Red Mosquito

McParadigm wrote:

4/5 wrote:It’s hardly a stretch to think that if two things are substitutes, in this case low skill workers and touch screen kiosks, and the price of of one increases (low skill workers) while at the same time the price of the other decreases that it would begin to make financial sense to use fewer workers and more screens.

Of course it’s not unreasonable to think they might be related. But whether or not it feels true is inconsequential to whether or not it is factually, demonstrably correct, and certainly doesn’t increase its worth as a point being deployed to demonstrate the factualness of another point a writer is making.

This isn’t a “feels true” argument. It’s merely a very basic economics point found in any textbook. I’m not saying it IS what happened at McDonald’s as I have no specific information or data to support me there, but rather that the widespread acceptance of kiosks as replacements for workers is exactly what we should expect.

For simplicity, Businesses have two main types of inputs: labor and capital. Labor = workers, capital = machinery, tools, tech, etc. How can they achieve the proper balance between hiring labor and capital? Employ each until the marginal product per dollar for each input is equal.
MPL/W = MPC/P.
For a company to move away from labor in favor of more capital, one of the following must be so:
-the price of capital has fallen
-the price (wage) of workers has risen
-the marginal product (meaning additional output) of capital has risen
-the marginal product of labor has fallen
-some combination of the above.

If the price of touch screens is falling, no one should be surprised if businesses begin adjusting their balance of capital and labor towards more capital. If at that same time the minimum wage (which doesn’t reflect the marginal product of labor) also rises, it should not be surprising, in fact should be expected, that businesses will adjust even further away from labor and towards capital.

Bi_3 wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:LMAO anyone arguing that we should wait decades to shift to single-payer is not someone I’m going to see eye to eye with.

You're talking about a change that would cost tens of trillions of dollars and transform every aspect of the economy from federal banking rules to local college course offerings to core elements of supply in demand in nearly every state. It's not something we can just pass a law and do without devastating economic consequences. I mean it took five years to effectively phase out lead gas after the plan was developed and that is rounding error to what we are talking about here.

edit: If you want lasting, meaningful, real change then it has to be planned and executed correctly with full transparency and knowledge of all stakeholders.

All this hand-wringing caution just sounds like every other ineffectual politician and conservative pundit out there. I’m sick of it. All I’m hearing is that we should wait longer, allowing the rich to get richer while working people continue to crippled by healthcare debt, low wages, and ridiculous insurance costs. Fuck that. I’m done waiting. This should have been fixed a long time ago.

Variable x = the cost of touch screen machines dropping
Variable y = required minimum wage increases
Variable z = research conducted by McDonalds showing that people tend to make larger orders when using a touch screen kiosk

All of the above are true. The argument as stated was “just as McDobalds replaced workers with machines because of variable y.”

Now, I have no more a way of determining their thought process than you, which is why I would never make such a case. However, if I am going to assume that an isolated primary cause can be found, I am likely to note that only one of these variables seems unique to McDonalds.

McDonald’s is worth $105 billion. This conversation is inherently missing the point.

McParadigm wrote:Variable x = the cost of touch screen machines dropping
Variable y = required minimum wage increases
Variable z = research conducted by McDonalds showing that people tend to make larger orders when using a touch screen kiosk

All of the above are true. The argument as stated was “just as McDobalds replaced workers with machines because of variable y.”

Now, I have no more a way of determining their thought process than you, which is why I would never make such a case. However, if I am going to assume that an isolated primary cause can be found, I am likely to note that only one of these variables seems unique to McDonalds.

And my posts have been more broadly focused on the basic economic principle concerning the trade-off between labor and capital. I agree that McDonald's likely had more than one reason for making such a dramatic shift in the use of their resources, as I imagine other business would as well. If that article stated that it was THE reason then that was foolish. A better way to put it would probably be to say that increasing the minimum wage makes switching to kiosks a more viable option or that it reduces the cost of switching to kiosks. Something like that would be more accurate.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:

Bi_3 wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:LMAO anyone arguing that we should wait decades to shift to single-payer is not someone I’m going to see eye to eye with.

You're talking about a change that would cost tens of trillions of dollars and transform every aspect of the economy from federal banking rules to local college course offerings to core elements of supply in demand in nearly every state. It's not something we can just pass a law and do without devastating economic consequences. I mean it took five years to effectively phase out lead gas after the plan was developed and that is rounding error to what we are talking about here.

edit: If you want lasting, meaningful, real change then it has to be planned and executed correctly with full transparency and knowledge of all stakeholders.

All this hand-wringing caution just sounds like every other ineffectual politician and conservative pundit out there. I’m sick of it. All I’m hearing is that we should wait longer, allowing the rich to get richer while working people continue to crippled by healthcare debt, low wages, and ridiculous insurance costs. Fuck that. I’m done waiting. This should have been fixed a long time ago.

I don't disagree with that assessment of the situation, but that doesn't change anything from a 'how do we actually achieve this' perspective. In fact I would think that anger and impatience, even when understandable or rational, only make the situation worse and more likely to be poorly designed or corrupted (think ACA). Please understand that this proposed shift in US healthcare policy likely is the single biggest economic undertaking in modern history, with global implications. It cannot be subject to emotional demands.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:McDonald’s is worth $105 billion. This conversation is inherently missing the point.

You may be misunderstanding the nature of how franchising works.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/10/ ... e-sam.aspx

cutuphalfdead wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:Striving to never let a shit show President like this ever happen again would be a good place to start.

Exactly. So if the Dems nominate a moderate, it's important to vote for that person even if they're not your first or second choice.

I've been hearing this argument my whole life. It seems like this strategy should work, but I'm not seeing the evidence for it. Obama was pretty moderate in hindsight, but became the nominee in 2008 by beating the more moderate candidate. It was during his terms that moderates fell out of fashion. Bill Clinton was a moderate, and won twice, but during the peak of the Boomer generation (which I consider pretty economically conservative in general), and the base seems to question a lot of his accomplishments now. The Democrats also chose moderates in 2000, 2004 and 2016 - which all lost their respective elections.

I do believe that moderate, thoughtful, technocratic people should be working the higher levels of government, but the person at the top needs to be a visionary. The 5,000 point plan for America does not sell. It becomes unabashed conservatism/nationalism versus the side which begins at the reasonable compromise and inspires no one. The past presidents we revere to this day seem to be the more radical ones, who fought like hell to change the status quo.

I think we just fundamentally disagree about the importance of stability during transition, BI. I’m not even 100% convinced our way of life is worth preserving in its current state to begin with, so yeah.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:LMAO anyone arguing that we should wait decades to shift to single-payer is not someone I’m going to see eye to eye with.

You barely see eye to eye with your 4k Blu-ray dealer.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I think we just fundamentally disagree about the importance of stability during transition, BI. I’m not even 100% convinced our way of life is worth preserving in its current state to begin with, so yeah.

That's fair. My view is usually "don't make it worse" so we definitely diverge there.

Bi_3 wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I think we just fundamentally disagree about the importance of stability during transition, BI. I’m not even 100% convinced our way of life is worth preserving in its current state to begin with, so yeah.

That's fair. My view is usually "don't make it worse" so we definitely diverge there.

B wrote:

96583UP wrote:

B wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:if you think warren is hrc p2 then you probably don't see much further than the fact that they both have lady parts

fuck you guys for making me say it, but chuds right.

did you read the subsequent explanatory dialogue or did you just skim to the end like none of that happened and we are all ignorant sexists

both are viable options

the latter we call the 'HuffPo' approach

I thought of that post earlier in the day before you guys ranted on for pages and pages. I have shit to do. I can't read everything some idiot on Red Mosquito posts.

insight into the production process of the classic B

bune wrote:

LoathedVermin72 wrote:LMAO anyone arguing that we should wait decades to shift to single-payer is not someone I’m going to see eye to eye with.

You barely see eye to eye with your 4k Blu-ray dealer.

This feels true.

Bloomberg or Biden and I am a happy man

i've blown bloombergs horn for 20 years now

Rob wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:Striving to never let a shit show President like this ever happen again would be a good place to start.

Exactly. So if the Dems nominate a moderate, it's important to vote for that person even if they're not your first or second choice.

I've been hearing this argument my whole life. It seems like this strategy should work, but I'm not seeing the evidence for it. Obama was pretty moderate in hindsight, but became the nominee in 2008 by beating the more moderate candidate. It was during his terms that moderates fell out of fashion. Bill Clinton was a moderate, and won twice, but during the peak of the Boomer generation (which I consider pretty economically conservative in general), and the base seems to question a lot of his accomplishments now. The Democrats also chose moderates in 2000, 2004 and 2016 - which all lost their respective elections.

I do believe that moderate, thoughtful, technocratic people should be working the higher levels of government, but the person at the top needs to be a visionary. The 5,000 point plan for America does not sell. It becomes unabashed conservatism/nationalism versus the side which begins at the reasonable compromise and inspires no one. The past presidents we revere to this day seem to be the more radical ones, who fought like hell to change the status quo.

Well, I'm probably going to get this wrong but here goes: both 2000 and 2016 were lost by the electoral college not the popular vote (and had loony progressive nut-jobs fucking things up for the blue team) and 2004 was in the middle of the iraq war, so I don't think you can judge those elections purely on the candidate's moderate positions as you don't know what the majority of voters would have done with a more left leaning Dem nominee.

I do agree that moderates tend to be less inspirational than radicals and as someone once said "republicans fall in line, democrats fall in love", so there is something to be said for an energetic presence on the ticket, but they also have to be someone who can get things done. When you look back at Clinton and Obama, they got things done by holistic understanding of the needs of the country and then a practical application of political power. Some of it may have fell short of what ultimate goals may have been ("don't ask, don't tell" for example), but they made strides in many areas without destroying the social fabric of the country and isn't that what we ultimately want?

stop talking crazy

we want blood

This is not a winning strategy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... nt/579217/

Jay Inslee Is Betting He Can Win the Presidency on Climate Change

If he ran it as a campaign of fear and what’s actually happening and how it’s about to get a whole lot worse, he’d win.

Fear and hysteria win. Every time it seems.