miles away, here in southern california you could easily make $5 an hour for your work, or less.

And THIS was about 5 years ago, BEFORE the crash! I imagine the situation is worse now.

That is the growing state of "robot technician" work now. It actually pays less and is a worse job than the fast food work these boxes are replacing!